abstract: Within the primate lineage, skeletal traits that contribute to inter-specific anatomical variation and enable varied niche occupations and forms of locomotion are often described as the result of environmental adaptations. However, skeletal phenotypes are more accurately defined as complex traits, and environmental, genetic, and epigenetic mechanisms, such as DNA methylation which regulates gene expression, all contribute to these phenotypes. Nevertheless, skeletal complexity in relation to epigenetic variation has not been assessed across the primate order. In order to gain a complete understanding of the evolution of skeletal phenotypes across primates, it is necessary to study skeletal epigenetics in primates. This study attempts to fill this gap by identifying intra- and inter-specific variation in primate skeletal tissue methylation in order to test whether specific features of skeletal form are related to specific variations in methylation. Specifically, methylation arrays and gene-specific methylation sequencing are used to identify DNA methylation patterns in femoral trabecular bone and cartilage of several nonhuman primate species. Samples include baboons (Papio spp.), macaques (Macaca mulatta), vervets (Chlorocebus aethiops), chimpanzees (Pan troglodytes), and marmosets (Callithrix jacchus), and the efficiencies of these methods are validated in each taxon. Within one nonhuman primate species (baboons), intra-specific variations in methylation patterns are identified across a range of comparative levels, including skeletal tissue differences (bone vs. cartilage), age cohort differences (adults vs. juveniles), and skeletal disease state differences (osteoarthritic vs. healthy), and some of the identified patterns are evolutionarily conserved with those known in humans. Additionally, in all nonhuman primate species, intra-specific methylation variation in association with nonpathological femur morphologies is assessed. Lastly, inter-specific changes in methylation are evaluated among all nonhuman primate taxa and used to provide a phylogenetic framework for methylation changes previously identified in the hominin lineage. Overall, findings from this work reveal how skeletal DNA methylation patterns vary within and among primate species and relate to skeletal phenotypes, and together they inform our understanding of epigenetic regulation and complex skeletal trait evolution in primates. / Dissertation/Thesis / Doctoral Dissertation Anthropology 2017

This thesis argues that nonhuman animals are constructive of human societies by virtue of the complex relationships they form with humans, both at an individual and at a community level. This thesis also suggests that particular constructions of human/ nonhuman animal relationships fail to account for animal agency, and that the transgressions of liminal animals highlight this agency. Specifically, this thesis uses two case studies – deer in Oak Bay and bears on the Central Coast – to show how nonhuman animals can be seen as actors and as active shapers of our mixed-species social orderings and communities. This thesis argues that, rather than being passive objects who are subject to government policy and human orderings, these nonhuman animals are shaping political processes in their communities through the relationships they have formed with the humans around them. / Graduate

A Tuberculose vem acometendo animais selvagens desde o surgimento das primeiras coleções organizadas. Particularmente, macacos são altamente suscetíveis as micobactérias, gerando grandes perdas econômicas para as instituições, além do risco de transmissão para o homem e animais. As principais micobatérias, que causam a doença em primatas em cativeiro, são o Mycobacterium tuberculosis e Mycobacterium bovis. Acredita-se que primatas do "novo mundo" são menos suscetíveis do que os do "velho mundo", entretanto observa-se que tuberculose tem sido documentada em várias espécies. A principal forma de transmissão é através de aerossóis contendo os bacilos. A doença pode evoluir para a forma ativa ou latente, dependendo do estado imunológico do animal. Os sinais clínicos podem ser insidiosos, com somente uma alteração comportamental, seguido por anorexia e letargia, alterações respiratórias ou simplesmente o animal pode aparecer morto no recinto. O diagnóstico clínico é difícil e problemático, sendo que muitas vezes as lesões consistentes com a doença só são observadas na necropsia. Por isso o uso de outras ferramentas de diagnóstico é importante, como o teste de tuberculinização, cultivo e isolamento bacteriano, que são os mais usados na rotina das instituições, e os exames radiográficos do tórax e abdômen, testes moleculares e sorológicos. Toda instituição que mantém primatas em cativeiro deveriam possuir programas de prevenção para evitar a entrada da micobactéria dentro da coleção, principalmente ao se adquirir novos animais. Por isso, o emprego de medidas de biossegurança é essencial para diminuir o risco de doenças para o homem e para os animais dentro das instituições. Essas medidas consistem na implantação de uma série de procedimentos e normas operacionais rígidas, como programas de quarentena, programas de saúde para os funcionários e formação de equipe capacitada e treinada. / Tuberculosis has been affecting wild animals since the arising of the first organized collections. Specially, monkeys are highly susceptible to mycobacteria, which cause great economic losses in the institutions, beyond the risk of transmission to man and animals. The main species of mycobacteria, that cause disease in nonhuman primates in captivity, are Mycobacerium tuberculosis and Mycobacterium bovis. It is believed that nonhuman primates from the "new world" are less susceptible than the "old world" ones, however it is noted that tuberculosis has been continually documented in several species. Aerosols that contain infectious bacilli are the main transmission mode. The disease can progress to active or latent form, which depends on the animal's immune status. The clinical signs can be insidious, with only a behavior change, followed by anorexia and lethargy, respiratory alteration or the animal can appear dead in the room. The clinical diagnostic is difficult and problematic, and often lesions are only observed at necropsy. Therefore, the use of other diagnostic tools is important, as the tuberculin skin test, bacterial culture and isolation, that are most used during the routine of institutions, and radiography of the chest and abdomen, molecular and serological tests. Every institution that maintains nonhuman primates in captivity should have prevention programs to avoid the entry of mycobacteria inside of collection, mainly when new animals are acquired. Thus, the use of biosecurity measures is essential to reduce the risk of disease in humans and animals within institutions. These measures consist in implanting series of rigid procedures and operational standards, like quarantine programs, health programs for employees and formation of the qualified team.

