Author: Andres Camilo Marmol GuijarroPublisher:
ISBN:
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 0
Book Description
Constraints on the Biomechanics of Locomotion in the Svalbard Rock Ptarmigan (Lagopus Muta Hyperborea)
Author: Andres Camilo Marmol GuijarroPublisher:
ISBN:
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 0
Book Description
Seasonal Adaptations in the Energetics and Biomechanics of Locomotion in the Svalbard Rock Ptarmigan (Lagopus Muta Hyperborea).
Author: John LeesPublisher:
ISBN:
Category :
Languages : en
Pages :
Book Description
One of the most striking things about many animals is that they can be defined by the ways in which they move. Moving costs metabolic energy and is a significant contributor to the daily energy balance of organisms and therefore fitness. Balancing energy needs is critically important to species inhabiting areas of limited resources. The metabolic cost of locomotion is influenced by physiological, morphological and behavioural factors that vary across species. The influence of these factors within species is less well understood. The objective of my PhD is to elucidate the potential for variation in locomotor performance, in particular the energy consumed and the biomechanics of locomotion within a species, in response to differences in season, sex, age and the nature of the terrain. The Svalbard ptarmigan (Lagopus muta hyperborea) is the only year-round avian resident of the Arctic archipelago of Svalbard. Svalbard is characterized by extreme photoperiodic and climatic conditions, with 24 hours of daylight in summer and continuous darkness in winter, when ice makes food unpredictable. As a result, ptarmigan annually gain significant fat stores, as much as doubling their body mass in winter. The consequences of such large gains in mass upon the metabolic cost and biomechanics of terrestrial locomotion are yet to be quantified. The Svalbard ptarmigan represents a unique opportunity to gain insight into avian adaptations. Using respirometry, I present evidence that winter birds are able to carry their fat stores at no metabolic cost. Using kinematic and force plate data, I show that acquiring fat results in reduced locomotor performance in terms of speed and take-off ability. As well as exhibiting phenotypic variation, male and female Svalbard ptarmigan are behaviourally very different. I present evidence that these behavioural differences are reflected in the metabolic cost of locomotion. In particular, males are both more efficient and faster than female birds during both summer and winter. I suggest that this results from sexual selection upon male locomotor performance. Furthermore, I present data demonstrating that sub-adult males experiencing their first winter possess the same metabolic and speed capabilities of adults. These data may indicate that selection for improved male locomotor performance may act upon sub-adult birds. Regardless of season, age or sex, Svalbard ptarmigan must locomote on a predominantly sloping terrain. The influence of inclines upon the metabolic cost of locomotion in birds is poorly understood. I provide evidence that at the same degree of incline, the cost of lifting 1 kg by 1 vertical metre is similar regardless of season and is therefore dictated by increased positive work. However, this cost varies according to the degree of incline and may be influenced by gait. The principal findings of the 5 first author papers presented are that behavioural, physiological and morphological variation within a species can have significant impacts upon the metabolic cost of locomotion and other aspects of locomotor performance. The potential for intraspecific differences should therefore be taken into account in future research regarding the patterns of energy expenditure in animals.
Svalbard Rock Ptarmigan (Lagopus Mutus Hyperboreus)
Author: Åshild Ønvik PedersenPublisher:
ISBN:
Category : Rock ptarmigan
Languages : en
Pages : 28
Book Description
Biomechanics in Animal Behaviour
Author: R.W. BlakePublisher: Garland Science
ISBN: 1000443299
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 360
Book Description
Biomechanics in Animal Behaviour offers a unique approach by integrating fully the fields of animal behaviour and biomechanics. It demonstrates how an understanding of biomechanical issues is an important part of evaluating and predicting animal behaviour. The book examines how behaviour is determined and/or constrained by biomechanical variables such as hydrodynamics, aerodynamics, kinematics, and the mechanical properties of biomaterials.
Elastic Mechanisms in Animal Movement
Author: R. McNeill AlexanderPublisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 9780521349680
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 150
Book Description
Originally published in 1988, this book is about the uses and implications of elastic properties in various aspects of animal biology. After a brief study of the properties of elastic materials, the book considers the functions of springs in the bodies of animals. Drawing on specific examples, the uses of elastic structures as, amongst other things, muscle antagonists, energy stores, catapults and suspension springs are described. This book will be of value to anyone with an interest in animal mechanics.
