Pillars of Life: Is There a Relationship between Lifestyle Factors and the Surface Characteristics of Dragonfly Wings?

ABSTRACT: Dragonfly wings are of great interest to researchers investigating biomimetic designs for antiwetting and antibacterial surfaces. The waxy epicuticular layer on the membrane of dragonfly wings possesses a unique surface nanoarchitecture that consists of irregular arrays of nanoscale pillars. This architecture confers superhydrophobic, self-cleaning, antiwetting, and antibiofouling behaviors. There is some evidence available that suggests that lifestyle factors may have influenced the evolution of the wing nanostructures and, therefore, the resulting properties of the wings; however, it appears that no systematic studies have been performed that have compared the wing surface features across a range of dragonfly species. Here, we provided a comparison of relevant wing surface characteristic

SUBMITTER: Cheeseman S 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC6130794 | biostudies-literature | 2018 Jun

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature