Evidence map›Paper›PMID 25602067›Full record

ReviewPhilosophical transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series B, Biological sciences2015

The evolution of the human pelvis: changing adaptations to bipedalism, obstetrics and thermoregulation.

Laura Tobias Gruss, Daniel Schmitt

Open access · bronzeAbstract readReview
In one paragraph

Review in Philosophical transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series B, Biological sciences, 2015. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 51 papers.

0numbers the graph read from it
0cells of the map it votes in
51citing papers in PubMed
85.7field-weighted citation impact, top 1% of its field
1 · What the graph read from it

What it found

Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.

The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.

2 · The registry

The trial behind it

Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.

Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.

3 · Its place in the literature

Who cites it

51 citing papers in PubMed, 191 citations in OpenAlex.

  1. Insights into Neanderthal development, childbirth, and locomotion from the Palomas and Dederiyeh pelves.Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America · 2026
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  19. The genetic architecture of the human skeletal form.bioRxiv : the preprint server for biology · 2023
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4 · The record

Corrections and comments

PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.

5 · Who and what money

Authors and funding

2 authors at 2 institutions in 1 country.

Laura Tobias GrussDepartment of Biology, Radford University, Radford, VA, USA lgruss@radford.edu.
Daniel SchmittDepartment of Evolutionary Anthropology, Duke University, Durham, NC, USA.
Duke University · USRadford University · US

Funding

No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.

6 · The paper itself

Abstract

The fossil record of the human pelvis reveals the selective priorities acting on hominin anatomy at different points in our evolutionary history, during which mechanical requirements for locomotion, childbirth and thermoregulation often conflicted. In our earliest upright ancestors, fundamental alterations of the pelvis compared with non-human primates facilitated bipedal walking. Further changes early in hominin evolution produced a platypelloid birth canal in a pelvis that was wide overall, with flaring ilia. This pelvic form was maintained over 3-4 Myr with only moderate changes in response to greater habitat diversity, changes in locomotor behaviour and increases in brain size. It was not until Homo sapiens evolved in Africa and the Middle East 200 000 years ago that the narrow anatomically modern pelvis with a more circular birth canal emerged. This major change appears to reflect selective pressures for further increases in neonatal brain size and for a narrow body shape associated with heat dissipation in warm environments. The advent of the modern birth canal, the shape and alignment of which require fetal rotation during birth, allowed the earliest members of our species to deal obstetrically with increases in encephalization while maintaining a narrow body to meet thermoregulatory demands and enhance locomotor performance.

Indexed as

Biological EvolutionFossilsAdaptation, BiologicalBody Temperature RegulationFemaleGaitHumansParturitionPelvisbipedalismbirthfunctional anatomyhuman evolutionpelvis

Identifiers

PMID25602067
PMCPMC4305164
OpenAlexW2098885981

What OpenQuestion holds

Textmetadata
Read underepoch 390

Registered trials

None linked

Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.