PFENNIG, K.S.*; TINSLEY, R.C.: Parasites, female mating behavior and sexual selection on male traits Female choice for parasite-free mates often may favor the evolution of elaborate male traits that indicate male health. Yet, parasite infection of females can alter their mate preferences, thereby mitigating selection on male traits. Here, we show that female spadefoot toads […]

PACKARD, M.J.*; PACKARD, G.C.: Why Hatchling Painted Turtles Overwinter in Their Nest We placed hatchling painted turtles (Chrysemys picta) individually into pint-volume canning jars containing damp soil or artificial pond water and then exposed the animals to 4oC in a simulated hibernation lasting 70 days. Our goal was to gain new insight into why baby […]

KRENZ, J.G.*; JANZEN, F.J.: Turtle Phylogeny: Insights from a Nuclear Gene Turtles have a long and successful evolutionary history, dating back over 200 million years. Relationships among many extant turtle families remain unclear, despite a large data set containing morphological characters as well as DNA sequences from the mitochondrial cytochrome b and 12S ribosomal DNA […]

Parham, J.F.: New perspectives on the origin(s) of marine turtles Because they share a large number of morphological characters, living marine turtles (Chelonioidea) are thought to have evolved from a single ancestor. All chelonioids share paddle-like limbs, a reduced shell, and peculiar arterial perforations of the braincase. However, comparative studies of distantly related clades that […]

Schwartz, T.S.*; Karl, S.A.: Genetic Structure of Florida Gopher Tortoise (Gopherus polyphemus) Populations Gopher tortoise (Gopherus polyphemus) population sizes are believed to have declined by an estimated 80% in the past 100 years. Habitat destruction from human development, predation, and infection from upper respiratory tract disease (URTD) have contributed to this decline. We currently are […]

JANZEN, F.J.: Constraints on the Microevolution of Type II Temperature-Dependent Sex Determination Sex determination is a fundamental trait of organisms that reproduce sexually, yet the tremendous diversity of sex-determining mechanisms remains largely unexplained. The origin of and variation in types of environmental sex determination (ESD) are particularly enigmatic. In this talk, I explore the ecological […]

Horne, B. D.: Comparative morphology of three populations of mexican mud turtles, Kinosternon leucostomum Three populations of the white lipped mud turtle Kinosternon luecostomum in southern Veracruz, Mexico were invesitgated for differences in growth rates, shell and head morphology. Turtles that were inhabiting a large temporary body of water were considerably different in morphology and […]

Hulsey, C.D.*; Wainwright, P.C.; Grubich, J.R.: Theoretical and Empirical Diversity of Anterior Jaw Functional Feeding Morphology Using both computer simulations and morphometrics of 81 species of labrid fishes, we explored morphospace occupation and functional consequences of design in the anterior jaws four bar linkage. This linkage model abstracts the mechanical properties of the feeding apparatus […]

LANDRY, S.O.: The Carnivore Skull as a Clinker-Built Hull. Ancient mediterranean ships’ hulls were “carvel built”, that is, the strakes (longitudinal planks of the hull) were fastened to each other edge-to-edge by mortise and tenon, whereas the Vikings and other sailors of the northern seas, used “clinker built” hulls, in which the strakes overlapped each […]

GREAVES, W.S.: Modeling the location of the mammalian tooth row A previous study suggested that mammalian tooth rows should be confined to the anterior seventy percent of total jaw length because that situation maximized the average bite force along the jaw. In the study described here, an estimate of the distance between the right and […]