The influence of fallback foods on great ape tooth enamel

Constantino, Paul J.; Lucas, Peter W.; Lee, James J.-W.; Lawn, Brian R.

doi:10.1002/ajpa.21096

Cited by 89 publications

(78 citation statements)

References 97 publications

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“…For example, Robinson's (1954) suggestion that gritladen foods were the causes of chips in early hominin teeth now seems unlikely, while Tobias's (1967) bone-crunching hypothesis retains a certain plausibility. However, given our current analysis of chipping in extant primates, as well as the additional fossil evidence that has been amassed through the years since Tobias's proposal, we believe items such as nuts and seeds are more likely than bone to be responsible for the chipping of these early hominin teeth (Constantino et al 2009(Constantino et al , 2010.…”

Section: Dental Chipping Analysis and Dietary Reconstructionmentioning

confidence: 90%

“…Pan prefers a diet of soft, ripe fruit, as do all apes (Conklin-Brittain et al 2001;Constantino et al 2009), but even during periods of ripe fruit scarcity, Pan seldom resorts to consuming hard foods. Instead, this genus often continues searching out ripe fruit such as figs by fissioning into smaller parties and, if necessary, increasing their range (Furuichi et al 2001;Tutin et al 1991;Yamagiwa and Basabose 2009).…”

Section: Chipping Frequencymentioning

confidence: 97%

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Tooth Chipping as a Tool to Reconstruct Diets of Great Apes (Pongo, Gorilla, Pan)

2012

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Most methods of dietary reconstruction are limited in their applicability to either extant or extinct taxa. We apply and discuss a method in which dietary information can be reconstructed from chips in the tooth enamel of both living and fossil primates. Such chips can be used to indicate the presence of large hard foods in the diet, and also to provide an estimate of the bite force that was used when the chip was created. Furthermore, the equations derived from this method allow an estimate of maximum bite force to be obtained from a simple measurement of tooth size. We use this method to investigate dietary differences in nonhuman great apes (Pongo, Gorilla, Pan). The high frequency of chips on teeth of Pongo indicate that they frequently use high forces to process hard foods such as seeds and nuts. Gorilla can generate even higher bite forces, but their low incidence of tooth chips suggests that they do so when consuming soft but tough foods. Tooth chips provide a lasting dietary signal that is not easily masked or erased, making them particularly useful for the study of rarely eaten items such as some fallback foods.

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Section: Dental Chipping Analysis and Dietary Reconstructionmentioning

confidence: 90%

Section: Chipping Frequencymentioning

confidence: 97%

Tooth Chipping as a Tool to Reconstruct Diets of Great Apes (Pongo, Gorilla, Pan)

2012

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“…graueri is less folivorous than G.b. beringei, prefers ripe fruit when available, and fruit is frequently found in their fecal samples (Yamagiwa et al, 1992(Yamagiwa et al, , 1994(Yamagiwa et al, , 1996Robbins, 2007;Constantino et al, 2009). However, studies where fecal samples are collected and analyzed consistently show that G.b.…”

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confidence: 97%

Tooth cusp sharpness as a dietary correlate in great apes

Berthaume

2013

American J Phys Anthropol

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Mammalian molars have undergone heavy scrutiny to determine correlates between morphology and diet. Here, the relationship between one aspect of occlusal morphology, tooth cusp radius of curvature (RoC), and two broad dietary categories, folivory and frugivory, is analyzed in apes. The author hypothesizes that there is a relationship between tooth cusp RoC and diet, and that folivores have sharper teeth than frugivores, and further test the correlation between tooth cusp RoC and tooth cusp size. Eight measures of tooth cusp RoC (two RoCs per cusp) were taken from 53 M(2) s from four species and subspecies of frugivorous apes (Pongo pygmaeus, Pan troglodytes troglodytes, Pan troglodytes schweinfurthii, and Gorilla gorilla gorilla) and two subspecies of folivorous apes (Gorilla beringei beringei, and Gorilla beringei graueri). Phylogenetically corrected ANOVAs were run on the full dataset and several subsets of the full dataset, revealing that, when buccolingual RoCs are taken into account, tooth cusp RoCs can successfully differentiate folivores and frugivores. PCAs revealed that folivores consistently had duller teeth than frugivores. In addition, a weak, statistically significant positive correlation exists between tooth cusp size and tooth cusp RoC. The author hypothesizes differences in tooth cusp RoC are correlated with wear rates, where, per vertical unit of wear, duller cusps will have a longer length of exposed enamel ridge than sharper cusps. More data need to be gathered to determine if the correlation between tooth cusp RoC and tooth cusp size holds true when small primates are considered.

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“…In addition to establishing new benchmarks for enamel thickness in anthropoids, we also clarify the relationship between feeding behavior and enamel thickness in Cercocebus and Lophocebus generally. We justify our investigation as these new data bear on recent arguments concerning the evolution of thick enamel in response to the consumption of mechanically protected fallback foods (Lambert et al, 2004;Constantino et al, 2009). …”

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confidence: 95%

“…Enamel thickness varies significantly across the primate order (Molnar and Gantt, 1977;Kay, 1981;Dumont, 1995;Shellis et al, 1998;Smith et al, 2005;Olejniczak et al, 2008). Understanding its sources of variation is important because enamel thickness provides both a taxonomic (Martin, 1985;Grine and Martin, 1988;Conroy, 1991;Brunet et al, 1995;Leakey et al, 2001;Schwartz, 2000;Kono, 2004) and a functional (e.g., Molnar and Gantt, 1977;Teaford and Ungar, 2000;Shimizu, 2002;Grine, 2005;Vogel et al, 2008;Constantino et al, 2009) signal. With regard to the latter, several authors have argued that the amount of enamel on tooth crowns is related to the hardness of ingested items.…”

mentioning

confidence: 98%

Brief communication: Enamel thickness and durophagy in mangabeys revisited

McGraw

Pampush

Daegling

2011

American J Phys Anthropol

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The documentation of enamel thickness variation across primates is important because enamel thickness has both taxonomic and functional relevance. The Old World monkeys commonly referred to as mangabeys have figured prominently in investigations of feeding ecology and enamel thickness. In this article, we report enamel thickness values for four mangabey taxa (Cercocebus atys, Cercocebus torquatus, Lophocebus aterrimus, and Lophocebus albigena), offer revised interpretation of the significance of thick enamel in papionin evolution, and place our new data in a broader comparative framework. Our data indicate that all mangabeys have thick enamel and that the values obtained for Cercocebus and Lophocebus equal or exceed those published for most extant non-human primates. In addition, new field data combined with a current reading of the dietary literature indicate that hard foods make up a portion of the diet of every mangabey species sampled to date. Clarification on the relationship between diet and enamel thickness among mangabeys is important not only because of recognition that mangabeys are not a natural group but also because of recent arguments that explain thick enamel as an evolved response to the seasonal consumption of hard foods.

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The influence of fallback foods on great ape tooth enamel

Cited by 89 publications

References 97 publications

Tooth Chipping as a Tool to Reconstruct Diets of Great Apes (Pongo, Gorilla, Pan)

Tooth Chipping as a Tool to Reconstruct Diets of Great Apes (Pongo, Gorilla, Pan)

Tooth cusp sharpness as a dietary correlate in great apes

Brief communication: Enamel thickness and durophagy in mangabeys revisited

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