Julia L. Davenport

The ecology of transportation : managing mobility for the environment

This book describes how human transport by land, sea and air has dramatically increased over time. The book also describes how transport has paralleled a rise in population, prosperity and increased the rate at which technology is changing. Transport has considerable ecological effects, many of them are considered to be detrimental to the environmental sustainability. This volume brings together international experts from a variety of disciplines in order to review the ecological effects and their causes in terms of road, rail, ship, and aircraft transport. The contributors have different attitudes and agendas. Some are ecologists, some are planners, and others are social scientists. Focus ranges from identification of threats and amelioration of damaging effects through to the future design of transport systems in order to minimize environmental degradation. Some chapters consider restricted areas of the globe; others the globe itself. The views expressed encompass deep pessimism and cautious optimism. Uniquely, the book considers transport effects in all environments, and this is the first book that attempts to discuss the relationship between human transport and all ecosystems. It appeals not only to the specialist environmentalist by picking out novel topics, but also to anyone involved in transport issues as it tackles the issues from a historical perspective that encompasses the past, present and future of the effects of human transport.

Swimming and bipedal bottom-running in the pig-nosed turtle Carettochelys insculpta Ramsay, 1886

ABSTRACT The pig-nosed freshwater turtle Carettochelys insculpta Ramsay, 1886 has paddle-shaped foreflippers that resemble those of sea turtles. These turtles exhibit a wide range of swimming capabilities. As well as swimming by the action of synchronized foreflippers alone, they sometimes used alternate hindlimb action at the same time. They could swim by ipsilaterally synchronized action of all four limbs, or by hindlimb action alone (combined with stabilizer/lift function of the foreflippers). The turtles also showed flexibility in bottom-walking. Besides the ipsilaterally synchronized quadrupedal action characteristic of other freshwater turtles, they exhibited a bipedal walking mechanism never previously described. Propelled by alternate action of the hindlimbs, the animals held the head and plastron above the substratum, with the large foreflippers acting to provide anterior lift and stability against roll and yaw. Because both hindlimbs were sometimes off the substratum simultaneously during bipedal locomotion, their duty factors were < 0.5, implying a bipedal run.