Dental Calculus Formation Is Linked to Diet and Phylogeny in Mammals
John L Richards, Markella Moraitou, Ella Nates, Konstantina Saliari, Emmanuel Gilissen, Zena Timmons, Andrew C Kitchener, Olivier S G Pauwels, Richard Sabin, Phaedra Kokkini, Roberto Portela Miguez, Katerina Guschanski · 2026
Read Dental Calculus Formation Is Linked to Diet and Phylogeny in Mammals by John L Richards, Markella Moraitou, Ella Nates, Konstantina Saliari, Emmanuel Gilissen, Zena Timmons, Andrew C Kitchener, Olivier S G Pauwels, Richard Sabin, Phaedra Kokkini, Roberto Portela Miguez, Katerina Guschanski (2026) in the Tower of Babel, a free online library of public-domain works preserved in clean, searchable text. No sign-up. The full text is served as a plain-text file at a predictable URL, where text is present: https://antarctic-labs.com/tower-of-babel/PMC13400996.txt.
Description
John L Richards and a large team survey, in 2026, dental calculus, the hardened plaque on teeth, across mammals in museum collections. Calculus preserves molecules from the mouth over long timescales, making it a rich archive of past microbes. Outside humans and primates, its distribution was almost unknown.
Examining over sixteen hundred specimens from 142 species spanning nearly all mammal orders, they found calculus in 104 species. High-fiber diets linked most strongly to abundant deposits, while high protein and fat diets showed little or none. Evolutionary relatedness also mattered, pointing to mouth and tooth shape effects, and captivity changed formation in almost every diet group. The team predicts which unsurveyed species likely carry calculus.
Catalog record
| CREATOR | John L Richards, Markella Moraitou, Ella Nates, Konstantina Saliari, Emmanuel Gilissen, Zena Timmons, Andrew C Kitchener, Olivier S G Pauwels, Richard Sabin, Phaedra Kokkini, Roberto Portela Miguez, Katerina Guschanski |
|---|---|
| YEAR | 2026 |
| COLLECTION | PAPERS |
| FORMAT | TXT |
| FILE SIZE | 55663 |
| LICENSE | https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0 |
| RIGHTS | CC BY |
| SOURCE | Europe PMC |