CAREER: Evolution of Morphological Diversity in Primates as revealed by 3D Digital Data, Comprehensive Datasets, and Automated Phenotyping

Duke University, Durham NC

Investigators

Abstract

In this CAREER award Dr. Doug Boyer, along with collaborators, will collect data on primate skeletons in the form of 3D digital imagery of museum specimens and apply newly developed algorithmic methods to analyze and interpret the evolutionary meaning of those data. This research will address fundamental questions about how modern primate diversity came to be, work to refine understanding of the incremental processes that differentiated humanity from its closest relatives. As a result of this research 3D digital models will be added to Duke?s virtual museum (www.morphosource.org), which is accessible to all researchers and the public; the bioinformatics analysis tools his team is developing will enable researchers to analyze and interpret data on geometrically complex aspects anatomical diversity. Boyer will simultaneously work with education scientists connecting this virtual museum to educators and students in ways that emphasize STEM learning and Next Generation Science Standards. In addition, the virtual museum -- open to contributions from any scientist -- will provide a forum where researchers can easily disseminate their data (and theoretical advances stemming from it) to educators and public. In Boyer's 5-year project he will execute studies targeting hypotheses central to perceptions of how primates evolved: 1) Influence of dietary ecology on primate characteristics: mechanical properties of tooth geometry will be quantified and their evolutionary tempo and mode will be modeled across living and fossil primates to see whether a diet of insects or herbaceous material has driven various episodes of diversification. The team will also evaluate whether certain other distinctive features of primate skeletons can be related to dietary needs or other biological roles by assessing patterns of covariation among all traits of interest. 2) Influence of functional constraints on patterns of evolution: Boyer and his team will determine how anatomical solutions to ecological problems in ancestral primates have affected subsequent paths of diversification by running analyses that compare magnitudes and patterns of variation among different regions of the skeleton across primates. This project will contribute multiple studies introducing a new paradigm for testing evolutionary hypotheses. Additionally, it creates a novel bioinformatics infrastructure that democratizes access to morphological datasets and enables a broader community of researchers to analyze such data, setting the stage for synchronizing morphological studies with genomic ones, and will ultimately maximizing the explanatory power of research utilizing morphology to gain insight on evolutionary processes. In particular, molecular and evolutionary-developmental biologists will be able to evaluate the significance of morphological variation associated with genetic and gene-expression data, and biomedical engineers will be able to automate measurement protocols and evaluate variation in their data more rapidly and efficiently.