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Abdominal muscle and epipubic bone function during locomotion in Australian possums: Insights to basal mammalian conditions and eutherian‐like tendencies in Trichosurus

Overview of attention for article published in Journal of Morphology, October 2009
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  • Above-average Attention Score compared to outputs of the same age (64th percentile)

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4 Wikipedia pages

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Title
Abdominal muscle and epipubic bone function during locomotion in Australian possums: Insights to basal mammalian conditions and eutherian‐like tendencies in Trichosurus
Published in
Journal of Morphology, October 2009
DOI 10.1002/jmor.10808
Pubmed ID
Authors

Stephen M. Reilly, Eric J. McElroy, Thomas D. White, Audrone R. Biknevicius, Michael B. Bennett

Abstract

Mammals have four hypaxial muscle layers that wrap around the abdomen between the pelvis, ribcage, and spine. However, the marsupials have epipubic bones extending anteriorly into the ventral hypaxial layers with two additional muscles extending to the ventral midline and femur. Comparisons of South American marsupials to basal eutherians have shown that all of the abdominal hypaxials are active bilaterally in resting ventilation. However, during locomotion marsupials employ an asymmetrical pattern of activity as the hypaxial muscles form a crosscouplet linkage that uses the epipubic bone as a lever to provide long-axis support of the body between diagonal limb couplets during each step. In basal eutherians, this system shifts off the femur and epipubic bones (which are lost) resulting in a shoulder to pelvis linkage associated with shifts in both the positions and activity patterns of the pectineus and rectus abdominis muscles during locomotion. In this study, we present data on hypaxial function in two species (Pseudocheirus peregrinus and Trichosurus vulpecula) representing the two major radiations of possums in Australia: the Pseudocheiridae (within the Petauroidea) and the Phalangeridae. Patterns of gait, motor activity, and morphology in these two Australian species were compared with previous work to examine the generality of 1) the crosscouplet lever system as the basal condition for the Marsupialia and 2) several traits hypothesized to be common to all mammals (hypaxial tonus during resting ventilation, ventilation to step synchrony during locomotion, and bilateral transversus abdominis activity during locomotor expiration). Our results validate the presence of the crosscouplet pattern and basic epipubic bone lever system in Australian possums and confirm the generality of basal mammalian patterns. However, several novelties discovered in Trichosurus, reveal that it exhibits an evolutionary transition to intermediate eutherian-like morphological and motor patterns paralleling many other unique features of this species.

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Mendeley readers

Mendeley readers

The data shown below were compiled from readership statistics for 31 Mendeley readers of this research output. Click here to see the associated Mendeley record.

Geographical breakdown

Country Count As %
United Kingdom 1 3%
Norway 1 3%
Unknown 29 94%

Demographic breakdown

Readers by professional status Count As %
Student > Bachelor 8 26%
Student > Ph. D. Student 5 16%
Other 3 10%
Researcher 3 10%
Professor > Associate Professor 2 6%
Other 5 16%
Unknown 5 16%
Readers by discipline Count As %
Agricultural and Biological Sciences 12 39%
Earth and Planetary Sciences 4 13%
Sports and Recreations 2 6%
Engineering 2 6%
Medicine and Dentistry 2 6%
Other 2 6%
Unknown 7 23%
Attention Score in Context

Attention Score in Context

This research output has an Altmetric Attention Score of 4. This is our high-level measure of the quality and quantity of online attention that it has received. This Attention Score, as well as the ranking and number of research outputs shown below, was calculated when the research output was last mentioned on 23 March 2023.
All research outputs
#7,747,022
of 24,851,605 outputs
Outputs from Journal of Morphology
#595
of 1,753 outputs
Outputs of similar age
#34,808
of 101,257 outputs
Outputs of similar age from Journal of Morphology
#1
of 1 outputs
Altmetric has tracked 24,851,605 research outputs across all sources so far. This one has received more attention than most of these and is in the 68th percentile.
So far Altmetric has tracked 1,753 research outputs from this source. They typically receive a little more attention than average, with a mean Attention Score of 7.3. This one has gotten more attention than average, scoring higher than 64% of its peers.
Older research outputs will score higher simply because they've had more time to accumulate mentions. To account for age we can compare this Altmetric Attention Score to the 101,257 tracked outputs that were published within six weeks on either side of this one in any source. This one has gotten more attention than average, scoring higher than 64% of its contemporaries.
We're also able to compare this research output to 1 others from the same source and published within six weeks on either side of this one. This one has scored higher than all of them