Limb bone scaling in hopping macropods and quadrupedal artiodactyls.

ABSTRACT: Bone adaptation is modulated by the timing, direction, rate and magnitude of mechanical loads. To investigate whether frequent slow, or infrequent fast, gaits could dominate bone adaptation to load, we compared scaling of the limb bones from two mammalian herbivore clades that use radically different high-speed gaits, bipedal hopping (suborder Macropodiformes; kangaroos and kin) and quadrupedal galloping (order Artiodactyla; goats, deer and kin). Forelimb and hindlimb bones were collected from 20 artiodactyl and 15 macropod species (body mass M 1.05-1536 kg) and scanned in computed tomography or X-ray microtomography. Second moment of area (I _max) and bone length (l) were measured. Scaling relations (y = ax^b ) were calculated for

SUBMITTER: Doube M 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC6227981 | biostudies-literature | 2018 Oct

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature