Morphological evolution through integration: A quantitative study of cranial integration in Homo, Pan, Gorilla and Pongo

Singh, Nandini; Harvati, Katerina; Hublin, Jean Jacques; Klingenberg, Christian Peter

doi:10.1016/j.jhevol.2011.11.006

Cited by 105 publications

(131 citation statements)

References 57 publications

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“…A few studies of shape in Drosophila found no significant directional asymmetry of wing shape [115][116][117][118][119] or mixed results [120][121][122][123][124][125][126], although a series of other studies did find it [15,16,54,56,62,77,85,123]. Similarly, one study on human skulls [127] found no directional asymmetry of shape, whereas several others reported directional asymmetry of the skull [47,68,84,86,90,94,109] and soft tissues of the face and ears [38,66,98,104,105,108]. Further non-significant results were reported from mites [128] and wings of Trichogramma egg parasitoids [129]-but both studies reported results only from relatively small subsamples (≤30 specimens per sample) and tiny organisms, raising questions about statistical power and possible artifacts from mounting very small specimens.…”

Section: Directional Asymmetrymentioning

confidence: 99%

Analyzing Fluctuating Asymmetry with Geometric Morphometrics: Concepts, Methods, and Applications

2015

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Approximately two decades after the first pioneering analyses, the study of shape asymmetry with the methods of geometric morphometrics has matured and is a burgeoning field. New technology for data collection and new methods and software for analysis are widely available and have led to numerous applications in plants and animals, including humans. This review summarizes the concepts and morphometric methods for studying asymmetry of shape and size. After a summary of mathematical and biological concepts of symmetry and asymmetry, a section follows that explains the methods of geometric morphometrics and how they can be used to analyze asymmetry of biological structures. Geometric morphometric analyses not only tell how much asymmetry there is, but also provide information about the patterns of covariation in the structure under study. Such patterns of covariation in fluctuating asymmetry can provide valuable insight about the developmental basis of morphological integration, and have become important tools for evolutionary developmental biology. The genetic basis of fluctuating asymmetry has been studied from empirical and theoretical viewpoints, but serious challenges remain in this area. There are many promising areas for further research that are only little explored at present.

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Section: Directional Asymmetrymentioning

confidence: 99%

Analyzing Fluctuating Asymmetry with Geometric Morphometrics: Concepts, Methods, and Applications

2015

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“…Larger animals generally have access to larger prey due to their increased gape and greater absolute muscular power, and size is further related to morphology via allometry, the tendency of traits to vary with size throughout a morphological structure. Allometry has been demonstrated to be a key contributing factor to craniofacial form across a range of mammalian (17,18) and avian (15,19) clades, and evolvability of body size is proposed to be a major evolutionary pathway in the avian stem (20).…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

The shapes of bird beaks are highly controlled by nondietary factors

Bright

Marugán‐Lobón

Cobb

et al. 2016

Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A.

