Author: Sam Trail
Date: March 12, 2025
In January of this year (2025), thousands of scientists traveled to Atlanta, Georgia for the Society for Integrative and Comparative Biology (SICB) annual meeting. Florida Atlantic University’s College of Science was well represented with a whopping 32 FAU students and faculty presenting their research at the conference!
FAU Marine Lab members were not only presenters and attendees, but also served important volunteer and leadership positions to help the meeting run smoothly. Multiple students received the Charlotte Mangum Student Support Scholarship, which provided travel or housing assistance in exchange for volunteer hours at the conference. Our students volunteered by assisting with check-in and registration, photographing specific events, and assisting with presentation sessions. Dr. Marianne Porter held the role of the Society’s Secretary this year!
There was also representation from Marine Lab members and alumni in one of the fin-tastic organizations that co-sponsored the meeting this year, Minorities in Shark Sciences (MISS). This group is dedicated to education and outreach, training and professional development, and inclusive and collaborative research initiatives. MISS co-founder and current Director of Communications, Carlee Jackson, is an FAU alum. As an undergraduate, she volunteered with Dr. Porter in the Florida Atlantic Biomechanics (FAB) Lab during her senior year. That time gave her a first look at the shark sciences before heading to graduate school at Nova Southeastern University! Jackson also assisted with Dr. Jeanette Wyneken’s sea turtle sex ratio project through her role as a Marine Turtle Specialist at Gumbo Limbo Nature Center. She has multiple ties to the FAU Marine Lab!
MISS organized and oversaw workshops and special sessions that were integrated into or co-sponsored with the SICB conference. Topics spanned several fields including GIS, eDNA, statistical analyses, grant writing, and two contributed oral presentation sessions entitled Conducting Research in the Global South and Moving Through Water. FAU scientists Dr. Marianne Porter, Dr. Lauren Simonitis, and Samantha Trail contributed talks in these sessions.
It was exciting to kick off the new year together with so many wonderful FAU scientists, past and present, gathered to geek-out over science and learn. There was so much awesome science presented from the FAU Marine Lab, that we just couldn’t fit it all in one article! View the online program to read the abstract summary of each study from Marine Lab scientists listed below.
SEA Scholars: diving into science through education and the arts | presenter: Chelsea Bennice
Minimal radial oxygen loss from tropical seagrasses: a counter paradigm | presenters: Nicole Alexiou and Alex Hoey
Diverse evolutionary pathways to morphological novelty in coral reef fishes | presenter: Darien Satterfield
CSI- Cryptic Species Investigation: The case of Octopus americanus | presenter: Colleen Hecker
Octopus arm flexibility facilitates complex behaviors in diverse natural environments | presenter: Chelsea Bennice
Is anti-müllerian hormone sex-specific in neonate sea turtle blood? | presenter: Gabriella Carvajal
In situ anatomy of pectoral, body, and respiratory muscles in green (Chelonia mydas) and loggerhead (Caretta caretta) sea turtles | presenter: Jeanette Wyneken
Sprinters to marathoners: an ontogenetic comparison of leatherback sea turtle swimming kinematics | presenter: Samantha Trail
Suture morphology of sea turtles across ontogeny | presenter: Ivana Lezcano
Orientation of blacktip sharks (Carcharhinus limbatus) to underwater sound | presenter: Caroline Sullivan
The mechanical properties of shark skin vary across ecomorphotypes | presenter: Madeleine Hagood
Pirates of sensory biology: mapping the olfactory receptor neuron density in Pacific spiny dogfish | presenter: Gabriella Castillo
Quantifying structural and sensory olfactory morphology in the blacktip shark | presenter: Nicole Demaras
Vertebral mechanics and joint morphology in two divergent dogfish species | presenter: Marianne Porter
Zooming in on Bonnetheads: Quantifying sexual dimorphism in denticle morphology | presenter: Hannah Epstein
Lifestyles of sharks reflected by functional properties of sensory regions in the neurocranium | presenter: Jake Wood
On your (land)mark, set, go!: 3D mineral structures vary in shark vertebrae based on swimming style | presenter: Jamie Knaub
Sexual dimorphism in vertebral mechanical properties of bonnethead sharks (Sphyrna tiburo) | presenter: Genna Felder
