Autotomy has evolved independently several times in different animal lineages. It frequently involves immediate functional costs, so regeneration evolved in many instances to restore the functionality of that body part. Caudal autotomy is a widespread antipredator strategy in lizards, although it may affect energy storage, locomotion dynamics, or survival in future encounters with predators. Here, we assessed the effect of tail loss on the locomotor performance of wall lizards (Podarcis muralis), as well as the recovery of locomotor functionality of lizards with regenerated tails, and the movement dynamics of shed tails that were either intact or having regenerated portions. Tail loss had no effect on locomotion over unhindered spaces, possibly due to compensation between a negative effect on the stride of front limbs, and a positive effect of losing mass and friction force. We found a clear negative impact of tail loss on locomotion in spaces with interspersed obstacles, in which tailed lizards jumped larger distances when leaving the obstacles. Besides, lizards that used the tail to push off the ground were able to approach the obstacles from further, so that the tail seemed to be useful when used during jumping. Regeneration fully restores lizard's locomotor capacities, but tail antipredator value, as indicated by the intensity of post‐autotomic movements, is only partially retrieved. From these results, we propose that, together with the recovery of post‐autotomy antipredator capacities, the restoration of the organismal locomotor performance may have been an important, yet frequently neglected factor in the evolution of lizard's regeneration ability.

中文翻译：

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自动蜥蜴及其尾巴的运动动力学揭示了尾部截肢术的功能成本。

截肢术在不同的动物世系中独立发展了数次。它经常涉及直接的功能成本，因此在许多情况下都需要进行再生以恢复该身体部位的功能。尾部截肢术是蜥蜴中一种广泛的反掠食者策略，尽管它可能会影响能量存储，运动动力学或在将来与掠食者相遇时的生存。在这里，我们评估了尾巴损失对壁蜥（Podarcis muralis）运动能力的影响。），以及具有再生尾巴的蜥蜴的运动功能的恢复，以及完整或具有再生部分的梭尾的运动动力学。尾巴损失对无障碍空间的运动没有影响，这可能是由于对前肢步幅的负面影响与损失质量和摩擦力的正面影响之间的补偿。我们发现尾部损失对带有散布障碍物的空间中的运动具有明显的负面影响，在这种情况下，尾巴蜥蜴在离开障碍物时会跳远。此外，使用尾巴推离地面的蜥蜴能够进一步接近障碍物，因此在跳跃过程中使用尾巴时似乎很有用。再生完全恢复了蜥蜴的运动能力，但尾巴反掠食者的价值，如后自动运动的强度所指示的，只能部分恢复。根据这些结果，我们认为，连同自动后捕食者能力的恢复，机体运动能力的恢复可能已经成为蜥蜴再生能力演变的重要但经常被忽略的因素。