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From Fairies to Giants: Untangling the Effect of Body Size, Phylogeny, and Ecology on Vertebral Bone Microstructure of Xenarthran Mammals

Trabecular bone is a spongy bone tissue that serves as a scaffolding-like support inside many skeletal elements. Previous research found allometric variation in some aspects of trabecular bone architecture (TBA) and bone microstructure, whereas others scale isometrically. However, most of these stud...

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Autores principales: Zack, E H, Smith, S M, Angielczyk, K D
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: Oxford University Press 2023
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9949600/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/36844392
http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/iob/obad002
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author Zack, E H
Smith, S M
Angielczyk, K D
author_facet Zack, E H
Smith, S M
Angielczyk, K D
author_sort Zack, E H
collection PubMed
description Trabecular bone is a spongy bone tissue that serves as a scaffolding-like support inside many skeletal elements. Previous research found allometric variation in some aspects of trabecular bone architecture (TBA) and bone microstructure, whereas others scale isometrically. However, most of these studies examined very wide size and phylogenetic ranges or focused exclusively on primates or lab mice. We examined the impact of body size on TBA across a smaller size range in the mammalian clade Xenarthra (sloths, armadillos, and anteaters). We µCT-scanned the last six presacral vertebrae of 23 xenarthran specimens (body mass 120 g–35 kg). We collected ten gross-morphology measurements and seven TBA metrics and analyzed them using phylogenetic and nonphylogenetic methods. Most metrics had similar allometries to previous work. However, because ecology and phylogeny align closely in Xenarthra, the phylogenetic methods likely removed some covariance due to ecology; clarifying the impact of ecology on TBA in xenarthrans requires further work. Regressions for Folivora had high P-values and low R-squared values, indicating that the extant sloth sample either is too limited to determine patterns or that the unique way sloths load their vertebral columns causes unusually high TBA variation. The southern three-banded armadillo sits far below the regression lines, which may be related to its ability to roll into a ball. Body size, phylogeny, and ecology impact xenarthran TBA, but parsing these effects is highly complex.
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spelling pubmed-99496002023-02-24 From Fairies to Giants: Untangling the Effect of Body Size, Phylogeny, and Ecology on Vertebral Bone Microstructure of Xenarthran Mammals Zack, E H Smith, S M Angielczyk, K D Integr Org Biol Article Trabecular bone is a spongy bone tissue that serves as a scaffolding-like support inside many skeletal elements. Previous research found allometric variation in some aspects of trabecular bone architecture (TBA) and bone microstructure, whereas others scale isometrically. However, most of these studies examined very wide size and phylogenetic ranges or focused exclusively on primates or lab mice. We examined the impact of body size on TBA across a smaller size range in the mammalian clade Xenarthra (sloths, armadillos, and anteaters). We µCT-scanned the last six presacral vertebrae of 23 xenarthran specimens (body mass 120 g–35 kg). We collected ten gross-morphology measurements and seven TBA metrics and analyzed them using phylogenetic and nonphylogenetic methods. Most metrics had similar allometries to previous work. However, because ecology and phylogeny align closely in Xenarthra, the phylogenetic methods likely removed some covariance due to ecology; clarifying the impact of ecology on TBA in xenarthrans requires further work. Regressions for Folivora had high P-values and low R-squared values, indicating that the extant sloth sample either is too limited to determine patterns or that the unique way sloths load their vertebral columns causes unusually high TBA variation. The southern three-banded armadillo sits far below the regression lines, which may be related to its ability to roll into a ball. Body size, phylogeny, and ecology impact xenarthran TBA, but parsing these effects is highly complex. Oxford University Press 2023-01-16 /pmc/articles/PMC9949600/ /pubmed/36844392 http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/iob/obad002 Text en © The Author(s) 2023. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of the Society for Integrative and Comparative Biology. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted reuse, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
spellingShingle Article
Zack, E H
Smith, S M
Angielczyk, K D
From Fairies to Giants: Untangling the Effect of Body Size, Phylogeny, and Ecology on Vertebral Bone Microstructure of Xenarthran Mammals
title From Fairies to Giants: Untangling the Effect of Body Size, Phylogeny, and Ecology on Vertebral Bone Microstructure of Xenarthran Mammals
title_full From Fairies to Giants: Untangling the Effect of Body Size, Phylogeny, and Ecology on Vertebral Bone Microstructure of Xenarthran Mammals
title_fullStr From Fairies to Giants: Untangling the Effect of Body Size, Phylogeny, and Ecology on Vertebral Bone Microstructure of Xenarthran Mammals
title_full_unstemmed From Fairies to Giants: Untangling the Effect of Body Size, Phylogeny, and Ecology on Vertebral Bone Microstructure of Xenarthran Mammals
title_short From Fairies to Giants: Untangling the Effect of Body Size, Phylogeny, and Ecology on Vertebral Bone Microstructure of Xenarthran Mammals
title_sort from fairies to giants: untangling the effect of body size, phylogeny, and ecology on vertebral bone microstructure of xenarthran mammals
topic Article
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9949600/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/36844392
http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/iob/obad002
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