Abstract
The vestibular system of the inner ear detects the motions of the head and is involved in maintaining balance. For this reason, this organ has been deeply studied and several scientists have tried to link its morphology with the locomotor behavior of an animal. Via high-resolution computed microtomography and geometric morphometric methods, we analyzed the intraspecific variation of the 3D morphology of the bony labyrinth (inner ear) in four species of primates differing in their locomotor adaptations: two being slow-moving taxa (Nycticebus and Perodicticus), and two being fast-moving taxa (Callithrix and Microcebus). Basically, there are very few analyses of the inter-individual variation of this organ in mammals in general, and this approach has never been attempted in primates thus far. Our results show that variation of the bony labyrinth morphology is expressed by the same ways in the different species (e.g., differences in the size, shape, and orientation of the semicircular canals, and in the width and height of the cochlea), but that slow-moving taxa exhibit a higher amount of intraspecific variation than do fast-moving taxa. Our results strengthen support for a previously published hypothesis, according to which a relaxation of the selective pressure applied to the morphology of the bony labyrinth is the likely reason for this higher amount of intraspecific variation in slow-moving taxa, and that it may be related to a reduced functional demand for rapid postural adjustments.
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Acknowledgments
We thank Jacques Cuisin (Muséum National d’Histoire Naturelle [MNHN], Paris), Robert Asher (University of Cambridge), Christopher Zollikofer and Marcia Ponce de León (Anthropological Institute and Museum, Zürich), Loic Costeur (Naturhistorisches Museum Basel, Basel), Nadine Mestre (Laboratoire Vieillissement Cérébral et Pathogenèse des Maladies Neurodégénératives, Montpellier [Petter-Rousseaux collection]), Peter Giere (Museum für Naturkunde, Berlin), and Suzanne Jiquel (ISE-M) for access to osteological collections; Guillaume Billet (MNHN, Paris) and Lionel Hautier (ISE-M) for discussions on this study; and Julien Claude (ISE-M) and Nathan Young (University of California, San Fransisco) for their advice regarding some statistical analyses. We are also grateful to the staff of beamlines ID19 and ID17 of the European Synchrotron Radiation Facility [ESRF], Grenoble) and especially to Paul Tafforeau. Moreover, we would like to thank Guillaume Billet (MNHN, Paris) and another anonymous reviewer who provided formal reviews of this manuscript that significantly enhanced the quality of the current version. Finally, many thanks to the Montpellier RIO Imaging (MRI) and the LabEx CeMEB for the access to the μCT-scanning station Skyscan 1076 (ISE-M). This research was supported by the French ANR-ERC PALASIAFRICA Program (ANR-08-JCJC-0017) and the Laboratoire de Paléontologie (ISE-M). This is ISE-M publication n° 2016–028 SUD.
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Perier, A., Lebrun, R. & Marivaux, L. Different Level of Intraspecific Variation of the Bony Labyrinth Morphology in Slow- Versus Fast-Moving Primates. J Mammal Evol 23, 353–368 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10914-016-9323-3
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10914-016-9323-3