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Animal Sciences Commons

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Full-Text Articles in Animal Sciences

The Morphology And Evolution Of The Primate Brachial Plexus, Brian M. Shearer Feb 2019

The Morphology And Evolution Of The Primate Brachial Plexus, Brian M. Shearer

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Primate evolutionary history is inexorably linked to the evolution of a broad array of locomotor adaptations that have facilitated the clade’s invasion of new niches. Researchers studying the evolution of primates and of their individual locomotor adaptations have traditionally relied on bony morphology – a practical choice given the virtual non-existence of any other type of tissue in the fossil record. However, this focus downplays the potential importance of the many other structures involved in locomotion, such as muscle, cartilage, and neural tissue, which may each be influenced by separate selective forces because of their different roles in facilitating movement. …


Gait Changes In A Line Of Mice Artificially Selected For Longer Limbs, Leah M. Sparrow, Emily Pellattt, Sabrina S. Yu, David A. Raichlen, Herman Pontzer, Campbell Rolian Feb 2017

Gait Changes In A Line Of Mice Artificially Selected For Longer Limbs, Leah M. Sparrow, Emily Pellattt, Sabrina S. Yu, David A. Raichlen, Herman Pontzer, Campbell Rolian

Publications and Research

In legged terrestrial locomotion, the duration of stance phase, i.e., when limbs are in contact with the substrate, is positively correlated with limb length, and negatively correlated with the metabolic cost of transport. These relationships are well documented at the interspecific level, across a broad range of body sizes and travel speeds. However, such relationships are harder to evaluate within species (i.e., where natural selection operates), largely for practical reasons, including low population variance in limb length, and the presence of confounding factors such as body mass, or training. Here, we compared spatiotemporal kinematics of gait in Longshanks, a long-legged …