A unified theory for the energy cost of legged locomotion

Small animals are remarkably efficient climbers but comparatively poor runners, a well-established phenomenon in locomotor energetics that drives size-related differences in locomotor ecology yet remains poorly understood. Here, I derive the energy cost of legged locomotion from two complementary components of muscle metabolism, Activation–Relaxation and Cross-bridge cycling. A mathematical model incorporating these costs explains observed patterns of locomotor cost both within and between species, across a broad range of animals (insects to ungulates), for a wide range of substrate slopes including level running and vertical climbing. This ARC model unifies work- and force-based models for locomotor cost and integrates whole-organism locomotor cost with cellular muscle physiology, creating a predictive framework for investigating evolutionary and ecological pressures shaping limb design and ranging behaviour.

Limitations imposed by wearing armour on Medieval soldiers' locomotor performance

In Medieval Europe, soldiers wore steel plate armour for protection during warfare. Armour design reflected a trade-off between protection and mobility it offered the wearer. By the fifteenth century, a typical suit of field armour weighed between 30 and 50 kg and was distributed over the entire body. How much wearing armour affected Medieval soldiers' locomotor energetics and biomechanics is unknown. We investigated the mechanics and the energetic cost of locomotion in armour, and determined the effects on physical performance. We found that the net cost of locomotion ( C met ) during armoured walking and running is much more energetically expensive than unloaded locomotion. C met for locomotion in armour was 2.1–2.3 times higher for walking, and 1.9 times higher for running when compared with C met for unloaded locomotion at the same speed. An important component of the increased energy use results from the extra force that must be generated to support the additional mass. However, the energetic cost of locomotion in armour was also much higher than equivalent trunk loading. This additional cost is mostly explained by the increased energy required to swing the limbs and impaired breathing. Our findings can predict age-associated decline in Medieval soldiers' physical performance, and have potential implications in understanding the outcomes of past European military battles.

Gait-specific energetics contributes to economical walking and running in emus and ostriches

A widely held assumption is that metabolic rate ( Ė met ) during legged locomotion is linked to the mechanics of different gaits and this linkage helps explain the preferred speeds of animals in nature. However, despite several prominent exceptions, Ė met of walking and running vertebrates has been nearly uniformly characterized as increasing linearly with speed across all gaits. This description of locomotor energetics does not predict energetically optimal speeds for minimal cost of transport ( E cot ). We tested whether large bipedal ratite birds (emus and ostriches) have gait-specific energetics during walking and running similar to those found in humans. We found that during locomotion, emus showed a curvilinear relationship between Ė met and speed during walking, and both emus and ostriches demonstrated an abrupt change in the slope of Ė met versus speed at the gait transition with a linear increase during running. Similar to human locomotion, the minimum net E cot calculated after subtracting resting metabolism was lower in walking than in running in both species. However, the difference in net E cot between walking and running was less than is found in humans because of a greater change in the slope of Ė met versus speed at the gait transition, which lowers the cost of running for the avian bipeds. For emus, we also show that animals moving freely overground avoid a range of speeds surrounding the gait-transition speed within which the E cot is large. These data suggest that deviations from a linear relation of metabolic rate and speed and variations in transport costs with speed are more widespread than is often assumed, and provide new evidence that locomotor energetics influences the choice of speed in bipedal animals. The low cost of transport for walking is probably ecologically important for emus and ostriches because they spend the majority of their active day walking, and thus the energy used for locomotion is a large part of their daily energy budget.

Modelling the locomotor energetics of extinct hominids

Bipedality is the defining characteristic of Hominidae and, as such, an understanding of the adaptive significance and functional implications of bipedality is imperative to any study of human evolution. Hominid bipedality is, presumably, a solution to some problem for the early hominids, one that has much to do with energy expenditure. Until recently, however, little attention could be focused on the quantifiable energetic aspects of bipedality as a unique locomotor form within Primates because of the inability to measure empirically the energy expenditure of non-modern hominids. A recently published method provides a way of circumventing the empirical measurement dilemma by calculating energy expenditure directly from anatomical variables and movement profiles. Although the origins of bipedality remain clouded, two discernible forms of locomotor anatomy are present in the hominid fossil record: the australopithecine and modern configurations. The australopithecine form is best represented by AL 288–1, a partial skeleton of Australopithecus afarensis, and is characterized as having short legs and a wide pelvis. The modern form is represented by modern humans and has long legs and a narrow pelvis. Human walking is optimized to take advantage of the changing levels of potential and kinetic energy that occur as the body and limbs move through the stride cycle. Although this optimization minimizes energy expenditure, some energy is required to maintain motion. I quantify this energy by developing a dynamic model that uses kinematic equations to determine energy expenditure. By representing both configurations with such a model, I can compare their rates of energy expenditure. I find that the australopithecine configuration uses less energy than that of a modern human. Despite arguments presented in the anthropological literature, the shortness of the legs of AL 288-1 provides no evidence that she was burdened with a compromised or transitional locomotor anatomy. Instead, she may well have been an effective biped at walking speeds, not despite her short legs, but rather because of them.