The evolution of the vestibular apparatus in apes and humans

Alessandro Urciuoli (1) , Clément Zanolli (2) , Amélie Beaudet (3, 4) , Jean Dumoncel (5) , Salvador Moyà-Solà (1, 6, 7) , David Alba (1)

1 Institut Català de Paleontologia Miquel Crusafont
2 PACEA - De la Préhistoire à l'Actuel : Culture, Environnement et Anthropologie
3 WITS - University of the Witwatersrand [Johannesburg]
4 University of Pretoria [South Africa]
5 AMIS - Anthropologie Moléculaire et Imagerie de Synthèse
6 ICREA - Institució Catalana de Recerca i Estudis Avançats = Catalan Institution for Research and Advanced Studies
7 UAB - Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona = Autonomous University of Barcelona = Universidad Autónoma de Barcelona

Phylogenetic relationships among extinct hominoids (apes and humans) are controversial due to pervasive homoplasy and the incompleteness of the fossil record. The bony labyrinth might contribute to this debate, as it displays strong phylogenetic signal among other mammals. However, the potential of the vestibular apparatus for phylogenetic reconstruction among fossil apes remains understudied. Here we test and quantify the phylogenetic signal embedded in the vestibular morphology of extant anthropoids (monkeys, apes and humans) and two extinct apes (Oreopithecus and Australopithecus) as captured by a deformation-based 3D geometric morphometric analysis. We also reconstruct the ancestral morphology of various hominoid clades based on phylogenetically-informed maximum likelihood methods. Besides revealing strong phylogenetic signal in the vestibule and enabling the proposal of potential synapomorphies for various hominoid clades, our results confirm the relevance of vestibular morphology for addressing the controversial phylogenetic relationships of fossil apes.

Domaines: Paléontologie

Alessandro Urciuoli, Clément Zanolli, Amélie Beaudet, Jean Dumoncel, Salvador Moyà-Solà, et al.. The evolution of the vestibular apparatus in apes and humans. eLife, 2020, 9, ⟨10.7554/elife.51261⟩. ⟨hal-03002818⟩