Dear All,

tomorrow in the Björn Kurtén Club, Ellen Schulz will give a talk about

Tooth wear, surface texture and feeding behaviour.

Time & Loc.:
16.00, 20.11.2012, C108 Physicum, Kumpula

Topic of the talk is in the same area as Peter Ungar’s EEB seminar talk a month ago.

Abstract:
Mammals inhabit all types of environments and have evolved chewing systems capable of processing a huge variety of structurally diverse food components. Mammalian dental tissues have undergone evolutionary optimization in terms of fracture and wear resistance. Mesowear, microwear and 3D surface textures (according to ISO 25178) are acquired to quantify this wear. The surface texture parameters quantify the aspects of the basic geometry of texture and can be interpreted as a comprehensive representation of textures and its functional trait. Cheek dentitions of extant and extinct grazing, browsing, and fruit feeding primates and ungulates were evaluated. In order to calibrate wear signatures for the impact of intrinsic and exogenous abrasives, feeding experiments on captive rabbits were conducted controlling the abrasiveness of animal feeds. In addition, foraging observations and tooth wear analysis of desert living sand gazelles were made. It is found that the fewer silica particles are in the diet, the higher is the variability of 3D textures. We relate this observation to a generally lower probability of abrasive wear when comminuting dicots such as lucerne or browse. The highly abrasive wear signature of the intermediate feeding sand gazelles is linked to the high grit load of the forage. This gives evidence of the significance of grit as abrasive agent in arid environments.

Biography:
Dr. Ellen Schulz is a post-doctoral fellow at the Biocenter Grindel and Zoological Museum (University of Hamburg). The focuses of her research are biomechanical characterisation of food components and grinding systems as well as feeding ecology and functional morphology of mammals in space and time. She developed a new approach to apply industrial 3D surface analyses on occlusal tooth surfaces. Dr. Schulz earned her Diploma from Greifswald University (Biology, 2003, feeding ecology of scandinavian aurochs) and a PhD from the University of Hamburg (Zoology, 2008, climate modelling and feeding ecology of fossil and extant equids).

Recent papers:
– Calandra I., Schulz E., Kaiser T. M. (2012) Teasing apart the contribution of hard items on 3D dental microtextures in primates. Journal of Human Evolution. 63:85-98. DOI: 10.1016/j.jhevol.2012.05.001
– Schulz E., Fraas S., Kaiser T.M., Cunningham P., Wronski T. (2012) Food preferences and tooth wear in the sand gazelle (Gazella marica). Mammalian Biology. DOI: 10.1016/j.mambio.2012.04.006
– Schulz E., Kaiser T. M. (2012) Historical distribution, habitat requirements and feeding ecology of the genus Equus (Perissodactyla). Mammal Review. DOI: 10.1111/j.1365-2907.2012.00210.x

Welcome,
Allu