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Full-Text Articles in Morphology
Evaluation Of The Functional Capabilities Of Fins And Limbs For Moving On Land: Insights Into The Invasion Of Land By Tetrapods, Sandy Kawano
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Transitions to novel habitats present different adaptive challenges, producing captivating examples of how functional innovations of the musculoskeletal system influence phenotypic divergence and adaptive radiations. One intriguing example is the transition from aquatic fishes to tetrapods. Recent technological advances and discoveries of critical fossils have catapulted our understanding on how fishes gave rise to terrestrial vertebrates. Considerable attention has been paid to legged locomotion on land, but given that the first tetrapods were aquatic, limbs did not evolve primarily for terrestriality. How, then, is the locomotor function of limbs different from fins? Extant amphibious fishes demonstrate that fins can be …
Functional Morphology And Performance Of Ecological Systems With Extreme Pressures: Waterfall Climbing And Predator-Prey Interaction In Amphidromous Gobioid Fishes, Takashi Maie
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Understanding the functional capacity and performance of organisms provides a strong foundation for recognizing the forces that are responsible for their form, and how they might adapt to variable or changing environmental conditions. Amphidromous stream goby fishes live in a habitat subject to two potentially extreme selective pressures: (1) predation on juvenile fish returning to freshwater from the ocean, and (2) the demand to climb waterfalls to reach adult breeding habitats. Recognizing these selection pressures, I present studies evaluating (1) the mechanisms underlying the functional capacity for adhesive performance, and (2) the risk that predation imposes on amphidromous gobies. Specifically, …