Glossary of Terms
For a very complete glossary of scientific terms from many fields go to AccessScience.
Affiliative
Bonds (Primatology) Strong
affiliations among individuals, usually manifested by higher rates of proximity
and non-aggressive interactions.
Agonistic
(Primatology) - Aggressive
displays or interactions.
Allometry
(Paleoanthropology) Body size estimation.
(narrow allometry looks at just one character)
Allopatric
(Paleoanthropology) Pertaining to taxa
occupying different and disjunct geographical areas. (allopatric speciation -
small isolated subpopulations)
Anagenesis
(Paleoanthropology) Evolutionary process
involving the gradual accumulation of changes in
ancestor-to-descendant lineages.
(=
phyletic evolution)
Analogy
(Paleoanthropology) Similarity of form
between two taxa not shared by their nearest common ancestor - due to convergent
evolution.
Anthropocentric
(Primatology) Human-oriented
viewpoint or perspective.
Apomorphy
(Paleoanthropology) A later
state of a character relative to its ancestral state.
Autapomorphic
(Paleoanthropology) A
highly derived , new feature - not shared by sister groups or by last common ancestor
Bootstrapping
(Paleoanthropology, Cladistics) ???
Getting the data re-analysing looking
for branch and bound results.
Cathemeral
(Primatology) Active
both day and night. Some of the primates of Madagascar are cathemeral.
Comparative Method method for testing adaptive hypotheses. In the simplest case, test for a correlation between two traits or between a trait and an environment variable across population - or naturally occurring population between groups. Problems - Data availability (enough populations studied?), Data quality (How many individuals?), inferring causality from correlation (can you infer the direction of change), Non-independence among populations.
Clade
Groups with common ancestry - taxon A and
taxon B have common ancestor. cladistics works on min of 3 taxa - question is
how recent. Clade is always monophyletic
Cohesive
groups (Primatology) Groups
that stick together. Usually measured in the distance between individuals.
Composition
(of group) (Primatology) The
combined age, sex and kinship of group members. Affected by birth/death rates,
population demographics and dispersal patterns.
Consortship
(Primatology)
Where one individual helps
another to gain status?
Convergent
evolution (Paleoanthropology) Where
an analogous trait exists in two taxon because of an adaptation to a similar
problem.
Degree
of Variation
(Paleoanthropology) Can you find variation
in a population of extant species? Is the difference between two examples
covered by natural variation in size or is it significantly different.
Dispersal
(Primatology) Does
the female
or male leave the natal group?
Diurnal
(Primatology) Active
during the day and sleep at night. Apart from
people who work the night shift,
and students most humans are diurnal.
Dyadic
Interaction (Primatology) An
interaction between two individuals
Egalitarian
(Primatology) Lack
of hierarchy or pecking order. Resources likely to be obtained by whoever gets
there first, rather than any social order.
Ethogram
(Primatology) The
behavioral
repertoire of a species.
Fission-Fusion
(Primatology) Chimp-like
social structure where small groups go off together for periods of time but then
join up again later.
Fluvial Of or belonging to rivers.
Gregarious
(Primatology) Social.
Habituation
(Primatology) The
process where animals cease to change their behaviour because of the presence of
human observers.
Homologous
(Homology) (Paleoanthropology)
Either sympleisiomorphic primitive) or
synapomorphic (derived) 'true' similarity.
Homoplasy
(Paleoanthropology) Any resemblance not
due to inheritance from a common ancestor - due to parallel evolution, reversals,
analogies, convergence or mimicry It is 'false' similarity.
Hypodigm
(Paleoanthropology) The
entire fossil record for a given taxon
Inclusive
Fitness The overall fitness to survive to
reproductive age (Darwinian fitness).
Lacustrine Of or pertaining to lakes: dwelling in or on lakes: formed by lakes.
Littoral Belonging to the sea-shore, to lands near the coast, the beach, the space between high and low tide marks or water a little below the low tide mark. Inhabiting the shore or shallow water of a lake or sea.
Lumbar
Lordosis (Skeletal &
Dental Biology) Human-like spine.
Matrilines
(Primatology) Lines
of mother-daughter descendents, where
females
are philopatric.
Monophyletic
group (Paleoanthropology) A
synonym for a clade.
