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MechAnt SIGNED

Behavioural biomechanics of insect herbivory - a case study on leaf-cutter ants

Total Cost €

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EC-Contrib. €

0

Partnership

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 MechAnt project word cloud

Explore the words cloud of the MechAnt project. It provides you a very rough idea of what is the project "MechAnt" about.

differently    hence    security    protection    insights    investigation    rigorous    machine    organisation    hypothesis    ranging    behavioural    ecosystem    sized    plant    world    constraints    ant    demography    engineering    feeders    foraging    insect    mechanics    nano    model    parties    social    mechant    food    cutter    criteria    energetic    material    herbivores    interactions    strategies    herbivorous    ing    relations    little    underpinning    proposes    highlight    ants    colony    pest    principal    herbivore    global    pose    adaptive    eusocial    cut    individual    separate    science    ease    transform    crop    wear    mandibular    ergonomic    continuing    link    labour    ontogeny    cutting    threat    dominant    biomechanical    mechanical    division    feeding    evolution    integrating    castes    learning    terrestrial    yield    computer    colonies    pave    workers    leaf    engineers    foragers    performance    toughness    physical    ecosystems    combine    materials    determinants    relationship    quantitatively    reveal    insects    determinant    ecology    leaves    vision    innovations    plants    species   

Project "MechAnt" data sheet

The following table provides information about the project.

Coordinator
IMPERIAL COLLEGE OF SCIENCE TECHNOLOGY AND MEDICINE 

Organization address
address: SOUTH KENSINGTON CAMPUS EXHIBITION ROAD
city: LONDON
postcode: SW7 2AZ
website: http://www.imperial.ac.uk/

contact info
title: n.a.
name: n.a.
surname: n.a.
function: n.a.
email: n.a.
telephone: n.a.
fax: n.a.

 Coordinator Country United Kingdom [UK]
 Total cost 1˙998˙764 €
 EC max contribution 1˙998˙764 € (100%)
 Programme 1. H2020-EU.1.1. (EXCELLENT SCIENCE - European Research Council (ERC))
 Code Call ERC-2019-STG
 Funding Scheme ERC-STG
 Starting year 2020
 Duration (year-month-day) from 2020-01-01   to  2024-12-31

 Partnership

Take a look of project's partnership.

# participants  country  role  EC contrib. [€] 
1    IMPERIAL COLLEGE OF SCIENCE TECHNOLOGY AND MEDICINE UK (LONDON) coordinator 1˙998˙764.00

Map

Leaflet | Map data © OpenStreetMap contributors, CC-BY-SA, Imagery © Mapbox

 Project objective

Insect herbivores are a dominant element in terrestrial ecosystems, and pose a continuing threat to global food security. However, little is known about a key determinant of insect herbivore success: the mechanics of plant-feeding. MechAnt proposes to transform our understanding of insect-plant relations by providing a rigorous biomechanical investigation into how insects cut leaves, using the major ecosystem engineers and principal insect pest of the New World, the leaf-cutter ants, as a model system. Specifically, MechAnt will combine the traditionally separate fields of behavioural ecology, mechanical engineering, materials science, computer vision and machine learning to investigate: (1) the mechanical and energetic constraints determining the cutting ability, and ontogeny of task choice of differently-sized workers, and hence the adaptive value of physical castes in eusocial insects; (2) the relationship between plant material properties, ease of cutting, and mandibular wear, which will reveal the key mechanical determinants of plant-herbivore species interactions; (3) the division of labour, ontogeny and demography of leaf-cutter colonies foraging on leaves of different “toughness”, testing the hypothesis that leaf-cutter colonies are organised according to ergonomic criteria. By integrating insights ranging from nano-scale mechanics up to whole-colony ecology, MechAnt will quantitatively link the mechanical properties of plants with the performance of individual foragers, the organisation of foraging parties, and the demography and social organisation of leaf-cutter ant colonies. The resulting understanding of the biomechanical innovations underpinning the success of the leaf-cutter ants will yield insights into the behavioural ecology of advanced plant-feeders, highlight the role of biomechanical constraints in the behaviour and evolution of herbivorous insects, and pave the way for the development of novel crop protection strategies.

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The information about "MECHANT" are provided by the European Opendata Portal: CORDIS opendata.

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