Breaking the rules: Phylogeny, not life history, explains dental eruption sequence in primates

Monson, Tesla A.; Hlusko, Leslea J.

doi:10.1002/ajpa.23618

Cited by 19 publications

(32 citation statements)

References 96 publications

(118 reference statements)

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“…Some aspects of the dentition, such as rates and timing of enamel deposition, provide essential insight into variation in life history (Smith, ). Our results demonstrate that other aspects of the dentition are decoupled from life history as has been seen in other studies (Monson & Hlusko, , ). Our analyses indicate that life history and diet may be more evolutionarily labile than postcanine dental proportions and, as such, more responsive to selective pressure.…”

Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 90%

Evidence of strong stabilizing effects on the evolution of boreoeutherian (Mammalia) dental proportions

Monson

Boisserie

Brasil

et al. 2019

Ecology and Evolution

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The dentition is an extremely important organ in mammals with variation in timing and sequence of eruption, crown morphology, and tooth size enabling a range of behavioral, dietary, and functional adaptations across the class. Within this suite of variable mammalian dental phenotypes, relative sizes of teeth reflect variation in the underlying genetic and developmental mechanisms. Two ratios of postcanine tooth lengths capture the relative size of premolars to molars (premolar–molar module, PMM), and among the three molars (molar module component, MMC), and are known to be heritable, independent of body size, and to vary significantly across primates. Here, we explore how these dental traits vary across mammals more broadly, focusing on terrestrial taxa in the clade of Boreoeutheria (Euarchontoglires and Laurasiatheria). We measured the postcanine teeth of N = 1,523 boreoeutherian mammals spanning six orders, 14 families, 36 genera, and 49 species to test hypotheses about associations between dental proportions and phylogenetic relatedness, diet, and life history in mammals. Boreoeutherian postcanine dental proportions sampled in this study carry conserved phylogenetic signal and are not associated with variation in diet. The incorporation of paleontological data provides further evidence that dental proportions may be slower to change than is dietary specialization. These results have implications for our understanding of dental variation and dietary adaptation in mammals.

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Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 90%

Evidence of strong stabilizing effects on the evolution of boreoeutherian (Mammalia) dental proportions

Monson

Boisserie

Brasil

et al. 2019

Ecology and Evolution

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“…This disto-mesial eruption pattern of premolars might give more support for an origin of cetaceans close to raoellids [47,48]. These different examples of character evolution show the interest of considering dental eruption for further phylogenetic investigations, as previously suggested [16,18,19].…”

Section: (B) Dental Eruption Sequences In Cetartiodactyls As a Potentsupporting

confidence: 62%

“…Interestingly, the appearance of this derived eruption state is generally associated with increases in body mass, especially in Hippopotamoidea ( figure 3). The association between the late eruption of molars and large size also occurs in other mammals, such as rhinos, elephants, the extinct pantodont Coryphodon (electronic supplementary material, table S1), but also in primates [12,19,49,50]. It suggests that most extinct hippopotamoids underwent a relatively slow pace of growth, like extant relatives and analogues (e.g.…”

Section: (B) Dental Eruption Sequences In Cetartiodactyls As a Potentmentioning

confidence: 89%

Unexpected evolutionary patterns of dental ontogenetic traits in cetartiodactyl mammals

et al. 2019

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Studying ontogeny in both extant and extinct species can unravel the mechanisms underlying mammal diversification and specialization. Among mammalian clades, Cetartiodactyla encompass species with a wide range of adaptations, and ontogenetic evidence could clarify longstanding debates on the origins of modern specialized families. Here, we study the evolution of dental eruption patterns in early diverging cetartiodactyls to assess the ecological and biological significance of this character and shed new light on phylogenetic issues. After investigation of the ontogenetic dental series of 63 extinct genera, our parsimony reconstructions of eruption state evolution suggest that the eruption of molars before permanent premolars represents a plesiomorphic condition within Cetartiodactyla. This result substantially differs from a previous study based on modern species only. As a result, the presence of this pattern in most ruminants might represent an ancestral condition contributing to their specialized herbivory, rather than an original adaptation. In contrast, the late eruption of molars in hippopotamoids is more likely related to biological aspects, such as increases in body mass and slower pace of life. Our study mainly shows that eruption sequences reliably characterize higher level cetartiodactyl taxa and could represent a new source of phylogenetic characters, especially to disentangle the origin of hippopotamoids and cetaceans.

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“…However, it is important to note that generalizing the hypothetical relationship between dental development and body size distills callitrichid development down to overall growth rate, and it has been shown that growth rates of the skeleton and dentition vary among callitrichids (Glaser, ; Smith et al, ), although they do tend to have a slower growth rate than other anthropoids (e.g., Montgomery and Mundy, ). Overall, the timing of dental development likely has a phylogenetic signal in primates comparable to what is seen for other ontogenetic dental traits, such as permanent tooth eruption sequence (Monson and Hlusko, ), with callitrichids deviating from other anthropoids in having slower growth rates and earlier tooth eruption (Smith, ; Macho, ; Montgomery and Mundy, ).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 87%

Craniodental Allometry, Prenatal Growth Rates, and the Evolutionary Loss of the Third Molars in New World Monkeys

Monson

Coleman

Hlusko

2018

The Anatomical Record

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A growing body of literature demonstrates that genetic patterning mechanisms underlie the relative proportions of the mammalian postcanine dentition with the third molar being key to understanding variation within the molar row. With this relatively recent insight, there has been renewed interest in mammalian taxa that have lost the third molars. Within platyrrhines, the marmosets and tamarins (Callitrichidae family) are characterized by small body size, claw-like nails, twinning, and reduced molar number. Small body size is hypothesized to have resulted in the third molar being crowded out of the jaws leading to its evolutionary loss in this family. To further explore this hypothesis, we measured the cranium and dentition of 142 individuals spanning all five platyrrhine families. These data reveal that callitrichids have a significantly smaller proportion of mandibular postcanine tooth row length relative to other platyrrhines, refuting the "crowding out" hypothesis. However, postcanine tooth row length is significantly correlated with mandibular length and cranial length (P < 0.01) across all platyrrhines providing evidence for a strong allometric association between postcanine tooth row length and body size more generally. The small body size that characterizes callitrichids results in part from slower prenatal growth rates. Given the allometric relationship between postcanine tooth row length and body size, reported here and in previous studies, we hypothesize that the evolutionary loss of the third molars in callitrichids results from the inhibition of third molar development as a consequence of the slower prenatal growth rates associated with small body size in this family.

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Breaking the rules: Phylogeny, not life history, explains dental eruption sequence in primates

Cited by 19 publications

References 96 publications

Evidence of strong stabilizing effects on the evolution of boreoeutherian (Mammalia) dental proportions

Evidence of strong stabilizing effects on the evolution of boreoeutherian (Mammalia) dental proportions

Unexpected evolutionary patterns of dental ontogenetic traits in cetartiodactyl mammals

Craniodental Allometry, Prenatal Growth Rates, and the Evolutionary Loss of the Third Molars in New World Monkeys

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