报告人：Prof. Robert Dudley (美国加州大学伯克利分校正教授)

相关学科：仿生学、流体力学、动物学。

时间：9月2日上午9：00；   地点：仰仪北楼208；    欢迎参加！

报告人介绍：Robert Dudley教授，男，博士，1961年出生于英国，1987年获剑桥大学博士学位。持英、美双重国籍护照，现为美国加州大学Berkeley分校终身教授，全面负责Animal Flight Laboratory的工作。Dudley教授主要从事昆虫飞行机理和飞行流体力学方面的理论和实验研究，在生物流体力学、昆虫形态学以及其他相关方面有很深的造诣，在国际著名杂志Science 和Nature 上发表研究论文4篇，在相关领域内各类顶级杂志（如PNAS, Journal of Fluid Mechanics，The Journal of Experimental Biology等 ）上发表研究论文几十篇，是Science 、Nature以及多本顶级学术杂志的审稿人以及多本顶级学术杂志编委，其专著《The Biomechanics of Insect Flight》（Princeton大学出版社），为本研究领域的最著名的经典著作之一。近3年发表论文学术论文11篇，平均影响因子为4.472.

内容介绍：Diverse animal taxa exhibit remarkable aerial capacities, including jumping, aerial righting, parachuting, gliding, landing, controlled maneuvers, and flapping flight.  The origin of wings in hexapods and in three separate lineages of vertebrates (pterosaurs, bats, and birds) greatly facilitated subsequent lineage diversification, but both the paleobiological context and possible selective pressures for wing evolution remain contentious.  Larvae of various arboreal hemimetabolous insects, as well as many canopy ants, demonstrate the capacity for directed aerial descent in the absence of wings.  Aerial control in the ancestrally wingless archaeognathans also suggests that flight behavior preceded the origins of wings in hexapods.  In evolutionary terms, the use of of winglets and partial wings to effect aerial righting and gliding maneuvers could select for enhanced appendicular motions, and ultimately lead to powered flight.  Flight behaviors that involve neither flapping nor wings are likely much more widespread than is currently recognized.  Further characterization of the sensory and biomechanical mechanisms used by these aerially capable taxa can potentially assist in reconstruction of ancestral winged morphologies and facilitate our understanding of the origins of flight.