Thomas Steinmann- PhD
- Engineer at University of Tours
Thomas Steinmann
- PhD
- Engineer at University of Tours
About
28
Publications
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Introduction
I work as a Research Engineer at the Insect Biology Research Institute (IRBI, Tours), where my focus is on studying the physical phenomena related to the lives of insects, specifically in the areas of perception and locomotion. I apply fluid mechanics principles to study the functional morphology of insects' sensory organs, ranging from aero-acoustic sensing to active olfactory sensing. I am also interested in the complex fluid dynamics phenomena that occur during animal locomotion.
Current institution
Additional affiliations
December 2003 - present
December 2003 - present
Publications
Publications (28)
Male attraction by females through sex pheromones is widespread among Lepidoptera, and antennae are key olfactory organs during male orientation. Broadly speaking, two designs of antennae coexist in Lepidoptera: complex (pectinate) or stick-like (filiform) ones. Pectinate antennae have attracted attention because of their multiscale geometry, assum...
Plus d'un millier d'espèces animales sont capables de se déplacer sur l'interface entre l'air et l'eau. Ces espèces comprennent les Gerris, une famille d'insectes de l'ordre des hémiptères qui ont la capacité presque unique de marcher à la surface de l'eau sans en percer l'interface. Pour réaliser cet exploit, ces insectes tirent profit de la tensi...
Crustacean and insect antennal scanning movements have been postulated to increase odorant capture but the exact mechanisms as well as measures of efficiency are wanting. The aim of this work is to test the hypothesis that an increase in oscillation frequency of a simplified insect antenna model translates to an increase of odorant capture, and to...
Over a thousand animal species are capable of walking on the interface between air and water. These speciesinclude water striders, a family of insects from the order Hemiptera that has an almost unique ability to walk on the surface of the water without penetrating it. They achieve this outstanding feat by making use of the surface tension and thei...
Whirligig beetles (Coleoptera: Gyrinidae) are among the best swimmers of all aquatic insects. They live mostly at the water’s surface and their capacity to swim fast is key to their survival. We present a minimal model for the viscous and wave drags they face at the water’s surface and compare them to their thrust capacity. The swimming speed acces...
Our understanding of animal locomotion in air and water has progressed considerably, based on studies of their wakes. Wake vortices are the hallmarks of momentum transfer and enable an inverse inference of the forces applied by animals. Such approach has recently been extended to locomotion at the air–water interface, focusing on the familiar water...
Complete energy balance evaluations for interfacial flow require simultaneous coupled estimations of the free surface topography and the flow velocity beneath the surface. We describe here an extension of the tomographic PIV and volumetric LPT technique for this coupled measurement. We applied this optical measurement technique to the study of thre...
Significance
Some insects, especially moths, bear pectinate antennae, elaborate organs generally used to detect low concentrations of pheromone released by potential sexual partners. The shape of these antennae is crucial for efficient pheromone detection, as it influences airflow and, thus, pheromone capture. Pectinate antennae are highly complex....
The assumption that insect pectinate antennae, which are multi-scale organs spanning over four orders of magnitude in size among their different elements, are efficient at capturing sexual pheromones is commonly made but rarely thoroughly tested. Leakiness, i.e. the proportion of air that flows within the antenna and not around it, is a key paramet...
Crickets and other arthropods are evolved with numerous flow-sensitive hairs on their body. These sensory hairs have garnered interest among scientists resulting in the development of bio-inspired artificial hair-shaped flow sensors. Flow-sensitive hairs are arranged in dense arrays, both in natural and bio-inspired cases. Do the hair-sensors which...
We perform an experimental and theoretical study of the wave pattern generated by the leg strokes of the water strider during a propulsion cycle. Using the synthetic Schlieren method we are able to accurately measure the dynamic response of the free surface. In order to meet experimental conditions, we extend B\"uhler's theoretical model (B\"uhler...
