A new conservation strategy for China-A model starting with primates.

Although the evolutionary history of primates in China dates to the Eocene, and includes major radiations of lorisids, hominoids, cercopithecines, and colobines during the Miocene, Pliocene, and Pleistocene, extensive human-induced habitat change and deforestation over the past few centuries has resulted in 22 of 25 extant species listed as threatened or endangered, and two species of gibbons extirpated in the last few years. This commentary briefly reviews factors that have contributed to the decline of primates in China over the past 400 years, and in particular how major social events and economic development in modern China have resulted in unsustainable environmental change. In response, we describe our efforts to develop a strategic scientific, educational and conservation partnership in China, focusing on primates, in which GIS technology will be used to integrate geographical profiles, climatic information, and changes in land use patterns and human and nonhuman primate distributions to highlight issues of immediate concern and to develop priority-based conservation solutions. Our goal is to evaluate how human-induced environmental change has impacted primates over time and to predict the likelihood of primate population extinctions in the near future. This model represents an early warning system that will be widely available to the Chinese government, public, educational institutions, researchers, and NGOs through social media and educational videos in order to arouse public awareness and promote wildlife conservation. We encourage colleagues across a broad range of academic disciplines, political ideologies, and the public to help move this strategy into reality, the sooner the better. Am. J. Primatol. 78:1137-1148, 2016. © 2016 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.

A comparison of Demirjian's four dental development methods for forensic age assessment.

The aim of this study was to determine the comparative accuracy of Demirjian's four dental development methods for forensic age estimation in the Western Australian population. A sample comprising 143 individuals aged 4.6 to 14.5 years were assessed using Demirjian's four methods for dental development (original 7-tooth: M(2), M(1), PM(2), PM(1), C, I(2), and I(1); revised 7-tooth: M(2), M(1), PM(2), PM(1), C, I(2), and I(1); 4-tooth: M(2), M(1), PM(2), and PM(1); and an alternate 4-tooth: M(2), PM(2), PM(1), and I(1)). When comparing all four methods, the 4-tooth method overestimated age in both males and females by 0.04 and 0.25 years, respectively. The original 7-tooth was least accurate for males, while the original 7-tooth, the revised 7-tooth, and the alternate 4-tooth were unsuitable for females. Therefore, we recommend the 4-tooth method to be used for forensic age estimation in Western Australian males and females, as it has the lowest overall mean deviation and the highest accuracy.

Sexual dimorphisms in the overall proportions of primates.

Morphometric analysis of Professor A.H. Schultz's data on the overall proportions of primates reveals differences between the sexes. Univariate examinations of these data confirm the existence of the spectrum of sexual dimorphism already well known. This spectrum relates mainly to differences in the proportions of the trunk. It has a differential expression with largest differences between the sexes in species such as orangutans and boboons, and smallest in species such as spider monkeys and douroucoulis. Multivariate statistical study of these same data reveal, however, further unsuspected sexual dimorphisms. Although differences between the sexes are only small when measures of the relative lengths of bodily parts are examined, they are big when bodily breadths are studied. Investigation of breadths alone reveals that the primates display two major patterns of sexual dimorphisms and seven unique sexual dimorphisms among the 18 genera examined. Such findings mean that sexual dimorphism of bodily structure is not a single phenomenon with differential expression, a concept widely noted in the literature and most recently associated with social organization. There are several different sexual dimorphisms and this suggests that their causation is likely to be multifactorial with multiple complex interactions among the factors. Some of the sexual dimorphisms must have evolved in parallel a number of times, and, given that chimpanzees, gorillas, and humans each display a different sexual dimorphism, at least some of the evolutionary changes in different sexual dimorphisms must be very recent. The findings even imply the possibility of further unique patterns of sexual dimorphism in some fossils. By further extension, the findings may have some implications for our understanding of nonstructural dimorphisms in humans.