Meeting Abstract

102.3  Thursday, Jan. 7  What makes a great footballer? Trade-offs between athleticism and skill in human performance WILSON, R S*; SMITH, M D; Univ. of Queensland, Australia; Univ. of Queensland, Australia r.wilson@uq.edu.au

Animal performance during critical behaviours such as predator-escape, prey-capture and fighting is determined by a complex assortment of underlying traits. Maximal physical capacity is widely appreciated to be an important determinant of performance during these complex behaviours. However, the role of individual skill in determining performance is virtually unknown and its role in the evolution of physical function has been surprisingly dismissed. Skill is likely to be a key determinant of performance for many complex behavioural traits. For example, male fighting capacity is likely to be determined by more than just strength alone, but also fighting technique, coordination, and decision-making. Given the difficulties associated with assessing skill in non-human organisms, we used analyses of human performance to investigate the possible interactions and trade-offs between skill and athletic ability. Performance of individuals during staged one-on-one football games was used as our model complex performance trait. Footballing ability was assessed for 30 subjects (aged 17-31 yrs) and their performance in 16 different athletic and skills tasks was also quantified. We competed ten different models that evaluated the relationships between individual morphology, athleticism and skill to overall footballing performance. We found that most maximal athletic tasks were positively correlated, as were many skill component tasks. However, there was no evidence of any positive or negative correlations between maximal athletic performance and skill, suggesting these traits may be completely independent and under different selective pressures or even under separate genetic control. Implications of this work for the evolution of vertebrate physical performance will be discussed.