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Articles 1 - 6 of 6
Full-Text Articles in Integrative Biology
Lizards In The Trees: Structural, Functional, And Behavioral Specializations To A High-Risk Environment, Victor D. Munteanu
Lizards In The Trees: Structural, Functional, And Behavioral Specializations To A High-Risk Environment, Victor D. Munteanu
All Dissertations
Animals must contend with unexpected changes in their habitat and environment to thrive. Arboreal habitats can consist of a wide variety of environmental features, and failure to adequately contend with these features can result in high risk of injury or death upon falling. Despite these strong selective pressures, many vertebrate lineages have successfully invaded arboreal habitats. Using lizard taxa as a model system, I investigated how morphology and behavior have evolved within this specific habitat transition. I pursued these investigations through complementary analyses including: 1) evaluating the effect of stance height and tail prehensility on perturbation recovery, 2) assessing behavior …
The Past, Present, And Future Of Climate Adaptation In A Widespread Lizard Species, Matthew R. Mcternan
The Past, Present, And Future Of Climate Adaptation In A Widespread Lizard Species, Matthew R. Mcternan
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Climate, as a selective force, shapes patterns of biodiversity globally. However, how species adapt to climate remains a central question of biology. The need to understand climate adaptation is paramount, as global climate change threatens a large portion of global diversity. Climate can impose selection on life by either controlling rates of energy intake and expenditure through effects on body temperature and activity, or by exposing organisms to conditions beyond their physiological limits. Studies of climate adaptation have identified a wide-range of putatively adaptive phenotypic patterns, but genomic evidence is increasingly being used to investigate these patterns and better understand …
Evolutionary Biomechanics In Cetartiodactyla: Impacts Of Ecological Shifts On Bone Material Properties And Control Surface Morphology, Danielle S. Adams
Evolutionary Biomechanics In Cetartiodactyla: Impacts Of Ecological Shifts On Bone Material Properties And Control Surface Morphology, Danielle S. Adams
All Dissertations
Extreme ecological transitions expose organisms to novel selective pressures that can reshape morphology and performance. This dissertation investigates how the transition from land to water has influenced form and material properties in cetaceans (whales, dolphins, and porpoises), a clade that has undergone dramatic morphological and physiological adaptations to a fully aquatic lifestyle. I integrate comparative morphology, material property testing, and phylogenetic analyses, to explore how ecological demands, particularly related to foraging mode and prey detection, have shaped multiple aspects of cetacean morphology and function. Using nanoindentation and microCT, I measured elastic modulus and bone density of the skull and mandible …
Pelvic Sucker Form And Function In Waterfall Climbing Gobies: Variation In Morphology And Adhesive Performance Can Inspire Biomimetic Innovation, Amanda Palecek Mcclung
Pelvic Sucker Form And Function In Waterfall Climbing Gobies: Variation In Morphology And Adhesive Performance Can Inspire Biomimetic Innovation, Amanda Palecek Mcclung
All Dissertations
Adhesive systems have evolved in many animal lineages and have appeared multiple times among the fishes. Bioadhesion in the gobies, a group found around the world, plays a role in both station-holding and even climbing. Among the Hawaiian streams, we find four species of amphidromous gobies which must face predators as juveniles and climb streams up to hundreds of feet tall to reach adult habitats. These gobies exhibit a range of climbing and adhesive abilities that result in an elevation-dependent species stratification, in which increasingly proficient climbing species are found in streams at increasingly higher elevations. This group is therefore …
The Functional Implications Of Anuran Metamorphosis For Survival, Locomotor Performance, And Limb Bone Mechanical Properties, Chase Kinsey
The Functional Implications Of Anuran Metamorphosis For Survival, Locomotor Performance, And Limb Bone Mechanical Properties, Chase Kinsey
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Many organisms must contend with navigating their environments from birth. An organism could be classified as – and is often studied – in the context of locomotion through a single habitat type. However, many organisms must contend with a wide variety of environmental obstacles and substrates. What’s more, a large group of animals, Lissamphibia, do so while undergoing drastic transformation of their morphology and locomotor appendages. This transformation, term metamorphosis, typically coincides with a movement from water as a tadpole, to land as a frog or salamander. Many studies have associated this transitionary period with decreased locomotor performance and worse …
Supertertiary Structural Dynamics Modulate Function In Postsynaptic Density Protein 95, George L. Hamilton Iii
Supertertiary Structural Dynamics Modulate Function In Postsynaptic Density Protein 95, George L. Hamilton Iii
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Proteins, RNA, and DNA serve as the primary sub-cellular machinery that give rise to the necessary functions of life. The long-standing paradigm has been that the structures of biomolecules, or the arrangement of the subunits that make up a biomolecule, determine biological function. However, biomolecules are not static objects. Instead, they often undergo structural rearrangements that are crucial to enabling and regulating their functions. In my thesis I present several studies of the interplay between the structures, dynamics, and functions of biomolecules that combine experimental fluorescence spectroscopy and computational methods to probe these systems at the single-molecule level. In particular, …