On adaptation: an integrative study of jumping behaviour and functional morphology of the hind limb in callitrichid primates as model system

• Applicant: Professor Dr. John A. Nyakatura
• Subject Area: Systematics and Morphology (Zoology) ; Evolution, Anthropology
• Term: from 2016 to 2023
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 320131306

• Final Report Year: 2024

Final Report Abstract

In Summary, the project produced valuable insights into biological adaptation by linking, in methodologically sound fashion, several biologically relevant ‘levels’ of adaptation for one model system, the callitrichid primates. Focusing on the hindlimbs, the project integrated habitat characteristics and habitat utilization with structural analyses of the locomotor system (muscles and bones) and thus linked behaviour, performance, and morphology. This allowed to test hypotheses directly of how ecological differences in behaviour are reflected in the eco-morphology of the species within the framework of this model system. Such integrative studies are rare due to the methodological challenges of combining in-depth behavioural observations in the field and in-depth structural analyses necessitating complex imaging-based analyses (MicroCT and diceCT). Surprisingly, we found the link between these different ‘levels’ to be rather loose. In contrast to our previous assumption, behavioural differences were not clearly reflected in morphological differences. Rather our results underscore the presence of manyto-one mapping, a phenomenon that results in similar function despite different morphological ‘solutions’. In future studies, performance differences could be linked even closer to the functional morphology of the limbs through an integration of in-vivo x-ray analysis (as was originally planned) and computational modelling approaches in a broader comparative framework. Such a study would greatly benefit the understanding of the functional significance of morphological differences. At the same time, analysis of adaptation would benefit from much more detailed knowledge of the behavioural ecology of the species studied (in the here funded project this was limited to leaping behaviour).

Publications

• Leaping and differential habitat use in sympatric tamarins in Amazonian Peru. Journal of Mammalogy, 103(1), 146-158.
  Berles, Patricia; Heymann, Eckhard W.; Golcher, Felix & Nyakatura, John A.
  
• Vertical clinging and leaping induced evolutionary rate shifts in postcranial evolution of tamarins and marmosets (Primates, Callitrichidae). BMC Ecology and Evolution, 21(1).
  Botton-Divet, Léo & Nyakatura, John A.
  
• Linking morphology, performance, and habitat utilization: adaptation across biologically relevant ‘levels’ in tamarins. BMC Ecology and Evolution, 24(1).
  Berles, Patricia; Wölfer, Jan; Alfieri, Fabio; Botton-Divet, Léo; Guéry, Jean-Pascal & Nyakatura, John A.