Limits to human locomotor performance: phylogenetic origins and comparative perspectives

Abstract

SUMMARY: Studies of human exercise physiology have been conducted from a largely ahistorical perspective. This approach usefully elucidates proximate limits to locomotor performance, but ignores potential sources of biomechanical and physiological variation that derive from adaptation to ancestral environments. Phylogenetic reconstruction suggests that multiple hominoid lineages, including that leading to Homo sapiens, evolved in African highlands at altitudes of 1000–2000m. The evolution of human locomotor physiology therefore occurred under conditions of hypobaric hypoxia. In contrast to present-day humans running on treadmills or exercising in otherwise rectilinear trajectories, ancestral patterns of hominid locomotion probably involved intermittent knuckle-walking over variable terrain, occasional bouts of arboreality and an evolving capacity for bipedalism. All such factors represent potential axes of locomotor variation at present unstudied in extant hominoid taxa. As with humans, hummingbirds evolved in mid-montane contexts but pose an extreme contrast with respect to body size, locomotor mode and metabolic capacity. Substantial biomechanical and physiological challenges are associated with flight in hypobaria. Nonetheless, hummingbird lineages demonstrate a progressive invasion of higher elevations and a remarkable tolerance to hypoxia during hovering. Upregulation of aerobic capacity and parallel resistance to hypoxia may represent coupled evolutionary adaptations to flight under high-altitude conditions.