@article{TEXTUAL,
      recid = {5321},
      author = {Kim, Sora L. and Yeakel, Justin D. and Balk, Meghan A. and  Eberle, Jaelyn J. and Zeichner, Sarah and Fieman, Dina and  Kriwet, Jürgen},
      title = {Decoding the dynamics of dental distributions: Insights  from shark demography and dispersal},
      journal = {Proceedings of the Royal Society B},
      address = {2022-06-29},
      number = {TEXTUAL},
      abstract = {Shark teeth are one of the most abundant vertebrate  fossils, and because tooth size generally correlates with  body size, their accumulations document the size structure  of populations. Understanding how ecological and  environmental processes influence size structure, and how  this extends to influence these dental distributions, may  offer a window into the ecological and environmental  dynamics of past and present shark populations. Here, we  examine the dental distributions of sand tigers, including  extant Carcharias taurus and extinct Striatolamia macrota,  to reconstruct the size structure for a contemporary  locality and four Eocene localities. We compare empirical  distributions against expectations from a population  simulation to gain insight into potential governing  ecological processes. Specifically, we investigate the  influence of dispersal flexibility to and from protected  nurseries. We show that changing the flexibility of initial  dispersal of juveniles from the nursery and annual  migration of adults to the nursery explains a large amount  of dental distribution variability. Our framework predicts  dispersal strategies of an extant sand tiger population,  and supports nurseries as important components of sand  tiger life history in both extant and Eocene populations.  These results suggest nursery protection may be vital for  shark conservation with increasing anthropogenic impacts  and climate change.},
      url = {http://knowledge.uchicago.edu/record/5321},
}