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The evolutionary biomechanics of locomotor function in giant land animals

Giant land vertebrates have evolved more than 30 times, notably in dinosaurs and mammals. The evolutionary and biomechanical perspectives considered here unify data from extant and extinct species, assessing current theory regarding how the locomotor biomechanics of giants has evolved. In terrestria...

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Autor principal: Hutchinson, John R.
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: The Company of Biologists Ltd 2021
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8214834/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/34100541
http://dx.doi.org/10.1242/jeb.217463
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author Hutchinson, John R.
author_facet Hutchinson, John R.
author_sort Hutchinson, John R.
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description Giant land vertebrates have evolved more than 30 times, notably in dinosaurs and mammals. The evolutionary and biomechanical perspectives considered here unify data from extant and extinct species, assessing current theory regarding how the locomotor biomechanics of giants has evolved. In terrestrial tetrapods, isometric and allometric scaling patterns of bones are evident throughout evolutionary history, reflecting general trends and lineage-specific divergences as animals evolve giant size. Added to data on the scaling of other supportive tissues and neuromuscular control, these patterns illuminate how lineages of giant tetrapods each evolved into robust forms adapted to the constraints of gigantism, but with some morphological variation. Insights from scaling of the leverage of limbs and trends in maximal speed reinforce the idea that, beyond 100–300 kg of body mass, tetrapods reduce their locomotor abilities, and eventually may lose entire behaviours such as galloping or even running. Compared with prehistory, extant megafaunas are depauperate in diversity and morphological disparity; therefore, turning to the fossil record can tell us more about the evolutionary biomechanics of giant tetrapods. Interspecific variation and uncertainty about unknown aspects of form and function in living and extinct taxa still render it impossible to use first principles of theoretical biomechanics to tightly bound the limits of gigantism. Yet sauropod dinosaurs demonstrate that >50 tonne masses repeatedly evolved, with body plans quite different from those of mammalian giants. Considering the largest bipedal dinosaurs, and the disparity in locomotor function of modern megafauna, this shows that even in terrestrial giants there is flexibility allowing divergent locomotor specialisations.
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spelling pubmed-82148342021-06-22 The evolutionary biomechanics of locomotor function in giant land animals Hutchinson, John R. J Exp Biol Review Giant land vertebrates have evolved more than 30 times, notably in dinosaurs and mammals. The evolutionary and biomechanical perspectives considered here unify data from extant and extinct species, assessing current theory regarding how the locomotor biomechanics of giants has evolved. In terrestrial tetrapods, isometric and allometric scaling patterns of bones are evident throughout evolutionary history, reflecting general trends and lineage-specific divergences as animals evolve giant size. Added to data on the scaling of other supportive tissues and neuromuscular control, these patterns illuminate how lineages of giant tetrapods each evolved into robust forms adapted to the constraints of gigantism, but with some morphological variation. Insights from scaling of the leverage of limbs and trends in maximal speed reinforce the idea that, beyond 100–300 kg of body mass, tetrapods reduce their locomotor abilities, and eventually may lose entire behaviours such as galloping or even running. Compared with prehistory, extant megafaunas are depauperate in diversity and morphological disparity; therefore, turning to the fossil record can tell us more about the evolutionary biomechanics of giant tetrapods. Interspecific variation and uncertainty about unknown aspects of form and function in living and extinct taxa still render it impossible to use first principles of theoretical biomechanics to tightly bound the limits of gigantism. Yet sauropod dinosaurs demonstrate that >50 tonne masses repeatedly evolved, with body plans quite different from those of mammalian giants. Considering the largest bipedal dinosaurs, and the disparity in locomotor function of modern megafauna, this shows that even in terrestrial giants there is flexibility allowing divergent locomotor specialisations. The Company of Biologists Ltd 2021-06-08 /pmc/articles/PMC8214834/ /pubmed/34100541 http://dx.doi.org/10.1242/jeb.217463 Text en © 2021. Published by The Company of Biologists Ltd https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution and reproduction in any medium provided that the original work is properly attributed.
spellingShingle Review
Hutchinson, John R.
The evolutionary biomechanics of locomotor function in giant land animals
title The evolutionary biomechanics of locomotor function in giant land animals
title_full The evolutionary biomechanics of locomotor function in giant land animals
title_fullStr The evolutionary biomechanics of locomotor function in giant land animals
title_full_unstemmed The evolutionary biomechanics of locomotor function in giant land animals
title_short The evolutionary biomechanics of locomotor function in giant land animals
title_sort evolutionary biomechanics of locomotor function in giant land animals
topic Review
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8214834/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/34100541
http://dx.doi.org/10.1242/jeb.217463
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