Data from: Microwear-mesowear congruence and mortality bias in rhinoceros mass death assemblages

Although we do not know the cause of death of most fossils, mortality is
often associated with ecological stress due to seasonality and other
stochastic events (storms, volcanism) that may have caused shifts in
feeding ecology preceding death. In these instances, dental microwear,
which reflects feeding ecology in a narrow window of time, may provide a
biased view of diet. Mesowear, another dental wear proxy based on the
morphology of worn cusps, requires macroscopic amounts of dental wear and
reflects diet for a longer interval and may be less prone to bias from
near-death ecological stress. We compared congruence between microwear and
mesowear of North American fossil rhinocerotid mass death assemblages and
hunted collections of modern rhinocerotids to test the hypothesis that
fossil assemblages yield more incongruous microwear and mesowear results
as a result of near-death ecological disturbances. In extant rhinos, both
microwear and mesowear are associated with diet and height of the feeding
environment. Mesowear and microwear in the modern rhinocerotid collections
are statistically correlated with strong relationships between average
mesowear scores and labially distributed dental microwear. In contrast, a
statistical relationship between mesowear and microwear was not observed
among the fossil rhinocerotid assemblages. Mesowear suggests the fossil
rhinos had low abrasion diets, suggesting they fed from clean, possibly
tall vegetation. Some, but not all mass death assemblages produce
microwear data with excessive scratches and/or pits compared to
expectations based on mesowear results, suggesting that dental microwear
was altered shortly before death in some but not all of the fossil
assemblages. The dental wear proxies available to paleoecologists provide
a mosaic of dietary evidence reflecting diet over long (mesowear) and more
abbreviated (microwear) periods of time that, together, provide a richer
understanding of feeding ecology and its relationship to environment,
seasonal change, and other ecological disturbances.