Data from: Extreme dentition does not prevent diet and tooth diversification within combtooth blennies (Ovalentaria: Blenniidae)

The dentition of fishes can be quite striking and is often correlated with
a specific diet. Combtooth blennies have long incisiform oral teeth,
unlike most actinopterygians. It has been suggested that the long tooth
morphology is an adaptation for detritivory, but given the diversity of
diets (detritus, coral polyps, polychaetes, and pieces of other fishes),
are blenny teeth indeed monomorphic? Or does tooth variation associated
with diet still exist at this extreme? To explore tooth and diet
diversification, we used a new phylogenetic hypothesis of Blenniidae,
measured tooth shape, number, and mode of attachment, and quantified
blenniid diet. The ancestral diet of blennies contained detritus and
diversified into many different diets, including almost exclusively
detritivory. Our results reveal a dental cline that may be constrained by
tooth shape, but has not prevented diet diversification. Ancestral state
reconstruction of tooth morphologies suggests that the ancestor of
blennies had many unattached teeth and featured transitions to fewer
attached teeth, with several transitions back to attached or unattached
teeth. The dentition of blenniids is not monotypic; rather it is diverse
and small changes in tooth shape are accompanied by changes in size,
number, attachment, and often diet.