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Using biological experiments, robot models, and a geometric theory of locomotion from the 1980s, researchers at the Georgia Institute of Technology investigated how and why intermediate lizard species, with their elongated bodies and short limbs, might use their bodies to move. Led by living systems physics professor Daniel Goldman, the research team studied body-limb coordination in a diverse sample of lizard bodies. Their multidisciplinary approach uncovered the existence of a previously unknown spectrum of body movements in lizards, revealing a continuum of locomotion dynamics between lizardlike and snakelike movements. Their findings, published in the June issue of Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, deepen the understanding of evolution’s implications for locomotion, and have additional applications for advanced robotics designs. Hong Kong SAR, Japan, Macao SAR, Malaysia, Philippines, Russia, Singapore, South Korea, Thailand, Vietnam, etc. Europe As part of a larger study, Clark and colleagues investigated why it is that these differences in signals exist between the different species of lava lizard, in a paper published in Animal Behaviour. To do this, they designed robot lizards of two different ‘species’, Microlophus grayii and Microlophus indefatigabilis. The researchers used these robot lizards to simulate interactions between them and real lizards of the same two species. Therefore, a real lizard could either have an interaction with a robot of the same species, or of a different one. The idea here is, if different species have evolved to pay attention to each other’s signals (and thus avoid mating with a different species), then males that are the same species as the robot should respond much more to the robot’s signals than a lizard of the other species. On the other hand, if the different species arose by genetic drift, then we wouldn’t expect for there to have been as much selection on individuals to avoid mating with the other species. The exploration of Mars and its surface is a fascinating quest, as it could unveil the signs of past or present extra-terrestrial life. In addition to potentially unveiling forms of ancient microbial life, these explorations could lead to the discovery of resources that exist outside of Earth, potentially paving the way for future human missions to Mars.
We were interested in why and how these intermediate lizards use their bodies and limbs to move around in different terrestrial environments,” Goldman said. “This is a fundamental question in locomotion biology and can inspire more capable wiggling robots.”
Mimicking years of evolution to make climbing robots
By understanding which parameters influence an animal's locomotion, we might be able to define what a robot would have to look like and how it would have to move depending on what we want the robot to do: be super-fast, super stable, or something in the middle," Ms Schultz said.
Funding:NSF–Simons Southeast Center for Mathematics and Biology (Simons Foundation Autism Research Initiative Grant 594594), NSF Grant IOS-1353703, President’s Undergraduate Research Awards at Georgia Institute of Technology, and Army Research Office Grant W911NF-11-1-0514.
The researchers then repeated the experiment with a species from the mainland (Microlophus occipitalis) and found that this species very much discriminated against displays made by different species of lizards. The next question was how to make sense of the diversity of wave patterns. According to Chong, while there are endless ways to think about the waves and what they mean, the information is so complex that it is nearly impossible for humans to understand without using laborious and time-consuming equations.
These results would seem to imply that there had been selection on lizards to not mate with other, similar species. However, the researchers also carried out a phylogenetic analysis which showed that the lizards had evolved these traits in isolation from one another and without much effect of sexual selection. So what’s going on? It seems that the lizards have evolved the ability to pay attention to the different behavioural signals of each other (and discriminate against the ‘wrong’ species) without having evolved in the same geographic area as them. Exactly how this happens is still not clearand perhaps just shows more than anything that evolution is complicated!Baxi Chong, a Ph.D. student in Goldman’s lab and first author of the paper, became interested in the short-limbed, elongated lizard species Brachymeles at a presentation by Philip Bergmann, associate professor of evolutionary biology at Clark University, in which Bergmann discussed the evolution of the species. Chong, a theoretician, had a tool in mind that he believed could help explain how the rare lizard moved, so he reached out to Bergmann to collaborate. Bergmann sent footage of the lizards in the wild to Goldman’s lab for analysis.
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