ON THE VALIDITY OF TEREBRATULA SINUOSA (BROCCHI)

Here we aim to fix some nomenclatural problems relating to the definition of Terebratula sinuosa. In 1616 Fabio Colonna first described two different brachiopod specimens from Italy which were later attributed to the genus Terebratula. In 1758 Linnaeus erected Anomia terebratula in reference to the drawings of Colonna. He described the heavily sulciplicate specimen figured on the upper left (specimen number 4) but addressed the specimen as if it was the number 1 in the figure (upper right). Several authors later inadvertently followed the error of Linnaeus. The neotype for T. terebratula, indicated in 1998 by Lee & Brunton, refers to the specimen number 1 in Colonna’s figure (the one to the upper right). The two specimens in Colonna were originally considered synonyms. However, the sulciplicate specimen number 4, originally figured by Colonna, refers to a distinctive Miocene Terebratula species, which has been often referred to as Terebratula sinuosa. We review evidence in favour of such a designation and provide stratigraphic and morphological evidence that T. sinuosa deserves the full rank of species. The name T. sinuosa should be maintained given the long tradition of the name in the literature, and the definition of T. terebratula should therefore be amended

Paleomimetics: A Conceptual Framework for a Biomimetic Design Inspired by Fossils and Evolutionary Processes

In biomimetic design, functional systems, principles, and processes observed in nature are used for the development of innovative technical systems. The research on functional features is often carried out without giving importance to the generative mechanism behind them: evolution. To deeply understand and evaluate the meaning of functional morphologies, integrative structures, and processes, it is imperative to not only describe, analyse, and test their behaviour, but also to understand the evolutionary history, constraints, and interactions that led to these features. The discipline of palaeontology and its approach can considerably improve the efficiency of biomimetic transfer by analogy of function; additionally, this discipline, as well as biology, can contribute to the development of new shapes, textures, structures, and functional models for productive and generative processes useful in the improvement of designs. Based on the available literature, the present review aims to exhibit the potential contribution that palaeontology can offer to biomimetic processes, integrating specific methodologies and knowledge in a typical biomimetic design approach, as well as laying the foundation for a biomimetic design inspired by extinct species and evolutionary processes: Paleomimetics. A state of the art, definition, method, and tools are provided, and fossil entities are presented as potential role models for technical transfer solutions

Paleomimetics: A Conceptual Framework for a Biomimetic Design Inspired by Fossils and Evolutionary Processes

In biomimetic design, functional systems, principles, and processes observed in nature are used for the development of innovative technical systems. The research on functional features is often carried out without giving importance to the generative mechanism behind them: evolution. To deeply understand and evaluate the meaning of functional morphologies, integrative structures, and processes, it is imperative to not only describe, analyse, and test their behaviour, but also to understand the evolutionary history, constraints, and interactions that led to these features. The discipline of palaeontology and its approach can considerably improve the efficiency of biomimetic transfer by analogy of function; additionally, this discipline, as well as biology, can contribute to the development of new shapes, textures, structures, and functional models for productive and generative processes useful in the improvement of designs. Based on the available literature, the present review aims to exhibit the potential contribution that palaeontology can offer to biomimetic processes, integrating specific methodologies and knowledge in a typical biomimetic design approach, as well as laying the foundation for a biomimetic design inspired by extinct species and evolutionary processes: Paleomimetics. A state of the art, definition, method, and tools are provided, and fossil entities are presented as potential role models for technical transfer solutions

morphomap : An R package for long bone landmarking, cortical thickness, and cross-sectional geometry mapping

OBJECTIVES: This study describes and demonstrates the functionalities and application of a new R package, morphomap, designed to extract shape information as semilandmarks in multiple sections, build cortical thickness maps, and calculate biomechanical parameters on long bones. METHODS: morphomap creates, from a single input (an oriented 3D mesh representing the long bone surface), multiple evenly spaced virtual sections. morphomap then directly and rapidly computes morphometric and biomechanical parameters on each of these sections. The R package comprises three modules: (a) to place semilandmarks on the inner and outer outlines of each section, (b) to extract cortical thicknesses for 2D and 3D morphometric mapping, and (c) to compute cross-sectional geometry. RESULTS: In this article, we apply morphomap to femora from Homo sapiens and Pan troglodytes to demonstrate its utility and show its typical outputs. morphomap greatly facilitates rapid analysis and functional interpretation of long bone form and should prove a valuable addition to the osteoarcheological analysis software toolkit. CONCLUSIONS: Long bone loading history is commonly retrodicted by calculating biomechanical parameters such as area moments of inertia, analyzing external shape and measuring cortical thickness. morphomap is a software written in the open source R environment, it integrates the main methodological approaches (geometric morphometrics, cortical morphometric maps, and cross-sectional geometry) used to parametrize long bones

