Lukacs/Guatelli-Steinberg Linear Enamel Hypoplasia (LEH) is a dental defect appearing as one or more lines on a tooth's enamel surface. While a tooth is being formed, disease or poor nutrition can disturb enamel production resulting in LEH defects. Many anthropological studies have used LEH as a tool for assessing levels of disease and/or nutritional stress in human populations. Relatively little is known, however, about the prevalence and causes of LEH in non-human primate populations. This study addresses questions regarding the distribution and causes of LEH in prosimians, monkeys, and apes. The following questions are examined using a variety of species from several museum collections: 1) Does the height of the tooth and the length of time a tooth takes to form have an influence on the variation in LEH patterns across different primate species? 2) Do males and females have differences in the degree to which they are affected by LEH and if so, does the difference relate to the tooth's height and/or its duration of formation? 3) Does captivity, and particularly the process of being transferred into captivity, have an influence on the frequency of LEH? 4) Does low ranking social status in a social group have an influence on the frequency of LEH? The proposed research will help to provide an evaluation of LEH as a physiological stress indicator in non-human primates, and the comparative data will help resolve questions about LEH in humans. This research also will contribute to current knowledge about the degree of stress in nonhuman primates associated with a variety of living conditions, including the stresses of living in captivity or having subordinate social status.
