Toetik Koesbardiati, - (2018) Human Bony Labyrinth is an Indicator of Population History and Dispersal From Africa. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, 115 (16). ISSN eISSN : 1091-6490| pISSN : 0027-8424

	Text 5 Human Bony.pdf Download (1MB)
	Text output5.pdf Download (35kB)
	Text Turnitin Human Bony Labyrinth.pdf Download (2MB)

Abstract

The dispersal of modern humans from Africa is now well docu-mented with genetic data that track population history, as well asgene flow between populations. Phenetic skeletal data, such ascranial and pelvic morphologies, also exhibit a dispersal-from-Africa signal, which, however, tends to be blurred by the effectsof local adaptation and in vivo phenotypic plasticity, and that isoften deteriorated by postmortem damage to skeletal remains.These complexities raise the question of which skeletal structuresmost effectively track neutral population history. The cavity systemof the inner ear (the so-called bony labyrinth) is a good candidatestructure for such analyses. It is already fully formed by birth, whichminimizes postnatal phenotypic plasticity, and it is generally wellpreserved in archaeological samples. Here we use morphometricdata of the bony labyrinth to show that it is a surprisingly goodmarker of the global dispersal of modern humans from Africa. Lab-yrinthine morphology tracks genetic distances and geography inaccordance with an isolation-by-distance model with dispersal fromAfrica. Our data further indicate that the neutral-like pattern ofvariation is compatible with stabilizing selection on labyrinth mor-phology. Given the increasingly important role of the petrous bonefor ancient DNA recovery from archaeological specimens, we en-courage researchers to acquire 3D morphological data of the innerear structures before any invasive sampling. Such data will consti-tute an important archive of phenotypic variation in present andpast populations, and will permit individual-based genotype–phenotype comparisons

Actions (login required)

View Item