Maxx Toler, Duke EvAnth PhD student
Christine Wall, graduate advisor

Area of research: Biomechanics/ physiology

What is your main research question?
The aye aye is an animal which is apt at using its incisor teeth to access structurally defended foods. Our research question addresses how the aye-aye is gnawing biomechanically by studying the motion, structure, and forces produced by the mandible. The project will also assess the energetic expenditure experienced while gnawing.

Briefly describe your project design.
We will have the aye-ayes gnawing an instrumented pole to record the forces they produce during that behavior. With multiple cameras recording them during the experiment we will be able to observe the motion of their head and jaw during this process. In the near future, we will be collecting metabolic expenditure during bouts of gnawing by measuring fluctuations in oxygen and carbon dioxide concentration using an open flow respirometer.

How will working with lemurs help achieve your research goals?
The aye-aye is a curious animal. It is the only primate which has converged with rodents on an ever-growing, banded incisor and large diastema. Our goals for the aye-aye are to understand how an animal adapts to predominantly incisive behavior (which has the least mechanical advantage for jaw muscles) and to better understand the cost-benefit ratio of specializing on structurally defended foods.

Relevant/recent publications:
Similar work was done with marmosets; a good summary In: The Smallest Anthropoids. SM Ford, LM Porter, LC Davis (eds), 2009. Chapter 20. The Evolutionary Morphology of Tree Gouging in Marmosets.