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.Expand
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.Expand
The divergent molar characteristics of Pan troglodytes and Pongo pygmaeus provide an instructive paradigm for examining the adaptive form-function relationship between molar enamel thickness and food hardness, and data reported, among the first reported for hominoid primates, fill an important empirical void for evaluating the mechanical plausibility of putative hominin food objects.Expand
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… Expand
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.Expand
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.Expand
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.Expand
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.Expand
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.Expand
These adaptive scenarios are not mutually exclusive and should be evaluated in consort, which are expected to inform interpretations of diversity in the hominin fossil record, including the purported small-bodied species Homo floresiensis.Expand