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The evolution of human and ape hand proportions
Human hands are distinguished from apes by possessing longer thumbs relative to fingers. However, this simple ape-human dichotomy fails to provide an adequate framework for testing competing hypotheses of human evolution and for reconstructing the morphology of the last common ancestor (LCA) of huma...
Autores principales: | , , |
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Formato: | Online Artículo Texto |
Lenguaje: | English |
Publicado: |
Nature Pub. Group
2015
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Materias: | |
Acceso en línea: | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4510966/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/26171589 http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/ncomms8717 |
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author | Almécija, Sergio Smaers, Jeroen B. Jungers, William L. |
author_facet | Almécija, Sergio Smaers, Jeroen B. Jungers, William L. |
author_sort | Almécija, Sergio |
collection | PubMed |
description | Human hands are distinguished from apes by possessing longer thumbs relative to fingers. However, this simple ape-human dichotomy fails to provide an adequate framework for testing competing hypotheses of human evolution and for reconstructing the morphology of the last common ancestor (LCA) of humans and chimpanzees. We inspect human and ape hand-length proportions using phylogenetically informed morphometric analyses and test alternative models of evolution along the anthropoid tree of life, including fossils like the plesiomorphic ape Proconsul heseloni and the hominins Ardipithecus ramidus and Australopithecus sediba. Our results reveal high levels of hand disparity among modern hominoids, which are explained by different evolutionary processes: autapomorphic evolution in hylobatids (extreme digital and thumb elongation), convergent adaptation between chimpanzees and orangutans (digital elongation) and comparatively little change in gorillas and hominins. The human (and australopith) high thumb-to-digits ratio required little change since the LCA, and was acquired convergently with other highly dexterous anthropoids. |
format | Online Article Text |
id | pubmed-4510966 |
institution | National Center for Biotechnology Information |
language | English |
publishDate | 2015 |
publisher | Nature Pub. Group |
record_format | MEDLINE/PubMed |
spelling | pubmed-45109662015-07-28 The evolution of human and ape hand proportions Almécija, Sergio Smaers, Jeroen B. Jungers, William L. Nat Commun Article Human hands are distinguished from apes by possessing longer thumbs relative to fingers. However, this simple ape-human dichotomy fails to provide an adequate framework for testing competing hypotheses of human evolution and for reconstructing the morphology of the last common ancestor (LCA) of humans and chimpanzees. We inspect human and ape hand-length proportions using phylogenetically informed morphometric analyses and test alternative models of evolution along the anthropoid tree of life, including fossils like the plesiomorphic ape Proconsul heseloni and the hominins Ardipithecus ramidus and Australopithecus sediba. Our results reveal high levels of hand disparity among modern hominoids, which are explained by different evolutionary processes: autapomorphic evolution in hylobatids (extreme digital and thumb elongation), convergent adaptation between chimpanzees and orangutans (digital elongation) and comparatively little change in gorillas and hominins. The human (and australopith) high thumb-to-digits ratio required little change since the LCA, and was acquired convergently with other highly dexterous anthropoids. Nature Pub. Group 2015-07-14 /pmc/articles/PMC4510966/ /pubmed/26171589 http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/ncomms8717 Text en Copyright © 2015, Nature Publishing Group, a division of Macmillan Publishers Limited. All Rights Reserved. http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article's Creative Commons license, unless indicated otherwise in the credit line; if the material is not included under the Creative Commons license, users will need to obtain permission from the license holder to reproduce the material. To view a copy of this license, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ |
spellingShingle | Article Almécija, Sergio Smaers, Jeroen B. Jungers, William L. The evolution of human and ape hand proportions |
title | The evolution of human and ape hand proportions |
title_full | The evolution of human and ape hand proportions |
title_fullStr | The evolution of human and ape hand proportions |
title_full_unstemmed | The evolution of human and ape hand proportions |
title_short | The evolution of human and ape hand proportions |
title_sort | evolution of human and ape hand proportions |
topic | Article |
url | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4510966/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/26171589 http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/ncomms8717 |
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