What do we really know about the water repellency of feathers?

IF 16.4 1区化学 Q1 CHEMISTRY, MULTIDISCIPLINARY

Accounts of Chemical Research Pub Date : 2024-07-02 DOI:10.1111/jav.03259

Frank M. S. Muzio, Margaret A. Rubega

{"title":"What do we really know about the water repellency of feathers?","authors":"Frank M. S. Muzio, Margaret A. Rubega","doi":"10.1111/jav.03259","DOIUrl":null,"url":null,"abstract":"Feathers are complex integument structures that provide birds with many functions. They are vital to a bird's survival, fundamental to their visual displays, and responsible for the evolutionary radiation of the avian class. Feathers provide a protective barrier for the body; their water repellency is a key feature. Despite hundreds of years of ornithological research, the available literature on how feathers repel water is both limited and puzzling. Most hypotheses from the early 1900s suggested uropygial gland oil provided feathers with a hydrophobic coating. Subsequent studies showed that the feather's hierarchical structure creates a porous substrate that readily repels water with or without oil. Numerous studies and methods have been published attempting to explain, quantify, and compare the water repellency of feathers. Many overlook the role of barbules and the effect of their variation, which both likely play a crucial part in water repellency. The goal of this paper is to synthesize this research to better understand what has been done, what makes sense, and more importantly, what is missing. Previous reviews on this subject are mostly over 30 years old and did not use modern methods for systematic review. Here, we performed a systematic review to capture all relevant published papers on feather water repellency. We emphasize the crucial role of barbules in feather water repellency and why their morphological variation should not be ignored. We answer the question, what do we really know about the water repellency of feathers?","PeriodicalId":1,"journal":{"name":"Accounts of Chemical Research","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":16.4000,"publicationDate":"2024-07-02","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":"0","resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":null,"PeriodicalName":"Accounts of Chemical Research","FirstCategoryId":"99","ListUrlMain":"https://doi.org/10.1111/jav.03259","RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"化学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":null,"EPubDate":"","PubModel":"","JCR":"Q1","JCRName":"CHEMISTRY, MULTIDISCIPLINARY","Score":null,"Total":0}

引用次数: 0

Abstract

Feathers are complex integument structures that provide birds with many functions. They are vital to a bird's survival, fundamental to their visual displays, and responsible for the evolutionary radiation of the avian class. Feathers provide a protective barrier for the body; their water repellency is a key feature. Despite hundreds of years of ornithological research, the available literature on how feathers repel water is both limited and puzzling. Most hypotheses from the early 1900s suggested uropygial gland oil provided feathers with a hydrophobic coating. Subsequent studies showed that the feather's hierarchical structure creates a porous substrate that readily repels water with or without oil. Numerous studies and methods have been published attempting to explain, quantify, and compare the water repellency of feathers. Many overlook the role of barbules and the effect of their variation, which both likely play a crucial part in water repellency. The goal of this paper is to synthesize this research to better understand what has been done, what makes sense, and more importantly, what is missing. Previous reviews on this subject are mostly over 30 years old and did not use modern methods for systematic review. Here, we performed a systematic review to capture all relevant published papers on feather water repellency. We emphasize the crucial role of barbules in feather water repellency and why their morphological variation should not be ignored. We answer the question, what do we really know about the water repellency of feathers?

查看原文本刊更多论文

我们对羽毛的防水性究竟了解多少？

羽毛是鸟类复杂的体表结构，具有多种功能。它们对鸟类的生存至关重要，是鸟类进行视觉展示的基本要素，也是鸟类进化辐射的原因。羽毛是鸟类身体的保护屏障，其主要特点是防水。尽管鸟类学研究已有数百年的历史，但关于羽毛如何拒水的现有文献既有限又令人费解。20 世纪初的大多数假说都认为尿囊腺油为羽毛提供了一层疏水涂层。随后的研究表明，羽毛的分层结构形成了一种多孔的基质，无论是否含油，都能轻易地拒水。已有大量研究和方法发表，试图解释、量化和比较羽毛的憎水性。许多研究都忽略了倒刺的作用及其变化的影响，而这两者都可能在憎水性中起到至关重要的作用。本文的目的是对这些研究进行总结，以便更好地了解已经完成的研究、有意义的研究，以及更重要的是，还缺少什么。以往有关这一主题的综述大多已有 30 多年的历史，而且没有使用现代方法进行系统综述。在此，我们进行了一次系统综述，收集了所有已发表的有关羽毛憎水性的相关论文。我们强调了倒刺在羽毛憎水性中的关键作用，以及不应忽视其形态变化的原因。我们要回答的问题是：我们对羽毛的憎水性到底了解多少？

本文章由计算机程序翻译，如有差异，请以英文原文为准。

求助全文

约1分钟内获得全文求助全文

来源期刊

Accounts of Chemical Research 化学-化学综合

CiteScore

31.40

自引率

1.10%

发文量

312

审稿时长

2 months

期刊介绍： Accounts of Chemical Research presents short, concise and critical articles offering easy-to-read overviews of basic research and applications in all areas of chemistry and biochemistry. These short reviews focus on research from the author’s own laboratory and are designed to teach the reader about a research project. In addition, Accounts of Chemical Research publishes commentaries that give an informed opinion on a current research problem. Special Issues online are devoted to a single topic of unusual activity and significance. Accounts of Chemical Research replaces the traditional article abstract with an article "Conspectus." These entries synopsize the research affording the reader a closer look at the content and significance of an article. Through this provision of a more detailed description of the article contents, the Conspectus enhances the article's discoverability by search engines and the exposure for the research.