Marian Dagosto
Rank: Associate Professor
Research area: Primate Morphology, Systematics, and Paleontology
Degree: Ph.D., City University of New York
Voice: 312.503.9215
Fax: 312.503.7912
e-mail: mdagosto@northwestern .edu

Detailed research description: The focus of my research efforts is the understanding of the functional, adaptive, and phylogenetic significance of the anatomy of the limb skeleton in extant and fossil prosimian primates. The fossil members of this group, the Adapidae and Omomyidae, are the earliest known primates, and all living primates are thought to have descended from these forms. This group of primates, then, can provide clues to the early adaptive history of the order, and help identify the probable selective forces which shaped the basic morphology of this group.

I have been concentrating on two primary areas of inquiry in this field. The first is the functional analysis of the limb anatomy of fossil primates, including description of newly discovered primate remains, an analysis of the probable locomotor behaviors of fossil species, and the phylogenetic implications of their morphological features. Current projects in this area include analysis of the postcranium of the omomyid Shoshonius cooperi, and of the Eocene Chinese eosimiids.

The second area is the "ecomorphology" of primate locomotion: the documentation of locomotor behavior and its ecological context (relationship to food resources, forest type) and its relationship to interspecific differences in morphology in living primates. My current project in this area is the positional behavior of the Philippine tarsier, Tarsius syrichta.

Recently hosted the first international conference on Primate Origins and Adaptations.  Science (295, 613-615) : New Fossils and a Glimpse of Evolution

Representative publications:

Gebo, D.L., Dagosto, M., Beard, C., Qi, T. and W. Jingwen.
  2000. The oldest known anthropoid postcranial fossils and
  the early evolution of higher primates. Nature 404:276-278.

Gebo, D.L., Dagosto, M., Beard, C. and Qi, T. 2000. The
  smallest primates. J. hum. evol. 38: 585-594.

Dagosto, M., Gebo, D.L., and Beard, C. 1999. Revision of
  the Wind River faunas, early Eocene of central Wyoming.
  Part 14. Postcranium of Shoshonius cooperi (Mammalia,
  Primates). Ann. Carn. Mus. 68:175-211.