Hanna Jandy B, Schmitt Daniel, Griffin Timothy M
Biological Anthropology and Anatomy, Duke University, Durham, NC 27710, USA.
Science. 2008 May 16;320(5878):898. doi: 10.1126/science.1155504.
Primates are exceptional among mammals for their climbing abilities and arboreal lifestyles. Here we show that small primates (less than 0.5 kilogram) consume the same amount of mass-specific energy (COTTOT) whether climbing or walking a given distance. COTTOT decreases with increasing body size for walking but does not change for climbing. This divergence of COTTOT is likely due to fundamental differences in the biomechanical determinants of the costs of climbing versus walking. These results have important implications for understanding the origins of primates, suggesting that small early primates may have been able to move into a novel arboreal niche without increasing metabolic costs.
灵长类动物在哺乳动物中因其攀爬能力和树栖生活方式而格外突出。我们在此表明，小型灵长类动物（体重小于0.5千克）在攀爬或行走给定距离时消耗的质量比能量（COTTOT）相同。行走时，COTTOT随体型增大而降低，但攀爬时则不变。COTTOT的这种差异可能是由于攀爬与行走成本的生物力学决定因素存在根本差异。这些结果对于理解灵长类动物的起源具有重要意义，表明早期的小型灵长类动物可能能够进入一个新的树栖生态位而无需增加代谢成本。
