Any species or other group that exhibits shape differences should be affected similarly to that which we establish for humans. The known shape differences among modern humans, however, produce sufficiently large differences in internal and external work to account for much of the observed variation in metabolic energy expenditure, if mechanical energy is correlated with metabolic energy.
Our results reaffirm that size does not affect mass-specific mechanical cost of transport ( Alexander and Jayes, 1983) among geometrically similar individuals walking at equal Fr. Our goal in the current work is to understand whether shape variation changes mechanical energy sufficiently enough to make shape a critical factor in mechanical and metabolic energy assessments.
We varied crural index and limb segment circumferences (and consequently, mass and inertial parameters) among nine populations that included 19 individuals that were of different size. To determine whether or not shape matters at the intraspecific level, we used a mechanical model that had properties that mimic human variation in shape. The Froude number (Fr), with lower limb (or hindlimb) length as the characteristic length, has been used to compensate for differences in size, but does not account for differences in shape. Isometric scaling (or geometric similarity) requires that all dimensions change equally among all individuals, a condition that will not be met in naturally developing populations. Variability, either within or between groups, can manifest as changes in size and/or shape.
Although metabolic energy expenditure can only be measured in extant species, using the equations of motion to calculate mechanical energy expenditure offers unlimited opportunities to explore energy expenditure, particularly in extinct species on which empirical experimentation is impossible. Understanding locomotor energetics is imperative, because energy expended during locomotion, a requisite feature of primate subsistence, is lost to reproduction.
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