Authors: Auriana Dunn
Mentors: Kathryn Sokolowski
Insitution: University of Utah
Reconstructing the diet of extinct animals can help us understand how living species are suited to their environments, which can inform paleoecological and zooarchaeological research as well as modern species conservation. Seasonal variation in animals’ diets can further be used to reconstruct seasonality patterns in the past and understand how animals may vary their diet under future climate change. However, determining the diet of extinct species is challenging, and detecting seasonal changes in diet is even more so. Dental microwear texture analysis (DMTA) can be a tool to solve this problem. DMTA analyzes dental microwear by measuring the pits and scratches on teeth to determine what an animal consumed in the days and weeks before it died. This project examines the DMTA of modern African Bovidae species to determine if seasonal dietary changes can be observed. If a difference can be found in the dental microwear of specimens that died during different seasons, seasonal changes in diet can be inferred. Here, I gathered dental microwear data from 407 specimens across five modern studies and matched the data to the museum specimens’ date of death to determine whether it died in a wet or dry season. The analysis found that four of the Bovidae species examined in our study showed evidence of seasonal diet shifts in their DMTA data. Dental microwear can be useful in determining seasonal diets and season of death for specimens. This method can be applied to extinct Bovidae species to understand ancient ecosystems and the evolution of Bovidae dietary strategies.