Research Topics
| Peter W LucasSummaryAffiliation: George Washington University Country: USA Publications
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Detail Information
Publications
Inferences regarding the diet of extinct hominins: structural and functional trends in dental and mandibular morphology within the hominin cladePeter W Lucas
Department of Anthropology, George Washington University, Washington, DC, USA
J Anat 212:486-500. 2008..Specifically, we show how thick enamel can protect against the generation and propagation of cracks in the enamel that begin at the enamel-dentine junction and move towards the outer enamel surface...
A brief review of the recent evolution of the human mouth in physiological and nutritional contextsPeter W Lucas
Department of Anthropology, George Washington University, 2110 G Street NW, Washington, DC 20052, USA
Physiol Behav 89:36-8. 2006..A brief review of the literature suggests several adaptations of the mouth can be interpreted to support this. All probably enhance the efficiency of the physical treatment of food in the mouth...
Dental enamel as a dietary indicator in mammalsPeter Lucas
Department of Anthropology, George Washington University, Washington, DC 20052, USA
Bioessays 30:374-85. 2008..As a tissue with intrinsic weakness yet exceptional durability, enamel could be especially useful as a dietary indicator for extinct taxa...- Tooth chipping can reveal the diet and bite forces of fossil homininsPaul J Constantino
Department of Anthropology, Center for the Advanced Study of Human Paleobiology, George Washington University, Washington, DC 20052, USA
Biol Lett 6:826-9. 2010..The existence of tooth chip signatures also provides a way of identifying the consumption of rarely eaten foods that dental microwear and isotopic analysis are unlikely to detect... - The structural rigidity of the cranium of Australopithecus africanus: implications for diet, dietary adaptations, and the allometry of feeding biomechanicsDavid S Strait
Department of Anthropology, University at Albany, 1400 Washington Avenue, Albany, NY 12222, USA
Anat Rec (Hoboken) 293:583-93. 2010..africanus cranium is marginally less rigid than that of the macaque during molar biting. It is hypothesized that the SE results are being influenced by the allometric scaling of cranial cortical bone thickness... - Microwear, mechanics and the feeding adaptations of Australopithecus africanusDavid S Strait
Department of Anthropology, University at Albany, 1400 Washington Avenue, Albany, NY 12222, USA
J Hum Evol 62:165-8. 2012..This paper responds to some of these mechanical criticisms, highlights limitations of dental microwear analysis, and identifies avenues of future research... - Indentation as a technique to assess the mechanical properties of fallback foodsPeter W Lucas
Department of Anthropology, Center for the Advanced Study of Human Paleobiology, The George Washington University, Washington, DC 20052, USA
Am J Phys Anthropol 140:643-52. 2009..This analysis predicts that blunt cusps and thick enamel will indeed help to sustain the integrity of teeth against contacts with these foods up to high loads... - The influence of fallback foods on great ape tooth enamelPaul J Constantino
Department of Anthropology, Center for the Advanced Study of Human Paleobiology, The George Washington University, Washington, DC 20052, USA
Am J Phys Anthropol 140:653-60. 2009..Our results suggest that this is indeed the case. We also consider the implications of this conclusion on the evolution of the dentition of extinct hominins... - Primate dental enamel: what it says about dietPeter W Lucas
Department of Anthropology, George Washington University, Washington, DC 20052, USA
Front Oral Biol 13:44-8. 2009..Several aspects of tooth form can be described as devices to limit damage to a tooth crown against the onslaught of hard or soft foods. The damage modes of teeth are paralleled by the behavior of some bilayered hard foods... - The feeding biomechanics and dietary ecology of Australopithecus africanusDavid S Strait
Department of Anthropology, University at Albany, 1400 Washington Avenue, Albany, NY 12222, USA
Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A 106:2124-9. 2009..Our analysis reconciles apparent discrepancies between dietary reconstructions based on biomechanics, tooth morphology, and dental microwear... - In tropical lowland rain forests monocots have tougher leaves than dicots, and include a new kind of tough leafNathaniel J Dominy
Department of Anthropology, University of California, 1156 High St, Santa Cruz, CA 95064, USA
Ann Bot 101:1363-77. 2008..Of 15 monocot families with >100 species in TLRF, eight have notably high densities of fibres in the lamina so that high values for toughness are expected... - Functional ecology and evolution of hominoid molar enamel thickness: Pan troglodytes schweinfurthii and Pongo pygmaeus wurmbiiErin R Vogel
Department of Anthropology, 1156 High Street, University of California Santa Cruz, CA 95064, United States
J Hum Evol 55:60-74. 2008..These data, which are among the first reported for hominoid primates, fill an important empirical void for evaluating the mechanical plausibility of putative hominin food objects... - Comparative use of color vision for frugivory by sympatric species of platyrrhinesKathryn E Stoner
Centro de Investigaciones en Ecosistemas, Universidad Nacional Autonoma de Mexico, Morelia, Michoacan
Am J Primatol 67:399-409. 2005..We suggest that routine trichromacy may be advantageous for other foraging tasks, such as feeding on young leaves... - Sugar concentration of fruits and their detection via color in the Central American spider monkey (Ateles geoffroyi)Pablo Riba-Hernandez
Escuela de Biologia, Universidad de Costa Rica, San Jose
Am J Primatol 67:411-23. 2005..Our study documents a trichromatic foraging advantage in terms of fruit quality, and suggests that trichromatic color vision is advantageous over dichromatic color vision for detecting sugar-rich fruits... - Significance of color, calories, and climate to the visual ecology of catarrhinesNathaniel J Dominy
Department of Ecology and Evolution, University of Chicago, Chicago, Illinois, USA
Am J Primatol 62:189-207. 2004..We also found that primate biomass is higher in seasonal sites. We conclude that these findings are consistent with the notion that routine trichromatic vision evolved in a context where seasonal folivory was pivotal to survival... - Evolution and function of routine trichromatic vision in primatesPeter W Lucas
Department of Anatomy, University of Hong Kong, 21 Sassoon Road, Hong Kong, People s Republic of China
Evolution 57:2636-43. 2003..There were no similar differences for fruits although red-greenness may sometimes be important in close-range fruit selection. These results suggest that routine trichromacy evolved in a context in which leaf consumption was critical...