Convergent evolution of quadrupedality in ornithischian dinosaurs was achieved through disparate forelimb muscle mechanics

Author:

Dempsey Matthew12ORCID,Maidment Susannah C. R.2ORCID,Hedrick Brandon P.3ORCID,Bates Karl T.1ORCID

Affiliation:

1. Department of Musculoskeletal & Ageing Science, Institute of Life Course & Medical Sciences, University of Liverpool, The William Henry Duncan Building, 6 West Derby Street, Liverpool L7 8TX, UK

2. Department of Earth Sciences, The Natural History Museum, Cromwell Road, London SW7 5BD, UK

3. Department of Biomedical Sciences, College of Veterinary Medicine, Cornell University, 930 Campus Road, Ithaca, NY 14853, USA

Abstract

The secondary evolution of quadrupedality from bipedal ancestry is a rare evolutionary transition in tetrapods yet occurred convergently at least three times within ornithischian dinosaurs. Despite convergently evolving quadrupedal gait, ornithischians exhibited variable anatomy, particularly in the forelimbs, which underwent a major functional change from assisting in foraging and feeding in bipeds to becoming principal weight-bearing components of the locomotor system in quadrupeds. Here, we use three-dimensional multi-body dynamics models to demonstrate quantitatively that different quadrupedal ornithischian clades evolved distinct forelimb musculature, particularly around the shoulder. We find that major differences in glenohumeral abduction–adduction and long axis rotation muscle leverages were key drivers of mechanical disparity, thereby refuting previous hypotheses about functional convergence in major clades. Elbow muscle leverages were also disparate across the major ornithischian lineages, although high elbow extension muscle leverages were convergent between most quadrupeds. Unlike in ornithischian hind limbs, where differences are more closely tied to functional similarity than phylogenetic relatedness, mechanical disparity in ornithischian forelimbs appears to have been shaped primarily by phylogenetic constraints. Differences in ancestral bipedal taxa within each clade may have resulted in disparate ecomorphological constraints on the evolutionary pathways driving divergence in their quadrupedal descendants.

Funder

Natural Environment Research Council

Publisher

The Royal Society

Subject

General Agricultural and Biological Sciences,General Environmental Science,General Immunology and Microbiology,General Biochemistry, Genetics and Molecular Biology,General Medicine

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