Life Sciences Commons^™

Keeping 21st Century Paleontology Grounded: Quantitative Genetic Analyses And Ancestral State Reconstruction Re-Emphasize The Essentiality Of Fossils, Tesla A. Monson, Marianne F. Brasil, Michael Mahaney, Christopher A. Schmitt, Catherine E. Taylor, Leslea J. Hlusko

School of Medicine Publications and Presentations

Advances in genetics and developmental biology are revealing the relationship between genotype and dental phenotype (G:P), providing new approaches for how paleontologists assess dental variation in the fossil record. Our aim was to understand how the method of trait definition influences the ability to reconstruct phylogenetic relationships and evolutionary history in the Cercopithecidae, the Linnaean Family of monkeys currently living in Africa and Asia. We compared the two-dimensional assessment of molar size (calculated as the mesiodistal length of the crown multiplied by the buccolingual breadth) to a trait that reflects developmental influences on molar development (the inhibitory cascade, IC) and …