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Abstract
Developmental instability theory suggests that variation in some body parts in part can reflect the ability to buffer development from key environmental and genetic perturbations. Support for this approach comes mainly from assessment of fluctuating asymmetry, or deviations from symmetry of body features that are symmetric at the population level. In order to study dental asymmetry in domestic goats, we sampled 22 adult goat skulls. Bucco-palatine and mesio-distal distances (width and length) of the second molar on each side for each skull, on their occlusal aspect, were measured and compared using standard lineal methods. There was evidence of directional asymmetry, that is, unilateral mastication habits, being the left teeth of the arch slightly but systematically longer than the right. This directional change supported a right chewing side preference in the sample. It is important to highlight that the sample comes from non-pathological specimens. Therefore, it does depict the sample population of animals used in general. The observed asymmetries was not associated with any other cranio-facial abnormalities.
Highlights
Animals body tends to present bilateral symmetric skeletal development, which implies that both right and left sides have the same size and shape [1]
Low levels of Fluctuating asymmetry (FA) are seen as indicators of overall quality or general health condition of individuals
Asymmetry of an individual is measured as the right minus the left value (L-R) of a bilaterally paired trait [3,7], occurring when the sample distribution of the leftright differences is centered on zero [5]
Summary
Animals body tends to present bilateral symmetric skeletal development, which implies that both right and left sides have the same size and shape [1]. This is no more than a tendency, as asymmetry is commonly found and reported in biological literatures both at species, organ, tissue cellular and genetic levels and are not necessarily associated with syndromes, traumas, or pathologies [2]. Fluctuating asymmetry (FA) is frequently used to appraise DI [3] The idea behind this concept is that individuals of low genetic quality cannot control their development precisely, and more often develop different phenotypes on both sides [6]. The measurement of FA is complicated by the distribution of measurement error (that component of the overall variance due to imprecision of measurements)
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