Abstract
Analyses of dental micro- and macro-wear offer valuable information about dietary adaptations. The buccal surface of the teeth does not undergo attrition, indicating that dental microwear may directly inform about food properties. Only a few studies have, however, investigated the environmental and individual factors involved in the formation of such microwear in wild animals. Here, we examine variation of buccal microwear patterns of mandibular molars in a large free-ranging population of mandrills (Mandrillus sphinx). We first explore the influence of seasonality and individual’s sex, age and tooth macrowear–expressed as the percent of dentine exposure (PDE)–on six microwear variables. Second, we analyze the interplay between individual’s diet and PDE. In a last analysis, we revisit our results on mandrills in the light of other primate’s microwear studies. We show that the average buccal scratch length and the frequency of vertical buccal scratches are both higher during the long dry season compared to the long rainy season, while we observe the inverse relationship for disto-mesial scratches. In addition, females present more disto-mesial scratches than males and older individuals present higher scratch density, a greater proportion of horizontal scratches but a lower proportion of vertical scratches than young animals. PDE yields similar results than individual’s age confirming earlier results in this population on the relationship between age and tooth macrowear. Because seasonality and individual characteristics are both known to impact mandrills’ diet in the study population, our results suggest that buccal microwear patterns may inform about individual feeding strategies. Furthermore, PDE increases with the consumption of potentially abrasive monocotyledonous plants, independently of the individuals’ age, although it is not affected by food mechanical properties. Finally, buccal scratch densities by orientation appear as relevant proxies for discriminating between different primate taxa.
Highlights
Teeth are at the interface between the internal milieu of an organism and its environment; they experience accumulation and erasure of traces continuously over a lifetime
We obtained the total number of scratches, the average scratch length and the buccal scratch densities by orientation, with the latter parameter decomposed into four microwear variables: we considered the number of scratches distributed within four distinct sub-areas of the studied tooth surface defined according to their orientation with respect to the cement-enamel junction of the tooth (S2 Table)
We considered the residuals of the percent of dentine exposure (PDE) obtained from the lowess analyses as well as each of the following diet variables: the proportion of hard, soft, and tough food items as estimates of food mechanical properties, as well as the proportion of monocotyledonous plants consumed as an estimate of food abrasiveness because of their high phytolith content in comparison with dicotyledonous plants
Summary
Teeth are at the interface between the internal milieu of an organism and its environment; they experience accumulation and erasure of traces continuously over a lifetime These traces, or dental microwear, result from interactions between dental tissue and the external environment, including food items and the extrinsic abrasive particles that cover them [1]. 3D textural analysis of dental microwear of extinct ruminants help to discriminate grass feeders from browse feeders [7,8]. Both 2D and 3D analyses allow to discriminate non-human primate species depending on the most frequently consumed food items [6,9,10,11]. Seasonal variation in diet is detected on the dental microwear of wedge-capped capuchins (2D analysis) [13]
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