title: Buccal dental microwear texture and catarrhine diets.
abstract: Two-dimensional dental microwear analyses on occlusal and nonocclusal enamel surfaces have been widely applied to reconstruct the feeding behaviors of extant primates and to infer ecological adaptations in fossil hominins. To date, analyses of dental microwear texture, using three-dimensional, Scale-Sensitive Fractal Analysis approaches has only been applied to occlusal surfaces. Here, for the first time, we apply this 3D proxy to buccal enamel surfaces of catarrhine primates of known feeding ecologies to assess the utility of nonocclusal microwear texture variables as indicators of dietary habits.
  
  
  
  Buccal microwear texture attributes were collected from high-resolution second molar casts in a sample of seven extant African catarrhine taxa with differing dietary behaviors. A white-light confocal microscope with a 100× objective lens was used to record six microwear texture variables that assess complexity, anisotropy, heterogeneity, and textural fill volume.
  
  
  
  The physical properties and variation in hardness of ingested foods is reflected by significant differences in the microwear variables on buccal enamel surfaces between species, which is in agreement with early reports using 2D microwear signatures of the same samples. Species that consume hard brittle items showed high buccal enamel complexity and low anisotropy values, while folivorous species that consume tough foods revealed high anisotropy and low complexity enamel patterns.
  
  
  
  Buccal microwear texture analysis on enamel surfaces clearly reflects diet-related variation in nonhuman primates. Our findings indicate that microwear texture attributes on nonworking enamel surfaces provide an alternative procedure for reconstructing dietary behavior when wear facets on occlusal surfaces are lacking.
authors.affiliation: Departament de Biologia Evolutiva, Secció de Zoologia i Antropologia Biològica, Ecologia i Ciències Ambientals, Universitat de Barcelona, Av. Diagonal, 643, Barcelona, 08028, Spain.
authors.forename: Andrés
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Aliaga-Martínez
authors.affiliation: Departamento de Biotecnología, Facultad de Ciencias, Universidad de Alicante, AC 99, Alicante, 03080, Spain.
authors.forename: Alejandro
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Romero
authors.affiliation: Department of Anthropology, Center for the Advanced Study of Human Paleobiology, The George Washington University, 800 22nd Street NW Ste 6000, Washington DC, 20052.
authors.forename: Jordi
authors.identifier: 0000-0001-6724-3451
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Galbany
authors.affiliation: Department of Biosciences, Centre for Ecological and Evolutionary Synthesis (CEES), University of Oslo, PO Box 1066 Blindern NO-0316, Oslo, Norway.|Ugalla Primate Project, Kigoma, Tanzania.
authors.forename: R Adriana
authors.initials: RA
authors.lastname: Hernández-Aguilar
authors.affiliation: Departament de Biologia Evolutiva, Secció de Zoologia i Antropologia Biològica, Ecologia i Ciències Ambientals, Universitat de Barcelona, Av. Diagonal, 643, Barcelona, 08028, Spain.
authors.forename: Alejandro
authors.identifier: 0000-0002-1442-1397
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Pérez-Pérez
mesh_terms: D000818:Animals; D000885:Anthropology, Physical; D051079:Catarrhini / Q000502:physiology*; D003743:Dental Enamel / Q000473:pathology*; D004032:Diet / Q000662:veterinary*; D015186:Hominidae / Q000502:physiology*; D057085:Tooth Wear / Q000473:pathology*
keywords: buccal enamel; dental ecology; diet; microwear texture; primates