Functional integration of skeletal traits: an intraskeletal assessment of bone size, mineralization, and volume covariance.

ABSTRACT: Understanding the functional integration of skeletal traits and how they naturally vary within and across populations will benefit assessments of functional adaptation directed towards interpreting bone stiffness in contemporary and past humans. Moreover, investigating how these traits intraskeletally vary will guide us closer towards predicting fragility from a single skeletal site. Using an osteological collection of 115 young adult male and female African-Americans, we assessed the functional relationship between bone robustness (i.e. total area/length), cortical tissue mineral density (Ct.TMD), and cortical area (Ct.Ar) for the upper and lower limbs. All long bones demonstrated significant trait covariance (p < 0.005) independent of body size, with slender bones having 25-50% less Ct.A

SUBMITTER: Schlecht SH 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC7368883 | biostudies-literature | 2013 Sep

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature