Abstract
The postnatal ontogenetic patterns and processes that underlie species differences in African ape adult mandibular morphology are not well understood and there is ongoing debate about whether African ape faces and mandibles develop via divergent or parallel trajectories of shape change. Using three-dimensional (3D) morphometric data, we first tested when in postnatal development differences in mandibular shape are initially evident between sister species Pan troglodytes and P. paniscus. Next, we tested whether each species has a distinct and non-parallel trajectory of mandibular development. Mandibles sampled across a broad developmental range of wildshot bonobos (n = 44) and chimpanzees (n = 59) were radiographed and aged from their dental development. We then collected 3D landmark surface data from all the mandibles. A geometric morphometric analysis of size-corrected 3D data found that bonobos and chimpanzees had parallel and linear ontogenetic trajectories of mandibular shape change. In contrast, mandibular shape was statistically different between P. paniscus and P. troglodytes as early as infancy, suggesting that species shape differences are already established near or before birth. A linear and stable trajectory of shape change suggests that mandibular ontogeny in these apes is unimpacted by non-linear variation in tooth developmental timing.
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Acknowledgements
We thank Nicholas Jones, Gary Schwartz, Sam Cobb, Nathan Jeffery, Kornelius Kupczik, Don Reid, William Harcourt-Smith and Wendy Dirks for ready support and helpful discussions in collecting and analyzing our data. Louise Humphrey and Paul O’Higgins offered invaluable comments on the study design and the statistical methods used here. We are indebted to the curators at the Natural History Museum, London, the Musée Royal de l’Afrique Centrale, Tervuren, the Powell-Cotton Museum, Kent, and the Royal College of Surgeons of England. This research was funded in part by The Overseas Research Students Awards Scheme and The Graduate School, UCL and by grants to MCD from The Leverhulme Trust and The Royal Society. Lastly, we thank two anonymous reviewers whose valuable comments and suggestions strengthened this paper.
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Boughner, J.C., Dean, M.C. Mandibular Shape, Ontogeny and Dental Development in Bonobos (Pan paniscus) and Chimpanzees (Pan troglodytes). Evol Biol 35, 296–308 (2008). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11692-008-9043-6
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11692-008-9043-6