Data from: Human face-off: a new method for mapping evolutionary rates on three-dimensional digital models

Modern phylogenetic comparative methods allow estimating evolutionary
rates of phenotypic change, how these rates differ across clades, and
assessing whether the rate remained constant over time. Unfortunately,
currently available phylogenetic comparative tools express the rate in
terms of a scalar dimension, hence they do not allow us to determine rate
variations among different parts of a single, complex phenotype, or
charting of realized rate variation directly onto the phenotype. Herein,
we present a new method which allows the mapping of evolutionary rate
variation directly on three-dimensional phenotypes, informing on the
direction and magnitude of trait change automatically. This new method,
implemented by the function rate.map embedded in the R package ‘RRphylo’,
is based on phylogenetic ridge regression rate estimates. Since the latter
represent ridge regression slopes, they possess sign and magnitude. In
‘RRphylo’, different rates are calculated for different districts of the
phenotype, which can then be visualized directly onto the phenotype
itself. We present the application of rate.map to the evolution of facial
skeleton in Hominoidea (the clade including living and fossil apes), the
primate clade inclusive of Homo and the greater apes. We found that the
highly derived, unique shape of the face in modern humans evolved through
rapid phenotypic changes affecting the nasal bones, the brow ridge and the
maxillary region. The canine fossa, a facial feature unique to Homo
sapiens, did not belong to a region of rapid phenotypic change, and could
be seen as the by-product of midface evolution as suggested by previous
studies.