Do all frogs swim alike? The effect of ecological specialization on swimming kinematics in frogs

0434514 - GLÚ 2015 RIV GB eng J - Journal Article
Robovská-Havelková, P. - Aerts, P. - Roček, Zbyněk - Přikryl, Tomáš - Fabre, A.-C. - Herrel, A.
Do all frogs swim alike? The effect of ecological specialization on swimming kinematics in frogs.
Journal of Experimental Biology. Roč. 217, č. 20 (2014), s. 3637-3644. ISSN 0022-0949. E-ISSN 1477-9145
Institutional support: RVO:67985831
Keywords : Anura * kinematics * locomotion * swimming
Subject RIV: EG - Zoology
Impact factor: 2.897, year: 2014

Frog locomotion has attracted wide scientific interest because of the unusual and derived morphology of the frog pelvic girdle and hind limb. Previous authors have suggested that the design of the frog locomotor system evolved towards a specialized jumping morphology early in the radiation of the group. However, data on locomotion in frogs are biased towards a few groups and most of the ecological and functional diversity remains unexplored. Here, we examine the kinematics of swimming in eight species of frog with different ecologies. We use cineradiography to quantify movements of skeletal elements from the entire appendicular skeleton. Our results show that species with different ecologies do differ in the kinematics of swimming, with the speed of limb extension and especially the kinematics of the midfoot being different. Our results moreover suggest that this is not a phylogenetic effect because species from different clades with similar ecologies converge on the same swimming kinematics. We conclude that it is important to analyze frog locomotion in a broader ecological and evolutionary context if one is to understand the evolutionary origins of this behavior.
Permanent Link: http://hdl.handle.net/11104/0238546