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Multivariate dental allometry in primates
Author(s) -
Corruccini Robert S.,
Henderson Avery M.
Publication year - 1978
Publication title -
american journal of physical anthropology
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.146
H-Index - 119
eISSN - 1096-8644
pISSN - 0002-9483
DOI - 10.1002/ajpa.1330480213
Subject(s) - allometry , multivariate statistics , skull , principal component analysis , biology , cheek teeth , multivariate analysis , mathematics , scaling , evolutionary biology , statistics , anatomy , ecology , geometry
Disagreement is current over the question of whether relatively large teeth in some large primates are a natural outcome of growth trends instead of an indication of intrinsic differences. A cross‐primate survey of dental scaling relative to skull (and inferred body) size is given in this study, using a principal component technique to measure the multivariate growth relation between two sets of data: dental size and cranial size. Cheek teeth are strongly positively allometric in restricted taxonomic groups, especially in cercopithecoids. Conversely, the allometry drops to an almost linear proportional growth relation when variation in diet is controlled.