Small-to-medium sized mammals show greater morphological disparity in
cervical than lumbar vertebrae across different terrestrial modes of
locomotion
Abstract
During mammalian terrestrial locomotion, body flexibility facilitated by
the vertebral column is correlated with observed modes of locomotion,
known as gait (e.g., sprawl, trot, hop, bound, gallop). In
small-to-medium sized mammals (average weight up to 5 kg), the
relationship between locomotive mode and vertebral morphology is largely
unexplored. Here we studied the vertebral column from 46 small-to-medium
sized mammals. Nine vertebrae across cervical, thoracic, and lumbar
region were chosen to represent the whole vertebral column. Vertebra
shape was analysed using three-dimensional geometric morphometrics with
phylogenetic comparative method. We also applied the multi-block method,
which can consider all vertebrae as a single structure for analysis. We
calculated morphological disparity, phylogenetic signal, and evaluated
the effects of allometry and gait on vertebral shape. We also
investigated pattern of integration in the column. We found the cervical
vertebrae show the highest degree of morphological disparity, and the
first thoracic vertebra shows the highest phylogenetic signal. A
significant effect of gait type on vertebrae shape was found, with the
lumbar vertebrae having the strongest correlation; but this effect was
not significant after taking phylogeny into account. On the other hand,
allometry has a significant effect on all vertebrae regardless of the
contribution from phylogeny. The regions showed differing degrees of
integration, with cervical vertebrae most strongly correlated. With
these results, we have revealed novel information that cannot be
captured from study of a single vertebra alone: although the lumbar
vertebrae are the most correlated with gait, the cervical vertebrae are
more morphologically diverse and more drive the diversity among species
when considering whole column shape.