|
|
RESEARCH INTERESTS
Functional and Evolutionary Morphology; Comparative Physiology
PUBLICATIONS
My research is directed toward developing an
understanding of the ways in which locomotion has
influenced the evolution of vertebrates. Recently, my
primary focus has concerned the coupling of the
locomotor and ventilatory systems. The last three
decades of morphological and physiological research has
greatly increased our understanding of the locomotor and
respiratory systems of terrestrial vertebrates. Yet it is
only in the past few years that biologists have come to
realize that these two systems are mechanically linked
in the muscles and bones of the thorax. I have suggested
that the organization of the musculo-skeletal system of
the earliest tetrapods may have made it impossible for
them to run and breathe at the same time. Such a
constraint would have had a dramatic effect on
subsequent evolution. On the one hand, an initial
constraint on simultaneous running and breathing may
have been one of the factors that directed the ancestors
of lizards towards specialization in burst activity based
on anaerobic metabolism. On the other had, the lineages
from which birds and mammals are derived appear to
have undergone anatomical changes that enable
simultaneous running and breathing. Such changes would
have been prerequisite to the evolution of a capacity for
sustained locomotion.
A second subject that I have a long-standing interest in
is the postnatal ontogeny of locomotor function. Young
animals must often maneuver in the same environment
and face the same predators as do adults. Yet, they do
this at a time when the tissues of their locomotor
system are rapidly growing and differentiation. I have
studied the ontogeny the musculo-skeletal system in
Black-tailed Jackrabbits and California Gulls. I am
continuing to pursue this issue, with the goal of
identifying those aspects of growth and development
that limit locomotor performance, and conversely, to
identify mechanisms that may circumvent these
ontogenetic limitations on performance.
Selected Publications
Carrier, D. R., D. V. Lee, and R. M. Walter. Influence of rotational
inertia on the turning performance of theropod dinosaurs: clues from humans
with increased rotational inertia. J. exp. Biol. (in press).
Watts, P. and D. R. Carrier. 2000. Human flight and exercise in
microgravity. J. Gravitational Physiol. 7: 31-34.
Carrier, D. R. and Farmer, C. G. 2000. The evolution of pelvic
aspiration in archosaurs. Paleobiology 26: 271-293.
Carrier, C. R., C. S. Gregersen and N. A. Silverton. 1998. Dynamic
gearing in running dogs. J. exp. Biol. 201: 3185-3195.
Carrier, D. R. 1996. Ontogenetic limits on locomotor performance.
Physiol. Zool. 69: 467-488.
Carrier, D. R. 1987. The evolution of locomotor stamina in tetrapods:
circumventing a mechanical constraint. Paleobiology 13: 326-341.
Carrier, D. R. 1984. The energetic paradox of human running and hominid
evolution. Cur. Anthro. 25:483-495.
| |
|
|