This thesis examines the numerous roles that nonhumans (and especially livestock) played in the creation, maintenance, and reproduction of settler space in the colonial city of Victoria, British Columbia, and details the gradual processes by which city space paradoxically became designated as such through the selective removal of animal life over the turn of the twentieth century. I use extensive archival material, newspaper coverage, and secondary analysis to explore the varied roles nonhumans played in the establishment of settler society, and investigate the ways that animals were paradoxically fundamental and antithetical to modernizing and industrializing settler space across nearly a century of urban history. In the earliest days of colonial settlement, when Victoria was established as a fur-trading post and depot for the Hudson’s Bay Company’s Columbia Department, animals played crucial dispossessive roles in forcibly reorganizing Indigenous territory and establishing settler space, and were indeed vital to the broader British colonizing project. As the city experienced dramatic demographic growth and tightening urban space across two gold rushes in the mid-nineteenth century, Victoria’s livestock faced increased scrutiny from legislators and citizens through the application of the common law category of “public nuisance.” Urban subsistence strategies such as pig-keeping and free-range grazing began to encroach on settler property and offend nascent middle-class ratepayers as the city grew in population and density, causing a selective process of removal, even as some livestock (such as milk-producing cattle) remained vital to many of the city’s households. Yet new understandings of disease transmission and sanitation sparked the gradual removal of domestic milch cows from Victoria’s backyards and lots, as medical scrutiny began to view the city’s dairy supply as a potential vector for the spread of the “White Plague,” bovine tuberculosis. The resulting consolidation of privately-owned and co-operative dairies would largely spell the end to urban livestock husbandry in the city, relocating nonhuman bodies out of sight and out of mind. Meanwhile, the extension of a cattle frontier into the mainland Interior Plateau continued a process of dispossession instigated on Lekwungen territories in Victoria, inflicting devastation on grassland ecologies and Indigenous livelihoods in the arid interior of British Columbia, while the injection of outside capital and advances in transportation, retail and supply chain infrastructure placed consumers at a greater and greater spatial and conceptual divide from the animals with whom they had formerly shared their urban spaces. / Graduate / 2022-08-30

In this project, I speculate about a parallel world where a parliament chair for more-than-humans to ‘speak up’ exists within a human fabricated democratic construct. Along the narrative, we are to notice the grammar of other beings and to relearn the ethic of respect and interdependency by ‘deep listening’ to our often ‘quiet’ neighbors on this planet. The intention is to take a closer look at the actant nature of other-than-human beings, at the political of them through exploring the tension between power and empathy. The project adopts voting cards as a probing tool for humans’ involvement in the scenario. It explores the balance between chairs’ power connotation and the materiality of paper as well as the emotional character of sounds. It is an invitation of entering an alternative reality where imagination and affection towards a more inclusive and attentive relation with other-than-humans could be envisioned and questioned.

