Functional Morphology and Morphological Diversification of Hind Limb Cross-Sectional Traits in Mustelid Mammals

Saved in:
Bibliographic Details
Title: Functional Morphology and Morphological Diversification of Hind Limb Cross-Sectional Traits in Mustelid Mammals
Authors: Parsi-Pour, P, Kilbourne, Brandon
Source: Integrative organismal biology, 2(1):obz032
Publication Year: 2020
Collection: Publisso (ZB MED-Publikationsportal Lebenswissenschaften)
Description: Locomotor habits in mammals are strongly tied to limb bones’ lengths, diameters, and proportions. By comparison, fewer studies have examined how limb bone cross-sectional traits relate to locomotor habit. Here, we tested whether climbing, digging, and swimming locomotor habits reflect biomechanically meaningful differences in three cross-sectional traits rendered dimensionless— cross-sectional area (CSA), second moments of area (SMA), and section modulus (MOD)—using femora, tibiae, and fibulae of 28 species of mustelid. CSA and SMA represent resistance to axial compression and bending, respectively, whereas MOD represents structural strength. Given the need to counteract buoyancy in aquatic environments and soil’s high density, we predicted that natatorial and fossorial mustelids have higher values of cross-sectional traits. For all three traits, we found that natatorial mustelids have the highest values, followed by fossorial mustelids, with both of these groups significantly differing from scansorial mustelids. However, phylogenetic relatedness strongly influences diversity in cross-sectional morphology, as locomotor habit strongly correlates with phylogeny. Testing whether hind limb bone cross-sectional traits have evolved adaptively, we fit Ornstein–Uhlenbeck (OU) and Brownian motion (BM) models of trait diversification to cross-sectional traits. The cross-sectional traits of the femur, tibia, and fibula appear to have, respectively, diversified under a multi-rate BM model, a single rate BM model, and a multi-optima OU model. In light of recent studies on mustelid body size and elongation, our findings suggest that the mustelid body plan—and perhaps that of other mammals—is likely the sum of a suite of traits evolving under different models of trait diversification.
Document Type: article in journal/newspaper
Language: English
Relation: https://repository.publisso.de/resource/frl:6429127; https://doi.org/10.1093/iob/obz032; https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7671153
DOI: 10.1093/iob/obz032
Availability: https://repository.publisso.de/resource/frl:6429127
https://doi.org/10.1093/iob/obz032
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7671153
https://academic.oup.com/iob/article/2/1/obz032/5698275#supplementary-data
Rights: CC BY 4.0
Accession Number: edsbas.1199641D
Database: BASE
Be the first to leave a comment!
You must be logged in first