Trabecular bone patterning in the hominoid distal femur

Leoni Georgiou; Tracy L Kivell; Dieter H Pahr; Matthew M Skinner

doi:10.7717/peerj.5156

Trabecular bone patterning in the hominoid distal femur

PeerJ. 2018 Jul 5:6:e5156. doi: 10.7717/peerj.5156. eCollection 2018.

Authors

Leoni Georgiou¹, Tracy L Kivell^{1

2}, Dieter H Pahr^{3

4}, Matthew M Skinner^{1

2}

Affiliations

¹ Skeletal Biology Research Centre, School of Anthropology and Conservation, University of Kent at Canterbury, Canterbury, Kent, UK.
² Department of Human Evolution, Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology, Leipzig, Germany.
³ Institute for Lightweight Design and Structural Biomechanics, Vienna University of Technology, Vienna, Austria.
⁴ Department of Anatomy and Biomechanics, Karl Landsteiner Private University of Health Sciences, Krems an der Donau, Austria.

Abstract

Background: In addition to external bone shape and cortical bone thickness and distribution, the distribution and orientation of internal trabecular bone across individuals and species has yielded important functional information on how bone adapts in response to load. In particular, trabecular bone analysis has played a key role in studies of human and nonhuman primate locomotion and has shown that species with different locomotor repertoires display distinct trabecular architecture in various regions of the skeleton. In this study, we analyse trabecular structure throughout the distal femur of extant hominoids and test for differences due to locomotor loading regime.

Methods: Micro-computed tomography scans of Homo sapiens (n = 11), Pan troglodytes (n = 18), Gorilla gorilla (n = 14) and Pongo sp. (n = 7) were used to investigate trabecular structure throughout the distal epiphysis of the femur. We predicted that bone volume fraction (BV/TV) in the medial and lateral condyles in Homo would be distally concentrated and more anisotropic due to a habitual extended knee posture at the point of peak ground reaction force during bipedal locomotion, whereas great apes would show more posteriorly concentrated BV/TV and greater isotropy due to a flexed knee posture and more variable hindlimb use during locomotion.

Results: Results indicate some significant differences between taxa, with the most prominent being higher BV/TV in the posterosuperior region of the condyles in Pan and higher BV/TV and anisotropy in the posteroinferior region in Homo. Furthermore, trabecular number, spacing and thickness differ significantly, mainly separating Gorilla from the other apes.

Discussion: The trabecular architecture of the distal femur holds a functional signal linked to habitual behaviour; however, there was more similarity across taxa and greater intraspecific variability than expected. Specifically, there was a large degree of overlap in trabecular structure across the sample, and Homo was not as distinct as predicted. Nonetheless, this study offers a comparative sample of trabecular structure in the hominoid distal femur and can contribute to future studies of locomotion in extinct taxa.

Keywords: Functional morphology; Hominoid; Locomotion; Trabecular bone.

Grants and funding

This research was supported by a 50th Anniversary Research Scholarship, University of Kent (Leoni Georgiou), European Research Council Starting Grant 336301 (Matthew M Skinner, Tracy L Kivell), and the Max Planck Society (Matthew M Skinner, Tracy L Kivell). The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript.