Multiple evolutionary origins and losses of tooth complexity in squamates.

ABSTRACT: Teeth act as tools for acquiring and processing food, thus holding a prominent role in vertebrate evolution. In mammals, dental-dietary adaptations rely on tooth complexity variations controlled by cusp number and pattern. Complexity increase through cusp addition has dominated the diversification of mammals. However, studies of Mammalia alone cannot reveal patterns of tooth complexity conserved throughout vertebrate evolution. Here, we use morphometric and phylogenetic comparative methods across fossil and extant squamates to show they also repeatedly evolved increasingly complex teeth, but with more flexibility than mammals. Since the Late Jurassic, multiple-cusped teeth evolved over 20 times independently from a single-cusped common ancestor. Squamates frequently lost cusps and evolved

SUBMITTER: Lafuma F 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC8516937 | biostudies-literature | 2021 Oct

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature