ArticlePhilosophical transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series B, Biological sciences2023
Biomechanics of cutting: sharpness, wear sensitivity and the scaling of cutting forces in leaf-cutter ant mandibles.
Article in Philosophical transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series B, Biological sciences, 2023. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 13 papers.
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Who cites it
13 citing papers in PubMed, 19 citations in OpenAlex.
- Rat superficial masseter operates at long lengths during biting.Scientific reports · 2025Article
- Biomechanical components of the plant-insect herbivore arms race: a model test in leaf-cutter ants.Journal of the Royal Society, Interface · 2025Article
- Behavioural biomechanics: leaf-cutter ant cutting behaviour depends on leaf edge geometry.Proceedings. Biological sciences · 2025Article
- The Right Tool for the Job: A Review of Insect Mouthparts as a Tool Kit for Biomimetic Studies.Biomimetics (Basel, Switzerland) · 2025Review
- Understanding Trophic Interactions in a Warming World by Bridging Foraging Ecology and Biomechanics with Network Science.Integrative and comparative biology · 2024Article
- The effect of muscle ultrastructure on the force, displacement and work capacity of skeletal muscle.Journal of the Royal Society, Interface · 2024Article
- Desert locusts (Interface focus · 2024Article
- Large deformation diffeomorphic mapping of 3D shape variation reveals two distinct mandible and head capsule morphs inEcology and evolution · 2024Article
- Hymenoptera and biomimetic surfaces: insights and innovations.Beilstein journal of nanotechnology · 2024Review
- Introduction: food processing and nutritional assimilation in animals.Philosophical transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series B, Biological sciences · 2023Article
- The feeding apparatus of ants: an overview of structure and function.Philosophical transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series B, Biological sciences · 2023Review
- Biomechanics of cutting: sharpness, wear sensitivity and the scaling of cutting forces in leaf-cutter ant mandibles.Philosophical transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series B, Biological sciences · 2023Article
- Developmental biomechanics and age polyethism in leaf-cutter ants.Proceedings. Biological sciences · 2023Article
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Authors and funding
4 authors at 1 institution in 1 country.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
Herbivores large and small need to mechanically process plant tissue. Their ability to do so is determined by two forces: the maximum force they can generate, and the minimum force required to fracture the plant tissue. The ratio of these forces determines the relative mechanical effort; how this ratio varies with animal size is challenging to predict. We measured the forces required to cut thin polymer sheets with mandibles from leaf-cutter ant workers which vary by more than one order of magnitude in body mass. Cutting forces were independent of mandible size, but differed by a factor of two between pristine and worn mandibles. Mandibular wear is thus likely a more important determinant of cutting force than mandible size. We rationalize this finding with a biomechanical analysis, which suggests that pristine mandibles are ideally 'sharp'-cutting forces are close to a theoretical minimum, which is independent of tool size and shape, and instead solely depends on the geometric and mechanical properties of the cut tissue. The increase of cutting force due to mandibular wear may be particularly problematic for small ants, which generate lower absolute bite forces, and thus require a larger fraction of their maximum bite force to cut the same plant. This article is part of the theme issue 'Food processing and nutritional assimilation in animals'.
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