The evolution of high-crowned teeth, hypsodonty, is a defining characteristic of many terrestrial herbivores. To date, the most prominent focus in the study of the teeth of grazing herbivores has been co-evolution with grasses and grasslands. This book develops the idea further and looks at the myriad ways that soil can enter the diet. Madden then expands this analysis to examine the earth surface processes that mobilize sediment in the environment. The text delivers a global perspective on tooth wear and soil erosion, with examples from the islands of New Zealand to the South American Andes, highlighting how similar geological processes worldwide result in convergent evolution. The final chapter includes a review of elodonty in the fossil record and its environmental consequences. Offering new insights into geomorphology and adaptive and evolutionary morphology, this text will be of value to any researcher interested in the evolution of tooth size and shape.

'… packed with data and analysis, much of it unpublished elsewhere.'

Christine Janis Source: Ameghiniana

'This book is a detailed and wide-ranging evaluation of an alternative explanation for the evolution of high-crowned chewing teeth in grazing mammals from South America and all over the world … Many of the analyses are sophisticated and complex, and the final chapter includes some philosophical musings about the metaphysics of causation. I first heard Madden discuss this issue at a conference in Bolivia a decade and a half ago. I found it exciting and important, and have been waiting to see it in print ever since. It was worth the wait.'

John G. Fleagle Source: The Quarterly Review of Biology

'Madden has provided us with an abundance of evidence here that summarily makes the phytolith assumption dead. Through many case studies and reviews of carefully done studies of correlation and causation … Madden has made it an essential concern for those doing research on dental wear to consider the environmental context, including the composition of and access to naturally occurring abrasives, as part of their assumptions of what causes wear. … Much of the data included in this book is not published elsewhere, making this a primary source.'

Source: Complex Adaptive Systems Modeling