Mark your Calendars!!! One week from today Matt Vickaryous (University of Guelph) and I will be co-convening a Symposium on Joint Biology entitled:

Making Connections: the Evolution and Function of Joints in Vertebrates

This series of talks will complement numerous other exciting new findings shared at the Annual Meeting of the Society of Vertebrate Paleontology (SVP) in Pittsburgh this year.  Everyone knows vertebrate paleontologists study bones, but it’s not always common knowledge that they also rely on linkages between bones to tell their stories. Joints are obviously central to the ability for an organism to grow and move parts of its skeleton, whether it be the limbs, vertebral column or jaws; and vertebrates do a lot of different things with them. We took this opportunity to highlight the spaces in between the bones so characteristic to our field by bringing a variety of expert faculty and students to one room to discuss some of the most current, integrative research on the topic. The full symposium schedule is at the bottom of the post.

For those of you up for the 8am time slot (who sleeps at SVP anyway?), I’ll be kicking things off with our findings from our recent Anatomical Record paper but will intro with rapid review of reptilian cranial joints to highlight some new projects we have going, and why they’re relevant to understanding the evolution and function of cranial joints in lizards, crocs, and dinosaurs. My coauthor, Nick Gardner was an undergraduate in my lab during the  project and an important member of our research team. He helped design our 3D anatomy database at the bottom of the linked page above. The 3D anatomy database will be growing significantly since we’ve got tons more histology and 3D models (of more than just lizards) to put up when I get a chance. It will have 3D reconstructions of serial histology, interactive models made from CT and MRI data, muscle reconstructions, and some other goodies.

I expect the symposium to go well. It’s a full schedule (16 talks; 2 posters); each talk is only 15min tops (which is kinda short for symposium talks) and we will have to rule with iron fists to keep on time (I reserve the right to start things off late 😉 ). Moreover, we don’t get 5 or so minutes at the start to introduce the symposium itself, which is typical at many other meetings. Regardless, it will be awesome. It’s opposite a session on birds and flying reptiles (so I will have to remain ignorant of pterosaurs)  and then the 3rd, concurrent session on mammalzzzzzzzz.

I wanted to hype two other posters. 1st is again Marshall Undergraduate student Nick Gardner’s poster on the braincase of the primitive reptile Youngina using microCT (with Robin O’Keefe , Helen Zhu, and myself). This is Nick’s first presentation at SVP, come check it out, it’s wicked. Also, Henry Tsai, who just started his PhD with me this semester at Missouri’s Integrative Anatomy Program will be presenting his Undergraduate research project from his very interesting work with Tomasz Owerkowicz and Jim Hicks at UC Irvine on locomotion and adaptive plasticity of the bone of  Alligator. It’s Henry’s first SVP presentation as well, come check it out.

Finally, our still fledgling, 3yr old Integrative Anatomy program will have a good showing at SVP this year: 3 talks (Ward, Ravosa, Holliday) and 3 posters (McAfee, Hammond, Tsai). We also have 2 Lecturer positions open, so if interested, find one of us at the meeting.

Sunday Poster Session

Gardner, N., Holliday, C., Zhu, H., O’Keefe, F. BRAINCASE ANATOMY OF THE BASAL DIAPSID YOUNGINA CAPENSIS FROM HIGH-RESOLUTION X-RAY CT SCANNING

Tuesday Poster Session

Tsai, H., Owerkowicz, T., Felbinger, K., Andrade, F., Hicks, J. CHRONIC EXERCISE DOES NOT ALTER LIMB BONE MORPHOLOGY OR MICROSTRUCTURE IN THE AMERICAN ALLIGATOR (ALLIGATOR MISSISSIPPIENSIS)

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Straight from the program, the full list of Symposium participants is below:

TUESDAY MORNING, OCTOBER 12, 2010

SYMPOSIUM: MAKING CONNECTIONS: THE EVOLUTION AND FUNCTION OF JOINTS IN VERTEBRATES

MODERATORS: Casey Holliday, Matthew Vickaryous

8:00 Holliday, C., Gardner, N. STRUCTURE AND FUNCTION OF THE REPTILIAN MANDIBULAR SYMPHYSIS: INSIGHTS FROM SQUAMATES

8:15 Osi, A. JAW MECHANISM, DENTAL OCCLUSION AND EFFECTIVE ORAL FOOD PROCESSING INHETERODONT CROCODYLIFORMS: AN UNEXPECTED VARIABILITY

