Question

1. What do you expect will be the relationship between diet and dental morphology in primates?
2. What do you expect will be the relationship between diet and brain size in primates?
3. What do you expect will be the relationship between diet and home range size in primates?

Answer 1

Relationship between diet and dental morphology:

Dental morphology can be related with type of diet through the food fracturing properties. Tooth forms are developed according to the diet of the primates.

Hard object feeding mangabeys have cheek teeth with smaller cusps and shorter sheering blades as compared to folivorous langurs. Primates with broad diets are intermediate in occusal relief and crest length.

Teeths must provide the force required to break the food without being broken especially in case of hard food subjects. So the enamel and cheek bones are formed according to the food habits whether it is soft food eater or the one who dwells in hard foods.

Relationship between diet and brain size:

There are many studies which shows that the dietary requirements are directly related to the brain size of primates. It has been shown that the leaf eating animals have shorter brain size in comparison to the ones eating fruits and animal foods like insects and meat. It is associated with the diet that are higher in day and denser in energy which is a prime source of good health too. Therefore, the high energy diets might not be the only reason for the large brain size but it is surely required for encephalization.

Relationship between diet and home range size:

There are many studies from past years showing a positive relationship between diet requirements and home range size in primates. Omnivorous and fruit eating mammals occupy larger home range area according to their body weight than leaf eating ones.

Primates generally require smaller home range area per individual as compared to the terrestrial ones but require larger area when move in social groups wich require high energy expenditure than the individual terrestrial ones.