Doctoral Dissertation Research: Functional Morphology and Niche-Partitioning in Colobines

University Of Oregon Eugene, Eugene OR

Investigators

Abstract

Skeletal anatomy across extinct and living colobine monkey species will be studied to understand relationships among physical form and function, behavior and environment, and to explore how extinct forms may have responded to forces like climate change, habitat loss, and competition with larger species. Project findings will serve as a resource for scientists interested in not only primate evolution, but also for understanding what locomotor behaviors can tell us about changing paleoenvironments. Some of the extinct species that will be included in this project are from sites that also contain early human fossils, providing an opportunity to examine environments in which early humans evolved. This study will provide undergraduate training opportunities in both data collection and project development, through the Primate Osteology and Primate Morphometrics Laboratories at the University of Oregon. Many of the extant colobine species are listed as either threatened or endangered, and this research will support primate conservation efforts. Studies of human evolution have focused on the effects of climatic and broad environmental change on species diversity. In this project, the investigator will focus on the effects of inter-specific interactions and competition during primate and human evolution. The aims of this project are to describe for the first time sets of associated colobine postcranial remains, to describe the functional morphology of these remains, and to assess the diversity of these and other fossil species in an ecological context, with an emphasis on the role of niche partitioning in colobine evolution. Both extant and fossil specimens will be described qualitatively and quantitatively. The quantitative portion will include skeletal measurements that are either standard for postcranial description or have been suggested to be functionally relevant in previous studies. The qualitative descriptions will be performed in more detail on the fossil specimens, particularly on those that have not yet been described. These data will be analyzed with respect to phylogenetic relationships, diet and body mass, and other ecologically relevant variables.