Morphocline
(Paleoanthropology) A change in a
structure from ancestor to descendant
e.g. a bone going from small to large, a
feature absent to present.
Nulliparous
(Primatology) Single, childless female?
Ontogeny
The
development of an individual or a character. In behavioural ecology the
ontogenetic explanation of a behaviour would be to do with when the it arose in
the life history.
Orthograde
(Paleoanthropology) A more upright posture of quadruped.
Operational
Sex Ratio (Primatology) The
Socionomic sex ratio weighted by the period during which females are actively
breeding.
OTU
(Paleoanthropology) Operational taxonomic units
Outgroup
(Paleoanthropology) A species not being analysed. the ones that are shared are primitive.
Parallel
evolution (Paleoanthropology)
Paraphyletic
Group (Paleoanthropology) A
group containing some but not all the known descendants of the common ancestor
of the group.
Parsimony
Where less changes have to be explained.
Typically in cladistic analysis of phylogenetic trees. For instance it is more
parsimonious to assume that the last common ancestor of human, gorilla, pan and
Pongo
was a poor diver as only humans have that trait. It would be more
unparsimonious to assume that the last common ancestor was a diver and pan,
gorilla
and
Pongo
had all lost the trait.
Patrilinial
(Primatology) Males
related through paternal
lines where males are philopatric.
Pattern
of variation
(Paleoanthropology) Variation
in the form of variations. Form = size + shape. Shape differences sometimes have to be evaluated more than
size - effectively removing size from the equation. If you increase body mass it
has certain predictable physical restrictions. Elephants can't run around on
proportionately bigger limbs to the same scale as a mouse's. Think of Encephalisation
Quotient.
PAUP
(Paleoanthropology) Phylogenetic Analysis
Using Parsimony (and other methods)
Philopatry
(Primatology) Where
an individual stays in the natal
group.
Phylogenetic
Comparative Methods (Paleoanthropology)
Method of independent contrasts.
Phylogeny
(Paleoanthropology) Genealogical
of
descent
relationships
among groups of taxa.
Pleisiomorphic (Paleoanthropology) Old traits.
Pluvial Of or by rain: rainy.
Polarity
of morphocline
(Paleoanthropology) Which came first?
which was ancestral condition.
Polyandry
(Primatology) A
mating system where one reproductive females mates with multiple males.
Polygamy
(Primatology) A
mating system where both males and females mate with multiple partners.
Polygyny
(Primatology) A
mating system where one male mates with multiple females. Gorillas have
harem-like, polygynous mating systems.
Polyphyletic
groups
(Paleoanthropology) Special case of
paraphyletic groups - convergent evolution.
Pronograde
(Paleoanthropology) Horizontal back form of quadrupedalism, as opposed to orthograde.
Proximal
Function (Primatology) ...of
a behaviour means the reason it's done 'without thinking too deeply.'
For instance we have sex because it feels
good. The 'ultimate function' of
sex would be to reproduce.
Regression
Analysis Plotting a line through a set of
points
Residual
The
distance between the data point and the regression line.
Relationship
(In cladistics) Meaning either
ancestor-descendant or collateral (sister/cousins relationships)
Reversibility
of a character
(Paleoanthropology) The
idea that a trait, once derived might revert back too.
sensu
lato (Pal
sensu
stricto (Pal
Socionomic
Sex Ratio (Primatology) The
ratio of breeding females to males, highly variable except in pair-bonded
groups. (Contras with operational sex ratio)
Stasis
(Paleoanthropology) The
observation that specimens
don't seem to change over time.
Synapomorphism
(Paleoanthropology)
Shared derived traits.
Taxon
(Paleoanthropology) A (probably biological)
entity
e.g.
genes, individuals, species, genera.
In
cladistic
analysis terminology a taxon.
Ultimate
Function (Primatology) ..
of a behaviour is the explanation of a behaviour in terms of evolution or how it
helps the individual's Darwinian
fitness. We have sex so that we can reproduce.
Unordered
Characters (Paleoanthropology)
Cladistic term describing where analysed
characters may go from 1 to 4, without going thru 2, 3.
Woven
assemblages from Turkmen
groups
Persian rugs!
Valgus
Knee (Skeletal & Dental
Biology) A thigh bone that bends inwards
supporting the full weight of a body.
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