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Evolutionary Acceleration and Divergence in Procolobus kirkii

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An Erratum to this article was published on 08 November 2008

Abstract

We investigated the role of geographical insularity in divergence and speciation of Procolobus kirkii by examining cranial morphology. The sample (n = 369) included museum specimens of Procolobus spp. and recently deceased individuals of P. kirkii from the main island of Zanzibar and 2 smaller islands in the archipelago. Geometric morphometrics evinced pronounced divergence of Procolobus kirkii from mainland Procolobus, including members of P. badius ssp., P. pennantii ssp., P. rufomitratus, P. gordonorum and also representatives of the assemblage of red colobus populations from Central Equatorial Africa. Procolobus kirkii has a small cranium, consistent with the island rule for large mammals, reduced sexual dimorphism consistent with Rensch’s rule, and a distinct cranial form. Analyses of phenotypic variance of Procolobus kirkii gave no evidence for population bottlenecks in the history of the species, but there is a clear indication that the species has experienced accelerated morphological evolution of size, probably as a result of insularity. Their highly distinctive morphology lends weight to the argument that they are a unique insular endemic species in need of active conservation.

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Acknowledgments

We dedicate this paper to the memory of Marco Corti (1950–2007) in recognition of his great contribution to the development and application of geometric morphometrics to the study of systematics and the mechanisms of speciation in mammals. An eclectic scientist, Marco may have been the first to use the term geometric morphometrics. With his studies, he was a pioneer, clearing the path and serving as an inspiration for many mammalogists. His papers were a model to follow for many of us and his advice was invaluable for many young zoologists who were struggling to learn geometric morphometrics and multivariate statistics. We are deeply grateful to all museum curators and collection managers who allowed and helped us to study their collections. Among them, we especially thank Hans-Walter Mittmann (Staatliches Museum für Naturkunde, Karlsruhe) for sending us specimens on loan during our visit at the Museum für Naturkunde in Berlin. Wim Wendelen (Royal Museum for Central Africa, Tervuren) and Olav Olav Röhrer-Ertl (formerly at Staatliche Naturwissenschaftliche Sammlugen Bayerns, Munich) provided invaluable help with specimen identification and advice on collections of Procolobus, and Cristina Murari (University of Modena and Reggio Emilia) provided crucial support for running computer analyses on Linux work stations. Claudio Gentilini, Maria Teresa Martinelli, Roberta Cantaroni, Costantino Crescimanno and Andrea Ghidoni (all of them at the University of Modena and Reggio Emilia) also were of great help to solving computer and network problems. For their support of our study, we sincerely thank Robert J. Asher and the University Museum of Zoology in Cambridge, where the specimens of Procolobus kirkii collected by K. Nowak are held. Craig Ludwig (National Museum of Natural History, Washington), Emiliano Bruner and Paolo Colangelo (University of Rome), Damiano Preatoni and Adriano Martinoli (University of Insubria), and Andrew Marshall (University of York) were of great help during various stages of this study. We also thank Zanzibar authorities in the Department of Commercial Crops, Fruits and Forestry (DCCFF), especially Director Dr. Bakari Asseid, for logistical support in situ. We particularly thank a reviewer of one of our previous papers for their advice on and suggestions about how to recalculate the partial disparity analysis so that the clumped means did not overly influence the analysis. Finally, we thank Nelson Ting (City University of New York) and his coauthors for sharing with us the preliminary results of their study of the molecular systematics of Piliocolobus, and Colin Groves (Australian National University) for his always invaluable advice on primate taxonomy and his careful review which improved a previous version of this manuscript. Grants from the Leverhulme Trust and the Ruggles-Gates Fund for Biological Anthropology provided funding for the study.

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  1. Wildlife Conservation Research Unit (WildCRU), University of Oxford, Tubney House, Abingdon Road, Abingdon, OX13 5QL, UK

    Katarzyna Nowak

  2. Museo di Paleobiologia e dell’Orto Botanico, Universitá di Modena e Reggio Emilia, 41100, Modena, Italy

    Andrea Cardini

  3. Hull York Medical School, The University of Hull, Hull, HU6 7RX, UK

    Andrea Cardini & Sarah Elton

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  1. Katarzyna Nowak
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  2. Andrea Cardini
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Correspondence to Katarzyna Nowak.

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An erratum to this article can be found at http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s10764-008-9313-2

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Nowak, K., Cardini, A. & Elton, S. Evolutionary Acceleration and Divergence in Procolobus kirkii . Int J Primatol 29, 1313–1339 (2008). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10764-008-9306-1

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