Within-guild dietary discrimination from 3-D textural analysis of tooth microwear in insectivorous mammals.

ABSTRACT: Resource exploitation and competition for food are important selective pressures in animal evolution. A number of recent investigations have focused on linkages between diversification, trophic morphology and diet in bats, partly because their roosting habits mean that for many bat species diet can be quantified relatively easily through faecal analysis. Dietary analysis in mammals is otherwise invasive, complicated, time consuming and expensive. Here we present evidence from insectivorous bats that analysis of three-dimensional (3-D) textures of tooth microwear using International Organization for Standardization (ISO) roughness parameters derived from sub-micron surface data provides an additional, powerful tool for investigation of trophic resource exploitation in mammals. Our approach,

SUBMITTER: Purnell MA 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC4296236 | biostudies-literature | 2013 Dec

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature