Buoyancy Regulation in Insects

Multiple insect lineages have successfully reinvaded the aquatic environment, evolving to complete either part or all of their life cycle submerged in water. Although these insects vary in their reliance on atmospheric oxygen, with many having the ability to extract dissolved oxygen directly from the water, all retain an internal air-filled respiratory system, their tracheal system, due to their terrestrial origins. However, carrying air within their tracheal system, and even augmenting this volume with additional air bubbles carried on their body, dramatically increases their buoyancy, which can make it challenging to remain submerged. But by manipulating this air volume a few aquatic insects can deliberately alter or regulate their position in the water column. Unlike cephalopods and teleost fish that control the volume of gas within their hydrostatic organs by either using osmosis to pull liquid from a rigid chamber or secreting oxygen at high pressure to inflate a flexible chamber, insects have evolved hydrostatic control mechanisms that rely either on the temporary stabilization of a compressible air bubble volume with O₂ unloaded from hemoglobin or on the mechanical expansion and contraction of a gas-filled volume with rigid, gas-permeable walls. The ability to increase their buoyancy while submerged separates aquatic insects from the buoyancy compensation achieved by other air-breathing aquatic animals that also use air within their respiratory systems to offset their submerged weight. The mechanisms they have evolved to achieve this are unique and provide new insights into the function and evolution of mechanochemical systems.