研究人员以生物力学和形态测量学方法为主题，研究早期恐龙的牙齿形态功能多样性，与现存的有鳞动物和鳄鱼进行比较，并使用机器学习分类模型预测它们的饮食主题。早期的蜥蜴类/兽脚类的恐龙一直被归类为肉食性动物。蜥脚类恐龙经历了从肉食性到草食性的饮食转变，在三叠纪和早侏罗世期间尝试了不同的饮食，早期的鸟臀目恐龙很可能是杂食性动物。专性食草在两个进化支中是一种晚期的进化创新。肉食是恐龙最合理的祖先菜单，但在动植物种类史中杂食动物也同样可能存在。这种早期饮食的多样性是恐龙崛起为生态霸主的基础。
据介绍，恐龙在整个中生代进化出了显著的饮食适应多样性，但不同进食模式的起源是不确定的，尤其是草食的多重起源。早期恐龙的进食习惯大多是从牙齿形态与现存类似物的定性比较中推断出来的。
附：英文原文
Title: Dental form and function in the early feeding diversification of dinosaurs
Author: Antonio Ballell, Michael J. Benton, Emily J. Rayfield
Issue&Volume: 2022-12-16
Abstract: Dinosaurs evolved a remarkable diversity of dietary adaptations throughout the Mesozoic, but the origins of different feeding modes are uncertain, especially the multiple origins of herbivory. Feeding habits of early dinosaurs have mostly been inferred from qualitative comparisons of dental morphology with extant analogs. Here, we use biomechanical and morphometric methods to investigate the dental morphofunctional diversity of early dinosaurs in comparison with extant squamates and crocodylians and predict their diets using machine learning classification models. Early saurischians/theropods are consistently classified as carnivores. Sauropodomorphs underwent a dietary shift from faunivory to herbivory, experimenting with diverse diets during the Triassic and Early Jurassic, and early ornithischians were likely omnivores. Obligate herbivory was a late evolutionary innovation in both clades. Carnivory is the most plausible ancestral diet of dinosaurs, but omnivory is equally likely under certain phylogenetic scenarios. This early dietary diversity was fundamental in the rise of dinosaurs to ecological dominance.
DOI: abq5201
Source: https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/sciadv.abq5201