ArticleProceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America2015
Adaptive simplification and the evolution of gecko locomotion: morphological and biomechanical consequences of losing adhesion.
Article in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, 2015. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 28 papers.
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Who cites it
28 citing papers in PubMed.
- Integrative architecture and structural boundaries of the subdigital adhesive toe pads of Gekko gecko (Linnaeus, 1758) and guidelines for toe pad demarcation in other geckos.Journal of anatomy · 2026Article
- Evolution of sideways locomotion in crabs.eLife · 2026Article
- Subdigital integumentary microstructure inBeilstein journal of nanotechnology · 2026Article
- Surviving desiccation: key factors underlying tolerance in prokaryotes and eukaryotes.Protoplasma · 2025Review
- A classic key innovation constrains oral jaw functional diversification in fishes.Evolution letters · 2025Article
- Frictional adhesion of geckos predicts maximum running performance in nature.The Journal of experimental biology · 2025Article
- Reversible Adhesive Bio-Toe with Hierarchical Structure Inspired by Gecko.Biomimetics (Basel, Switzerland) · 2023Article
- Article
- Peking geckos (Gekko swinhonis) traversing upward steps: the effect of step height on the transition from horizontal to vertical locomotion.Journal of comparative physiology. A, Neuroethology, sensory, neural, and behavioral physiology · 2022Article
- The effects of substrate porosity, mechanical substrate properties and loading conditions on the attachment performance of the Mediterranean medicinal leech (Journal of the Royal Society, Interface · 2022Article
- Ankle structure of the Tokay gecko (Gekko gecko) and its role in the deployment of the subdigital adhesive system.Journal of anatomy · 2021Article
- Evolution of habitat preference in 243 species of Bent-toed geckos (GenusEcology and evolution · 2020Article
- Pleiotropic jaw morphology links the evolution of mechanical modularity and functional feeding convergence in Lake Malawi cichlids.Proceedings. Biological sciences · 2019Article
- Kinematics of malePeerJ · 2019Article
- Functional Diversity of Evolutionary Novelties: Insights from Waterfall-Climbing Kinematics and Performance of Juvenile Gobiid Fishes.Integrative organismal biology (Oxford, England) · 2019Article
- Rates of morphological evolution, asymmetry and morphological integration of shell shape in scallops.BMC evolutionary biology · 2017Article
- Nasal airflow simulations suggest convergent adaptation in Neanderthals and modern humans.Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America · 2017Article
- Individuals of the common Namib Day Gecko vary in how adaptive simplification alters sprint biomechanics.Scientific reports · 2017Article
- Leaping lizards landing on leaves: escape-induced jumps in the rainforest canopy challenge the adhesive limits of geckos.Journal of the Royal Society, Interface · 2017Article
- Mechanosensation is evolutionarily tuned to locomotor mechanics.Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America · 2017Article
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
5 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
Innovations permit the diversification of lineages, but they may also impose functional constraints on behaviors such as locomotion. Thus, it is not surprising that secondary simplification of novel locomotory traits has occurred several times among vertebrates and could potentially lead to exceptional divergence when constraints are relaxed. For example, the gecko adhesive system is a remarkable innovation that permits locomotion on surfaces unavailable to other animals, but has been lost or simplified in species that have reverted to a terrestrial lifestyle. We examined the functional and morphological consequences of this adaptive simplification in the Pachydactylus radiation of geckos, which exhibits multiple unambiguous losses or bouts of simplification of the adhesive system. We found that the rates of morphological and 3D locomotor kinematic evolution are elevated in those species that have simplified or lost adhesive capabilities. This finding suggests that the constraints associated with adhesion have been circumvented, permitting these species to either run faster or burrow. The association between a terrestrial lifestyle and the loss/reduction of adhesion suggests a direct link between morphology, biomechanics, and ecology.
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Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.