Cheadle Center for Biodiversity and Ecological Restoration

Modeling insect heat exchange and predicting thermal responses depends on accurate representationof body size and shape. Still, most biophysical models approximate these complex forms usingsimplified geometric solids, whose relationships to real body forms have not been rigorously tested.Advances in surface modeling of small objects allow us to interrogate these assumptions by capturingthe real 3D complexity of insect body forms. We used photogrammetry to construct 3D models ofhoney bee specimens and empirically measured body volume and surface area. Compared to empiricalmeasurements, we found that traditional, geometric size estimation methods systematicallyunderestimate body surface area and volume. We incorporated these error estimates into publishedheat budget data and found that these errors propagated non-linearly through the model, shiftingthe relative dominance of convective and radiative heat loss as temperature increases. These resultssuggest that body size and surface area assumptions can distort modeled heat transfer, particularlyunder low temperatures, demonstrating that morphological simplifications can bias physiologicalinference. This work underscores the utility of empirical 3D morphology for refining biophysical modelsof insect thermoregulation.