Primate tails

Ancestral state reconstruction and determinants of interspecific variation in primate tail length

Bibliographic Data

ID8314535
AuthorsSandro Sehner (0000-0002-6006-8096, Department of Anthropology/Sociobiology University of Göttingen Göttingen Germany), Claudia Fichtel (0000-0002-8346-2168, Behavioral Ecology and Sociobiology Unit German Primate Center – Leibniz Institute for Primate Research Göttingen Germany), Peter M Kappeler (0000-0002-4801-487X, Department of Anthropology/Sociobiology University of Göttingen Göttingen Germany, corresponding author)
Year2018
Volume167
Issue4
Pages750-759
Publication date2018-12-01
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueAmerican Journal of Physical Anthropology (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0002-9483 • E-ISSN: 1096-8644
PublisherWiley (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.1002/ajpa.23703
PMID30341951
OpenAlexW2896666302
LanguageEN
References cited51

OBJECTIVE: Living primates vary considerably in tail length-body size relation, ranging from tailless species to those where the tail is more than twice as long as the body. Because the general pattern and determinants of tail evolution remain incompletely known, we reconstructed evolutionary changes in relative tail length across all primates and sought to explain interspecific variation in this trait. METHODS: We combined data on tail length, head-body length, intermembral index (IMI), habitat use, locomotion type, and range latitude for 340 species from published sources. We reconstructed the evolution of relative tail length to identify all independent cases of regime shifts on a primate phylogeny, using several methods based on Ornstein-Uhlenbeck (OU) models. Accounting for phylogeny, we also examined the effects of habitat, locomotion type, distance from the equator and IMI on interspecific variation in tail length-body size relation. RESULTS: Primate tail length is not sexually dimorphic. A phylogenetic reconstruction allowing multiple optima explains the observed regime shifts best. During the evolutionary history of primates, relative tail length changed 50 times under an OU model. Specifically, relative tail length increased 26 and decreased 24 times. Most of these changes occurred among Old World primates. Among the variables tested here, interspecific variation in IMI and the difference between leaping and non-leaping locomotion explained interspecific variation in relative tail length: Evolutionary decreases in relative tail length are generally associated with an increase in IMI and an absence of leaping behavior. CONCLUSIONS: Regime shifts for relative tail length in living primates occurred in concert with fundamental changes in IMI and a change from leaping to non-leaping locomotion, or vice versa. Exceptions from this general pattern are linked to the presence of a prehensile tail or specialized foraging strategies. Thus, the primate tail appears to have evolved in functional coordination with limb proportions, presumably to assist body balance

Allometry · Biology · Evolutionary biology · Interspecific competition · Phylogenetic comparative methods · Phylogenetic tree · Phylogenetics · Prehensile tail · Primate · Trait · Zoology · Animal Vocal Communication and Behavior · Ecology · Genetics · Pleistocene-Era Hominins and Archaeology · Primate Behavior and Ecology

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