Meeting Abstract
42-2 Saturday, Jan. 5 08:15 – 08:30 The Diversity and Evolution of Jumping Power in Anurans MENDOZA, E*; AZIZI, E; MOEN, DS; Oklahoma State University; University of California, Irvine; Oklahoma State University emendoz7@uci.edu
Jumping in anurans requires substantial mechanical power. However, while muscle power appears to be relatively invariant across species, jumping power is highly variable. Power amplification using stored elastic energy is thought to explain this discrepancy. However, the interspecific variation in the propensity to amplify power remains poorly understood. One possibility is that differences in intrinsic muscle properties due to size may limit the amount of power a muscle can generate, leading to small species needing greater amplification than larger species. Alternatively, the microhabitat species inhabit may drive the variation. In this study, we used high-speed video to record jumping for 23 anuran species. Additionally, we included unpublished jumping power data for one species and jumping power data for 44 species from a previous study. Species were diverse in microhabitat use and body mass, and they came from across the phylogeny of all anurans. We used phylogenetic comparative methods to compare the role of microhabitat and body mass in explaining variation in power amplification across species. We found the strongest support for a model that included both body mass and a microhabitat category that classified species as either burrowing or not. The effect of body mass suggests that interspecific variation in jumping power might be partly explained by intrinsic limitations of muscle. Anurans with small body mass may be able to achieve similar locomotor performance (e.g. take-off velocity) as those with larger body mass, but only by more effectively amplifying power. Additionally, the effect of microhabitat suggests that organisms that use the same limbs for both jumping and burrowing may experience a reduction in their ability generate jumping power. This may indicate a functional trade-off between jumping and burrowing.
