Can Dental Microwear Textures Record Inter-Individual Dietary Variations?
Can Dental Microwear Textures Record Inter-Individual Dietary Variations?
复制标题
DOI：
10.1371/journal.pone.0009542
复制
发表时间：
2010-03-04
期刊：
影响因子：
3.7
通讯作者：
Verheyden-Tixier, Helene
中科院分区：
文献类型：
--
作者：
Merceron, Gildas;Escarguel, Gilles;Verheyden-Tixier, Helene
背景：牙齿微磨损分析通常用于推断已灭绝哺乳动物的饮食。传统方法依赖于用户识别 2D 图像中的特征。然而，最近的跨学科研究已经开发出一种先进的方法，该方法不存在观察者误差，该方法基于通过将共焦显微镜与尺度敏感的分形分析相结合来自动量化 3D 表面。事实证明，这种方法在检测物种之间的饮食差异方面非常有效。本研究着眼于更精细的特定内分析规模，目的是测试该方法追踪单个种群个体之间差异的能力。方法/主要发现：出于本研究的目的，对来自现存狍 (Capreolus caprelous) 的著名种群的 78 个个体的 3D 磨牙微磨损进行了量化。多变量统计分析表明，个体牙齿微磨损设计存在显着的季节性和性别差异。这些可能是由于果实、种子和叶子可用性的季节性变化，以及由于发情、妊娠或分娩期间不同的能量需求而导致雄性和雌性之间的摄食偏好差异的结果。然而，使用两块偏最小二乘分析进行的进一步研究表明，个体胃内容物和微磨损质地之间没有很强的关系。这是一个预期的结果，假设胃内容物由过去几个小时摄入的食物组成，而牙齿微磨损纹理记录了几天或几周内所吃食物的物理特性。结论/意义：微磨损 3D 尺度敏感分形分析确实检测到饮食差异，范围从喂养方式间的尺度到群体内季节间和性别间尺度的差异。因此，在进一步探索已灭绝哺乳动物的摄食生物学和生态学时，它是一个可能的工具，需要谨慎使用。
Background: Dental microwear analyses are commonly used to deduce the diet of extinct mammals. Conventional methods rely on the user identifying features within a 2D image. However, recent interdisciplinary research has lead to the development of an advanced methodology that is free of observer error, based on the automated quantification of 3D surfaces by combining confocal microscopy with scale-sensitive fractal analysis. This method has already proved to be very efficient in detecting dietary differences between species. Focusing on a finer, intra-specific scale of analysis, the aim of this study is to test this method's ability to track such differences between individuals from a single population.Methodology/Principal Findings: For the purposes of this study, the 3D molar microwear of 78 individuals from a well-known population of extant roe deer (Capreolus caprelous) is quantified. Multivariate statistical analyses indicate significant seasonal and sexual differences in individual dental microwear design. These are probably the consequence of seasonal variations in fruit, seed and leaf availability, as well as differences in feeding preference between males and females due to distinct energy requirements during periods of rutting, gestation or giving birth. Nevertheless, further investigations using two-block Partial Least-Squares analysis show no strong relationship between individual stomach contents and microwear texture. This is an expected result, assuming that stomach contents are composed of food items ingested during the last few hours whereas dental microwear texture records the physical properties of items eaten over periods of days or weeks.Conclusions/Significance: Microwear 3D scale-sensitive fractal analysis does detect differences in diet ranging from the inter-feeding styles scale to the intra-population between-season and between-sex scales. It is therefore a possible tool, to be used with caution, in the further exploration of the feeding biology and ecology of extinct mammals.