Insect Respiration

MexicoDoug at aol.com MexicoDoug at aol.com
Sat Jan 25 20:13:32 EST 2003


This is an interesting article by authors at the Field Museum adds some new 
information to the theme we discussed at least twice in the last year or two:

How do insects breathe?

Best wishes
Doug Dawn

Tracheal Respiration in Insects Visualized with Synchrotron X-ray Imaging 

Mark W. Westneat,*1 Oliver Betz,12 Richard W. Blob,13 Kamel Fezzaa,4 W. James 
Cooper,15 Wah-Keat Lee4 Insects are known to exchange respiratory gases in 
their system of tracheal tubes by using either diffusion or changes in 
internal pressure that are produced through body motion or hemolymph 
circulation. However, the inability to see inside living insects has limited 
our understanding of their respiration mechanisms. We used a synchrotron beam 
to obtain x-ray videos of living, breathing insects. Beetles, crickets, and 
ants exhibited rapid cycles of tracheal compression and expansion in the head 
and thorax. Body movements and hemolymph circulation cannot account for these 
cycles; therefore, our observations demonstrate a previously unknown 
mechanism of respiration in insects analogous to the inflation and deflation 
of vertebrate lungs. 

1 Department of Zoology, Field Museum of Natural History, Chicago, IL 60605, 
USA. 
2 Department of Zoology, University of Kiel, Germany. 
3 Department of Biological Sciences, Clemson University, Clemson, SC 29634, 
USA. 
4 Experimental Facilities Division, Advanced Photon Source, Argonne National 
Laboratory, Argonne, IL 60439, USA. 
5 Department of Organismal Biology and Anatomy, University of Chicago, 
Chicago, IL 60637, USA. 
*   To whom correspondence should be addressed. E-mail: <A HREF="mailto:mwestneat at fieldmuseum.org">
mwestneat at fieldmuseum.org</A> 


    
    

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