Collaborative Research: Feeding Ontogeny at the Interface of Behavior and Morphology

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This research will integrate research on the physical properties of food, the behaviors individuals use while opening and eating foods, and jaw muscle mechanics across a range of ages in two primate species, shedding light on how anatomy and behavior interact to influence feeding performance during important developmental milestones. Results of this research will improve our understanding of how selection for particular feeding behavior strategies during development shapes adult feeding behavior and related musculoskeletal anatomy. Additionally, the findings may inform models for understanding and reconstructing behavior from fossil primates and hominins. The project will foster international research collaborations, provide STEM training opportunities for a female postdoctoral scientist and multiple undergraduate and graduate students, and support four early-career female scientists. Results will be used to develop primate behavior and anatomy exercises for K-12 students and provide training for K-12 teachers to effectively deliver those exercises. Furthermore, findings from this research will be relevant to conservation and community outreach efforts at the field sites. This study will integrate diverse datasets to test primate feeding system form-function hypotheses. The central goal of the proposed research is to examine how immature primates cope with feeding performance constraints, such as maximum jaw gape and bite force, during ontogeny. To address this goal, this study will compare feeding system development in two related primate species, one that exploits hard, tough and relatively large foods, and one that eats smaller, less mechanically-challenging foods. Specifically this project will: 1) integrate experimental and ecological data addressing developmental shifts in food properties, feeding behavior, and feeding system function and morphology in closely related primate species; 2) establish functional relationships between diet and morphology in immature primates to examine how selection for particular feeding behaviors during development relates to adult morphologies and maintains feeding performance throughout ontogeny; and 3) integrate data on feeding system skeletal morphology with data on critical determinants of feeding system performance, including food properties, bite force, and gape. These results contribute to our understanding of extant primate ecomorphology and also provide an integrated model for the appearance and differentiation of diet-driven morphology in fossil taxa.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.