Doctoral Dissertation Research: Evolution of the forelimbs of suspensory primates

生物适应通常被观察到在一组物种中进化了多次。这一现象可能与一组物种中特定的共生特征的出现有关，这些特征使一些适应的进化比另一些更有可能。在使用悬挂式运动的灵长类动物群体中，这种运动模式似乎已经独立进化了多次。这个博士论文项目调查了灵长类前肢生物特征之间的协变如何影响它们的进化轨迹。该项目有助于对特征的共同变化如何影响新的身体规划的进化，特别是人类直立行走的独特形式的进化的新理解。除了培训研究生外，这个项目还生成了一个大型数据集，可用于培训本科生和高中生学习研究设计、统计和计算机编码。这位博士生计划发布这个项目结果的简短、面向公众的视频摘要，在活跃的科学家和公众之间建立直接的联系。这个项目研究生物特征共同变化的方式如何影响进化轨迹，潜在地使特定的适应套件在某些分支中更常见，同时抑制它们在其他群体中的进化。研究人员计划从该目中收集灵长类前肢骨骼的三维数据，使用进化方面的统计数据来识别与频繁的悬挂行为相关的特征，并使用矩阵检查这些特征在悬挂分类群及其近亲中是如何变化的。关于灵长类悬浮体进化的不同假说预测了悬垂型和非悬浮型群体中不同的特征协变强度和模式。人类、黑猩猩和其他类人猿的共同祖先在多大程度上适应了停职，这一问题正在激烈争论中。通过研究灵长类动物的悬浮进化，这项研究将有助于我们对早期人类进化的理解。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。

Biological adaptations are often observed to have evolved multiple times within a group of species. This phenomenon may be related to the occurrence of particular co-occurring traits within a group of species that make the evolution of some adaptations more likely than others. Among primate groups that use suspensory locomotion, this pattern of movement seems to have evolved multiple times independently. This doctoral dissertation project investigates how covariation among biological traits within the forelimbs of primates affected the trajectory of their evolution. The project contributes to an emerging understanding of how covariation of traits impacts the evolution of new body plans, in particular the evolution of humans’ distinct form of upright walking. In addition to training a graduate student, this project generates a large dataset that can be used to train undergraduate and high school students in study design, statistics, and computer coding. The doctoral student plans to publish short, public-oriented video abstracts of this project’s results, creating a direct link between active scientists and the public.This project studies how changes in the way biological traits covary can affect the trajectory of evolution, potentially making specific adaptive suites more common in certain clades while inhibiting their evolution in other groups. The investigator plans to collect 3-dimensional data on the forelimb bones of primates from across the order, use evolutionarily informed statistics to identify traits that are associated with frequent suspensory behaviors, and examine how these traits covary in suspensory taxa and their close relatives using matrices. Different hypotheses about the evolution of suspension in primates predict different strengths and patterns of trait covariation in suspensory vs non-suspensory groups. The extent to which the common ancestors of humans, chimpanzees, and other apes were adapted for suspension is under active debate. By studying how suspension evolved in primates, this study will contribute to our understanding of early human evolution.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.