Postdoctoral Fellow
Research group |?Centre for Ecological and Evolutionary Synthesis (CEES)
Main supervisor |?Mark Ravinet
Co-supervisor |?-
Affiliation |?Department of Biosciences, UiO
Contact |?e.a.sathe@ibv.uio.no
Short bio
Prior to starting in CEES, I worked on morphology and biomechanics in a variety of animals. As a bachelor’s student at the University of St. Thomas in Minnesota, I studied lizard running and climbing performance. Eager to learn more about the mechanistic underpinnings connecting morphology and performance, I dove into the field of comparative biomechanics during my Ph.D. program at the University of California at Berkeley. As a PhD student, I began studying gliding and flight using geckos, salamanders, and a bioinspired robot as model systems. As a Carl Trygger Foundation postdoctoral fellow at Lund University in Sweden, I was excited to study true masters of flight: birds and bats! Currently, I continue my research on birds and bats as a DSTrain postdoctoral fellow at the University of Oslo, focusing primarily on wing skeleton morphology and the ways in which different bat species move their wings in flight.
Research interests and hobbies
My research is grounded in the fields of functional morphology and comparative biomechanics. I am interested in the diversity of animal shapes and how animals with differently shaped structures interact with the environment to perform a given function. In my research, I use principles from physics, such as mechanics and aerodynamics, to learn about the mechanisms that connect anatomical structure to flight. I am also interested in applying concepts learned from fundamental research on nature to human innovation through bioinspired design.
Outside of work, I enjoy hiking and skiing. I also like birding and herping (looking for reptiles and amphibians). At home, I listen to and play music, including the violin, and I love reading books, especially science fiction and fantasy.
DSTrain project
Vertebrate wing shape for flight versatility.?
Bird and bats fly with truly astonishing control. The control stems from their flexible wings, which are far more sophisticated than any flying structure designed by humans. The aerodynamic forces that are used for flight depend on the wings’ three-dimensional structure, so flexible wings allow animals to dynamically adjust their wing size, shape, and configuration, giving them meticulous control over those forces. As a result, birds and bats are versatile fliers and can thrive in diverse environments where different types of flight and behaviours are required. How birds and bats actively deform their wings to maintain such a high degree of flight versatility is poorly understood and is the topic of my DSTrain project.
Here I aim to develop a model describing how wing structure and shape interact to dynamically control flight and link to aeroecology. We will first characterize wing structure among different levels of biological and phylogenetic organization and link it to aeroecology – a predictor of degree of flight control. In both birds and bats, the integument forms most of the aerofoil, or the part of the wing that generates aerodynamic force, and transfers forces to the wing skeleton, which is essential for maintaining wing structure. However, bird and bat wings are also quite different; birds have feathers that project off of the wing skeleton whereas bats have skin membranes that stretch between their fingers and body. So we will detail and compare differences in wing shape and wing skeleton shape among different bird and bat species. Then, we will use high-speed videography, motion capture, and surface reconstruction to determine how bats control wing shape during flight. Linking wing morphology to ecological function will provide novel information about the natural selection pressures driving wing evolution, and, by extension, bird and bat diversification more broadly.
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Publications
DSTrain publications
Previous publications
Sathe, E.A., Chronister, N.J., and Dudley, R. (2023). Incipient wing flapping enhances aerial performance of a robotic paravian model. Bioinspiration & Biomimetics 046017.
Brown, C.E., Sathe, E.A., Dudley, R., and Deban, S.M. (2022). Aerial maneuvering by plethodontid salamanders spanning an arboreal gradient. Journal of Experimental Biology 225(20), jeb244598.
Brown, C.E., Sathe, E.A., Dudley, R., and Deban, S.M. (2022). Gliding and Parachuting by Arboreal Salamanders (Genus: Aneides). Current Biology 32(10): R453-R454.
Sathe, E.A. and Husak, J.F. (2018). Substrate-specific locomotor performance is associated with habitat use in six-lined racerunners (Aspidoscelis sexlineata). Biological Journal of the Linnean Society 124 (2): 165-173.
Sathe, E.A. and Husak, J.F. (2015). Sprint sensitivity and morphological predictors of locomotor performance in green anole (Anolis carolinensis) lizards. Journal of Experimental Biology 218 (14): 2174-2179.
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