Chris Kirk

Biography

Research Interests:

I am a physical anthropologist who studies primate adaptations and evolution. I completed my Ph.D. in Biological Anthropology and Anatomy at Duke University in 2003. I am currently an Associate Professor in the Department of Anthropology and an Assistant Research Professor at the Texas Memorial Museum.

I have a broad array of research interests in physical anthropology, including sensory ecology, functional morphology, and paleontology. Much of my research is related to the evolution of primate sensory systems. This research is important to physical anthropology because many of the major adaptive shifts that occurred during the course of primate evolution involved key changes in sensory anatomy and ecology. For example, primate origins involved a major reorganization of the visual system, including the evolution of larger eyes, convergent optic axes, and a broader field of binocular vision. All of these features are probably related to the need for acute and sensitive vision in the context of nocturnal visual predation. Similarly, the origin of haplorhine primates (tarsiers, monkeys, apes, and humans) was associated with the evolution of features supporting very high visual acuity (e.g., a retinal fovea, macula lutea, postorbital plate, small corneas relative to eye size, etc.) and a simultaneous reduction in the size and complexity of the nasal fossa. There are many other examples of major adaptive shifts in primate sensory system evolution, including the origin of routine trichromatic color vision in catarrhines, the evolution of eye morphologies associated with diurnal activity in lemurids and indriids, and the massive loss of functional olfactory receptor genes in the human lineage.

My current areas of research include: (1) the functional morphology of the primate cochlear labyrinth, (2) the influence of habitat acoustics on lemur vocal communication, (3) the relationship between eye morphology and activity pattern, (4) primate brain evolution, (5) the evolution of manual grasping in primates and other arboreal mammals, and (6) alpha taxonomy and phylogenetic relationships of Eocene primates.