We perform an experimental and theoretical study of the wave pattern generated by the leg strokes of water striders during a propulsion cycle. Using the synthetic Schlieren method, we are able to measure the dynamic response of the free surface accurately. In order to match experimental conditions, we extend B\"uhler's theory of impulsive forcing (...
Arthropod flow-sensing hair length ranges over more than an order of magnitude, from 0.1 to 5 mm. Previous studies repeatedly identified the longest hairs as the most sensitive, but recent studies identified the shortest hairsasthe most responsive. We resolved this apparent conflict by proposing a new model, taking into account both the initial and...
Flow sensing is used by a vast number of animals in various ecological contexts, from prey-predator interactions to mate selection, and orientation to flow itself. Crickets use hundreds of filiform hairs on two cerci as an early warning system to detect remote potential predators. Over the years, the cricket hairs have been described as the most se...
Despite vigorous growth in biomimetic design, the performance of man-made devices relative to their natural templates is still seldom quantified, a procedure which would however significantly increase the rigour of the biomimetic approach. We applied the ubiquitous engineering concept of a figure of merit (FoM) to MEMS flow sensors inspired by cric...
Many prey species, from soil arthropods to fish, perceive the approach of predators, allowing them to escape just in time. Thus, prey capture is as important to predators as prey finding. We extend an existing framework for understanding the conjoint trajectories of predator and prey after encounters, by estimating the ratio of predator attack and...
This chapter presents an overview of techniques for laser-based, non-contact fluid flow measurements, and their application to real datasets. Particular consideration is given to particle image velocimetry (PIV)-techniques, from the usual macro-scale PIV, through meso-scale PIV, to micro-PIV, thereby spanning the range from decimeter to micrometer...
The behavioural and physical mechanisms involved in the tactics used by predators to catch their prey have been explored for a wide variety of vertebrate taxa but most studies have considered the viewpoints of predator and prey independently. We tackled this issue using an ecologically relevant predator–prey model: wolf spiders (Pardosa spp.) and w...
The ability of the insect cercal system to detect approaching predators has been studied extensively in the laboratory and in the field. Some previous studies have assessed the extent to which sensory noise affects the operational characteristics of the cercal system, but these studies have only been carried out in laboratory settings using white n...
Drosophila melanogaster have bilateral antisymmetric antennae that receive the particle velocity component of an acoustic stimulus. Acoustic communication is important in their courtship, which takes place in the acoustic near-field. Here, the small size of the dipole sound source (the male wing) and the rapid attenuation rate of particle velocity...
Using measurements based on particle image velocimetry in combination with a novel compact theoretical framework to describe hair mechanics, we found that spider and cricket air motion sensing hairs work close to the physical limit of sensitivity and energy transmission in a broad range of relatively high frequencies. In this range, the hairs close...
Insects and arachnids are often quite hairy. The reasons for this high density of sensory hairs are unknown. Previous studies have predicted strong hydrodynamic coupling between densely packed airflow-sensitive hairs. Flow perturbation owing to single hairs and between tandem hairs, however, has never been experimentally measured. This paper aims t...
Understanding the relative contributions of the shape of a sensory organ and the arrangement of receptors to the overall performance of the organ has long been a challenge for sensory biologists. We tackled this issue using the wind-sensing system of crickets, the cerci, two conical abdominal appendages covered with arrays of filiform hairs. Scanni...
Many predators display two foraging modes, an ambush strategy and a cruising mode. These foraging strategies have been classically studied in energetic, biomechanical and ecological terms, without considering the role of signals produced by predators and perceived by prey. Wolf spiders are a typical example; they hunt in leaf litter either using an...
The aim of this work is to characterize the boundary layer over small appendages in insects in longitudinal and transverse oscillatory flows. The problem of immediate interest is the early warning system in crickets perceiving flying predators using air-flow-sensitive hairs on cerci, two long appendages at their rear. We studied both types of oscil...
