Getting its feet on the ground : elucidating Paralouatta's semi-terrestriality using the virtual morpho-functional toolbox
Püschel, Thomas (University of Oxford. Institute of Cognitive and Evolutionary Anthropology. Primate Models for Behavioural Evolution Lab (UK))
Marcé Nogué, Jordi (Institut Català de Paleontologia Miquel Crusafont)
Gladman, Justin (Duke University. Shared Materials Instrumentation Facility (USA))
Patel, Biren A. (University of Southern California. Department of Biological Sciences. Human and Evolutionary Biology Section (USA))
Almécija, Sergio (Institut Català de Paleontologia Miquel Crusafont)
Sellers, William (University of Manchester. Department of Earth and Environmental Sciences (UK))

Data:	2020
Resum:	Currently, there are no living platyrrhine primates inhabiting the main Caribbean islands. Nevertheless, the fossil record of this area has provided outstanding findings of different New World monkeys that were part of a diverse radiation exhibiting remarkably unusual morphologies. Among these, the Cuban genus Paralouatta corresponds to one of the most enigmatic primates ever found in the Greater Antilles. Some researchers have argued that Paralouatta's post-cranium shows evidence of semi-terrestriality, a locomotor adaptation that is unusual, if not unique, in platyrrhine evolutionary history. Whether or not Paralouatta was truly semi-terrestrial remains uncertain, however, due to a lack of more sophisticated functional analyses on its morphology. Using novel virtual morpho-functional techniques on a comparative sample of 3D talar models belonging to diverse primate species representing three substrate preferences, this study aims to further evaluate whether Paralouatta was a semi-terrestrial genus or not. Geometric morphometrics and finite element analysis were used to empirically assess shape and biomechanical performance, respectively, and then several machine-learning (ML) classification algorithms were trained using both morphometric and biomechanical data to elucidate the substrate preference of the fossils. The ML algorithms categorized the Paralouatta specimens as either arboreal or as species commonly active on both ground and in trees. These mixed results are suggestive of some level of semi-terrestriality, thus representing the only known example of this locomotor behavior in platyrrhine evolutionary history.
Ajuts:	Ministerio de Economía y Competitividad CGL2017-82654-P
Nota:	Altres ajuts: CERCA Programme/Generalitat de Catalunya
Drets:	Aquest document està subjecte a una llicència d'ús Creative Commons. Es permet la reproducció total o parcial, la distribució, la comunicació pública de l'obra i la creació d'obres derivades, fins i tot amb finalitats comercials, sempre i quan es reconegui l'autoria de l'obra original.
Llengua:	Anglès
Document:	Article ; recerca ; Versió publicada
Matèria:	Platyrrhine ; Semi-terrestriality ; Machine-learning ; Geometric morphometrics ; Finite element analysis ; Paralouatta ; Talus
Publicat a:	Frontiers in Earth Science, Vol. 8 (March 2020) , art. 79, ISSN 2296-6463

DOI: 10.3389/feart.2020.00079

15 p, 13.4 MB

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