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

我们将研究已灭绝和尚存的猕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，并探索灭绝的物种可能如何应对气候变化、栖息地丧失和与更大物种的竞争等力量。该项目的发现将为科学家提供资源，这些科学家不仅对灵长类进化感兴趣，而且还了解运动行为可以告诉我们什么是关于古环境变化的信息。这个项目将包括一些灭绝的物种，这些物种来自也包含早期人类化石的遗址，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大学的灵长类骨学和灵长类形态测量学实验室，为本科生提供数据收集和项目开发方面的培训机会。许多现存的共生动物物种都被列为濒危物种，这项研究将支持灵长类动物的保护努力。人类进化研究的重点是气候和广泛环境变化对物种多样性的影响。在这个项目中，研究人员将重点研究灵长类和人类进化过程中物种间的相互作用和竞争的影响。该项目的目的是首次描述几组相关的孔雀科动物颅后遗骸，描述这些遗骸的功能形态，并在生态背景下评估这些化石物种和其他化石物种的多样性，重点是生态位划分在孔雀科动物进化中的作用。现存的和化石标本都将被定性和定量地描述。定量部分将包括骨骼测量，这些测量要么是颅后描述的标准，要么是先前研究中建议的功能相关的。定性描述将对化石标本进行更详细的描述，特别是对那些尚未描述的标本。这些数据将根据系统发育关系、饮食和体重以及其他生态相关变量进行分析。

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.