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Open AccessA preliminary analysis of the effectiveness of online practical laboratory delivery using 3D models for higher education courses in biological anthropology
Practical-based laboratory instruction represents a substantial component of education in biological anthropology, a multidisciplinary field concerned with investigating human evolution, biology, and behaviour...
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Article
Open AccessPatterns of ontogenetic evolution across extant marsupials reflect different allometric pathways to ecomorphological diversity
The relatively high level of morphological diversity in Australasian marsupials compared to that observed among American marsupials remains poorly understood. We undertake a comprehensive macroevolutionary ana...
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Open AccessMethod Reporting with Initials for Transparency (MeRIT) promotes more granularity and accountability for author contributions
Contributor Roles Taxonomy (CRediT) has recently changed how author contributions are acknowledged. To extend and complement CRediT, we propose MeRIT, a new way of writing the Methods section using the author’...
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Open AccessCorrection to: The vocal apparatus: An understudied tool to reconstruct the evolutionary history of echolocation in bats?
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Open AccessThe vocal apparatus: An understudied tool to reconstruct the evolutionary history of echolocation in bats?
Laryngeal echolocation in bats could have evolved following two scenarios: a single origin from a common ancestor or an independent acquisition inside the two clades Yinpterochiroptera and Yangochiroptera. Lat...
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Open AccessSex differences in allometry for phenotypic traits in mice indicate that females are not scaled males
Sex differences in the lifetime risk and expression of disease are well-known. Preclinical research targeted at improving treatment, increasing health span, and reducing the financial burden of health care, ha...
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The Cranial Morphospace of Extant Marsupials
Marsupials represent a major mammalian diversification today restricted geographically to the Americas (but chiefly to the Neotropical Region) and Australasia. The group is highly diverse in morphology, ecolog...
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Open AccessRaptor talon shape and biomechanical performance are controlled by relative prey size but not by allometry
Most birds of prey (raptors), rely heavily on their talons for capturing prey. However, the relationship between talon shape and the ability to take prey is poorly understood. In this study we investigate whet...
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Open AccessPostcranial heterochrony, modularity, integration and disparity in the prenatal ossification in bats (Chiroptera)
Self-powered flight is one of the most energy-intensive types of locomotion found in vertebrates. It is also associated with a range of extreme morpho-physiological adaptations that evolved independently in th...
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Open AccessThe Australian dingo: untamed or feral?
The Australian dingo continues to cause debate amongst Aboriginal people, pastoralists, scientists and the government in Australia. A lingering controversy is whether the dingo has been tamed and has now rever...
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Open AccessResurrecting Darwin’s Niata - anatomical, biomechanical, genetic, and morphometric studies of morphological novelty in cattle
The Niata was a cattle variety from South America that figured prominently in writings on evolution by Charles Darwin. Its shortened head and other aspects of its unusual morphology have been subject of unsett...
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Open AccessShape variation and modularity of skull and teeth in domesticated horses and wild equids
In horses, the morphological changes induced by the process of domestication are reportedly less pronounced than in other species, such as dogs or pigs – although the horses’ disparity has rarely been empirica...
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Open AccessSize Variation under Domestication: Conservatism in the inner ear shape of wolves, dogs and dingoes
A broad sample of wolves, dingoes, and domesticated dogs of different kinds and time periods was used to identify changes in size and shape of the organs of balance and hearing related to domestication and to ...
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Cranial Shape and the Modularity of Hybridization in Dingoes and Dogs; Hybridization Does Not Spell the End for Native Morphology
Australia’s native wild dog, the dingo (Canis dingo), is threatened by hybridization with feral or domestic dogs. In this study we provide the first comprehensive three dimensional geometric morphometric evaluati...
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Comparative anatomy of the osseous inner ear of dog breeds, dingoes and wolves. A study of intraspecific variation and domestication
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Open AccessEvolution of opercle shape in cichlid fishes from Lake Tanganyika - adaptive trait interactions in extant and extinct species flocks
Phenotype-environment correlations and the evolution of trait interactions in adaptive radiations have been widely studied to gain insight into the dynamics underpinning rapid species diversification. In this ...
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Cranial Suture Closure Patterns in Sciuridae: Heterochrony and Modularity
Studies of sequence heterochrony in mammalian evolution have revealed differences in bone ossification between and within major clades. Sequences of late stage developmental events have been less well studied,...
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On the Unique Perspective of Paleontology in the Study of Developmental Evolution and Biases
The growing interest and major advances of the last decades in evolutionary developmental biology (EvoDevo) have led to the recognition of the incompleteness of the Modern Synthesis of evolutionary theory. Her...
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Geographic variation in the greater Japanese shrew-mole, Urotrichus talpoides: Combining morphological and chromosomal patterns
Although much information on the species dynamics of small mammals may be gleaned from the integration of morphological and molecular data sets, the two are not routinely combined when species boundaries and d...
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Skeletogenesis and sequence heterochrony in rodent evolution, with particular emphasis on the African striped mouse, Rhabdomys pumilio (Mammalia)
Data documenting skeletal development in rodents, the most species-rich ‘order’ of mammals, are at present restricted to a few model species, a shortcoming that hinders exploration of the morphological and eco...
