Four Biology seniors present research at annual biology conference

Four seniors at McDaniel College presented student-faculty research findings with Biology professor Katie Staab at the annual Society for Integrative and Comparative Biology conference Jan. 3–7, 2019, in Tampa, Fla.

• Taylor Bauman, a Biology major from Charlottesville, Va., presented her paper titled "Cartilage-like Connective Tissues in the Hyoid Region of Cypriniform Fishes" on the connective tissue in the jaws of several fish species.
  
• Biology and Sociology major Monica McInerney of Bishopville, Md., also looked at the connective tissue in the jaws of several fish species. Her paper was titled "The Structure and Composition of the Kinethmoid and Attached Ligaments in Cypriniform Fishes."
  
• Ashly Nsangou, a Biology major from New Carrollton, Md., presented her paper titled "Pre-and post-natal development of the lower jaw in two live bearing poeciliid species" on the development of a novel cranial joint in fish.
  
• Lauren Wells, a Biology major from Glen Allen, Va., measured how fish use their parts to feed and how that varies among species. Her paper was titled "Kinematics of cypriniform suction feeding: emerging patterns of functional diversity across sixteen species."

The annual Society for Integrative and Comparative Biology conference is an educational and research forum for investigations of biology on a broad comparative scale. The mission of the Society for Integrative and Comparative Biology (SICB), formed in 1902 as the American Society of Zoologists, is to further research, education and public understanding of living organisms from molecules and cells to ecology and evolution. More than 2,500 scientists, researchers, administrators, educators, students, and policymakers from around the world annually attend the conference.