ArticleeLife2016
Select forelimb muscles have evolved superfast contractile speed to support acrobatic social displays.
Article in eLife, 2016. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 15 papers.
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Who cites it
15 citing papers in PubMed.
- Batrachotoxin-sensitive sodium channels in toxic birds challenge "target mutation" strategy of toxin autoresistance.iScience · 2026Article
- Neck muscle twitch properties are associated with constraint on drum speed in woodpeckers, but not drum length.The Journal of experimental biology · 2025Article
- The mechanics of male courtship display behaviour in theBiological journal of the Linnean Society. Linnean Society of London · 2024Article
- A chemo-mechanical constitutive model for muscle activation in bat wing skins.Journal of the Royal Society, Interface · 2024Article
- Sex diversity in the 21st century: Concepts, frameworks, and approaches for the future of neuroendocrinology.Hormones and behavior · 2024Article
- Article
- Layered evolution of gene expression in "superfast" muscles for courtship.Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America · 2022Article
- Video Recording and Analysis of Avian Movements and Behavior: Insights from Courtship Case Studies.Integrative and comparative biology · 2021Review
- Mechanoethology: The Physical Mechanisms of Behavior.Integrative and comparative biology · 2021Article
- Article
- Macroevolutionary patterning of woodpecker drums reveals how sexual selection elaborates signals under constraint.Proceedings. Biological sciences · 2018Article
- Evolution of the androgen-induced male phenotype.Journal of comparative physiology. A, Neuroethology, sensory, neural, and behavioral physiology · 2018Review
- Fundamental constraints in synchronous muscle limit superfast motor control in vertebrates.eLife · 2017Article
- Increased androgenic sensitivity in the hind limb muscular system marks the evolution of a derived gestural display.Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America · 2016Article
- Expression of 5α- and 5β-reductase in spinal cord and muscle of birds with different courtship repertoires.Frontiers in zoology · 2016Article
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
5 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
Many species perform rapid limb movements as part of their elaborate courtship displays. However, because muscle performance is constrained by trade-offs between contraction speed and force, it is unclear how animals evolve the ability to produce both unusually fast appendage movement and limb force needed for locomotion. To address this issue, we compare the twitch speeds of forelimb muscles in a group of volant passerine birds, which produce different courtship displays. Our results show that the two taxa that perform exceptionally fast wing displays have evolved 'superfast' contractile kinetics in their main humeral retractor muscle. By contrast, the two muscles that generate the majority of aerodynamic force for flight show unmodified contractile kinetics. Altogether, these results suggest that muscle-specific adaptations in contractile speed allow certain birds to circumvent the intrinsic trade-off between muscular speed and force, and thereby use their forelimbs for both rapid gestural displays and powered locomotion.
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