The School of Biological Sciences Spring 2024 Seminar Series presents Dr. Jessica Tingle

Terrestrial vertebrates have repeatedly evolved elongate, limbless body plans, which require them to move using drastically different types of locomotion than their limbed relatives do. Despite their superficially simple body plans, snakes have evolved remarkable behavioral and ecological flexibility, moving in at least a dozen distinct ways and inhabiting diverse habitats. We still have much to learn about how a superficially simple body plan can generate extreme diversity, but external similarity suggests a huge effect of the underlying axial musculoskeletal system and/or behavior. Behavioral evolution can occur rapidly and dramatically alter relationships between morphology and function. Characterizing the nature and potential sources of variation has implications for ecology, since the degree of flexibility in locomotor behavior could influence ability to expand into new habitats, or to cope with a changing one. This seminar talk will include a review of snake locomotor diversity, plus results of research on the evolution of behavioral and morphological traits that have helped generate such diversity. That research has involved a variety of approaches, spanning fieldwork to museum work to modelling, plus single-species and phylogenetic comparative methods.

Hosted by Dr. Mendelson