Doctoral Dissertation Research: Functional Morphology and Niche-Partitioning in Colobines

将研究灭绝和现存的colobine猴物种的骨骼解剖学，以了解身体形态和功能，行为和环境之间的关系，并探索灭绝的形式如何应对气候变化，栖息地丧失以及与较大物种的竞争等力量。项目的发现将作为科学家的资源，不仅对灵长类动物的进化感兴趣，而且对理解运动行为可以告诉我们什么是改变古环境感兴趣。该项目将包括的一些灭绝物种来自也含有早期人类化石的地点，这为研究早期人类进化的环境提供了机会。这项研究将通过俄勒冈州大学的灵长类动物骨骼学和灵长类动物形态测量学实验室提供数据收集和项目开发方面的本科生培训机会。许多现存的colobine物种被列为受威胁或濒危，这项研究将支持灵长类动物保护工作。 人类进化的研究集中在气候和广泛的环境变化对物种多样性的影响。在这个项目中，研究者将专注于灵长类动物和人类进化过程中种间相互作用和竞争的影响。这个项目的目的是描述第一次套相关colobine postcranial仍然是，描述这些仍然是功能形态，并评估这些和其他化石物种的多样性在生态环境中，重点是生态位分区colobine进化中的作用。现存标本和化石标本都将定性和定量地描述。定量部分将包括颅后描述的标准骨骼测量值或在先前研究中被认为与功能相关的骨骼测量值。将对化石标本进行更详细的定性描述，特别是对那些尚未描述的化石标本。这些数据将分析系统发育关系，饮食和体重，以及其他生态相关的变量。

Skeletal anatomy across extinct and living colobine monkey species will be studied to understand relationships among physical form and function, behavior and environment, and to explore how extinct forms may have responded to forces like climate change, habitat loss, and competition with larger species. Project findings will serve as a resource for scientists interested in not only primate evolution, but also for understanding what locomotor behaviors can tell us about changing paleoenvironments. Some of the extinct species that will be included in this project are from sites that also contain early human fossils, providing an opportunity to examine environments in which early humans evolved. This study will provide undergraduate training opportunities in both data collection and project development, through the Primate Osteology and Primate Morphometrics Laboratories at the University of Oregon. Many of the extant colobine species are listed as either threatened or endangered, and this research will support primate conservation efforts. Studies of human evolution have focused on the effects of climatic and broad environmental change on species diversity. In this project, the investigator will focus on the effects of inter-specific interactions and competition during primate and human evolution. The aims of this project are to describe for the first time sets of associated colobine postcranial remains, to describe the functional morphology of these remains, and to assess the diversity of these and other fossil species in an ecological context, with an emphasis on the role of niche partitioning in colobine evolution. Both extant and fossil specimens will be described qualitatively and quantitatively. The quantitative portion will include skeletal measurements that are either standard for postcranial description or have been suggested to be functionally relevant in previous studies. The qualitative descriptions will be performed in more detail on the fossil specimens, particularly on those that have not yet been described. These data will be analyzed with respect to phylogenetic relationships, diet and body mass, and other ecologically relevant variables.