Message from the Chair

Peter C. Wainwright

As the SICB 1996 Annual Meeting in Albuquerque eases into the past, I hope that the memory is as sweet for all of you as it is for me. It never fails to invigorate me to get together with so many people who share common interests. And this was a particularly good year for seeing old friends and colleagues.

DVM was a strong force at the Albuquerque meeting. We co-sponsored the fabulous symposium on skeletal muscle that was organized by John Bertram and Rich Marsh. Our members spoke in special sessions in honor of Steve Wainwright's retirement, as well as in the very successful combined sessions on locomotion and feeding. Of course, we had our usual series of excellent DVM paper sessions, and there were an impressive slate of fine posters.

I would like to offer special congratulations to A. Kristopher Lappin and John Golden, who won the Dwight D. Davis Prize and Honorable Mention for their talks, respectively. As always, it was great to see the excellent student presentations at the meeting.

As we all know, SICB has undergone something of a metamorphosis over the past several years. A new name, a refined mission, and a lot of effort on the part of a lot of people have come together in the new SICB. In the area of programming, I have been very impressed with the new ideas being implemented by Willy Bemis (a DVM member), including the success of the interdivisional sessions. There are some exciting programming ideas being considered for the future, including a night-time poster session and an effort to try to meet with other societies that might expand our interdisciplinary nature. Jim Hanken (another of our own DVM stars!) is instituting a number of changes as the new editor of American Zoologist. For example, the journal will invite the winners of student paper prizes to submit papers on their prize-winning work, page limits for papers are being extended, and new design formats for the cover are being considered.

Please note that there is a terrific new slate of candidates for several DVM elected positions. I would like to offer a personal thanks to John Bertram and the rest of the Nominating Committee for working diligently to put together this group of candidates. Vote!

John Hermanson

There is an overwhelming interest in oral presentations, which is consistent with a long-standing tradition of such papers in our Society's history.

Okay, so I thought I might be grumbling about piles of abstracts and scheduling conflicts when the abstracts arrived last September. This proved to be an unwarranted fear since I had only to deal with abstracts for 31 oral presentations and 21 poster presentations under the banner of Vertebrate Morphology. There is an overwhelming interest in oral presentations, which is consistent with a long-standing tradition of such papers in our Society's history. I was thankful for the opportunity for flexibility when 19 people submitted abstracts for poster sessions. Four people provided me with a voluntary option of assigning the abstract to an oral paper session or to a poster session. Many other oral papers by DVM members were presented in either the Wainwright symposium or in the new interdivisional sessions, which were organized and scheduled by Willy Bemis and others.

If I follow through on my assessment from a year ago of how many DVM members participated in the meeting, we had a strong showing. I counted 13 DVM members who participated in the Wainwright symposium and 25 who participated in the interdivisional sessions (13 in the sessions on locomotion and 12 in the sessions on feeding). These numbers represent a rather unscientific survey, undertaken early in the morning before the coffee pot had kicked into action. Looking back at my notes from the Washington meeting, these numbers represent an improvement from last year's situation in which the Division of Comparative Physiology and Biochemistry hosted a session on locomotion concurrently with a DVM session on lizard and mammalian locomotion and breathing mechanics.

The jury is still out on how everyone feels about the program arrangement in Albuquerque, so please let me know your thoughts before the next programming season is upon us. Most people who spoke with me indicated a satisfaction with the sessions that they were able to attend. I had concerns about the conflicts that continued to exist, but realize that we are bound to have some conflicting, concurrent sessions at a meeting of the size of the SICB.

There were several sessions with student presentations that clearly had low numbers of attendees. For these students to represent the future of our group, we need to ensure the presence of an audience that includes our most distinguished members as well as a good cross-section of biologists.

I was pleased with the content of the symposium on muscle organized by John Bertram and Rich Marsh. The level of discussion was both entertaining and enlightening, right up until the convention center staff started dragging out our projectors and seats. It was nice to see a number of persons on the dais who do not normally attend our meetings, as well as a few more familiar co-conspirators.

For next year at the SICB 1998 Annual Meeting in Boston, we have agreed to sponsor the symposium organized by Lennart Olsson and Brian Hall on the evolution and development of body plans, with contributions on invertebrates and vertebrates. This proposal was well-received by myself and the other divisional Program Officers. At the time of our business meeting in Albuquerque, DVM decided tentatively to co-sponsor this proposal, but this has been revised to indicate DVM's interest in this topic. We will also be involved with a symposium on myogenesis organized for Boston by Judith Venuti. This shapes up to be an interesting complement to the body plan symposium, and will be of great interest to people interested in muscle.

