Department of Anthropology, Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey, New Brunswick, 08901, USA.
Am J Phys Anthropol. 2012 Apr;147(4):551-79. doi: 10.1002/ajpa.22007. Epub 2012 Feb 13.
Dental microwear has long been used as evidence concerning the diets of extinct species. Here, we present a comparative baseline series of dental microwear textures for a sample of 21 anthropoid primate species displaying interspecific and intraspecific dietary variability. Four dental microwear texture variables (complexity, anisotropy, textural fill volume, and heterogeneity) were computed based on scale-sensitive fractal analysis and high-resolution three-dimensional renderings of microwear surfaces collected using a white-light confocal profiler. The purpose of this analysis was to assess the extent to which these variables reflect variation in diet. Significant contrasts between species with diets known to include foods with differing material properties are clearly evident for all four microwear texture variables. In particular, species that consume more tough foods, such as leaves, tended to have high levels of anisotropy and low texture complexity. The converse was true for species including hard and brittle items in their diets either as staples or as fallback foods. These results reaffirm the utility of dental microwear texture analysis as an important tool in making dietary inferences based on fossil primate samples.
牙齿微观磨损痕迹长期以来一直被用作研究灭绝物种饮食的证据。在这里,我们展示了一个包含 21 种具有种间和种内饮食变异性的人科灵长类动物样本的牙齿微观磨损纹理的比较基线系列。基于尺度敏感分形分析和使用白光共聚焦轮廓仪收集的微观磨损表面的高分辨率三维渲染,计算了四个牙齿微观磨损纹理变量(复杂性、各向异性、纹理填充体积和非均质性)。该分析的目的是评估这些变量在多大程度上反映了饮食的变化。对于所有四个微观磨损纹理变量,已知包含具有不同物质特性的食物的饮食的物种之间存在明显的差异。特别是,那些食用更多坚韧食物(如叶子)的物种,其各向异性水平往往较高,纹理复杂性较低。对于那些将坚硬和易碎的食物作为主食或备用食物纳入饮食的物种来说,情况正好相反。这些结果再次证实了牙齿微观磨损纹理分析作为基于化石灵长类样本进行饮食推断的重要工具的实用性。