TY - JOUR
T1 - MicroWeaR
T2 - A new R package for dental microwear analysis
AU - Strani, Flavia
AU - Profico, Antonio
AU - Manzi, Giorgio
AU - Pushkina, Diana
AU - Raia, Pasquale
AU - Sardella, Raffaele
AU - DeMiguel, Daniel
PY - 2018/6/11
Y1 - 2018/6/11
N2 - Mastication of dietary items with different mechanical properties leaves distinctive microscopic marks on the surface of tooth enamel. The inspection of such marks (dental microwear analysis) is informative about the dietary habitus in fossil as well as in modern species. Dental microwear analysis relies on the morphology, abundance, direction, and distribution of these microscopic marks. We present a new freely available software implementation, MicroWeaR, that, compared to traditional dental microwear tools, allows more rapid, observer error free, and inexpensive quantification and classification of all the microscopic marks (also including for the first time different subtypes of scars). Classification parameters and graphical rendering of the output are fully settable by the user. MicroWeaR includes functions to (a) sample the marks, (b) classify features into categories as pits or scratches and then into their respective subcategories (large pits, coarse scratches, etc.), (c) generate an output table with summary information, and (d) obtain a visual surface-map where marks are highlighted. We provide a tutorial to reproduce the steps required to perform microwear analysis and to test tool functionalities. Then, we present two case studies to illustrate how MicroWeaR works. The first regards a Miocene great ape obtained from through environmental scanning electron microscope, and other a Pleistocene cervid acquired by a stereomicroscope.
AB - Mastication of dietary items with different mechanical properties leaves distinctive microscopic marks on the surface of tooth enamel. The inspection of such marks (dental microwear analysis) is informative about the dietary habitus in fossil as well as in modern species. Dental microwear analysis relies on the morphology, abundance, direction, and distribution of these microscopic marks. We present a new freely available software implementation, MicroWeaR, that, compared to traditional dental microwear tools, allows more rapid, observer error free, and inexpensive quantification and classification of all the microscopic marks (also including for the first time different subtypes of scars). Classification parameters and graphical rendering of the output are fully settable by the user. MicroWeaR includes functions to (a) sample the marks, (b) classify features into categories as pits or scratches and then into their respective subcategories (large pits, coarse scratches, etc.), (c) generate an output table with summary information, and (d) obtain a visual surface-map where marks are highlighted. We provide a tutorial to reproduce the steps required to perform microwear analysis and to test tool functionalities. Then, we present two case studies to illustrate how MicroWeaR works. The first regards a Miocene great ape obtained from through environmental scanning electron microscope, and other a Pleistocene cervid acquired by a stereomicroscope.
KW - diet reconstruction
KW - open-source software
KW - paleoecology
KW - R package
KW - tooth microwear
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85049983394&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1002/ece3.4222
DO - 10.1002/ece3.4222
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:85049983394
SN - 2045-7758
VL - 8
SP - 7022
EP - 7030
JO - Ecology and Evolution
JF - Ecology and Evolution
IS - 14
ER -