My name is Madeleine Mauck and I am one of Dr. Young’s new research students at Saint Mary’s College. I am a Biology major with a concentration in molecular and cellular biology. My hope is to attend physical therapy school after graduation and obtain a Doctor of Physical Therapy degree.
I was drawn to the Locomotion Lab because of Alli’s ACL study. I’m very interested in young adults who are in athletics and different forms of injury prevention. When Alli was explaining the study to me, I was very excited to join the lab and continue this study. My goal is to obtain more data on knee flexion angles for both injured and uninjured students at Saint Mary’s. I will also be looking at hip flexion angles. These data will be added to Alli’s previously collected data and used as a foundation for a smartphone application that will aid in ACL injury prevention. I hope to start my data collection this spring. The collection process might continue into the fall semester, in order to obtain a larger sample population. Participants who have and have not injured their ACLs will be encouraged to partake in my study. They will complete three drop-jump tests, which will be recorded. The video recordings will be examined next fall to measure the knee and hip flexion angles. I can not wait to start collecting my data and begin my senior comprehensive project! Since my last update in November, I have completed all of my analyses and have been able to draw some conclusions based on the scaling patterns that were calculated.
After analyzing the data for the humeral and femoral limb bone relationships between the length, diameter (Flexion-Extension Diameter, FED, and Perpendicular Diameter, PD), and the estimated body mass for Graptemys, Terrapene, Trachemys, and Pseudemys, I found that the scaling patterns do differ between the taxa's ecological habitats. All four clades showed isometry for humeral and femoral length relative to FED and PD. Graptemys showed positive allometry of humeral and femoral length and diameters (FED and PD) relative to mass, meaning the length and diameters are larger than expected based on the estimated body mass. Since Graptemys has long and robust proximal limb bones relative to body mass, this can mean that they spend more time in terrestrial habitats than aquatic habitats. Terrapene exhibited positive allometry for humeral and femoral FED relative to mass but exhibited isometry for humeral and femoral PD and length relative to mass. This shows that the FED in this taxa is large when compared to estimated mass but the PD is proportional. This can be due to having to counteract the torsional (i.e. twisting) loads that are generated during terrestrial walking to avoid any strain to the limb bones. Trachemys and Pseudemys showed the same scaling pattern in that they both exhibited isometry for humeral and femoral length and diameter relative to mass. This could show an intermediate morphology between terrestrial and swimming lineages since they are known to be found in semi-aquatic (both terrestrial and aquatic) environments.. The robust nature of Graptemys limb bone morphology indicated that this group could possibly spend more time in terrestrial environments, similar to that of Terrapene. This is quite interesting as I have found that they spend most of their time in water other than to bask in the sun (based on a review of the natural history literature). This is something that can be looked further into and possibly bring on further research to look at specifically the Graptemys taxa and see if any of the scaling patterns between the different species could potentially answer the question. On another note, this past weekend I was able to present my data to my fellow peers and professors at Belle Biology Day, which is a weekend where senior biology major students present the research they have been doing in both the format of a poster and an oral presentation. It was quite the experience as I have never presented research before, but I can officially say that I got through it in one piece! For the last half of my semester here at Saint Mary’s, I will be working on finishing up my edits for my senior composition paper and sending it off to committee, who will recommend more edits for me to make. After a few more rounds of edits are complete and the committee signs off on my paper, I will be done with my senior comprehensive project and be ready to graduate! Here’s to smooth sailing ahead! My name is Hannah Gams and I am one of Dr. Young’s research students in the Locomotion Lab at Saint Mary’s. I’m majoring in Biology and Spanish and I’m planning on going to medical school after Saint Mary’s, so I was most excited to join the Locomotion Lab to learn about and study the physiological processes behind locomotion.
When I joined the Locomotion Lab, Kamryn was already a part of the lab and was starting the squirrel project, which would compare squirrel populations on and off campus. I joined the squirrel project because I was interested in starting new research and the project sounded really interesting. Kamryn and I will both be comparing urban (on-campus) vs. rural (off-campus) squirrels, but we will be focusing on different aspects of these populations. We plan to have one of us look at body mass and one of us look at locomotor success. I was more interested in the locomotor aspect because it seemed more aligned with my interest in physiology. I will be collecting data for my project this summer by observing squirrels on Saint Mary's campus and in the Saint Mary's nature area. To determine their locomotor success, I will be observing climbing and jumping behaviors on and around feeders. Next semester I will finish analyzing the data and writing my senior comp. I’m really excited to be a member of the Locomotion Lab and am looking forward to starting my research soon! |
AuthorsAlok Agwick Archives
February 2024
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