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How quickly do brains catch up with bodies? A comparative method for detecting evolutionary lag.

R O Deaner1, C L Nunn

  • 1Department of Biological Anthropology and Anatomy, Duke University, Durham, NC 27708-0383, USA. rod1@acpub.duke.edu

Proceedings. Biological Sciences
|May 20, 1999
PubMed
Summary

Evolutionary lag, where traits lag behind environmental changes, was tested for primate brain size. This study found no evidence that brain size evolution lags behind body size evolution in primates.

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Area of Science:

  • Evolutionary biology
  • Comparative neuroanatomy
  • Phylogenetics

Background:

  • Evolutionary lag describes traits responding slowly to selective pressures.
  • Previous studies on evolutionary lag primarily focused on trait fitness.
  • An alternative approach examines trait expression relative to evolutionary time.

Purpose of the Study:

  • To present a phylogenetic comparative method for analyzing evolutionary lag based on time.
  • To test the hypothesis that primate brain size evolution lags behind body size evolution.

Main Methods:

  • Phylogenetic comparative method using pairwise contrasts.
  • Regression of brain mass contrasts on body mass contrasts.
  • Correlation analysis between residuals and time since species divergence.

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Main Results:

  • Time since divergence was not significantly correlated with brain mass contrast residuals.
  • Results remained consistent after accounting for socioecology and using alternative body mass estimates.
  • The brain size lag hypothesis was not supported in primates.

Conclusions:

  • The findings do not support the hypothesis that primate brain size evolution lags behind body size evolution.
  • Body mass is not a confounding variable for relative brain size in recent evolutionary studies.
  • Relative brain size should not be used to infer recent body size evolutionary changes.