8:30 Gill, P., Rayfield, E., Robson-Brown, K., Gostling, N. A FUNCTIONAL INVESTIGATION INTO THE JAW JOINTS OF TWO OF THE EARLIEST STEM MAMMALS; MORGANUCODON WATSONI AND KUEHNEOTHERIUM PRAECURSORIS

8:45 Ravosa, M., Ning, J., Stock, S., Stack, M. JAW-JOINT FUNCTION AND PLASTICITY IN MAMMALS

9:00 Luo, Z. MORPHOLOGICAL EVOLUTION OF THE DOUBLE CRANIOMANDIBULAR JOINT IN THE CYNODONT-MAMMALIAFORM TRANSITION

9:15 Curtis, N., Jones, M., Evans, S., O’Higgins, P., Fagan, M. THE ROLE AND FUNCTION FOR CRANIAL SUTURES IN REPTILES: A FINITE ELEMENT ANALYSIS OF THE SKULL OF SPHENODON (DIAPSIDA: LEPIDOSAURIA: RHYNCHOCEPHALIA)

9:30 Bright, J., Gröning, F., Rayfield, E. MAMMALIAN SKULL CONSTRUCTION AND THE IMPORTANCE OF CRANIAL SUTURES IN BIOMECHANICAL FINITE ELEMENT ANALYSIS

9:45 Maddin, H., Wake, M. EXPLORING THE INFLUENCE OF FOSSORIALITY ON TETRAPOD CRANIAL ARCHITECTURE, A FOCUS ON CRANIAL JOINTS

10:00 BREAK

10:15 Vickaryous, M., Reisz, R., Modesto, S., Head, J. TAIL AUTOTOMY IN THE FOSSIL RECORD: NEW INFORMATION ABOUT VOLUNTARY TAIL LOSS IN CAPTORHINID REPTILES

10:30 Pierce, S., Molnar, J., Hutchinson, J., Clack, J. REGIONAL VARIATION OF INTERVERTEBRAL JOINT STIFFNESS IN EXTANT AND EXTINCT TETRAPODS AND ITS IMPORTANCE FOR THE WATER-LAND TRANSITION

10:45 Claessens, L., Hirasawa, T. RIBCAGE ANATOMY, SKELETAL CONSTRAINT AND KINEMATICS IN EXTANT AND EXTINCT ARCHOSAURS

11:00 Ward, C., Hammond, A., Plavcan, J., Begun, D., Kordos, L. HIP JOINT MORPHOLOGY AND HOMINOID EVOLUTION: FROM QUADRUPEDAL TO SUSPENSORY TO BIPEDAL LOCOMOTION

11:15 Gatesy, S., Kambic, R., Roberts, T. BEYOND HINGES: 3-D JOINT FUNCTION IN ERECT BIPEDS

11:30 Su, A., Patel, B., Carlson, K. SUBCHONDRAL AND TRABECULAR BONE MORPHOLOGICAL CORRELATES OF LOCOMOTOR BEHAVIOR

11:45 Sullivan, C., Xu, X., Zhang, F., Drake, A., Cooper, M. FUNCTION AND EVOLUTION OF THE ANKLE JOINT IN THEROPOD DINOSAURS

12:00 Bonnan, M., Sandrik, J., Nishiwaki, T., Wilhite, R., Elsey, R. NON-AVIAN DINOSAUR AND EXTANT ARCHOSAUR LIMB JOINTS: WHAT’S MISSING, WHAT’S NOT, AND WHERE DO WE GO FROM HERE?

And Two Symposium Poster Participants:

Hammond, A., Koscielniak, N., Plavcan, J., Ward, C. 3D ANALYSIS OF PRIMATE HINDLIMB JOINTS: RECONSTRUCTING POSITIONAL ABILITIES IN EXTINCT PRIMATES

Shychoski, L., Snively, E., Burns, M. MANEUVERED OUT OF A CORNER: LIGAMENT ENTHESES OF THE ARCTOMETATARSUS ENHANCED TYRANNOSAURID AGILITY