| 1 |
Data from: Decoding the dynamics of dental distributions: insights from shark demography and dispersal ...
|
|
|
|
Abstract:
Shark teeth are the most abundant vertebrate fossil, and because tooth size generally correlates with body size, their accumulations document the size structure of populations. Understanding how ecological and environmental processes influence size structure, and how this extends to influence these dental distributions, may offer a window into the ecological and environmental dynamics of past and present shark populations. Here we examine the dental distributions of sand tigers, including extant Carcharias taurus and extinct Striatolamia macrota, to reconstruct the size structure for a contemporary locality and four Eocene localities. We compare empirical distributions against expectations from a population simulation to gain insight into potential governing ecological processes. Specifically, we investigate the influence of dispersal flexibility to and from protected nurseries. We show that changing the flexibility of initial dispersal of juveniles from the nursery and annual migration of adults to the ... : Shark species in the fossil record are largely identified by their tooth morphology due to the poor preservation of cartilaginous skeletons. Striatolamia macrota teeth are identified by emphasized striations on the lingual side relative to the smooth labial side. Anterior teeth (A1-2 and a1-2) are recognized by their long and narrow shape, compared to the lateral and posterior teeth that have a short, blade-like appearance. The anterior teeth have an acute angle between the two roots and have two small lateral cusplets. This tooth position was chosen as a proxy for body size because its large size and distinct morphology compared to other tooth positions within the jaw. Limiting the positions measured from fossil teeth prevents potential for over representation of a single individual within the assemblage. Because the shark body length and tooth crown height relationship established by Shimada (2002) for C. taurus may not be representative and accurate for the Eocene species S. macrota, we reconstruct body ...
|
|
Keyword:
Antarctic; Arctic; body size; Eocene; FOS Biological sciences; Gulf of Mexico; latitudinal gradient; metapopulation; sand tiger
|
|
URL: https://dx.doi.org/10.6071/m3rt05
http://datadryad.org/stash/dataset/doi:10.6071/M3RT05
|
|
BASE
|
|
Hide details
|
|
|
|
|
