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SUMMARY:Did high levels of morphological flexibility facilitate colonisati
 on of novel habitats during human evolution? - Dr. Laura Buck (Department 
 of Archaeology\, University of Cambridge)
DTSTART:20171026T121000Z
DTEND:20171026T130000Z
UID:TALK80981@talks.cam.ac.uk
CONTACT:Lorena Escudero
DESCRIPTION:Buck\, L. T.1\, 2\, De Groote\, I.3\, Hamada\, Y.4\, Stock\, J
 . T.1\n\n1 Department of Archaeology\, University of Cambridge\n2 Departme
 nt of Earth Sciences\, Natural History Museum\n3 School of Natural Science
 s and Psychology\, Liverpool John Moores University\n4 Section of Evolutio
 nary Morphology\, Primate Research Institute\, Kyoto University\n\nHomo sa
 piens has a global distribution\, a remarkable achievement for a tropical 
 ape. Adaptations enabling this colonisation are intriguing given suggestio
 ns that humans exhibits high levels of physiological and behavioural malle
 ability associated with a ‘colonising niche’. Differences in body size
 /shape between members of the same species from different climates are wel
 l-known adaptations in mammals\; could relatively flexible size/shape have
  been important to human species adapting to novel habitats? If so\, at wh
 at point did this flexibility arise? To address these questions\, a base-l
 ine for adaptation to climate must be established by comparison with suita
 ble outgroups. Japanese macaques (Macaca fuscata) are the most northerly l
 iving non-human primates. They have great latitudinal spread and overlap w
 ith the historical distribution of prehistoric Jomon foragers\, allowing m
 atched latitude comparisons within monkeys and humans and making them an i
 deal outgroup for this study. We compare skeletons of M. fuscata from four
  different latitudes\, including the most northerly and most southerly ext
 remes of the species’ distribution. Initial results show inter-group dif
 ferences in M. fuscata postcranial and cranial size and shape. Size varies
  more than shape\, showing a strong\, positive relationship with latitude.
  However\, the very small size of the southern-most (island) sample may be
  affected by resource availability. Allometry-free shape shows geographic 
 patterning and perhaps echoes some trends seen in human groups at high lat
 itudes. These insights begin to provide a comparison for human adaptation 
 to climatic diversity and the role of colonisation in shaping the evolutio
 n and dispersal of human species.\n\nFunding: This work was supported by t
 he European Research Council (ADaPt Project: FP7-IDEAS-ERC 617627).  
LOCATION:The Richard King Room\, Darwin College
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