Macroscopic dental measures in guinea pigs ( Cavia porcellus ) fed natural and pelleted diets of different abrasiveness: implications for wear and compensatory growth in a hypselodont species

Abstract

The drivers of dental wear and compensatory hypselodont tooth growth are of current research interest. Expanding previous macroscopic dental wear measurements based on microtomographic scans of guinea pigs ( Cavia porcellus ) fed natural diets, we added diet groups with different predicted drivers of dental wear and analysed how measured variables relate to each other. The teeth of guinea pigs fed either pelleted diets containing external abrasives of various shapes, sizes and percentages ( n = 66) or natural whole-leaf diets ( n = 36, low-phytolith lucerne or grass or high-phytolith bamboo) were evaluated. The bamboo-fed animals showed the lowest tooth height with deep dentine basins, similar to the pellet-fed animals. Deeper dentine basins generally correlated with higher occlusal surfaces, allowing the hypothesis that changes in the pressure signal due to lower basins could initiate compensatory growth and broadening of the whole tooth surface in hypselodont teeth. Macroscopic dental wear did not categorically differ between whole-leaf or pelleted diets or between diets with internal phytoliths or with external silicate abrasives. Supporting interpretations that tooth wear should be viewed as a response to the biomechanical properties of ingested feed which may or may not be aptly summarized by broad descriptors such as ‘whole/pelleted’ or ‘natural/artificial’.