Ancient Primates Research Articles

A sweet tooth gave ancient primates a mouthful of woe

A sweet tooth gave ancient primates a mouthful of woe

Antimicrobial Functions of Lactoferrin Promote Genetic Conflicts in Ancient Primates and Modern Humans.

Lactoferrin is a multifunctional mammalian immunity protein that limits microbial growth through sequestration of nutrient iron. Additionally, lactoferrin possesses cationic protein domains that directly bind and inhibit diverse microbes. The implications for these dual functions on lactoferrin evolution and genetic conflicts with microbes remain unclear. Here we show that lactoferrin has been subject to recurrent episodes of positive selection during primate divergence predominately at antimicrobial peptide surfaces consistent with long-term antagonism by bacteria. An abundant lactoferrin polymorphism in human populations and Neanderthals also exhibits signatures of positive selection across primates, linking ancient host-microbe conflicts to modern human genetic variation. Rapidly evolving sites in lactoferrin further correspond to molecular interfaces with opportunistic bacterial pathogens causing meningitis, pneumonia, and sepsis. Because microbes actively target lactoferrin to acquire iron, we propose that the emergence of antimicrobial activity provided a pivotal mechanism of adaptation sparking evolutionary conflicts via acquisition of new protein functions.

Using carbon isotopes to track dietary change in modern, historical, and ancient primates

Stable isotope analysis can be used to document dietary changes within the lifetimes of individuals and may prove useful for investigating fallback food consumption in modern, historical, and ancient primates. Feces, hair, and enamel are all suitable materials for such analysis, and each has its own benefits and limitations. Feces provide highly resolved temporal dietary data, but are generally limited to providing dietary information about modern individuals and require labor-intensive sample collection and analysis. Hair provides less well-resolved data, but has the advantage that one or a few hair strands can provide evidence of dietary change over months or years. Hair is also available in museum collections, making it possible to investigate the diets of historical specimens. Enamel provides the poorest temporal resolution of these materials, but is often preserved for millions of years, allowing examination of dietary change in deep time. We briefly discuss the use of carbon isotope data as it pertains to recent thinking about fallback food consumption in ancient hominins and suggest that we may need to rethink the functional significance of the australopith masticatory package.

Matthew J. Ravosa and Marian Dagosto (eds): Grasping, Leaping, and Creeping: Who are the Ancient Primates? Primate Origins: Adaptation and Evolution

Matthew J. Ravosa and Marian Dagosto (eds): Grasping, Leaping, and Creeping: Who are the Ancient Primates? Primate Origins: Adaptation and Evolution

Mating system of Microcebus murinus.

Microcebus murinus, a small nocturnal lemur from Madagascar, has retained features of ancient primates. Based on these ancestral traits, its social organization has often been used as a model for early primate social systems. In captivity it breeds polygynously, i.e., one male mates with several females, while females usually copulate only with the dominant male. The present project tested whether or not sexual size dimorphism, spatial distribution, and relative testis size of M. murinus correspond with predictions of the sexual selection theory concerning polygynous mating systems. The study was combined with a mark-recapture study and radio tracking of 12 animals in 1993 in a dry deciduous forest of western Madagascar at the end of the dry season. Large overlapping home ranges in males, lack of sexual size dimorphism, and relatively large testes suggest a multi-male mating system, i.e., one that is promiscuous rather than polygynous.

Egyptian oligocene primates: A review

The study of the early anthropoids or anthropoideans from the Oligocene badlands of the Fayum Province, Egypt, covers the greater part of this century. This review discusses the successive stages of our knowledge of these animals, which have become the oldest well understood kinds of higher primates or anthropoideans. The study of the first finds, made early in the century, is reviewed and the various interpretations of these scanty remains are discussed. All initial discussions were based on only four specimens. Essentially all of the early rankings made by authors who, in many cases, had not seen the actual specimens were incorrect. Nevertheless it was realized that these Fayum primates were somehow the earliest relatives of apes and monkeys then known. Prominent scholars questioned whether one of these,Apidium, was even a primate. At the end of the 1950s two specimens, found at the beginning of the century, were located at the American Museum of Natural History. Their description kindled new interest in the Fayum primates and established that they showed cranial characters of higher primates. Beginning in 1961 a sequence of four periods of development in the study of these important ancient pri-mates began. The first was a series of eight expeditions from Yale Univer-sity conducted from 1961 to 1968. These cooperative projects conducted with the Geological Survey and Mining Authority of Egypt (EGSMA) increased the number of primate specimens from six or eight to over 500. These dis-coveries led to the description of new species as well as reports on the first limb elements and cranial remains. After this phase came a period when the desert Fayum was closed to exploration and publications were concerned mainly with continued description of the new finds. The third major period of research that is outlined here, between 1977 and 1989, came with re-newed field work in Egypt now carried out cooperatively between Duke University and EGSMA. The research on Fayum primates in this period was greatly expanded, as is explained in this paper, because: 1) new tech-niques enabled the recovery of extensive collections of postcranial elements as well as skulls and facial crania, which made possible revisions of both anatomy of the propliopithecids and parapithecids; 2) an international in-terdisciplinary team published extensively on the background context for the primates including studies on environment, dating, and geological set-ting; and 3) prosimians in addition to the basal Anthropoidea were found. Since 1990 research on Fayum primates has been expanded even more to include a larger number of researchers, many trained through field work at the various Fayum localities, and although important Oligocene finds continue to be made, a whole new world of Eocene anthropoidean and prosimian primates has been discovered there. © Wiley-Liss, Inc.