3D genital shape complexity in female marine mammals

Orbach, Dara N.; Brassey, Charlotte A.; Gardiner, James

doi:10.1002/ece3.7269

Cited by 18 publications

(10 citation statements)

References 36 publications

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“…These findings are in line with previous studies that applied alpha shapes to genital form, which also found consistency between complexity scores and informal qualitative observations (Gardiner et al, 2018;Orbach et al, 2021). Indeed, all species in the family Lutrinae are grouped with low PC1 scores, commensurate with their 'simple' shape at both coarse and fine scales.…”

Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 91%

Baculum shape complexity correlates to metrics of post‐copulatory sexual selection in Musteloidea

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Grant

Gardiner

et al. 2023

Journal of Morphology

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The penis bone, or baculum, is present in many orders of mammals, although its function is still relatively unknown, mainly due to the challenges with studying the baculum in vivo. Suggested functions include increasing vaginal friction, prolonging intromission and inducing ovulation. Since it is difficult to study baculum function directly, functional morphology can give important insights. Shape complexity techniques, in particular, are likely to offer a useful metric of baculum morphology, especially since finding homologous landmarks on such a structure is challenging.This study focuses on measuring baculum shape complexity in the Musteloidea-a large superfamily spanning a range of body sizes with well-developed, qualitatively diverse bacula. We compared two shape complexity metrics-alpha shapes and ariaDNE and conducted analyses over a range of six different coefficients, or bandwidths, in 32 species of Musteloidea. Overall, we found that shape complexity, especially at the baculum distal tip, is associated with intromission duration using both metrics. These complexities can include hooks, bifurcations and other additional projections. In addition, alpha shapes complexity was also associated with relative testes mass. These results suggest that post-copulatory mechanisms of sexual selection are probably driving the evolution of more complex-shaped bacula tips in Musteloidea and are likely to be especially involved in increasing intromission duration during copulation.

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Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 91%

Baculum shape complexity correlates to metrics of post‐copulatory sexual selection in Musteloidea

Clear

Grant

Gardiner

et al. 2023

Journal of Morphology

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“…Models in Collection 1 were stored in a 3D voxel format, and the points clouds were produced by taking the row, column and depth of each voxel's location as the x, y and z coordinates respectively and randomly down-sampling to 100,000 points. Previous analyses [30,21,31] have found 100,000 points to be a good compromise between retaining sufficient detail of the original model and minimising calculation times. The volume of each model in Collection 1 was calculated as the sum of the number of voxels in the original model.…”

Section: Alpha-shape Complexity (J Gardiner and Cmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Alpha-shape complexity algorithm. Once model point clouds, and their associated volumes and reference lengths, had been calculated, the alpha-shape complexity algorithm (originally developed for analysing biological datasets lacking homologous landmarks [30,21,31]) was run. Alpha-shapes [32] are a suite of shapes fitted to underlying point clouds, with the 'tightness' of their fit being determined by the value of the radius α.…”

Section: Alpha-shape Complexity (J Gardiner and Cmentioning

confidence: 99%

SHREC’21: Quantifying shape complexity

Arslan

Haridis

Rosin

et al. 2022

Computers & Graphics

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“…Additional difficulty is that a large part of the relevant anatomical literature was published in German (and perhaps other languages), such that a large knowledge base is difficult to access for many researchers. As these and other reasons for the lack of attention to clitoral anatomy are being increasingly overcome in recent decades, we observe intensified research into the details of the female reproductive anatomy, its function and evolution ( Puppo 2013 ; Cunha et al 2014 ; Lima et al 2015 ; Pavlicev and Wagner 2016 ; Sinclair et al 2017 ; Orbach et al 2019 ; Pavlicev et al 2019 ; Levin 2019 ; Orbach et al 2021 ; Brennan et al 2022 ). To further foster this direction of research, we aim at summarizing the comparative anatomical information currently available.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Female Genital Variation Far Exceeds That of Male Genitalia: A Review of Comparative Anatomy of Clitoris and the Female Lower Reproductive Tract in Theria

Pavličev

Herdina

Wagner

2022

Integrative and Comparative Biology

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A review of the literature on the anatomy of the lower female genital tract in therian mammals reveals, contrary to the general perception, a large amount of inter-specific variation. Variation in female external genitalia is anatomically more radical than that in the male genitalia. It includes the absence of whole anatomical units, like the cervix in many Xenarthra, or the absence of the urogenital sinus (UGS), as well as the complete spatial separation of the external clitoral parts from the genital canal (either vagina or UGS). A preliminary phylogenetic analysis shows two patterns. Some morphs are unique to early branching clades, like the absence of the cervix, while others arose multiple times independently, like the flattening out or loss of the UGS, or the extreme elongation of the clitoris. Based on available information, the ancestral eutherian configuration of the external female genitalia included a cervix, a single vaginal segment, a tubular UGS, and an unperforated clitoris close to the entrance of the genital canal. The evidence for either bilobed or unitary glandes clitorides is ambivalent. Despite the wealth of information available, many gaps in knowledge remain and will require a community-wide effort to come to a more robust model of female genital evolutionary patterns.

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3D genital shape complexity in female marine mammals

Abstract: This is an open access article under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits use, distribution and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

Cited by 18 publications

References 36 publications

Baculum shape complexity correlates to metrics of post‐copulatory sexual selection in Musteloidea

Baculum shape complexity correlates to metrics of post‐copulatory sexual selection in Musteloidea

SHREC’21: Quantifying shape complexity

Female Genital Variation Far Exceeds That of Male Genitalia: A Review of Comparative Anatomy of Clitoris and the Female Lower Reproductive Tract in Theria

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