Tooth microwear formation rate in Gasterosteus aculeatus

Abstract

Tooth microwear feature densities were significantly increased in a population of laboratory-reared three-spined stickleback Gasterosteus aculeatus in four days, after they were transferred from a limnetic feeding regime to a benthic feeding regime. These results show that even in aquatic vertebrates with non-occluding teeth, changes in feeding can cause changes in tooth microwear in just a few days, as in mammals.© 2014 The Authors. Journal of Fish Biology published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd on behalf of The Fisheries Society of the British Isles.