We are now looking into developing symposia proposals for the SICB 1999 Annual Meeting to be held in Denver. The process of organizing and gaining approval for symposia has been undergoing revision during the past two years. Because of the financial and scholarly implications of providing symposia of great interest to the Society, as well as to the readership of American Zoologist, symposia proposals must be developed in advance. The deadline for proposals for the Denver meeting to reach the SICB Business Office is April 15, 1997. This will give all divisional Program Officers enough time to discuss the content of proposals, to suggest revisions of some proposals, and to make decisions on the acceptance and scheduling of symposia.

We also draw upon the Editorial Office of the American Zoologist for comments and suggestions. There are no hard and fast rules for the acceptance of a proposal. Subjective decisions may come into play, including recentness of similar symposia, competition or conflict with symposia being presented by other scientific societies, or the opinions of the SICB officers regarding the estimated interest a particular symposium is likely to engender. Application materials for symposium proposals can be obtained from the Business Office. Call me if I can be of assistance or if you want to explore an idea for a proposal.

Announcement of Available Publication

Report of the 1996 D. Dwight Davis Award Committee

Frank Fish, Rebecca German, and Kurt Schwenk, ChairThe 1996 D. Dwight Davis Award for the Best Student Oral Presentation was won this year by A. Kristopher Lappin of the University of California, Berkeley, for his presentation "Feeding Ecomorphology of Crotaphytid Lizards" given at the SICB 1996 Annual Meeting in Albuquerque. Kris' study nicely integrated morphometric and anatomical data with feeding behavior, experimental analysis of biting function, and phylogeny to provide a cogent picture of feeding evolution in crotaphytids.

In addition, the excellent paper presented by John Golden of the J. W. Goethe University in Frankfurt, Germany, was recognized with an Honorable Mention. John's presentation "An Analysis of the Developing Visceral Arches in Some Rodents" questions the long-held dogma regarding the homologies of the first and second visceral arches in the vertebrate head.

Congratulations to Kris and John! There were a total of 15 student papers competing for the D. Dwight Davis Prize at the Albuquerque meeting and, as usual, the papers were of outstanding interest and quality, making the judges' job difficult. Thanks to all students who competed this year. We hope to see you again in Boston.

A Reminder: As per a previous DVM decision, multi-authored papers cannot be considered for the D. Dwight Davis Prize, even if the senior author is a student. Multiple authorship makes it impossible for judges to assess the student's contribution to the project and creates inequity in comparing papers.

An Observation and Helpful Hint: In the course of attending numerous oral presentations, the Awards Committee made one general observation, which I present here in the spirit of education and feedback for improvement of future presentations. For those who stand to benefit most from improvement and who remain phenotypically plastic enough to actually change (unlike the committee itself), we offer the following advice: Put your work into context. Begin your talk with the broadest possible context, and then narrow the context to your particular sub-discipline. This need take only a minute in a short talk, somewhat longer for an hour-long seminar.

Try to realize that, when speaking to an audience at a DVM paper session, you are probably addressing the most narrowly specialized audience possible; most of the time, your audience will be far more general, such as at a job interview in a biology department where there may not be a single other vertebrate morphologist - perhaps not even another vertebrate biologist! You must, therefore, prepare for each talk by asking yourself: "Why is this work interesting and important? What is the big picture, and where does my work fit into it? How would I explain it to the person on the street or to a high school student?" Presumably there is a reason for why you are pursuing the kind of study you are. Do not assume that your audience is sufficiently educated to know implicitly what this reason is or why your research is worth being done at all. Recall that, when it comes to arcane research specialties, biologists are as ruthlessly critical of each other as the National Enquirer.

Report from the Secretary

Dominique Homberger

DVM Candidates for Election

The DVM Nominating Committee, John Bertram, Chair, George Lauder and Sharon Emerson, submit the following names of candidates for open positions.

Candidates for Chair-Elect

Andrew Biewener

Current Position: Professor and Chair of Organismal Biology and Anatomy, University of Chicago.

Education: B.S., Zoology, Duke University, 1974; M.A., Biology, Harvard University, 1981; Ph.D., Biology, Harvard University, 1982.

Professional Experience: Research Associate, Museum of Comparative Zoology, Harvard University, 1982-present; Instructor of Anatomy, 1982-84, Assistant Professor, Committee on Evolutionary Biology, 1985-90, Assistant Professor of Organismal Biology & Anatomy, 1984-90, Associate Professor of Organismal Biology and Anatomy and the Committee on Evolutionary Biology, 1990-95, Professor, Committee on Evolutionary Biology, 1995-present, Professor and Chairman of Organismal Biology and Anatomy, 1995-present. University of Chicago.

SICB Activities: Member since 1980.

Other Memberships: American Association for the Advancement of Science, American Society of Biomechanics, American Physiological Society, International Society of Vertebrate Morphologists, Orthopaedic Research Society, Society for Experimental Biology.

Research Interests: The study of musculoskeletal design and vertebrate locomotor function: most work has concerned studies of mammals and birds, but students have also investigated the biomechanics and functional morphology of reptiles and amphibians. My research involves the use of experimental, biomechanical and physiological approaches to analyze mechanical design and function of the musculoskeletal system.

