The Core Concepts, Competencies, and Grand Challenges of Comparative Vertebrate Anatomy and Morphology.

Core concepts offer coherence to the discourse of a scientific discipline and facilitate teaching by identifying large unifying themes that can be tailored to the level of the class and expertise of the instructor. This approach to teaching has been shown to encourage deeper learning that can be integrated across subdisciplines of biology and has been adopted by several other biology subdisciplines. However, Comparative Vertebrate Anatomy, although one of the oldest biological areas of study, has not had its core concepts identified.

Implementing Fabrication as a Pedagogical Tool in Vertebrate Anatomy Courses: Motivation, Inclusion, and Lessons.

Increasing course structure by incorporating active learning and multimodal pedagogical strategies benefits all learners. Students of vertebrate anatomy can especially benefit from practicing fabrication, or "making", incorporating skills such as 3D digital modeling, 3D printing, and using familiar low-tech materials to construct informed replicas of animal anatomy. Student perceptions of active learning projects are shaped by motivation theories such as the expectancy-value theory and self-directed learning, both of which are briefly reviewed here.

Bottom Feeding and Beyond: How the Premaxillary Protrusion of Cypriniforms Allowed for a Novel Kind of Suction Feeding.

While much of the functional work on suction feeding has involved members of Acanthopterygii, an earlier cypriniform radiation led to over 3200 species filling nearly every freshwater trophic niche. Within the great majority of acanthomorph clades that have been investigated suction feeding and the underlying morphology responsible for the generation of rapid suction have been largely conserved. This conserved feeding-apparatus is often associated with increasing the force experienced by the prey item, thus making a strike on elusive prey more effective.

Flexibility in starting posture drives flexibility in kinematic behavior of the kinethmoid-mediated premaxillary protrusion mechanism in a cyprinid fish, Cyprinus carpio.

Premaxillary protrusion in cypriniform fishes involves rotation of the kinethmoid, an unpaired skeletal element in the dorsal midline of the rostrum. No muscles insert directly onto the kinethmoid, so its rotation must be caused by the movement of other bones. In turn, the kinethmoid is thought to push on the ascending processes of the premaxillae, effecting protrusion.

Independently evolved upper jaw protrusion mechanisms show convergent hydrodynamic function in teleost fishes.

A protrusible upper jaw has independently evolved multiple times within teleosts and has been implicated in the success of two groups in particular: Acanthomorpha and Cypriniformes. We use digital particle image velocimetry (DPIV) to compare suction feeding flow dynamics in a representative of each of these clades: goldfish and bluegill. Using DPIV, we contrast the spatial pattern of flow, the temporal relationship between flow and head kinematics, and the contribution of jaw protrusion to the forces exerted on prey.

Comparative kinematics of cypriniform premaxillary protrusion.

Premaxillary protrusion has evolved multiple times within teleosts, and has been implicated as contributing to the evolutionary success of clades bearing this adaptation. Cypriniform fishes protrude the jaws via the kinethmoid, a median sesamoid bone that is a synapomorphy for the order. Using five cypriniform species, we provide the first comparative kinematic study of jaw protrusion in this speciose order.

Development of the cypriniform protrusible jaw complex in Danio rerio: constructional insights for evolution.

Studies on the evolution of complex biological systems are difficult because the construction of these traits cannot be observed during the course of evolution. Complex traits are defined as consisting of multiple elements, often of differing embryological origins, with multiple linkages integrated to form a single functional unit. An example of a complex system is the cypriniform oral jaw apparatus.

Using zebrafish to investigate cypriniform evolutionary novelties: functional development and evolutionary diversification of the kinethmoid.

Although the zebrafish has become a popular model organism for biomedical studies, we propose that the wealth of morphological novelties that characterize this cypriniform fish makes it well suited for investigating the development of evolutionary innovations. Morphological novelties associated with feeding in cypriniform fishes include: a unique structure of the pharyngeal jaws in which the lower pharyngeal jaws are enlarged and opposed to a pad on the basioccipital process; a palatal organ found on the roof of the buccal chamber that is thought to help process detrital food within the buccal chamber; and, the kinethmoid, a novel ossification that effects a unique means of premaxillary protrusion. We present new morphological and developmental data and review functional data regarding the role of the kinethmoid in premaxillary protrusion in the zebrafish.