Morphometrics and hominoid phylogeny: Support for a chimpanzee-human clade and differentiation among great ape subspecies.
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.
Lockwood
Charles A
CA
Institute of Human Origins, Arizona State University, Tempe, AZ 85287, USA. c.lockwood@ucl.ac.uk
Kimbel
William H
WH
Lynch
John M
JM
D000818:Animals; D006071:Gorilla gorilla / Q000145:classification; D015186:Hominidae / Q000145:classification*; D006801:Humans; D002679:Pan troglodytes / Q000145:classification*; D010802:Phylogeny; D011148:Pongo pygmaeus / Q000145:classification; D013045:Species Specificity