Browse Items (44 total)

Olfactory cues play an important role in mammalian biology, but have been challenging to assess in the field. Current methods pose problematic issues with sample storage and transportation, limiting our ability to connect chemical variation in scents…

Many primates show responses to dead infants, yet testing explanations for these behaviors has been difficult. Callitrichids present a unique opportunity to delineate between hypotheses, since unlike most species, male caretakers form closer social…

An ossified or 'fused' mandibular symphysis characterizes the origins of the Anthropoidea, a primate suborder that includes humans. Longstanding debate about the adaptive significance of variation in this jaw joint centers on whether a bony…

OBJECTIVES: This study seeks to determine if (a) consumption of hard food items or a mixture of food items leads to the formation of premolar or molar microwear in laboratory capuchin monkeys (Sapajus apella) in one feeding session and (b) rates of…

Previous descriptive work on deciduous dentition of primates has focused disproportionately on great apes and humans. To address this bias in the literature, we studied 131 subadult nonhominoid specimens (including 110 newborns) describing deciduous…

Food texture preference and product acceptance are hypothesized to be influenced by mouth behavior. Recent work identified four mouth behavior (MB) groups that describe most consumers in the United States: Chewers, Crunchers, Smooshers, and Suckers.…

OBJECTIVE: Determine sarcomere length (Ls) operating ranges of the superficial masseter and temporalis in vitro in a macaque model and examine the impact of position-dependent variation on Ls and architectural estimates of muscle function (i.e.,…

Addition of filler particles is a common approach to alter food structure and thereby change sensory properties. The goal of this investigation was to determine how filler particles alter oral processing patterns and sensory texture perception of two…

The lab and field provide differing approaches to studying primate biology. We outline the challenges and benefits of these approaches and demonstrate how collaboration can help bridge these perspectives to provide complementary insight into primate…

The evolutionary success of mammals is rooted in their high metabolic rate. A high metabolic rate is sustainable thanks to efficient food processing and that in turn is facilitated by precise occlusion of the teeth and the acquisition of rhythmic…

Organisms on islands often undergo rapid morphological evolution, providing a platform for understanding mechanisms of phenotypic change. Many examples of evolution on islands involve the vertebrate skeleton. Although the genetic basis of skeletal…

BACKGROUND: In recent years large bibliographic databases have made much of the published literature of biology available for searches. However, the capabilities of the search engines integrated into these databases for text-based bibliographic…

Many animals use olfactory cues to signal information about food resources; however, this particular use of scent has received little attention in primates. Common marmosets (Callithrix jacchus) are exudativores that gouge bark to elicit exudate…

New World monkeys are a diverse primate group and a model for understanding hearing in mammals. However, comparable audiograms do not exist for the larger monkeys, making it difficult to test the hypothesized relationship between interaural distance…

The establishment of a publicly-accessible repository of physiological data on feeding in mammals, the Feeding Experiments End-user Database (FEED), along with improvements in reconstruction of mammalian phylogeny, significantly improves our ability…

Biologists that study mammals continue to discuss the evolution of and functional variation in jaw-muscle activity during chewing. A major barrier to addressing these issues is collecting sufficient in vivo data to adequately capture neuromuscular…

The house mouse is one of the most successful mammals and the premier research animal in mammalian biology. The classical inbred strains of house mice have been artificially modified to facilitate identification of the genetic factors underlying…

Growth hormone is known to stimulate connective tissue, but the degree to which it influences skin biomechanical properties is unclear. This study tested the hypothesis that human growth hormone transgene expression changes the material properties…

Infrared thermography has become a useful tool to assess surface temperatures of animals for thermoregulatory research. However, surface temperatures are an endpoint along the body's core-shell temperature gradient. Skin and fur are the peripheral…

Dietary adaptations specific to the premolar row remain largely undocumented across primates. This study examines how relative premolar size varies among broad dietary groups (i.e., folivores, frugivores, insectivores, hard-object feeders) using a…

We examined how maxillary molar dimensions change with body and skull size estimates among 54 species of living and subfossil strepsirrhine primates. Strepsirrhine maxillary molar areas tend to scale with negative allometry, or possibly isometry,…

With the increase of human activity and corresponding increase in anthropogenic sounds in marine waters of the Arctic, it is necessary to understand its effect on the hearing of marine wildlife. We have conducted a baseline study on the spiral…

Long periods of inactivity in most mammals result in bone loss that may not be completely recoverable during an individual's lifetime regardless of future activity. Prolonged inactivity is normal during hibernation, but it remains uncertain whether…

Since their arrival approximately 200 years ago, the house mice (Mus musculus) on Gough Island (GI) rapidly increased in size to become the largest wild house mice on record. Along with this extreme increase in body size, GI mice adopted a predatory…

New World monkeys display a wide range of masticatory apparatus morphologies related to their diverse diets and feeding strategies. While primatologists have completed many studies of the platyrrhine masticatory apparatus, particularly morphometric…

The architectural arrangement of the fibers within a muscle has a significant impact on how a muscle functions. Recent work on primate jaw-muscle architecture demonstrates significant associations with dietary variation and feeding behaviors. In this…

OBJECTIVES: Dental eruption schedules have been closely linked to life history variables. Here we examine a sample of 50 perinatal primates (28 species) to determine whether life history traits correlate with relative tooth size at birth. MATERIALS…

OBJECTIVES: Platyrrhines span two orders of magnitude in body size and are characterized by diverse feeding behaviors and diets. While size plays an important role in primate feeding behavior and masticatory apparatus morphology, we know little about…

Jaw-joint height (JJH) above the occlusal plane is thought to be influenced by cranial base angle (CBA) and facial angulation during growth. To better understand how JJH relates to midline craniofacial form, we test the hypothesis that relative…

We examined masseter recruitment and firing patterns during chewing in four adult ring-tailed lemurs (Lemur catta), using electromyography (EMG). During chewing of tougher foods, the working-side superficial masseter tends to show, on average, 1.7…

We examined masseter and temporalis recruitment and firing patterns during chewing in five male Belanger's treeshrews (Tupaia belangeri), using electromyography (EMG). During chewing, the working-side masseters tend to show almost three times more…
Output Formats

atom, dcmes-xml, json, omeka-xml, rss2