Department of Biosciences, College of Science, Swansea University, Singleton Park Swansea SA2 8PP, UK.
Nat Commun. 2011 Jun 14;2:352. doi: 10.1038/ncomms1350.
Locomotion is one of the major energetic costs faced by animals and various strategies have evolved to reduce its cost. Birds use interspersed periods of flapping and gliding to reduce the mechanical requirements of level flight while undergoing cyclical changes in flight altitude, known as undulating flight. Here we equipped free-ranging marine vertebrates with accelerometers and demonstrate that gait patterns resembling undulating flight occur in four marine vertebrate species comprising sharks and pinnipeds. Both sharks and pinnipeds display intermittent gliding interspersed with powered locomotion. We suggest, that the convergent use of similar gait patterns by distinct groups of animals points to universal physical and physiological principles that operate beyond taxonomic limits and shape common solutions to increase energetic efficiency. Energetically expensive large-scale migrations performed by many vertebrates provide common selection pressure for efficient locomotion, with potential for the convergence of locomotory strategies by a wide variety of species.
运动是动物面临的主要能量消耗之一，各种策略已经进化以降低其成本。鸟类利用拍打和滑翔相间的时期来降低水平飞行的机械要求，同时在飞行高度上经历周期性变化，称为波动飞行。在这里，我们为自由游动的海洋脊椎动物配备了加速度计，并证明了类似于波动飞行的步态模式出现在包括鲨鱼和鳍足类动物在内的四种海洋脊椎动物中。鲨鱼和鳍足类动物都表现出间歇性滑翔与动力运动交替。我们认为，不同动物群体使用类似步态模式的趋同使用指向超越分类限制并形成常见解决方案以提高能量效率的普遍物理和生理原则。许多脊椎动物进行的能量消耗大的大规模迁移为有效运动提供了共同的选择压力，具有通过各种物种趋同运动策略的潜力。
