Doctoral Dissertation Research: Hard tissue correlates of primate growth rate variation

博士论文研究：硬组织与灵长类动物生长速率变化的相关性

• 批准号: 1945805
• 负责人: Gary Schwartz
• 金额: $ 2.21万
• 依托单位: Arizona State University
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Standard Grant
• 财政年份: 2020
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2020-04-15 至 2021-09-30
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=1945805&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: Doctoral; Dissertation; Research; Hard; tissue

Growth is a central aspect of a species’ biology, and modern humans are fundamentally different in the timing, duration, and pace of our growth compared to other primates. Understanding when and why the modern human growth pattern evolved is key to understanding part of what makes modern humans unique among primates. This doctoral dissertation project examines the links between variation in primate growth rates and hormonal underpinnings via the pituitary gland and a bony structure, the sella turcica. In doing so, it will develop a novel, non-destructive method for estimating individual growth rates and will investigate the effects of ecology and environment on living primates’ growth rates. The insights into pituitary and sella turcica growth and evolution provided by these data also have the potential to inform diagnoses of abnormal pituitary conditions and the etiology of growth deficiencies or diseases related to pituitary hormones. This project will support graduate training and undergraduate research experiences at Arizona State University (ASU), expanding educational opportunities and providing undergraduates with advanced visualization and 3D processing skills that can be applied to fields as varied as engineering and medicine. In addition, the researcher will communicate project findings through science education outreach activities for student and public audiences. Given the importance of growth, the ultimate causes (or selective pressures) that shape growth rates have long been the subject of research, but the proximate mechanisms that underpin variation in growth rates are less well studied. At the proximate level, body growth is the direct result of hormones produced by endocrine glands such as the pituitary. This project builds upon the relationship between the size of the pituitary, which is positively correlated with growth rate across mammalian taxa, and the sella turcica, the bony structure within which the pituitary gland is housed, to first test whether the size of the nonhuman primate sella turcica reflects body growth rate. This goal will be achieved by pairing 3D cranial morphology data with growth data from well-studied primate populations. Second, this research will assess how aspects of ecology and demography (i.e., ultimate causes such as resource availability, food quality, mortality) relate to living primates’ body growth rates both within the study populations and across a comparative sample of 51 species. It will then assess whether these ecological variables also explain variations in relative sella turcica size. Together, the complementary components of this project will contribute to a better understanding of primate growth.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.

生长是物种生物学的中心方面，与其他灵长类动物相比，现代人在生长的时间、持续时间和速度方面都有根本的不同。了解现代人的生长模式是何时以及为什么进化的，这是理解现代人在灵长类动物中独一无二的部分原因的关键。这篇博士论文研究了灵长类动物生长率的变化与荷尔蒙通过脑下垂体腺和骨质结构鞍状突起之间的联系。在这样做的过程中，它将开发一种新的、非破坏性的方法来估计个体的生长率，并将调查生态和环境对现存灵长类生长率的影响。这些数据提供的对垂体和鞍座生长和进化的洞察也有可能为诊断异常的垂体状况和与垂体激素相关的生长缺陷或疾病的病因学提供信息。该项目将支持亚利桑那州立大学(ASU)的研究生培训和本科生研究经验，扩大教育机会，并为本科生提供先进的可视化和3D处理技能，这些技能可应用于工程和医学等各种领域。此外，研究人员将通过面向学生和公众的科学教育外展活动来交流项目成果。鉴于增长的重要性，决定增长率的最终原因(或选择性压力)长期以来一直是研究的主题，但支撑增长率差异的直接机制研究得较少。在最接近的水平上，身体生长是内分泌腺产生的荷尔蒙的直接结果，比如脑下垂体。这个项目建立在垂体大小和鞍骨结构之间的关系上，首先测试非人类灵长类动物鞍骨的大小是否反映了身体的生长速度。垂体腺的大小与哺乳动物的生长速度呈正相关。这一目标将通过将3D颅骨形态数据与来自经过充分研究的灵长类种群的生长数据配对来实现。其次，这项研究将评估生态和人口学方面(即，资源可获得性、食物质量、死亡率等根本原因)与研究种群内和51个物种比较样本中现存灵长类动物的身体增长率之间的关系。然后，它将评估这些生态变量是否也解释了鞍座相对大小的差异。这个项目的互补部分将有助于更好地了解灵长类动物的成长。这一奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的智力优势和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。