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About the Cover
Cover:
Photographs of the skeleton of a North American box turtle, Terrapene carolina, in two different positions (with the right half of the shell removed). In turtles at rest, any protraction or retraction of the neck or limbs will displace air in the lungs. Landberg and colleagues hypothesize that the turtle's shell might constrain the timing or mechanics of breathing during locomotion (pp. 3391-3404). Surprisingly, they found no consistent effects of the stride cycle on breathing. Instead, box turtles appear to use cup-shaped, diaphragm-like abdominal muscles for breathing during locomotion. This new evidence from box turtles adds support to the hypothesis that respiratory-locomotor interactions may have been a selective force in the evolution of novel lung ventilation mechanisms among terrestrial vertebrates. Image by Tobias Landberg.
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