Blomquist Gregory E
Department of Anthropology, University of Missouri, Columbia, MO 65211, USA.
Am J Phys Anthropol. 2009 Feb;138(2):231-8. doi: 10.1002/ajpa.20963.
Interest in the developmental changes leading to apomorphic features of human anatomy is longstanding. Although most research has focused on quantitative measures of size and shape, additional information may be available in the sequence of events in development, including aspects of phenotypic integration. I apply two recently proposed techniques for analyzing developmental sequences to literature data on human and chimpanzee age of limb element ossification center appearance in radiographs. The event-pair cracking method of Jeffery et al. (Syst Biol 51 [2002] 478-491) offers little additional insight on sequence differences in this data set than a simpler difference of ranks. Both reveal shifts in timing that are likely related to locomotor differences between the two species. Poe's (Evolution 58 [2004] 1852-1855) test for modularity in a sequence identifies the ankle, wrist, and hind limb as developmental modules, which may correspond to localized combinations of developmental genes. Ossification patterns of the rays of the hand and foot show little modularity. Integrating these and other methods of sequence analysis with traditional metrics of size and shape remains an underdeveloped area of inquiry.
对导致人体解剖学特化特征的发育变化的兴趣由来已久。尽管大多数研究集中在大小和形状的定量测量上，但发育过程中的事件顺序，包括表型整合方面，可能会提供更多信息。我将两种最近提出的用于分析发育序列的技术应用于关于人类和黑猩猩X光片中四肢骨化中心出现年龄的文献数据。杰弗里等人（《系统生物学》51 [2002] 478 - 491）提出的事件对开裂方法，与更简单的秩差相比，对该数据集中的序列差异几乎没有提供更多见解。两者都揭示了时间上的变化，这可能与两个物种之间的运动差异有关。坡（《进化》58 [2004] 1852 - 1855）对序列中模块性的测试将脚踝、手腕和后肢识别为发育模块，这可能对应于发育基因的局部组合。手足射线的骨化模式几乎没有模块性。将这些以及其他序列分析方法与传统的大小和形状指标相结合，仍然是一个未充分发展的研究领域。
