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dc.contributor.author	Nunn, Charles Lindsay
dc.contributor.author	Fritz, Julia
dc.contributor.author	Hummel, Jürgen
dc.contributor.author	Kienzle, Ellen
dc.contributor.author	Arnold, Christian
dc.contributor.author	Clauss, Marcus
dc.date.accessioned	2010-08-11T15:53:41Z
dc.date.issued	2009
dc.identifier.citation	Fritz, Julia, Jürgen Hummel, Ellen Kienzle, Christian Arnold, Charles Lindsay Nunn, and Marcus Clauss. 2009. Comparative chewing efficiency in mammalian herbivores. Oikos 118(11): 1623-1632.	en_US
dc.identifier.issn	0030-1299	en_US
dc.identifier.uri	http://nrs.harvard.edu/urn-3:HUL.InstRepos:4340768
dc.description.abstract	Although the relevance of particle size reduction in herbivore digestion is widely appreciated, few studies have investigated digesta particle size across species in relation to body mass or digestive strategy. We investigated faecal particle size, which reflects the size of ingesta particles after both mastication and specialized processes such as rumination. Particle size was measured by wet sieving samples from more than 700 captive individuals representing 193 mammalian species. Using phylogenetic generalized least squares, faecal particle size scaled to body mass with an exponent of 0.22 (95% confidence interval: 0.16–0.28). In comparisons among different digestive strategies, we found that (1) equids had smaller faecal particles than other hindgut fermenters, (2) non-ruminant foregut fermenters and hindgut fermenters had similar-sized faecal particles (not significantly different), and (3) ruminants had finer faecal particles than non-ruminants. These results confirm that the relationship between chewing efficiency and body mass is modified by morphological adaptations in dental design and physiological adaptations to chewing, such as rumination. This allometric relationship should be considered when investigating the effect of body size on digestive physiology, and digestion studies should include a measure of faecal particle size.	en_US
dc.description.sponsorship	Human Evolutionary Biology	en_US
dc.language.iso	en_US	en_US
dc.publisher	Nordic Ecological Society	en_US
dc.relation.isversionof	doi:10.1111/j.1600-0706.2009.17807.x	en_US
dc.relation.hasversion	http://www.people.fas.harvard.edu/~nunn/PDFs/Fritzetal2009Oikos.pdf	en_US
dash.license	LAA
dc.title	Comparative Chewing Efficiency in Mammalian Herbivores	en_US
dc.type	Journal Article	en_US
dc.description.version	Version of Record	en_US
dc.relation.journal	Oikos -Copenhagen-	en_US
dash.depositing.author	Nunn, Charles Lindsay
dc.date.available	2010-08-11T15:53:41Z

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  Peer reviewed scholarly articles from the Faculty of Arts and Sciences of Harvard University

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