Objectives: Magnitudes of morphological integration may constrain or facilitate craniofacial shape variation. The aim of this study was to analyze how the magnitude of integration in the skull of Macaca fascicularis changes throughout ontogeny in relation to developmental and/or functional modules.
Materials and methods: Geometric morphometric methods were used to analyze the magnitude of integration in the macaque cranium and mandible in 80 juvenile and 40 adult M. fascicularis specimens. Integration scores in skull modules were calculated using integration coefficient of variation (ICV) of eigenvalues based on a resampling procedure. Resultant ICV scores between the skull as a whole, and developmental and/or functional modules were compared using Mann-Whitney U tests.
Results: Results showed that most skull modules were more tightly integrated than the skull as a whole, with the exception of the chondrocranium in juveniles without canines, the chondrocranium/face complex and the mandibular corpus in adults, and the mandibular ramus in all juveniles. The chondrocranium/face and face/mandibular corpus complexes were more tightly integrated in juveniles than adults, possibly reflecting the influences of early brain growth/development, and the changing functional demands of infant suckling and later masticatory loading. This is also supported by the much higher integration of the mandibular ramus in adults compared with juveniles.
Discussion: Magnitudes of integration in skull modules reflect developmental/functional mechanisms in M. fascicularis. However, the relationship between "evolutionary flexibility" and developmental/functional mechanisms was not direct or simple, likely because of the complex morphology, multifunctionality, and various ossification origins of the skull.
Keywords: Macaca fascicularis; integration coefficient of variation; morphological integration; ontogeny; skull modules.
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