Animal Locomotion
Author: Malcolm S. GordonPublisher: CRC Press
ISBN: 1351966197
Category : Medical
Languages : en
Pages : 364
Book Description
Animal Locomotion: Physical Principles and Adaptations is a professional-level, state of the art review and reference summarizing the current understanding of macroscopic metazoan animal movement. The comparative biophysics, biomechanics and bioengineering of swimming, flying and terrestrial locomotion are placed in contemporary frameworks of biodiversity, evolutionary process, and modern research methods, including mathematical analysis. The intended primary audience is advanced-level students and researchers primarily interested in and trained in mathematics, physical sciences and engineering. Although not encyclopedic in its coverage, anyone interested in organismal biology, functional morphology, organ systems and ecological physiology, physiological ecology, molecular biology, molecular genetics and systems biology should find this book useful.
Principles of Animal Locomotion
Author: R. McNeill AlexanderPublisher: Princeton University Press
ISBN: 0691126348
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 384
Book Description
How can geckoes walk on the ceiling and basilisk lizards run over water? What are the aerodynamic effects that enable small insects to fly? What are the relative merits of squids' jet-propelled swimming and fishes' tail-powered swimming? Why do horses change gait as they increase speed? What determines our own vertical leap? Recent technical advances have greatly increased researchers' ability to answer these questions with certainty and in detail. This text provides an up-to-date overview of how animals run, walk, jump, crawl, swim, soar, hover, and fly. Excluding only the tiny creatures that use cilia, it covers all animals that power their movements with muscle--from roundworms to whales, clams to elephants, and gnats to albatrosses. The introduction sets out the general rules governing all modes of animal locomotion and considers the performance criteria--such as speed, endurance, and economy--that have shaped their selection. It introduces energetics and optimality as basic principles. The text then tackles each of the major modes by which animals move on land, in water, and through air. It explains the mechanisms involved and the physical and biological forces shaping those mechanisms, paying particular attention to energy costs. Focusing on general principles but extensively discussing a wide variety of individual cases, this is a superb synthesis of current knowledge about animal locomotion. It will be enormously useful to advanced undergraduates, graduate students, and a range of professional biologists, physicists, and engineers.
Foraging
Author: David W. StephensPublisher: University of Chicago Press
ISBN: 0226772659
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 626
Book Description
Foraging is fundamental to animal survival and reproduction, yet it is much more than a simple matter of finding food; it is a biological imperative. Animals must find and consume resources to succeed, and they make extraordinary efforts to do so. For instance, pythons rarely eat, but when they do, their meals are large—as much as 60 percent larger than their own bodies. The snake’s digestive system is normally dormant, but during digestion metabolic rates can increase fortyfold. A python digesting quietly on the forest floor has the metabolic rate of thoroughbred in a dead heat. This and related foraging processes have broad applications in ecology, cognitive science, anthropology, and conservation biology—and they can be further extrapolated in economics, neurobiology, and computer science. Foraging is the first comprehensive review of the topic in more than twenty years. A monumental undertaking, this volume brings together twenty-two experts from throughout the field to offer the latest on the mechanics of foraging, modern foraging theory, and foraging ecology. The fourteen essays cover all the relevant issues, including cognition, individual behavior, caching behavior, parental behavior, antipredator behavior, social behavior, population and community ecology, herbivory, and conservation. Considering a wide range of taxa, from birds to mammals to amphibians, Foraging will be the definitive guide to the field.
Animal Body Size
Author: Felisa A. SmithPublisher: University of Chicago Press
ISBN: 022601228X
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 281
Book Description
Galileo wrote that “nature cannot produce a horse as large as twenty ordinary horses or a giant ten times taller than an ordinary man unless by miracle or by greatly altering the proportions of his limbs and especially of his bones”—a statement that wonderfully captures a long-standing scientific fascination with body size. Why are organisms the size that they are? And what determines their optimum size? This volume explores animal body size from a macroecological perspective, examining species, populations, and other large groups of animals in order to uncover the patterns and causal mechanisms of body size throughout time and across the globe. The chapters represent diverse scientific perspectives and are divided into two sections. The first includes chapters on insects, snails, birds, bats, and terrestrial mammals and discusses the body size patterns of these various organisms. The second examines some of the factors behind, and consequences of, body size patterns and includes chapters on community assembly, body mass distribution, life history, and the influence of flight on body size.
Mechanics and Energetics of Animal Locomotion
Author: R. McNeill AlexanderPublisher: Chapman & Hall
ISBN:
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 376
Book Description