Arothron: An R package for geometric morphometric methods and virtual anthropology applications

Objectives The statistical analysis of fossil remains is essential to understand the evolution of the genus Homo. Unfortunately, the human fossil record is straight away scarce and plagued with severe loss of information caused by taphonomic processes. The recently developed field of Virtual Anthropology helps to ameliorate this situation by using digital techniques to restore damaged and incomplete fossils. Materials and methods We present the package Arothron, an R software suite meant to process and analyze digital models of skeletal elements. Arothron includes tools to digitally extract virtual cavities such as cranial endocasts, to statistically align disarticulated or broken bony elements, and to visualize local variations between surface meshes and landmark configurations. Results We describe the main functionalities of Arothron and illustrate their usage through reproducible case studies. We describe a tool for segmentation of skeletal cavities by showing its application on a malleus bone, a Neanderthal tooth, and a modern human cranium, reproducing their shape and calculating their volume. We illustrate how to digitally align a disarticulated model of a modern human cranium, and how to combine piecemeal shape information on individual specimens into one. In addition, we present useful visualization tools by comparing the morphological differences between the right hemisphere of the Neanderthal and the modern human brain. Conclusions The Arothron R package is designed to study digital models of fossil specimens. By using Arothron, scientists can handle digital models with ease, investigate the inner morphology of 3D skeletal models, gain a full representation of the original shapes of damaged specimens, and compare shapes across specimens

Human footprints from Italy: the state of the art

The ichnological record of human traces from Italy is rich and quite diversified. In recent years, the development and dissemination of various methodologies and technological facilities has implemented the re-analysis of this record, enabling to reach different, sometimes deeper, interpretations favoured by the integration of external data, both geological and palaeontological. The oldest occurrence of the human ichnological record from Italy is represented by the Middle Pleistocene ‘Devil’s Trails’ ichnosite in the “Foresta” area (Roccamonfina volcano, southern Italy), depicting human trackmakers trampling a pyroclastic flow deposit while descending a slope about 349 ka. Most of the record is Holocene in age and is constituted by the Upper Palaeolithic Grotta della Bàsura site (Toirano, northern Italy, about 14 ky), the protohistoric sites of Afragola, Nola and Palma, the area of Pompei and the site of Aosta. The record is enriched by the ichnological evidences preserved in military structures of Trentino region (northern Italy) during the First World War. An updated report and discussion of these sites is here provided.Fil: Avanzini, Marco. Museo Delle Scienze di Trento; ItaliaFil: Citton, Paolo. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas; Argentina. Universidad Nacional de Río Negro. Sede Alto Valle. Instituto de Investigaciones en Paleobiología y Geología; ArgentinaFil: Mietto, Paolo. Università di Padova; ItaliaFil: Panarello, Adolfo. Università di Cassino e del Lazio Meridionale; ItaliaFil: Raia, Pasquale. Università degli Studi di Napoli Federico II; ItaliaFil: Romano, Marco. Università di Roma; ItaliaFil: Salvador, Isabella. Museo Delle Scienze di Trento; Itali

Current Options for Visualization of Local Deformation in Modern Shape Analysis Applied to Paleobiological Case Studies

In modern shape analysis, deformation is quantified in different ways depending on the algorithms used and on the scale at which it is evaluated. While global affine and non-affine deformation components can be decoupled and computed using a variety of methods, the very local deformation can be considered, infinitesimally, as an affine deformation. The deformation gradient tensor F can be computed locally using a direct calculation by exploiting triangulation or tetrahedralization structures or by locally evaluating the first derivative of an appropriate interpolation function mapping the global deformation from the undeformed to the deformed state. A suitable function is represented by the thin plate spline (TPS) that separates affine from non-affine deformation components. F, also known as Jacobian matrix, encodes both the locally affine deformation and local rotation. This implies that it should be used for visualizing primary strain directions (PSDs) and deformation ellipses and ellipsoids on the target configuration. Using C = FTF allows, instead, one to compute PSD and to visualize them on the source configuration. Moreover, C allows the computation of the strain energy that can be evaluated and mapped locally at any point of a body using an interpolation function. In addition, it is possible, by exploiting the second-order Jacobian, to calculate the amount of the non-affine deformation in the neighborhood of the evaluation point by computing the body bending energy density encoded in the deformation. In this contribution, we present (i) the main computational methods for evaluating local deformation metrics, (ii) a number of different strategies to visualize them on both undeformed and deformed configurations, and (iii) the potential pitfalls in ignoring the actual three-dimensional nature of F when it is evaluated along a surface identified by a triangulation in three dimensions