Goals Statement: My main goal will be to continue to encourage broad interdisciplinary involvement of student and professional members in the Division and within SICB generally. Recent jointly sponsored symposia and contributed paper sessions have been extremely successful in this regard. These interactions help all of us to be exposed to new people, approaches, and ideas relevant to the field of vertebrate morphology. As vertebrate morphologists, the future growth, vitality, and success of our Division depends on building ties across the Society. This can only help to expose and train our students in a truly interdisciplinary fashion. The many young, often first-time student presenters at each Annual Meeting are always a source of satisfaction, being critically important to our Division's future well-being. I want to support this by encouraging students' sense of identity and belonging to the DVM. One way to help this along might be to initiate a regular student contribution to the DVM newsletter.

Kathleen Smith

Current Position: Associate Professor of Anatomy and Zoology, Duke University.

Education: B.A., University of California, Santa Cruz; Ph.D., Harvard University.

Professional Experience: At Duke since Ph.D.

SICB Activities: Nominating Committee; Divisional Representative to Public Affairs Committee; Dwight D. Davis Prize Committee.

Other Memberships: Society for the Study of Evolution, Sigma Xi, Society for Developmental Biology, American Society of Mammalogists.

Research Interests: My general interests center on the determinants of form in vertebrates, in particular in the head. In the past, I have worked on functional morphology and biomechanics, in recent years on development. I am currently focusing on comparisons of marsupial and placental mammals, as these animals take different pathways to the construction of the head. I am also looking at interactions between various cranial systems - nervous, skeletal and muscular - to see how they influence one another during development. Finally, I am beginning work that looks at the actual effects of gene knockout experiments on morphogenesis, rather than simply looking at an end phenotype.

Goals Statement: The Division of Vertebrate Morphology has been important to me since I was a graduate student. It is an organization that allows students to gain experience in professional interaction in an atmosphere that is generally supportive, but is also critical, and demands high quality. Now, when I attend the meeting, I am continually impressed by the quality and enthusiasm of the students. Promoting the contributed paper sessions is obviously an important way to keep the strong focus on graduate students. Symposia have always been an important component of the meetings, and I believe we must continue to promote them, but also make sure that the topics are of interdivisional interest.

Candidates for Secretary

John Long, Jr.

Current Position: Assistant Professor, Vassar College.

Education: B.A., College of the Atlantic, 1986; Ph.D., Zoology, Duke University, 1991.

Professional Experience: Secretary of the Faculty, Vassar College, 1994-96; Board of Advisors, BioDesign Studio, Duke University, 1995-present; Board of Directors, Hudson River Aquarium, 1994-present.

SICB Activities: Chaired Best Student Paper Committee, Division of Vertebrate Morphology, 1995; Co-organizer, Symposium on Aquatic Locomotion, 1995; Panelist, "Research Relevance," 1995; I have also participated in symposia and have chaired contributed sessions.

Other Memberships: American Society of Ichthyologists and Herpetologists, Council for Undergraduate Research, International Society of Vertebrate Morphologists.

Research Interests: The morphology, mechanics and evolution of undulatory swimmers.

Goals Statement: My primary goal is to increase the usefulness, for DVM members, of our newsletter on the World Wide Web (our SICB home page address is http://www.sicb.org). In addition to sending out our usual hard-copy updates, I will encourage our officers to electronically update our web page as events occur and as information becomes available. Also useful would be links to the following resources: (1) job postings, (2) electronic journals, (3) reference databases, (4) research engines, and (5) the web sites of individual DVM members (on a voluntary basis).

Thomas D. White

Current Position: Assistant Professor of Biology, SUNY College at Buffalo, 1991-present.

Education: B.A., Biology, San Jose State University, 1971; M.A., Biology, San Jose State University, 1975; Ph.D., Biology, University of California, Los Angeles, 1985.

Professional Experience: Visiting Assistant Professor of Biology, University of California, Los Angeles, 1986-89; Postdoctoral Fellow, Brain Research Institute, UCLA School of Medicine, 1987-89; Postdoctoral Fellow, Department of Biology, University of California, Los Angeles, 1989-91; Lecturer of Biology, University of California, Los Angeles, 1990-91; Faculty Research Participation, Savannah River Ecology Laboratory, 1988-94.

SICB Activities: Best Student Poster Committee, ASZ Division of Vertebrate Morphology, 1993.

Other Memberships: Fulbright-Hays Scholar, Graduate Study in Australia, 1981; Editorial Committee, International Congress of Vertebrate Morphology, 1994.

Research Interests: Functional and ecological morphology of locomotion and feeding in vertebrates; Auditory function in frogs; Evolutionary morphology of mammals.

Goals Statement: To give something back to the SICB Division of Vertebrate Morphology and its members.

Candidates for Program Officer