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Morphometrics and hominoid phylogeny: Support for a chimpanzee-human clade and differentiation among great ape subspecies.

ABSTRACT: Taxonomic and phylogenetic analyses of great apes and humans have identified two potential areas of conflict between molecular and morphological data: phylogenetic relationships among living species and differentiation of great ape subspecies. Here we address these problems by using morphometric data. Three-dimensional landmark data from the hominoid temporal bone effectively quantify the shape of a complex element of the skull. Phylogenetic analysis using distance-based methods corroborates the molecular consensus on African ape and human phylogeny, strongly supporting a Pan-Homo clade. Phenetic differentiation of great ape subspecies is pronounced, as suggested previously by mitochondrial DNA and some morphological studies. These results show that the hominoid temporal bone contains a strong phylogenetic signal and reveal the potential for geometric morphometric analysis to shed light on phylogenetic relationships.

SUBMITTER: Lockwood CA

PROVIDER: S-EPMC384751 | biostudies-literature | 2004 Mar

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature

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Morphometrics and hominoid phylogeny: Support for a chimpanzee-human clade and differentiation among great ape subspecies.

Lockwood Charles A CA Kimbel William H WH Lynch John M JM

Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America 20040322 13

Taxonomic and phylogenetic analyses of great apes and humans have identified two potential areas of conflict between molecular and morphological data: phylogenetic relationships among living species and differentiation of great ape subspecies. Here we address these problems by using morphometric data. Three-dimensional landmark data from the hominoid temporal bone effectively quantify the shape of a complex element of the skull. Phylogenetic analysis using distance-based methods corroborates the ...[more]

PMID: 15070722

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Project description:Chimpanzees, humans' closest relatives, are in danger of extinction. Aside from direct human impacts such as hunting and habitat destruction, a key threat is transmissible disease. As humans continue to encroach upon their habitats, which shrink in size and grow in density, the risk of inter-population and cross-species viral transmission increases, a point dramatically made in the reverse with the global HIV/AIDS pandemic. Inhabiting central Africa, the four subspecies of chimpanzees differ in demographic history and geographical range, and are likely differentially adapted to their particular local environments. To quantitatively explore genetic adaptation, we investigated the genic enrichment for SNPs highly differentiated between chimpanzee subspecies. Previous analyses of such patterns in human populations exhibited limited evidence of adaptation. In contrast, chimpanzees show evidence of recent positive selection, with differences among subspecies. Specifically, we observe strong evidence of recent selection in eastern chimpanzees, with highly differentiated SNPs being uniquely enriched in genic sites in a way that is expected under recent adaptation but not under neutral evolution or background selection. These sites are enriched for genes involved in immune responses to pathogens, and for genes inferred to differentiate the immune response to infection by simian immunodeficiency virus (SIV) in natural vs. non-natural host species. Conversely, central chimpanzees exhibit an enrichment of signatures of positive selection only at cytokine receptors, due to selective sweeps in CCR3, CCR9 and CXCR6 -paralogs of CCR5 and CXCR4, the two major receptors utilized by HIV to enter human cells. Thus, our results suggest that positive selection has contributed to the genetic and phenotypic differentiation of chimpanzee subspecies, and that viruses likely play a predominate role in this differentiation, with SIV being a likely selective agent. Interestingly, our results suggest that SIV has elicited distinctive adaptive responses in these two chimpanzee subspecies.

Project description:The extinct dryopithecine Hispanopithecus (Primates: Hominidae), from the Late Miocene of Europe, is the oldest fossil great ape displaying an orthograde body plan coupled with unambiguous suspensory adaptations. On the basis of hand morphology, Hispanopithecus laietanus has been considered to primitively retain adaptations to above-branch quadrupedalism-thus displaying a locomotor repertoire unknown among extant or fossil hominoids, which has been considered unlikely by some researchers. Here we describe a partial skeleton of H. laietanus from the Vallesian (MN9) locality of Can Feu 1 (Vallès-Penedès Basin, NE Iberian Peninsula), with an estimated age of 10.0-9.7 Ma. It includes dentognathic and postcranial remains of a single, female adult individual, with an estimated body mass of 22-25 kg. The postcranial remains of the rib cage, shoulder girdle and forelimb show a mixture of monkey-like and modern-hominoid-like features. In turn, the proximal morphology of the ulna-most completely preserved in the Can Feu skeleton than among previously-available remains-indicates the possession of an elbow complex suitable for preserving stability along the full range of flexion/extension and enabling a broad range of pronation/supination. Such features, suitable for suspensory behaviors, are however combined with an olecranon morphology that is functionally related to quadrupedalism. Overall, when all the available postcranial evidence for H. laietanus is considered, it emerges that this taxon displayed a locomotor repertoire currently unknown among other apes (extant or extinct alike), uniquely combining suspensory-related features with primitively-retained adaptations to above-branch palmigrady. Despite phylogenetic uncertainties, Hispanopithecus is invariably considered an extinct member of the great-ape-and-human clade. Therefore, the combination of quadrupedal and suspensory adaptations in this Miocene crown hominoid clearly evidences the mosaic nature of locomotor evolution in the Hominoidea, as well as the impossibility to reconstruct the ancestral locomotor repertoires for crown hominoid subclades on the basis of extant taxa alone.

Dataset Information

Morphometrics and hominoid phylogeny: Support for a chimpanzee-human clade and differentiation among great ape subspecies.

Publications

Morphometrics and hominoid phylogeny: Support for a chimpanzee-human clade and differentiation among great ape subspecies.

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