Doctoral Dissertation Research: An analysis of the evolution of shape change trajectories using 3D geometric morphometrics

在密切相关的动物物种中，生长和发育模式的差异通常是成年解剖学差异的原因。这个博士论文项目将研究一些灵长类动物物种的颅骨解剖学，考虑到生长和发育的轨迹，并使用这些数据来重建祖先物种的生长和发育轨迹。该项目将推进有关灵长类动物适应和生活史的知识，并将产生新的形状测量工具，用于研究生长，发育和解剖学，这些工具将在许多生物学科中有用。本科生将参与形状测量的处理和分析，从而教授他们几何形态测量，数学和统计分析方面的技术技能。该项目还将支持公共科学外联活动，以便与更广泛的受众分享这些生物学概念和方法上的进展。这项调查的目的是研究如何形成颅面生长和发展的演变，产生的形态多样性观察卡他鼻。几何形态测量方法将用于测量26个现存卡他鼻类物种的个体发育颅骨系列，从中计算出个体发育形状变化的轨迹。为了解决祖先的形态，这个项目将重建颅的个体发育轨迹的最后共同祖先（LCA）的所有现存的卡他类，以及那些的LCA的长尾猴，人科，和古人类，允许祖先的轨迹与现存类群的比较。由于成人形态主要是生长和发育模式的产物，这些祖先的个体发育轨迹将用于确定成人卡他鼻类祖先的颅形。该项目还将通过评估尺寸作为“最小进化阻力线”的假设来解决颅骨尺寸在成人形态生产中的作用，从而尺寸变化可能是适应和多样化的第一步，尺寸比形状对环境变化的反应更快。利用系统发育比较方法的最新进展，这一假设将通过直接比较卡他鼻类头骨中个体发育形状变化的矢量来检验，并通过检查卡他鼻症的发生率变化的演变，在颅大小和颅大小-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。

In closely related animal species, differences in patterns of growth and development are often responsible for differences in adult anatomy. This doctoral dissertation project will study cranial anatomy in a number of primate species, taking into account trajectories of growth and development, and use those data to reconstruct the growth and development trajectories of ancestral species. The project will advance knowledge about primate adaptation and life history, and will also generate novel shape measurement tools for studying growth, development and anatomy that will be useful across a number of biological disciplines. Undergraduate students will participate in the processing and analysis of shape measurements, thereby teaching them technical skills in geometric morphometrics, mathematics, and statistical analysis. The project will also support public science outreach activities to share these biological concepts and methodological advances with a broader audience. The objective of this investigation is to examine how evolution has shaped craniofacial growth and development to produce the morphological diversity observed in catarrhines. Geometric morphometric methods will be used to measure an ontogenetic cranial series of 26 extant catarrhine species, from which trajectories of ontogenetic shape change will be calculated. To address ancestral morphologies, this project will reconstruct the cranial ontogenetic trajectory of the last common ancestor (LCA) of all extant catarrhines, as well as those of the LCA of cercopithecoids, hominoids, and hominins, allowing for a comparison of ancestral trajectories with those of extant taxa. As adult morphologies are largely the product of patterns of growth and development, these ancestral ontogenetic trajectories will be used to make determinations about the cranial shapes of adult catarrhine ancestors. This project will also address the role of cranial size in the production of adult morphologies through an evaluation of the hypothesis of size as a 'line of least evolutionary resistance,' whereby size changes may be a first step in adaptation and diversification, with size responding more quickly than shape to environmental change. Using the latest advances in phylogenetic comparative methods, this hypothesis will be tested through direct comparisons of vectors of ontogenetic shape change in the catarrhine skull, and by examining the catarrhine phylogeny for rate shifts in the evolution of cranial size and in cranial size-shape relationships.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.