Jaw-Muscle Structure and Function in Primates: Insights Into Muscle Performance and Feeding-System Behaviors.
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2025-03
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Abstract
The jaw-adductor muscles drive the movements and forces associated with primate feeding behaviors such as biting and chewing as well as social signaling behaviors such as wide-mouth canine display. The past several decades have seen a rise in research aimed at the anatomy and physiology of primate chewing muscles to better understand the functional and evolutionary significance of the primate masticatory apparatus. This review summarizes variation in jaw-adductor fiber types and muscle architecture in primates, focusing on physiological, architectural, and behavioral performance variables such as specific tension, fatigue resistance, muscle and bite force, and muscle stretch and gape. Paranthropus and Australopithecus are used as one paleontological example to showcase the importance of these data for addressing paleobiological questions. The high degree of morphological variation related to sex, age, muscle, and species suggests future research should bracket ranges of performance variables rather than focus on single estimates of performance.
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Taylor, Andrea B, Megan A Holmes, Myra F Laird and Claire E Terhune (2025). Jaw-Muscle Structure and Function in Primates: Insights Into Muscle Performance and Feeding-System Behaviors. Evolutionary anthropology, 34(1). p. e22053. 10.1002/evan.22053 Retrieved from https://hdl.handle.net/10161/33427.
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Andrea Beth Taylor
Feeding behavior and diet are two of the most important factors influencing the evolution of behavior and morphology in humans and nonhuman primates. Variation in such parameters as body size, life history, metabolic rate, and brain size, can all be linked to some extent to the ability of animals to acquire, process, and consume resources. Shifts in feeding behavior and diet also provide the evolutionary context for a variety of morphological changes in the jaws, face, and teeth. This is my area of research - the evolution of craniofacial form in humans and other primates as it relates to feeding behavior and the biomechanical demands of diet. I rely on a variety of primate models and methodological approaches to investigate the mechanisms that influence musculoskeletal form and function, and to link masticatory form and function with performance in living and extinct species. I collaborate extensively with other functional morphologists, experimental biologists, and primatologists and provide research and training opportunities for graduate and undergraduate students and postdoctoral researchers. In collaboration with Dr. Christopher Vinyard (NEOMED), we have been investigating the functional correlates of gape and muscle force production in primates (funded by the National Science Foundation BCS 0452160, BCS 0833394, BCS 0635649 and the National Skeletal Muscle Research Center R24-HD 050837-01). This work is informing our understanding of how jaw muscles are structured to meet the mechanical demands of diverse diets, how their bony and muscular systems function together, and how mechanical trade-offs are met. With Dr. Callum Ross (University of Chicago), we are currently investigating the scaling of primate feeding systems, integrating kinematic, morphological, and experimental approaches to test biomechanical models of the scaling of chew cycle during in primates (funded by the National Science Foundation BCS 0962677). In a related area of research, I am collaborating with colleagues in the DPT Program and in Pediatrics to investigate the effects of exercise on muscle fiber architecture and performance in a Pompe mouse model (Funded by the National Skeletal Muscle Research Center R24-HD050837).
Megan Anne Holmes
Dr. Holmes is a trained anatomist and evolutionary biologist. Her research focuses on feeding behavior adaptations in primate cranial and muscular morphology. Dr. Holmes' most recent research, grant funding and publications have focused specifically on muscle fiber phenotypes in primate chewing muscles. Dr. Holmes is the Course Director and main instructor for the Physician Assistant Gross Anatomy Course and Lab. She also co-coordinates the PA Practice and the Health Systems course, pulling on her anthropological background to organize learning on health disparities. As an educator, she is passionate about making the learning environment and academia at large equitable and inclusive for her students and colleagues.
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