Development, Function, and Evolution of Teeth (review)

Development, Function and Evolution of Teeth, edited by Mark F. Teaford, Moya Meredith Smith, and Mark W.J. Ferguson. Cambridge, UK, and New York, NY: Cambridge University Press. 2000. 314 pp. $100 (hardcover).

This is an edited collection of 21 papers from a symposium entitled "Teeth: Homeoboxes to Function," which was held during the 4th International Congress on Vertebrate Morphology, at the University of Chicago, in 1994. It is well produced and edited, and the papers are all written by appropriate specialists in their fields. There is no general introduction or concluding chapter, so each paper/chapter introduces itself and ends with a conclusion and summary. As a result, this volume would not really act as a basic introduction for a student with a general interest, and is instead designed to stimulate cooperative research in the evolution of dentition and dental development. It is well placed to do that and researchers from many different fields could dip into it and find up-to-date reviews that could start them off in a variety of novel directions. The contents range mainly from developmental biology and molecular biology to functional morphology and palaeontology. Not much has specifically to do with human biology, and the coverage includes fish, amphibians, reptiles, and various mammals, as well as primates. It does however, incorporate much that would be of interest to human biologists.

Several chapters focus on developmental processes at the level of tissues and cells. Paul T. Sharpe (chapter 1) and Jukka Jernvall and Irma Thesleff (chapter 2) provide excellent reviews of new research into the ways in which mammalian dental development is controlled, both genetically and through the mechanisms of development. Chapter 11, by Zhiyong Zhao et al., takes this approach into an evolutionary context. J.V. Ruch and H. Lesot (chapter 3) provide a more specialist treatment of the role of odontoblasts (dentine-forming cells) in tooth development, and chapter 6, by Tony Smith, covers the way in which continued formation of dentine, after initial completion of the tooth, is controlled to provide a repair mechanism in response to tooth wear and disease. In chapter 4, Alan G. Fincham et al. provide a useful review of the highly complex biochemical processes involved in formation and full mineralization of dental enamel. Chapter 9, by Chris Dean, provides a summary of the ways in which incremental structures in enamel and dentine are providing detailed information about the way in which Primate teeth develop.

Other chapters take a wider view of the structure of enamel and dentine in mammals and nonmammals. Martin Sander, in chapter 7, gives a review of reptilian enamel (most nonmammalian enamel does not have the prismatic structure seen in many mammals). Wighart von Koenigswald contrasts the enamel structure of Eutherian mammals with that of Marsupials in chapter 8, and John M. Rensberger (chapter 18) examines the structure of enamel in living and extinct mammals, in relation to the function of teeth in these creatures.

Other chapters look at tooth development in a wide range of animal groups. Holly Smith has produced a highly original study in chapter 15 of tooth emergence and replacement in Primates and Ungulates. Ann Huysseune (chapter 16) considers variation in the development of dentitions in fish, and Barry Berkovitz in chapter 13 looks at the very different pattern of tooth replacement in fish, amphibians, and reptiles. Peter Gaengler examines the evolution of the attachment of teeth into the jaws, in chapter 12.

Other chapters deal with functional morphology in relation to evolution. Moya Meredith Smith and Mike I. Coates (chapter 10) take a long evolutionary perspective of the evolution of teeth and jaws. Jukka Jernvall (chapter 19) looks at the evolution of molar morphology in the Ungulate mammals and develops an intriguing system to describe different types of molar form. Peter W. Lucas and Charles R. Peters (chapter 20) look at the properties of foods in relation to mammal tooth morphology. Percy M. Butler (chapter 14) deals with the evolution of tooth form...