Contextualising primate origins – an ecomorphological framework

Abstract

Ecomorphology -the characterisation of the adaptive relationship between an organism's morphology and its ecological role -has long been central to theories of the origin and early evolution of the primate order. This is exemplified by two of the most influential theories of primate origins: Matt Cartmill's Visual Predation Hypothesis, and Bob Sussman's Angiosperm Co-Evolution Hypothesis. However, the study of primate origins is constrained by the absence of data directly documenting the events under investigation, and has to rely instead on a fragmentary fossil record and the methodological assumptions inherent in phylogenetic comparative analyses of extant species. These constraints introduce particular challenges for inferring the ecomorphology of primate origins, as morphology and environmental context must first be inferred before the relationship between the two can be considered. Fossils can be integrated in comparative analyses and observations of extant model species and laboratory experiments of form-function relationships are critical for the functional interpretation of the morphology of extinct species. Recent developments have led to important advancements, including phylogenetic comparative methods based on more realistic models of evolution, and improved methods for the inference of clade divergence times, as well as an improved fossil record. This contribution will review current perspectives on the origin and early evolution of primates, paying particular attention to their phylogenetic (including cladistic relationships and character evolution) and environmental (including chronology, geography, and physical environments) contextualisation, before attempting an up-todate ecomorphological synthesis of primate origins.

Evolution of cortical geometry and its link to function, behaviour and ecology

“…Hypotheses about the evolutionary history of primates are manifold 106 but have remained elusive to quantitative evaluation 22 . Our analysis of the joint morphological space of the neocortex of Euarchontoglires enables for the first time to study both the conserved topographical structure of cortical function as well as deriving a data-driven modular decomposition of its evolution.…”

“…Our analysis of the joint morphological space of the neocortex of Euarchontoglires enables for the first time to study both the conserved topographical structure of cortical function as well as deriving a data-driven modular decomposition of its evolution. Our resulting estimate of the sequence of evolutionary steps of cortical development in the deep ancestral human lineage can be interpreted within the frameworks of neuroethology 107 , ecomorphology 106 , and phylogenetic refinement 15 .…”

Sustainable development as a driver for educational innovation in engineering school: the case of UniLaSalle

“…This view is now relatively widespread (e.g., Rose, 2006;Silcox and Gunnell, 2008;. However, many recent phylogenetic studies still place at least some of the families of these 'plesiadapiforms' outside the order Primates (e.g., Fleagle, 1998;Wible et al, 2007;Gingerich, 2012;Ni et al, 2013Ni et al, , 2016Soligo and Smaers, 2016). The most logical (but not necessarily the most widespread) way to proceed would be to call Primates all descendants of the last common ancestor of extant primates (original concept of Primates and crown definition as for all other mammalian orders), thus excluding 'plesiadapiforms' in their original sense.…”