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

人类在许多方面都是灵长类动物中独一无二的，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年人的大小和形状。我们的人类祖先是基于两足动物的证据而被分类的，但相对而言，我们对人类两足动物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骨骼材料来评估手部和足部骨骼在生长过程中如何变化以应对运动（运动）行为的变化。这项研究将推进关于生长如何影响成人骨骼的知识，并将其应用于人类化石记录，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，为当地各种学生提供K-12科学课程内容，并将3D数字数据输入在线数据库。研究人员将使用微计算机断层扫描和骨小梁测量的比较分析（作为运动的代表）在牙齿定义的年龄组中的五种现代灵长类动物的手和脚中的多种元素，为了完成以下任务：1）描述系统发育背景下骨小梁变化的个体发生轨迹，因为它与代表几种运动模式的灵长类动物中的已知行为变化有关; 2）调查骨小梁中系统发育信号和年龄的未探索关系; 3）提高对灵长类运动个体发育的进化模式和适应意义的理解，包括现代人类;和4）基于与现代分类群的比较，重建人类运动行为。该项目的成果将有助于解决关于人类进化的长期争论，并为灵长类个体发育、形态、功能、系统学和运动的未来研究提供更好的信息。该奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并被认为值得通过使用基金会的智力价值和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估来支持。

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.