Doctoral Dissertation Research: Understanding enamel hypoplasia in great apes of known life history

博士论文研究：了解已知生活史的类人猿的牙釉质发育不全

• 批准号: 1613626
• 负责人: Shannon McFarlin
• 金额: $ 1.37万
• 依托单位: George Washington University
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Standard Grant
• 财政年份: 2016
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2016-07-15 至 2018-05-31
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=1613626&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: Doctoral; Dissertation; Research; Understanding; enamel

Much like tree rings provide a record of growth patterns related to past environmental conditions, teeth can preserve a record of physiological stress experienced during dental development. This doctoral dissertation project will use novel imaging and analytical methods to study stress-related dental defects in Virunga mountain gorillas for whom long-term behavioral, health, and climate data are available. The ability to link specific dental defects to specific life events will improve our understanding of the complex interplay among ecological, social, and physiological stressors in both extant great apes and fossil hominins. The project will support student mentoring and training in STEM fields as well as collaborations and conservation efforts at the research site. Teeth are important to studies of health and development because they provide a permanent and detailed record of their absolute chronological growth. Enamel hypoplasias manifest as grooves on the tooth surface when growth is disrupted by stressors such as undernutrition and disease. Hypoplastic defects are usually scored by low-power enamel surface observation, and the boundary between normal and abnormal morphology has never been quantitatively defined in great apes. This project employs quantitative criteria to diagnose defects, and establishes a minimum threshold for determining what is a defect versus what is within the bounds of normal variation. Aims include: (1) determining defect presence quantitatively, and testing for differences in defect prevalence and morphology among mountain gorillas and other great apes; (2) analyzing microanatomical parameters of crown growth to determine which factors influence variation in defect morphology among great apes; and (3) testing correspondence between defect timing and stressful events (e.g. injury, disease, intergroup interactions) in the recorded history of individual mountain gorillas to produce the first data on enamel hypoplasia etiology in wild gorillas. By assessing the relationships between defect morphology, microanatomical parameters of enamel growth, and documented stressors in associated life history records, the proposed research will deepen our understanding of factors that underlie differences in defect expression among great apes, and thus improve our ability to more confidently interpret enamel defects in paleoanthropological contexts.

就像树环提供了与过去环境条件相关的生长模式的记录，牙齿可以保留牙齿发育过程中经历的生理压力的记录。该博士学位论文项目将使用新颖的成像和分析方法来研究与压力相关的牙齿缺陷，在Virunga Mountain Gorillas中，可为之提供长期行为，健康和气候数据。将特定牙齿缺陷与特定生活事件联系起来的能力将提高我们对现存的大猿和化石人类中生态，社会和生理压力源之间复杂相互作用的理解。该项目将支持Stem领域的学生指导和培训，以及研究站点的合作和保护工作。 牙齿对健康和发展研究很重要，因为它们提供了其绝对年代增长的永久和详细记录。当牙釉质下腹膜凹陷在牙齿表面上被凹槽，当时诸如营养不良和疾病之类的压力源破坏了生长时。低功率搪瓷表面观察通常对低塑性缺陷进行评分，而正常形态和异常形态之间的边界从未在大猿中定义定义。该项目采用定量标准来诊断缺陷，并建立了确定什么是缺陷与正常变异范围内的缺陷与什么的最低阈值。目的包括：（1）定量确定缺陷的存在，并测试山上大猩猩和其他大猿之间缺陷患病率和形态的差异； （2）分析牙冠生长的微解剖学参数，以确定哪些因素会影响大猿之间缺陷形态的变化； （3）在单个山地大猩猩记录的历史中，缺陷时间和压力事件（例如伤害，疾病，组间相互作用）之间测试对应关系，以产生有关野生大猩猩搪瓷发育不全病因的第一个数据。通过评估缺陷形态，牙釉质生长的微解剖学参数以及相关的生命历史记录中记录的压力源之间的关系，拟议的研究将加深我们对伟大猿类缺陷表达差异的因素的理解，从而提高了我们更加自信地解释PaleoSanthopolopicic Consects中牙釉质的能力。