US (WA): 3D-printed flowers test moth ‘food tubes’
Since long before Charles Darwin, ecologists have been fascinated by flower shape, and in particular how animal pollinators have influenced the evolution of floral traits.
But studying the impact of flower shape on pollinator behavior is difficult.
Ecologists have either relied on plant breeding (which means they can only study flower shapes found in nature) or have made flowers by hand from papier mâché (which can be time-consuming and could make it difficult for ecologists to test each other’s results).
3D-printed flowers for hawk moth(Credit: Eric Octavio Campos)
Plastic petunias
Now, graduate student Eric Octavio Campos and fellow University of Washington biologists have used 3D printing to make artificial flowers so they can investigate how flower shape affects foraging behavior in the hawk moth (Manduca sexta).
Click here to read the complete article at www.futurity.org.
