Morphological correlates of distal fibular morphology with locomotion in great apes, humans, and <i>Australopithecus afarensis</i>

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Abstract

Objectives

Recent studies highlighted the importance of the fibula to further our understanding of locomotor adaptations in fossil hominins. In this study, we present a three‐dimensional geometric morphometric (3D‐GM) investigation of the distal fibula in extant hominids and Australopithecus afarensis with the aim of pointing out morphological correlations to arboreal behavior.

Methods

Three‐dimensional surface meshes of the distal fibula were obtained using computer tomography for 40 extant hominid specimens and laser scanner for five A. afarensis specimens. Distal fibula morphology was quantified positioning 11 fixed landmarks, 40 curve semilandmarks, and 20 surface landmarks on each specimen. A generalized Procrustes analysis (GPA) was carried out on all landmark coordinates followed by Procrustes ANOVA. Principal component analysis (PCA) was performed on the GPA‐aligned shape coordinates. Kruskal‐Wallis tests and Mann–Whitney test were performed on scores along PCs.

Results

Great apes are characterized by a shorter subcutaneous triangular surface (STS), more downward facing fibulotalar articular facets, more anteriorly facing lateral malleolus and wider/deeper malleolar fossa than humans. Within great apes, orangutans are characterized by more medially facing fibulotalar articular facets. Australopithecus afarensis shows a unique distal fibular morphology with several traits that are generally associated more to arboreality and less to bipedalism such as a short STS, a more anteriorly facing, laterally pointing malleolus and deeper and larger malleolar fossa.

Conclusions

The distal fibula morphology is indicative of locomotor patterns within extant hominids. The 3D‐GM method presented here can be successfully used to further our understanding of arboreal adaptations in fossil hominins.

Abstract

Distal fibula morphology of extant hominids and Australopithecus afarensis.

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Most cited references 107

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TimeTree: A Resource for Timelines, Timetrees, and Divergence Times.

Sudhir Kumar, Glen Stecher, Michael Suleski … (2017)

Evolutionary information on species divergence times is fundamental to studies of biodiversity, development, and disease. Molecular dating has enhanced our understanding of the temporal patterns of species divergences over the last five decades, and the number of studies is increasing quickly due to an exponential growth in the available collection of molecular sequences from diverse species and large number of genes. Our TimeTree resource is a public knowledge-base with the primary focus to make available all species divergence times derived using molecular sequence data to scientists, educators, and the general public in a consistent and accessible format. Here, we report a major expansion of the TimeTree resource, which more than triples the number of species (>97,000) and more than triples the number of studies assembled (>3,000). Furthermore, scientists can access not only the divergence time between two species or higher taxa, but also a timetree of a group of species and a timeline that traces a species' evolution through time. The new timetree and timeline visualizations are integrated with display of events on earth and environmental history over geological time, which will lead to broader and better understanding of the interplay of the change in the biosphere with the diversity of species on Earth. The next generation TimeTree resource is publicly available online at http://www.timetree.org.

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Endurance running and the evolution of Homo.

Dennis M Bramble, Daniel E Lieberman (2004)

Striding bipedalism is a key derived behaviour of hominids that possibly originated soon after the divergence of the chimpanzee and human lineages. Although bipedal gaits include walking and running, running is generally considered to have played no major role in human evolution because humans, like apes, are poor sprinters compared to most quadrupeds. Here we assess how well humans perform at sustained long-distance running, and review the physiological and anatomical bases of endurance running capabilities in humans and other mammals. Judged by several criteria, humans perform remarkably well at endurance running, thanks to a diverse array of features, many of which leave traces in the skeleton. The fossil evidence of these features suggests that endurance running is a derived capability of the genus Homo, originating about 2 million years ago, and may have been instrumental in the evolution of the human body form.

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Distance-based tests for homogeneity of multivariate dispersions.