209

274

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Bird beaks are textbook examples of ecological adaptation to diet, but their shapes are also controlled by genetic and developmental histories. To test the effects of these factors on the avian craniofacial skeleton, we conducted morphometric analyses on raptors, a polyphyletic group at the base of the landbird radiation. Despite common perception, we find that the beak is not an independently targeted module for selection. Instead, the beak and skull are highly integrated structures strongly regulated by size, with axes of shape change linked to the actions of recently identified regulatory genes. Together, size and integration account for almost 80% of the shape variation seen between different species to the exclusion of morphological dietary adaptation. Instead, birds of prey use size as a mechanism to modify their feeding ecology. The extent to which shape variation is confined to a few major axes may provide an advantage in that it facilitates rapid morphological evolution via changes in body size, but may also make raptors especially vulnerable when selection pressures act against these axes. The phylogenetic position of raptors suggests that this constraint is prevalent in all landbirds and that breaking the developmental correspondence between beak and braincase may be the key novelty in classic passerine adaptive radiations.geometric morphometrics | integration | allometry | birds | modularity T he avian beak offers a classic example of adaptation to feeding ecology, with beak morphology frequently considered to represent evolutionary adaptation to specialized trophic niches [e.g., Galápagos finches (1), Hawaiian honeycreepers (2), and Madagascan vangas (3)]. Despite this axiom, we lack quantitative data on the degree to which skull and beak morphology is influenced not only by feeding ecology, but also by other sources of variation or constraint (4). Although the beak is often seen as the target of selection mechanisms closely allied to feeding ecology, such as prey type, feeding style, or beak use, evidence also suggests that beak morphology and variation may be constrained by a number of other factors, including evolutionary history (phylogeny) and development on the component parts of the entire skull. Breakthrough experiments in molecular genetics have shown that the mechanisms driving beak shape variation encompass modifications to the timing of expression of conserved developmental pathways (5-9), resulting in beak diversity described by a few relatively simple geometric transformations (10). However, pleiotropic associations between different skull structures can also contribute to the shape of the avian beak (11), and Sonic hedgehog signaling from the forebrain also relates to the spatial organization of, and changes to, face and beak shape (12)(13)(14). Furthermore, assessments of bird skull phenotypic variation suggest that beak morphology may evolve cohesively with cranial morphology (15,16). Size is also an important consideration when assessing morphological variation. Larger animals gene...

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“…The three dimensional architecture of the human skull passes through continuous and well orchestrated re-modeling in response to evolutionary changes in its each part (4,19). Even a small change in the dimensionality of a single landmark, in the course of evolution, has capacity to redirect the dimensionality of all the skull landmarks, and hence to create a different data set of measurements for inter-landmark distances (3).…”

Section: Evolutionary Aspectmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Studies of morphological integration in the skulls of birds (6) and animals (40) including humans (3,41,42) suggest that individual components of the skull maintain tight interdependence with each other in terms of dimensionality, and a change in the dimensions of the any component may also be reflected in other cranial components (3). This concept may be better understood by observing the interdependence of dimensionality in a deformed human skull where dimensional changes in any of the components would be reflected in whole of the skull.…”

Section: Developmental Aspectmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Morphological integration in human skull and its possible role in etiogenesis of neuropsychiatric disorders: Deciphering the link between evolution, development and disease

A.¹

2017

Preprint

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Structure-function interdependence is a universal phenomenon in biological systems. Any alteration in structural features may result in change in functions-leading to natural selection of a particular trait, or dysfunctions thereof. Many such alterations arise during the course of evolution of a species and may meticulously be traced during embryonic development of an organism. Through, the theoretical construct of morphological integration, a set of phenotypic traits alter in a coordinated and integrated manner during evolution and embryonic development of an organism yielding efficient and environmentally adapted physiological functions pertinent to those structures. Such integration may go awry sometimes, setting the basis for genesis of diseases.Morphological integration in human skull has been established through various methods. The brain-skull co-development is handcuffed through evolution and development, and the very basis of a neuropsychiatric disorder could be underlying in dysmorphogenesis of the skull, its consequent effect on structures, and thus functions of the pertinent brain components. Here we propose that morphological integration in human skull may be mechanistically implied in etiogenesis of certain neuropsychiatric disorders and should be borne in mind during clinical diagnosis and therapeutic interventions.

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Morphological evolution through integration: A quantitative study of cranial integration in Homo, Pan, Gorilla and Pongo

Cited by 105 publications

References 57 publications

Analyzing Fluctuating Asymmetry with Geometric Morphometrics: Concepts, Methods, and Applications

Analyzing Fluctuating Asymmetry with Geometric Morphometrics: Concepts, Methods, and Applications

The shapes of bird beaks are highly controlled by nondietary factors

Morphological integration in human skull and its possible role in etiogenesis of neuropsychiatric disorders: Deciphering the link between evolution, development and disease

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