Title: Teeth! Inferences about ecology and evolution in Cenozoic mammals and Mesozoic dinosaurs
Abstract: Deducing the diet, behavior, or development of long extinct animals, much less working out causes of observed evolutionary change, is fraught with challenges. Teeth, however, are information-rich biological structures made of mineralized tissues from which one can infer how they were formed in development, how they functioned during an animal’s lifetime, and how they changed over evolutionary history. Because of the information preserved in them, teeth are an excellent system for linking together studies of development, ecology, and evolution. Teeth, particularly mammalian teeth, are commonly preserved as fossils, making it possible to study the interrelations between development, ecology, and evolution over very long timescales. I will present examples from my own studies of Cenozoic mammals and one on Mesozoic dinosaurs, to illustrate some of the inferences possible using teeth.