Meeting Abstract
The many lineages of hard prey specialists have a variety of robust tooth morphologies. The variation in tooth morphology is complicated by variation in the arrangement of teeth between species. The arrangements include the familiar linear array, zig-zag patterns, and tightly packed irregular and regular patterns. To better understand how tooth pattern affects the predator’s ability to crush prey, we created a series of tooth plate models based on arrangements seen in nature. In addition, we tested for interactions between tooth morphology and tooth arrangement. We measured the force required by different models to break ceramic tubes, a proxy for shelled prey items. These tubes have standard dimensions and reduce much of the variability seen in live organisms due to their natural history. We found that changing tooth arrangements from linear to more complex patterns does not decrease the force required to fracture a prey item and in some cases changing arrangement and morphology served to increase force to fracture. Because changing tooth arrangement does not appear to confer a functional advantage when crushing prey, we suggest that the benefit of less linear tooth arrangements may lie elsewhere, for example, in resistance to failure in teeth.
