Dental Microwear and Mesowear of the Microtus Voles Molars before and after Experimental Feeding of Owls

Post-mortem enamel surface texture alteration during taphonomic processes-do experimental approaches reflect natural phenomena?

Experimental approaches are often used to better understand the mechanisms behind and consequences of post-mortem alteration on proxies for diet reconstruction. Dental microwear texture analysis (DMTA) is such a dietary proxy, using dental wear features in extant and extinct taxa to reconstruct feeding behaviour and mechanical food properties. In fossil specimens especially, DMTA can be biased by post-mortem alteration caused by mechanical or chemical alteration of the enamel surface. Here we performed three different dental surface alteration experiments to assess the effect of common taphonomic processes by simplifying them: (1) tumbling in sediment suspension to simulate fluvial transport, (2) sandblasting to simulate mechanical erosion due to aeolian sediment transport, (3) acid etching to simulate chemical dissolution by stomach acid. For tumbling (1) we found alteration to be mainly dependent on sediment grain size fraction and that on specimens tumbled with sand fractions mainly post-mortem scratches formed on the dental surface, while specimens tumbled with a fine-gravel fraction showed post-mortem formed dales. Sandblasting (2) with loess caused only negligible alteration, however blasting with fine sand quartz particles resulted in significant destruction of enamel surfaces and formation of large post-mortem dales. Acid etching (3) using diluted hydrochloric acid solutions in concentrations similar to that of predator stomachs led to a complete etching of the whole dental surface, which did not resemble those of teeth recovered from owl pellets. The experiments resulted in post-mortem alteration comparable, but not identical to naturally occurring post-mortem alteration features. Nevertheless, this study serves as a first assessment and step towards further, more refined taphonomic experiments evaluating post-mortem alteration of dental microwear texture (DMT).

Dust and grit matter: abrasives of different size lead to opposing dental microwear textures in experimentally fed sheep (Ovis aries)

External abrasives ingested along with the herbivore diet are considered main contributors to dental wear, though how the different sizes and concentrations of these abrasives influence wear remains unclear. Dental microwear texture analysis (DMTA) is an established method for dietary reconstruction which describes a tooth's surface topography on a micrometre scale. The method has yielded conflicting results as to the effect of external abrasives. In the present study, a feeding experiment was performed on sheep (Ovis aries) fed seven diets of different abrasiveness. Our aim was to discern the individual effects of size (4, 50 and 130 µm) and concentration (0%, 4% and 8% of dry matter) of abrasives on dental wear, applying DMTA to four tooth positions. Microwear textures differed between individual teeth, but surprisingly, showed no gradient along the molar tooth row, and the strongest differentiation of experimental groups was achieved when combining data of all maxillary molars. Overall, a pattern of increasing height, volume and complexity of the tooth's microscopic surface appeared with increasing size of dietary abrasives, and when compared with the control, the small abrasive diets showed a polishing effect. The results indicate that the size of dietary abrasives is more important for dental microwear texture traces than their concentration, and that different sizes can have opposing effects on the dietary signal. The latter finding possibly explains conflicting evidence from previous experimental DMTA applications. Further exploration is required to understand whether and how microscopic traces created by abrasives translate quantitatively to tissue loss.