This thesis examines transformations of human characters into trees, stones, and water sources in Ovid’s Metamorphoses. The current climate crisis is partly the result of a view of nature as a passive object, or inert matter, that humans without consequences can exploit. Using primarily the ecocritical theory new materialism, this thesis is a study of how nonhuman organisms can be assumed to have agency in order to alter this view of nature. The characters in the Metamorphoses that transform have different forms of agency before and after transformation depending on the body they inhabit. With close reading of the transformations themselves and the portrayal of the characters after transformation, the thesis finds that the material reality of the body determines what a body can do. Thus, it is possible to use the Metamorphoses to do a contemporary ecocritical reading that shows how a narrative can portray nature and nonhuman organisms with as much importance as human organism. By understanding the agency of nature and find it to be an active subject instead of only an object, it can change the relationship humans have with nature to one that is less exploitative.

The evolutionary origins of human handedness are not yet fully understood as evidence of lateralized behavior in nonhuman primates is inconclusive. In the present study, lateralized behavior in both spontaneously occurring motor patterns and a tube task was examined in 15 white-handed gibbons (Hylobates lar). Significant side preferences at the individual level were found within all 15 studied motor patterns. However, no population-level side bias was found for any of the spontaneously occurring or task-related motor patterns and none of the gibbons were consistent in their hand preference across all motor patterns. When only considering the individuals with a significant preference, a significant majority was left-preferent for resting foot. Strength of side preference was significantly higher for the tube task than for all spontaneously occurring motor patterns. Side preferences for manipulation and resting position were significantly stronger than those for supporting hand. Additionally, the preferences for manipulation were significantly stronger than those for leading limb. In the bimanual tube task, females displayed a tendency towards a left-side bias, while males tended to display a bias to the right. Furthermore, females had a significantly stronger hand preference for supporting hand than males. No other sex differences were found. Age, posture, and kinship had no significant effect on lateralized behavior for any of the motor patterns. As in other nonhuman primates, the white-handed gibbons were only consistent in their hand preference across tasks that required similar movements. Altogether, these findings support the notion that population-level handedness may be restricted to human subjects.

This thesis aims to examine non-human agency in Elizabeth Jane Burnett’s The Grassling and Hiromi Itō’s Wild Grass on the Riverbank. Using a theoretical framework based on material ecocriticism, queer ecology and affect theory, the thesis explores how Burnett’s and Itō’s poetic narratives reconfigure the relationship between human and nonhuman in non-anthropocentric ways with the help of the irreal. The thesis discusses how the texts reimagine desire, moving from a Freudian view in which desire is repressed, to an understanding of desire as becoming as expressed by Deleuze. In the stories, humans metamorphose into plants, showing the interconnectedness of all matter and the importance of care exceeding species. These strands of the narratives contest anthropocentrism, and by extension also the heteropatriarchy to which it is related. Grief over traumatic experiences like family loss and migration in the stories are shown to be related to the loss of a planetary home as a result of climate change.

In Frank Herbert’s Dune Saga, we find a transhumanist and Nietzschean argument about the evolution of humans achieved as a result of the triggering effect of the Butlerian Jihad against thinking machines. I claim that the metamorphoses of the selected characters reflect the central tenants of the transformation of Nietzsche’s overhuman, or transhumanism’s posthuman. By extending these metamorphoses to include the standpoint of a fictional counterpart such as Dune’s Kwisatz Haderach, this study claims that in Science Fiction we find a possible ground for conceptualizing difficult problems that deal with the future of humanity. This investigation into the need to overcome the human condition will be held in order to see what drives human enhancement, what triggers the need for change, and how this enhancement is realised. Moreover, I claim that the Dune Saga dramatizes a future scenario that furthers the discussion on what is human by questioning the boundary between human and nonhuman.

京都大学 / 0048 / 新制・課程博士 / 博士(医学) / 甲第18124号 / 医博第3844号 / 新制||医||1001(附属図書館) / 30982 / 京都大学大学院医学研究科医学専攻 / (主査)教授 金子 武嗣, 教授 大森 治紀, 教授 渡邉 大 / 学位規則第4条第1項該当 / Doctor of Medical Science / Kyoto University / DFAM