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SUMMARY:Did high levels of morphological flexibility facilitate colonisati
 on of novel habitats during human evolution? - Dr Laura Buck\, University 
 of Cambridge
DTSTART:20180125T131000Z
DTEND:20180125T140000Z
UID:TALK96925@talks.cam.ac.uk
CONTACT:Lorena Escudero
DESCRIPTION:Homo sapiens has a global distribution\, a remarkable achievem
 ent for a tropical ape. Adaptations enabling this colonisation are intrigu
 ing given suggestions that humans exhibits high levels of physiological an
 d behavioural malleability associated with a ‘colonising niche’. Diffe
 rences in body size/shape between members of the same species from differe
 nt climates are well-known adaptations in mammals\; could relatively flexi
 ble size/shape have been important to human species adapting to novel habi
 tats? If so\, at what point did this flexibility arise? To address these q
 uestions\, a base-line for adaptation to climate must be established by co
 mparison with suitable outgroups. Japanese macaques (Macaca fuscata) are t
 he most northerly living non-human primates. They have great latitudinal s
 pread and overlap with the historical distribution of prehistoric Jomon fo
 ragers\, allowing matched latitude comparisons within monkeys and humans a
 nd making them an ideal outgroup for this study. We compare skeletons of M
 . fuscata from four different latitudes\, including the most northerly and
  most southerly extremes of the species’ distribution. Initial results s
 how inter-group differences in M. fuscata postcranial and cranial size and
  shape. Size varies more than shape\, showing a strong\, positive relation
 ship with latitude. However\, the very small size of the southern-most (is
 land) sample may be affected by resource availability. Allometry-free shap
 e shows geographic patterning and perhaps echoes some trends seen in human
  groups at high latitudes. These insights begin to provide a comparison fo
 r human adaptation to climatic diversity and the role of colonisation in s
 haping the evolution and dispersal of human species.\n\nBuck\, L. T.1\, 2\
 , De Groote\, I.3\, Hamada\, Y.4\, Stock\, J. T.1\n\n1 Department of Archa
 eology\, University of Cambridge\n2 Department of Earth Sciences\, Natural
  History Museum\n3 School of Natural Sciences and Psychology\, Liverpool J
 ohn Moores University\n4 Section of Evolutionary Morphology\, Primate Rese
 arch Institute\, Kyoto University\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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