Control of the cranio-cervical system during feeding in birds

Control of the Cranio-Cervical combination of parts to form a whole During Feeding in Birds'

SYNOPSiS. The avian neck is a mingled kinematically redundant system, which plays a part during inter alia food prehension and manipulation. Kinematical analysis present to views that chickens (Gallus domesticus) stir their vertebrae according to a geometric principle that maximizes angular rotation efficiency. The move pattern shows simultaneous rotations in a certain quantity of joints, while not in the others. Anseri-- former exhibit a pattern of successive, rather than simultaneous rotations in the rostral part of the neck A kinematical archetype indicates that the geometric principle bring outs an anseriform-like pattern only if a constraint upon the movement of the caudal vertebrae is introduced. The puissance of this constraint, required for a realistic simulation, is related to the amount of tighten in the long dorsal neck muscles (M biventer and M longus colli dorsalis), which have a different configuration in Anseriformes compared to the chicken. To investigate whether the difference in change pattern is a result of differences in anatomy solitary or also of differences in neuromotor patterns, the EMG-patterns of the neck muscles of the mallard and chicken during drinking and pecking were studied. Considerable overlap in the activity of antagonists is base in mallards, but not in chickens. Muscles in the rostral part of the neck are activated successively in mallards, on the contrary simultaneously in chickens. We end that the difference in motion patterning between chickens and Anseriformes, be deriveds from both a difference in the rule system of the neck, and a difference in the anatomy. The anseriform pattern is lay the foundation of in water as well as upon land, which suggests that neck motion in both environments is controll through the same neuromotor patterns. The modifications in motor dominion government system and anatomy of the Anseriformes may have evolv as an adaptation to aquatic feeding, since the anseriform pattern is energetically more beneficial in an aquatic environment than upon land.

INTRODUCTION

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

We like to thank Peter Snelderwaard for all the help during the experiments and operations, Peter Mulken for the photographic work, and the members of the Evolutionary Morphology collection at Leiden University for their useful make notess and discussions. Michael Alfaro and Anthony Herrel are thanked for the invitation to write this review. The SICB and Leids Universiteits weaks Leiden, The Netherlands, provided funding for the contribution to the SICB symposium.

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