The feeding biomechanics and dietary ecology of Paranthropus boisei
Amanda L. Smith,Stefano Benazzi,Justin A. Ledogar,Kelli Tamvada,Leslie C. Pryor Smith,Gerhard W. Weber,Mark A. Spencer,Peter W. Lucas,Shaji Michael,Ali Shekeban,Khaled J. Al-Fadhalah,Abdulwahab S. Almusallam,Paul C. Dechow,Ian R. Grosse,Callum F. Ross,Richard H. Madden,Brian G. Richmond,Barth W. Wright,Qian Wang,Craig D. Byron,Dennis E. Slice,Sarah A. Wood,Christine Mary Dzialo,Michael A. Berthaume,Adam van Casteren,David S. Strait +25 more
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An engineering method is used, finite element analysis, to show that the facial skeleton of Paranthropus boisei is structurally strong, exhibits a strain pattern different from that in chimpanzees and Australopithecus africanus, and efficiently produces high bite force.Abstract:
The African Plio-Pleistocene hominins known as australopiths evolved derived craniodental features frequently interpreted as adaptations for feeding on either hard, or compliant/tough foods. Among australopiths, Paranthropus boisei is the most robust form, exhibiting traits traditionally hypothesized to produce high bite forces efficiently and strengthen the face against feeding stresses. However, recent mechanical analyses imply that P. boisei may not have been an efficient producer of bite force and that robust morphology in primates is not necessarily strong. Here we use an engineering method, finite element analysis, to show that the facial skeleton of P. boisei is structurally strong, exhibits a strain pattern different from that in chimpanzees (Pan troglodytes) and Australopithecus africanus, and efficiently produces high bite force. It has been suggested that P. boisei consumed a diet of compliant/tough foods like grass blades and sedge pith. However, the blunt occlusal topography of this and other species suggests that australopiths are adapted to consume hard foods, perhaps including grass and sedge seeds. A consideration of evolutionary trends in morphology relating to feeding mechanics suggests that food processing behaviors in gracile australopiths evidently were disrupted by environmental change, perhaps contributing to the eventual evolution of Homo and Paranthropus.read more
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Form, Function, and Geometric Morphometrics
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Dental microwear textures: reconstructing diets of fossil mammals
TL;DR: How dental microwear textures can be useful to reconstructing diets in a broad array of living and extinct mammals is reviewed, with commentary on areas of future research.
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A two-million-year-long hydroclimatic context for hominin evolution in southeastern Africa
Thibaut Caley,Thomas Extier,Thomas Extier,James A Collins,Enno Schefuß,Lydie M Dupont,Bruno Malaizé,Linda Rossignol,Antoine Souron,Erin L McClymont,Francisco J. Jiménez-Espejo,Carmen García-Comas,Carmen García-Comas,Frédérique Eynaud,Philippe Martinez,Didier M. Roche,Didier M. Roche,Stephan J. Jorry,Karine Charlier,Mélanie Wary,Pierre-Yves Gourves,Isabelle Billy,Jacques Giraudeau +22 more
TL;DR: The observed changes in the hydroclimate of southeastern Africa—both in terms of its long-term state and marked precessional variability—could have had a role in the evolution of early hominins, particularly in the extinction of Paranthropus robustus.
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Food mechanical properties and dietary ecology.
TL;DR: An overview of what is mechanically important during feeding, and the application of mechanical property tests to feeding biomechanics, and how toughness measures gathered with the scissors, wedge, razor, and/or punch and die tests on non-linearly elastic brittle materials are not mechanical properties are explained.
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Extant ape dental topography and its implications for reconstructing the emergence of early Homo
Michael A. Berthaume,Kes Schroer +1 more
TL;DR: Dirichlet normal energy was inadequate at differentiating folivores from frugivores, but was adequate at predicting which groups had more fibrous diets among sympatric African apes, and may open new avenues for understanding the community compositions of early hominins and the formation of specific ecological niches among hominin taxa.
References
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Dental microwear texture analysis shows within-species diet variability in fossil hominins
Robert S. Scott,Peter S. Ungar,Torbjorn S. Bergstrom,Christopher A. Brown,Frederick E. Grine,Mark F. Teaford,Alan Walker +6 more
TL;DR: Results for living primates show that this approach can distinguish among diets characterized by different fracture properties, and microwear texture analysis indicates that Australopithecus africanus microwear is more anisotropic, but also more variable in anisotropy than Paranthropus robustus.
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