Decoupling Functional and Morphological Convergence, the Study Case of Fossorial Mammalia

Morphological similarity between biological structures in phylogenetically distant species is usually regarded as evidence of convergent evolution. Yet, phenotypic similarity is not always a sign of natural selection acting on a particular trait, therefore adaptation to similar conditions may fail to generate convergent lineages. Herein we tested whether convergent evolution occurred in the humerus of fossorial mammals, one of the most derived biological structures among mammals. Clades adapting to digging kinematics possess unusual, by mammalian standards, humeral shapes. The application of a new, computationally fast morphological test revealed a single significant instance of convergence pertaining to the Japanese fossorial moles (Mogera) and the North-American fossorial moles (Scalopini). Yet, the pattern only manifests when trade-off performance data (derived from finite element analysis) are added to shape data. This result indicates that fossorial mammals have found multiple solutions to the same adaptive challenge, independently moving around multiple adaptive peaks. This study suggests the importance of accounting for functional trade-off measures when studying morpho-functional convergence. We revealed that fossorial mammals, a classic example of convergent evolution, evolved multiple strategies to exploit the subterranean ecotope, characterized by different functional trade-offs rather than converging toward a single adaptive optimum

Testing for changes in rate of evolution and position of the climatic niche of clades

1. There is solid recognition that phylogenetic effects must be acknowledged to appreciate climatic niche variability among species clades properly. Yet, most currently available methods either work at the intra- specific level (hence they ignore phylogeny) or rely on the Brownian motion model of evolution to estimate phylogenetic effects on climatic niche variation. The Brownian mo-tion model may be inappropriate to describe niche evolution in several cases, and even a significant phylogenetic signal in climatic variables does not in-dicate that the effect of shared ancestry was relevant to niche evolution.2. We introduce a new phylogenetic comparative method which describes sig-nificant changes in the width and position of the climatic niche at the inter-specific (clade) level, while making no a priori assumption about how niche evolution took place.3. We devised the R function phylo.niche.shift to estimate whether the climatic niches of individual clades in the tree are either wider or narrower than expected, and whether the niche occupies unexpected climates. We tested phylo.niche.shift on realistic virtual species’ distribution patterns applied to a phylogeny of 365 extant primate species.4. We demonstrate via simulations that the new method is fast and accurate under widely different climatic niche evolution scenarios. phylo.niche.shift showed that the capuchin monkeys and langurs occupy much wider, and prosimian much narrower, climatic niche space than expected by their phylogenetic positions.5. phylo.niche.shift may help to improve research on niche evolution by allow-ing researchers to test specific hypotheses on the factors affecting clades’ realised niche width and position, and the potential effects of climate change on species’ distribution

Target Deformation of the Equus stenonis Holotype Skull : A Virtual Reconstruction

Equus stenonis is one of the most prevalent European Pleistocene fossil horses. It is believed to be the possible ancestor of all Old World Early Pleistocene Equus, extant zebras and asses, and as such provides insights into Equus evolution and its biogeography and paleoecology. The Equus stenonis holotype skull (IGF560) was first described by Igino Cocchi in 1867, from the Early Pleistocene locality of Terranuova (Upper Valdarno basin, Italy). IGF560 is a nearly complete, although medio-laterally crushed and badly compressed skull. Here we provide the first application of a new virtual reconstruction protocol, termed Target Deformation, to the Equus stenonis holotype. The protocol extends beyond classic retrodeformation by using target specimens as a guide for the virtual reconstruction. The targets used as a reference are two fragmentary, yet well-preserved E. stenonis skulls, coming from Olivola (Italy; IGF11023) and Dmanisi (Georgia; Dm 5/154.3/4.A4.5), both Early Pleistocene in age. These two specimens do not display any major deformation, but preserve different, only slightly overlapping portions of the skull. The virtual reconstruction protocol we carried out has shown its feasibility, by producing two 3D models whose final morphology is perfectly congruent with the natural variability of a comparative sample of E. stenonis specimens. This study shows the potential of using even broken or otherwise fragmentary specimens to guide retrodeformation in badly distorted and damaged specimens. The application of Target Deformation will allow us to increase the availability of comparative specimens in studies of fossil species morphology and evolution, as well as to the study of taphonomic processes