Marti J. Anderson (2006)

The traditional likelihood-based test for differences in multivariate dispersions is known to be sensitive to nonnormality. It is also impossible to use when the number of variables exceeds the number of observations. Many biological and ecological data sets have many variables, are highly skewed, and are zero-inflated. The traditional test and even some more robust alternatives are also unreasonable in many contexts where measures of dispersion based on a non-Euclidean dissimilarity would be more appropriate. Distance-based tests of homogeneity of multivariate dispersions, which can be based on any dissimilarity measure of choice, are proposed here. They rely on the rotational invariance of either the multivariate centroid or the spatial median to obtain measures of spread using principal coordinate axes. The tests are straightforward multivariate extensions of Levene's test, with P-values obtained either using the traditional F-distribution or using permutation of either least-squares or LAD residuals. Examples illustrate the utility of the approach, including the analysis of stabilizing selection in sparrows, biodiversity of New Zealand fish assemblages, and the response of Indonesian reef corals to an El Niño. Monte Carlo simulations from the real data sets show that the distance-based tests are robust and powerful for relevant alternative hypotheses of real differences in spread.

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Author and article information

Contributors

Damiano Marchi:

ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-6331-8783

damiano.marchi@unipi.it

Journal

Journal ID (nlm-ta): Am J Biol Anthropol

Journal ID (iso-abbrev): Am J Biol Anthropol

Journal ID (doi): 10.1002/(ISSN)2692-7691

Journal ID (publisher-id): AJPA

Title: American Journal of Biological Anthropology

Publisher: John Wiley & Sons, Inc. (Hoboken, USA )

ISSN (Electronic): 2692-7691

Publication date (Electronic): 17 March 2022

Publication date (Print): June 2022

Volume: 178

Issue: 2 ( doiID: 10.1002/ajpa.v178.2 )

Pages: 286-300

Affiliations

[ ¹ ] Department of Biology University of Pisa Pisa

[ ² ] Centre for the Exploration of the Deep Human Journey University of the Witwatersrand Wits

[ ³ ] Centro Nacional de Investigación sobre la Evolución Humana (CENIEH) Burgos Spain

[ ⁴ ] Paleoanthropology Group Museo Nacional de Ciencias Naturales (MNCN‐CSIC) Madrid Spain

Author notes

[*] [* ] Correspondence

Damiano Marchi, Department of Biology, University of Pisa, via Derna 1, Pisa, 56126, Italy.

Email: damiano.marchi@ 123456unipi.it

Author information

Damiano Marchi https://orcid.org/0000-0002-6331-8783

Markus Bastir https://orcid.org/0000-0002-3141-3401

Article

Publisher ID: AJPA24507

DOI: 10.1002/ajpa.24507

PMC ID: 9314891

SO-VID: 931fc1a8-62e9-4cc0-8312-72a131e62657

License:

This is an open access article under the terms of the http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ License, which permits use, distribution and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

History

Date revision received : 15 January 2022

Date received : 24 September 2020

Date accepted : 22 February 2022

Page count

Figures: 6, Tables: 8, Pages: 15, Words: 13562

Funding

Funded by: Ministerio de Ciencia e Innovación , doi 10.13039/501100004837;

Award ID: PID2020‐115854GB‐I00

Funded by: Ministerio de Economía y Competitividad , doi 10.13039/501100003329;

Award ID: CGL2015‐63648‐P

Custom metadata

source-schema-version-number 2.0

cover-date June 2022

details-of-publishers-convertor Converter:WILEY_ML3GV2_TO_JATSPMC version:6.1.7 mode:remove_FC converted:26.07.2022

Keywords: 3d geometric morphometrics,arboreal locomotion,bipedal locomotion,fibula,functional morphology

Data availability:

Keywords: 3d geometric morphometrics, arboreal locomotion, bipedal locomotion, fibula, functional morphology

Morphological correlates of distal fibular morphology with locomotion in great apes, humans, and Australopithecus afarensis

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Abstract

Objectives

Methods

Results

Conclusions

Abstract

Related collections

Horses and Humans Research Foundation

Most cited references 107

TimeTree: A Resource for Timelines, Timetrees, and Divergence Times.

Endurance running and the evolution of Homo.

Distance-based tests for homogeneity of multivariate dispersions.

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Contributors

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Affiliations

Author notes

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