TY - JOUR
T1 - Dental topography and diets of platyrrhine primates
AU - Ungar, Peter S.
AU - Healy, Carrie
AU - Karme, Aleksis
AU - Teaford, Mark
AU - Fortelius, Mikael
N1 - Publisher Copyright:
© 2016 Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group.
PY - 2018/2/17
Y1 - 2018/2/17
N2 - More than half a century ago, Percy Butler touted the importance of analyzing teeth to understand their function in an evolutionary context. There have been many advances in the study of dental functional morphology since that time. Here we review the various approaches to characterizing and comparing occlusal form that have been developed, especially dental topographic analysis. We also report on a new study of dental topography of platyrrhine primates (n = 341 individuals representing 16 species) with known differences in both dietary preferences and other food items eaten. Results indicate frugivores, gummivores, folivores, and seed eaters each have a unique combination of slope, relief, angularity, sharpness, and occlusal orientation patch size and count values. Likewise, among frugivores, those that supplement their diets with hard objects, insects, leaves, and seeds, also each have a distinctive suite of topographic features. We conclude that both primary and secondary diet choices select for occlusal form, and that functional morphology more reflects the types of foods and mechanical challenges they pose rather than the frequencies in which they are eaten.
AB - More than half a century ago, Percy Butler touted the importance of analyzing teeth to understand their function in an evolutionary context. There have been many advances in the study of dental functional morphology since that time. Here we review the various approaches to characterizing and comparing occlusal form that have been developed, especially dental topographic analysis. We also report on a new study of dental topography of platyrrhine primates (n = 341 individuals representing 16 species) with known differences in both dietary preferences and other food items eaten. Results indicate frugivores, gummivores, folivores, and seed eaters each have a unique combination of slope, relief, angularity, sharpness, and occlusal orientation patch size and count values. Likewise, among frugivores, those that supplement their diets with hard objects, insects, leaves, and seeds, also each have a distinctive suite of topographic features. We conclude that both primary and secondary diet choices select for occlusal form, and that functional morphology more reflects the types of foods and mechanical challenges they pose rather than the frequencies in which they are eaten.
KW - New World monkeys
KW - food
KW - teeth
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U2 - 10.1080/08912963.2016.1255737
DO - 10.1080/08912963.2016.1255737
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:84995452394
VL - 30
SP - 64
EP - 75
JO - Historical Biology
JF - Historical Biology
SN - 0891-2963
IS - 1-2
ER -