Knight-Sadler Jordan, Fiorenza Luca
Department of Anatomy and Developmental Biology, Monash University, Melbourne, VIC, Australia.
Folia Primatol (Basel). 2017;88(2):223-236. doi: 10.1159/000478775. Epub 2017 Aug 16.
Primate dietary diversity is reflected in their dental morphology, with differences in size and shape of teeth. In particular, the tooth wear angle can provide insight into a species' ability to break down certain foods. To examine dietary and masticatory information, digitized polygon models of dental casts provide a basis for quantitative analysis of wear associated with tooth attrition. In this study, we analyze and compare the wear patterns of Pongo pygmaeus, Gorilla gorillagorilla and Pan troglodytes schweinfurthii lower molars, focusing on the degree of inclination of specific wear facets. The variation in wear angles appears to be indicative of jaw movements and the specific stresses imposed on food during mastication, reflecting thus the ecology of these species. Orangutans exhibit flatter wear angles, more typical of a diet consisting of hard and brittle foods, while gorillas show a wear pattern with a high degree of inclination, reflecting thus their more leafy diet. Chimpanzees, on the other hand, show intermediate inclinations, a pattern that could be related to their highly variable diet. This method is demonstrated to be a powerful tool for better understanding the relationship between food, mastication and tooth wear processes in living primates, and can be potentially used to reconstruct the diet of fossil species.
灵长类动物的饮食多样性体现在它们的牙齿形态上，牙齿的大小和形状存在差异。特别是，牙齿磨损角度可以为了解一个物种分解某些食物的能力提供线索。为了研究饮食和咀嚼信息，牙模的数字化多边形模型为定量分析与牙齿磨耗相关的磨损提供了基础。在本研究中，我们分析并比较了婆罗洲猩猩、西部大猩猩和东非黑猩猩下臼齿的磨损模式，重点关注特定磨损面的倾斜程度。磨损角度的变化似乎表明了下颌运动以及咀嚼过程中施加在食物上的特定应力，从而反映了这些物种的生态习性。猩猩的磨损角度更平缓，这在以坚硬和易碎食物为主的饮食中更为典型，而大猩猩的磨损模式具有较高的倾斜度，从而反映出它们以更多树叶为食的饮食习惯。另一方面，黑猩猩的磨损角度处于中间水平，这种模式可能与其高度多样化的饮食有关。事实证明，这种方法是一种强大的工具，有助于更好地理解现存灵长类动物的食物、咀嚼和牙齿磨损过程之间的关系，并且有可能用于重建化石物种的饮食。
