ArticleBiology letters2016
A unified theory for the energy cost of legged locomotion.
Article in Biology letters, 2016. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. An erratum has been issued. Cited by 22 papers.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
22 citing papers in PubMed.
- Enclosures with flexible structures stimulate species-typical locomotion, but not locomotion quantity, in zoo-housed Bornean orangutans (Animal welfare (South Mimms, England) · 2026Article
- Wolverines use spatial memory to plan efficient routes through rugged terrain.Movement ecology · 2025Article
- Energy landscapes direct the movement preferences of elephants.The Journal of animal ecology · 2025Article
- Electrohydraulic musculoskeletal robotic leg for agile, adaptive, yet energy-efficient locomotion.Nature communications · 2024Article
- Energy-based corridor identification for mammals between protected areas in Iran.Ecology and evolution · 2024Article
- The work to swing limbs in humans versus chimpanzees and its relation to the metabolic cost of walking.Scientific reports · 2024Article
- Energetic costs of feeding in 12 species of small-bodied primates.Philosophical transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series B, Biological sciences · 2023Article
- The provisioned primate: patterns of obesity across lemurs, monkeys, apes and humans.Philosophical transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series B, Biological sciences · 2023Article
- Linking muscle mechanics to the metabolic cost of human hopping.The Journal of experimental biology · 2023Article
- The travel speeds of large animals are limited by their heat-dissipation capacities.PLoS biology · 2023Article
- Shorter muscle fascicle operating lengths increase the metabolic cost of cyclic force production.Journal of applied physiology (Bethesda, Md. : 1985) · 2022Article
- Insect-Inspired Robots: Bridging Biological and Artificial Systems.Sensors (Basel, Switzerland) · 2021Review
- Differences in muscle mechanics underlie divergent optimality criteria between feeding and locomotor systems.Journal of anatomy · 2020Article
- Cyclically producing the same average muscle-tendon force with a smaller duty increases metabolic rate.Proceedings. Biological sciences · 2020Article
- Terrestrial locomotion energy costs vary considerably between species: no evidence that this is explained by rate of leg force production or ecology.Scientific reports · 2019Article
- Elite swimmers do not exhibit a body mass index trade-off across a wide range of event distances.Proceedings. Biological sciences · 2018Article
- Measuring the Energy of Ventilation and Circulation during Human Walking using Induced Hypoxia.Scientific reports · 2017Article
- Article
- Body size and lower limb posture during walking in humans.PloS one · 2017Article
- Phylogenetic comparisons of pedestrian locomotion costs: confirmations and new insights.Ecology and evolution · 2016Article
Corrections and comments
- Erratum issued
Authors and funding
1 author.
Funding
Abstract
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.
Indexed as
Identifiers
What OpenQuestion holds
Registered trials
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.