Six million years of vole dental evolution shaped by tooth development.

ABSTRACT: Morphological change occurs over macroevolutionary timescales under the action of natural selection and genetic drift combined with developmental processes shaping organogenesis. Although determining their relative weight is made difficult by discrepancies between paleontological and neontological data, mammalian tooth morphology may bridge the gap between fossil record and laboratory observations. Fossils indicate that mammals have frequently diversified after evolving molars bearing more cusps, while developmental biology shows these emerge through the iterative signaling of enamel knots. However, this theoretical evo-devo model of mammalian tooth evolution has not been tested with empirical data from both fossils and laboratory experiments. In doing so, we identify a shared developmenta

SUBMITTER: Lafuma F 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC12337299 | biostudies-literature | 2025 Aug

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature