Ungar Lab |

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Research Conducted at the Lab

Welcome to the Ungar Lab!

The focus of research in our laboratory is the ecology and evolution of past mammals, especially human ancestors. More specifically, we develop and apply new approaches for using teeth to reconstruct diets of extinct species so we can better understand the impact of environmental change on past life. We also apply these techniques to clinically-oriented research and to better understand the effects of climate change on animals of the Arctic today.

The laboratory trains and supports research of postdoctoral fellows, graduate students, and undergraduates at the University of Arkansas and other universities, and fosters collaborations among researchers at many institutions around the world. Our projects vary from efforts to reconstruct habitats and diets of past species to studying the etiology of dental disease and erosion in clinical populations and documenting how the diets of mammals vary with nutritional landscape in the Arctic today.

Please use the links on this site to explore our research projects, participants, and facilities. And don’t hesitate to contact me if you are interested in joining our laboratory as a collaborator, graduate student, or undergraduate honors student.

Peter Ungar, Ph.D.
Distinguished Professor and Director of Environmental Dynamics
University of Arkansas

Methods of Analysis

Our laboratory has pioneered development of methods used to reconstruct diet from teeth past and present animals. These include methods related to tooth shape (dental topography) and microscopic use wear patterns (dental microwear).

Dental Topography

Dental topographic analysis is the study of functional aspects of tooth form, combining 3D scanning with quantitative shape characterization. Our laboratory introduced methods combining the use of laser scanning and geographic information systems to model dental cusps as mountains, fissures as valleys, etc. The resulting data are used to infer diets from fossil species, and to consider how tooth shape and function change with gross wear over the course of a lifetime. Our focus has been on extant primates and other mammals as well as fossil hominins and other extinct primates. We have also developed, with colleagues, clinical applications for dental topographic analysis. Today we continue to study dental topography using the latest techniques and tools by combining clinical intraoral scanning technology with R-based dental topography packages.

Dental Microwear

Dental microwear texture analysis is the study of microscopic-scale dental wear surface texture to infer tooth use and diet of extinct and extant individuals. Our lab was the first to use of confocal profilometry and scale-sensitive fractal analysis for automated characterization of texture patterns related to specific diet types. We have applied dental microwear texture analysis to a broad spectrum of mammals, both extant and extinct, to infer diet and reconstruct past environments. We have also developed, with colleagues, clinical applications for this approach.

To learn more about our current and recent projects, see our research link!