Doctoral Dissertation Research: Ontogenetic changes in primate manual and pedal trabecular architecture

在灵长类动物中，人类在很多方面都是独一无二的，包括我们是两足动物（直立行走），我们的身体需要很长时间才能达到成人的大小和形状。根据两足行走的证据，我们的古人类祖先被归类为两足行走，但相对而言，我们对古人类两足行走的生长和发育知之甚少。这个博士论文项目将使用比较灵长类动物的骨骼材料来评估手和脚的骨骼在生长过程中如何随着运动行为的变化而变化。这项研究将推进关于生长如何影响成人骨骼的知识，应用于古人类化石记录，并有可能为骨骼和生长的临床研究提供信息。该项目还将培训未来的科学家，为各种各样的当地学生提供K-12科学课程内容，并向在线数据库提供3D数字数据。研究人员将使用微型计算机断层扫描和小梁骨测量的比较分析（作为运动的代理），以实现以下目标：1)在系统发育背景下描述小梁变化的个体发育轨迹，因为它与代表几种运动模式的灵长类动物已知的行为变化有关；2)研究小梁骨系统发育信号与年龄的关系；3)提高对包括现代人类在内的灵长类动物运动个体发生的进化模式和适应意义的认识；4)通过与现代类群的比较，重建古人类的运动行为。这个项目的结果将有助于解决长期以来关于人类进化的争论，并更好地为灵长类动物的个体发育、形态、功能、系统和运动的未来研究提供信息。该奖项反映了美国国家科学基金会的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的知识价值和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

Humans are unique among primates in many ways, including that we are bipedal (walk upright) and our bodies take a long time to reach adult size and shape. Our hominin ancestors are categorized as such based on evidence for bipedality, but relatively little is known about hominin bipedalism with respect to growth and development. This doctoral dissertation project will use comparative primate skeletal material to assess how hand and foot bones change during growth in response to changes in locomotor (movement) behaviors. The research will advance knowledge about how growth impacts adult bone, with application to the hominin fossil record and the potential to inform clinical research on bone and growth. The project will also train future scientists, provide K-12 science curriculum content to a diverse range of local students, and contribute 3D digital data to online databases.The researchers will use micro-computed tomography and comparative analyses of trabecular bone measurements (as a proxy for locomotion) for multiple elements in the hands and feet of five modern primates in dentally-defined age groups, in order to accomplish the following: 1) describe ontogenetic trajectories of trabecular change in a phylogenetic context as it relates to known behavioral changes in primates representing several locomotor modes; 2) investigate the unexplored relationship of phylogenetic signal and age in trabecular bone; 3) improve understanding of the evolutionary pattern and adaptive significance of primate locomotor ontogeny, including modern humans; and 4) reconstruct hominin locomotor behavior over ontogeny based on comparisons to modern taxa. The results of this project will help address longstanding debates about hominin evolution and better inform future studies of primate ontogeny, form, function, systematics, and locomotion.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.