Diet and the evolution of human amylase gene copy number variation
It is found that copy number of the salivary amylase gene (AMY1) is correlated positively with salivaries protein level and that individuals from populations with high-starch diets have, on average, more AMY1 copies than those with traditionally low-st starch diets.
Global patterns of leaf mechanical properties.
- Y. Onoda, M. Westoby, Nayuta Yamashita
- Environmental ScienceEcology Letters
- 1 March 2011
It is discovered that toughness per density contributed a surprisingly large fraction to variation in mechanical resistance, larger than the fractions contributed by lamina thickness and tissue density, and was associated with long leaf lifespan especially in forest understory.
Functional ecology and evolution of hominoid molar enamel thickness: Pan troglodytes schweinfurthii and Pongo pygmaeus wurmbii.
- E. Vogel, Janneke T. van Woerden, P. Lucas, S. S. Utami Atmoko, C. V. van Schaik, N. Dominy
- Environmental ScienceJournal of Human Evolution
- 1 July 2008
Ecological importance of trichromatic vision to primates
Four trichromatic primate species in Kibale Forest, Uganda, eat leaves that are colour discriminated only by red–greenness, a colour axis correlated with high protein levels and low toughness, which implicate leaf consumption, a critical food resource when fruit is scarce, as having unique value in maintaining trichromeacy in catarrhines.
The sensory ecology of primate food perception
- N. Dominy, P. Lucas, D. Osorio, Nayuta Yamashita
- Psychology
- 2001
Although remembered space is thelongest-range food “sense,” actingwell beyond an individual’s immedi-ate sensory environment, it is the leastacute. In other words, primates mayknow precisely where a…
Mechanical Properties of Plant Underground Storage Organs and Implications for Dietary Models of Early Hominins
- N. Dominy, E. Vogel, J. Yeakel, P. Constantino, P. Lucas
- Environmental ScienceEvolutionary biology
- 26 July 2008
The mechanical properties of USOs from 98 plant species from across sub-Saharan Africa found that rhizomes were the most resistant to deformation and fracture, followed by tubers, corms, and bulbs, and the results support assumptions that roasting lessens the work of mastication, and, by inference, the cost of digestion.
Mechanical Defences to Herbivory
- P. Lucas, I. Turner, N. Dominy, Nayuta Yamashita
- Materials Science
- 1 November 2000
The effectiveness of toughness in preventing herbivory is indisputable, but largely indirect due to confusion over a false equivalence between nutritional ‘fibre content’ and toughness.
Adaptive function of soil consumption: an in vitro study modeling the human stomach and small intestine
- N. Dominy, E. Davoust, M. Minekus
- BiologyJournal of Experimental Biology
- 15 January 2004
It is concluded that gastrointestinal adsorption is the most plausible function of human geophagy, and adaptive advantages include greater exploitation of marginal plant foods and reduced energetic costs of diarrhoea, factors that could account for the high frequency ofGeophagy in children and pregnant women across the tropics.
Fruits, Fingers, and Fermentation: The Sensory Cues Available to Foraging Primates1
- N. Dominy
- Biology, MedicineIntegrative and Comparative Biology
- 1 August 2004
It is shown that softening texture also characterizes the fruit ripening process, and that color is of ambiguous importance to primates possessing trichromatic vision, and it is deduced that detecting and selecting fruits on the basis of cues other than color is a persistent theme in primate evolution.
Historical contingency in the evolution of primate color vision.
- N. Dominy, J. Svenning, Wen Hsiung Li
- Environmental ScienceJournal of Human Evolution
- 2003
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