Functional and Evolutionary Morphology Research Lab

This work focuses on quantifying and comparing skeletal structures in primates and other mammals to address questions related to the functional significance of morphological variation. The approach we generally employ focuses on structural variation in cortical and trabecular bone in the postcranial skeleton of primates. This work has relevance not only for understanding the relationship between form and function in living species but also can be useful for reconstructing past behaviors in fossil hominins and nonhuman primates. Examples of recent work in this area include analysis of trabecular bone in the hip joint of extant and extinct hominoids, comparison of structural variation in the knee joint in relation to locomotor and positional behavior in catarrhine primates, and ongoing analyses of trabecular bone structural variation in canids and primates.