... velocities and forces that maximize biting power, which may be selectively advantageous for predators of diverse prey that require both jaw-closing force and speed. * Author for correspondence ( [email protected] ) Competing interests The authors declare no competing or financial interests...

... performance alters in response to long-term temperature changes; other anthropogenic environmental changes, including pollutants, might also alter animal tissue mechanics, locomotor performance and behaviour. Climate Force Muscle Pollution Power Temperature Global temperatures are forecast...

... muscle. Four-week-old female CD-1 mice were randomly selected to consume either a standard laboratory diet or a standard laboratory diet in conjunction with a HFD for 20 weeks. Peripheral soleus and core diaphragm were isolated from each animal and maximal isometric force and work loop power were...

... in conjunction with musculoskeletal simulations and a recently developed functional index-based approach to characterise the role of human lower-limb muscles. We found that in muscles that generate most of the mechanical power and work during cycling, greater crank torque induced shifts towards greater muscle...

... velocity and pennation angle change were greater during aquatic takeoffs than during terrestrial takeoffs because of the differences in knee motion. Nevertheless, we observed no significant differences in LG stress or work, but did see an increase in muscle power output during aquatic takeoffs. Because...

... phase of walking. We quantified the mechanical power and work done by all structures distal to the hindfoot's center of mass (i.e. structures of the entire foot), using a unified deformable segment analysis ( Takahashi et al., 2012 ). This analysis captures the total mechanical contribution...

.... ( 1995 ). Controlling the false discovery rate: a practical and powerful approach to multiple testing . J. R. Stat. Soc. B   57 , 289 - 300 . 10.1111/j.2517-6161.1995.tb02031.x Bennett , A. F. and Huey , R. B. ( 1990 ). Studying the evolution of physiological performance . Oxford...

... and high angles of attack (AoA). Although insects have continuously received attention from biologists and aerodynamicists, the high AoA operation in insect flight has not been clearly explained. Here, we used a theoretical blade-element model to examine the impact of wing inertia on the power requirement...

... force and power produced by increasing the demand on weight-supporting muscle. However, when normalised to body mass, muscle performance of obese individuals is reduced. Isolated muscle preparations show that obesity often leads to a decrease in force produced per muscle cross-sectional area, and power...

...Tomer Urca; Gal Ribak ABSTRACT The distance a small insect moves through the air during a jump is limited by the launch velocity at take-off and by air resistance. The launch velocity is limited by the length of the jumping legs and the maximum power that the jump apparatus can provide for pushing...

...Bo Cheng; Bret W. Tobalske; Donald R. Powers; Tyson L. Hedrick; Yi Wang; Susan M. Wethington; George T.-C. Chiu; Xinyan Deng ABSTRACT The superior manoeuvrability of hummingbirds emerges from complex interactions of specialized neural and physiological processes with the unique flight dynamics...

...Laura McFarlane; John D. Altringham; Graham N. Askew ABSTRACT Diurnal and seasonal increases in body mass and seasonal reductions in wing area may compromise a bird's ability to escape, as less of the power available from the flight muscles can be used to accelerate and elevate the animal's centre...

... well the contractile properties of skinned fibres reflect the properties of the muscle fibres in vivo . Here, we compare the mechanical performance of intact fibre bundles and skinned fibres from muscle of the same animals. This is the first such direct comparison. Maximum power and isometric force...

...Joseph E. Rupert; Jacob A. Rose; Jason M. Organ; Michael T. Butcher Scratch-digging mammals are commonly described as having large, powerful forelimb muscles for applying high force to excavate earth, yet studies quantifying the architectural properties of the musculature are largely unavailable...

... This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License ( http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0 ), which permits unrestricted use, distribution and reproduction in any medium provided that the original work is properly attributed. Hunt Jump Owl Power...

... biomechanical analogs for incremental adaptive stages in the evolutionary origin of flight. A primary assumption of the hypothesis is that work and power requirements from the primary downstroke muscle, the pectoralis, incrementally increase from shallow- to steep-angled terrestrial locomotion, and between...

... by 0, 7, 14 or 21% by means of intra-peritoneal injections of saline solution, and flights were recorded as animals flew upwards in a small enclosure. Using a model based on actuator disk theory, we estimated the mechanical power expended by the bats as they flew and separated that cost into different...

...Charlotte R. Morris; Frank E. Nelson; Graham N. Askew SUMMARY Little is known about how in vivo muscle efficiency, that is the ratio of mechanical and metabolic power, is affected by changes in locomotory tasks. One of the main problems with determining in vivo muscle efficiency is the large number...

...Charlotte R. Morris; Graham N. Askew SUMMARY In order to meet the varying demands of flight, pectoralis muscle power output must be modulated. In birds with pectoralis muscles with a homogeneous fibre type composition, power output can be modulated at the level of the motor unit ( via changes...

...Charlotte R. Morris; Graham N. Askew SUMMARY There have been few comparisons between the relationship between the mechanical power requirements of flight and flight speed obtained using different approaches. It is unclear whether differences in the power–speed relationships reported...