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Author: Publisher: Springer ISBN: 9783540541196 Category : Science Languages : en Pages : 304
Book Description
GeoffGoldspink and I edited a book, Mechanics and Energetics of Animal Locomotion, which was published by Chapman and Hall in 1977. It dealt at an advanced level with all aspects of animal locomotion, emphasizing particularly the topics of then current research. Since then there have been more elementary books on the subject, including my own Locomotion of Animals (Blackie 1982), and specialized books on such topics as swimming and flight, but (despite very substantial progress in research) there has been no advanced book covering the whole range of animal locomotion. It seemed to me and to Professor Gilles (editor ofthis series) that a new book was needed. Plainly, a book of this length cannot contain everything that is known about animal locomotion. We have not attempted to make it encyclopedic, but have tried to show where the study of animal locomotion stands now, and where it is going. Older books remain useful as sources of long-established information.
Author: Publisher: Springer ISBN: 9783540541196 Category : Science Languages : en Pages : 304
Book Description
GeoffGoldspink and I edited a book, Mechanics and Energetics of Animal Locomotion, which was published by Chapman and Hall in 1977. It dealt at an advanced level with all aspects of animal locomotion, emphasizing particularly the topics of then current research. Since then there have been more elementary books on the subject, including my own Locomotion of Animals (Blackie 1982), and specialized books on such topics as swimming and flight, but (despite very substantial progress in research) there has been no advanced book covering the whole range of animal locomotion. It seemed to me and to Professor Gilles (editor ofthis series) that a new book was needed. Plainly, a book of this length cannot contain everything that is known about animal locomotion. We have not attempted to make it encyclopedic, but have tried to show where the study of animal locomotion stands now, and where it is going. Older books remain useful as sources of long-established information.
Author: R. McNeill Alexander Publisher: 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.
Author: Robert Alexander Publisher: Springer ISBN: 9789401160100 Category : Science Languages : en Pages : 163
Book Description
This book is about how animals travel around on land, in water and in the air. It is mainly about mechanisms of locomotion, their limitations and their energy requirements. There is some information about muscle physiology in Chapter 1, but only as much as seems necessary for the discussions of mechanisms and energetics. There is information in later chapters about the patterns of repetitive movement involved, for instance, in different gaits, but nothing about nervous mechanisms of coordination. I have tried to include most ofthe widely-used methods of locomotion, but have not thought it sensible to try to mention every variety of locomotion used by animals. This book is designed for undergraduates, but I hope that other people will also find it interesting. It is possible and sometimes illuminating to use complex mathematics in discussions of animal locomotion. This book includes many equations, but little mathematics. Such mathematics as there is, is simple. Discussions of the mechanisms and energetics of locomotion inevitably involve mechanics. I expect that some readers will know a lot of mechanics, and some hardly any. I have tried to help the latter without boring the former, by putting a summary of the necessary mechanics in an appendix (p. 140). References from the main text to the appendix will tell readers where they can find help, if they need it. Figures and equations in the appendix have numbers distinguished by a prefix A (for instance, Figure A.3).
Author: Andrew A. Biewener Publisher: Oxford University Press ISBN: 9780198500223 Category : Language Arts & Disciplines Languages : en Pages : 300
Book Description
This book provides a clear foundation, based on physical biology and biomechanics, for understanding the underlying mechanisms by which animals have evolved to move in their physical environment. It integrates the biomechanics of animal movement with the physiology of animal energetics and the neural control of locomotion. The author also communicates a sense of the awe and fascination that comes from watching the grace, speed, and power of animals in motion. Movement is a fundamental distinguishing feature of animal life, and a variety of extremely effective mechanical and physiological designs have evolved. Common themes are observed for the ways in which animals successfully contend with the properties of a given physical environment across diversity of life forms and varying locomotor modes. Understanding the common principles of design that span a diverse array of animals requires a broad comparative and integrative approach to their study. This theme persists throughout the book, as various modes and mechanisms of animal locomotion are covered. Since an animal's size is equally critical to its functional design, the effects of scale on locomotor energetics and mechanics are also discussed. Biewener begins by examining the underlying machinery for movement: skeletal muscles used for force generation, skeletons used for force transmission, and spring-like elements used for energy savings. He then describes the basic mechanisms that animals have evolved to move over land, in and on the surface of the water, and in the air. Common fluid dynamic principles are discussed as background to both swimming and flight. In addition to discussing the locomotor mechanisms of complex animals, the locomotor movement of single cells is also covered. Common biochemical features of cellular metabolism are then reviewed before discussing the energetic aspects of various locomotor modes. Strategies for conserving energy and moving economically are again highlighted in this section of the book. Emphasis is placed on comparisons of energetic features across locomotor modes. The book concludes with a discussion of the neural control of animal locomotion. The basic neurosensory and motor elements common to vertebrates and arthropods are discussed, and features of sensori-motor organization and function are highlighted. These are then examined in the context of specific examples of how animals control the rhythmic patterns of limb and body movement that underlie locomotor function and stability.
Author: John E. A. Bertram Publisher: John Wiley & Sons ISBN: 1119113725 Category : Science Languages : en Pages : 571
Book Description
Understanding Mammalian Locomotion will formally introduce the emerging perspective of collision dynamics in mammalian terrestrial locomotion and explain how it influences the interpretation of form and functional capabilities. The objective is to bring the reader interested in the function and mechanics of mammalian terrestrial locomotion to a sophisticated conceptual understanding of the relevant mechanics and the current debate ongoing in the field.
Author: Stephen Childress Publisher: Cambridge University Press ISBN: 9780521280716 Category : Mathematics Languages : en Pages : 172
Book Description
Provides a summary of the fluid dynamics of the locomotion of living organisms. Describes biological phenomena in detail from the swimming of bacteria and fish to the flying of insects and birds.
Author: Holger Preuschoft Publisher: Springer ISBN: 9783030276706 Category : Science Languages : en Pages : 0
Book Description
This book discusses how and why animals evolved into particular shapes. The book identifies the physical laws which decide over the evolutionary (selective) value of body shape and morphological characters. Comparing the mechanical necessities with morphological details, the author attempts to understand how evolution works, and which sorts of limitations are set by selection. The book explains morphological traits in more biomechanical detail without getting lost in physics, or in methods. Most emphasis is placed on the proximate question, namely the identification of the mechanical stresses which must be sustained by the respective body parts, when they move the body or its parts against resistance. In the first part of the book the focus is on ‘primitive’ animals and later on the emphasis shifts to highly specialized mammals. Readers will learn more about living and fossil animals. A section of the book is dedicated to human evolution but not to produce another evolutionary tree, nor to refine a former one, but to contribute to answering the question: “WHY early humans have developed their particular body shape".
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Author: 
Author: R. McNeill Alexander
Author: R. McNeill Alexander
Author: Robert Alexander
Author: H. Y. Elder
Author: Andrew A. Biewener
Author: John E. A. Bertram
Author: Stephen Childress
Author: Holger Preuschoft
Author: R. McNeill Alexander