Salamander Braincase Morphology, and its Impact on Discombobulation

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atmire.migration.oldid4864
dc.contributor.advisorAnderson, Jason
dc.contributor.authorSzostakiwskyj, Matthew
dc.contributor.committeememberJamniczky, Heather
dc.contributor.committeememberTheodor, Jessica
dc.date.accessioned2016-09-06T19:12:38Z
dc.date.available2016-09-06T19:12:38Z
dc.date.issued2016
dc.date.submitted2016en
dc.description.abstractSalamander phylogeny has been difficult to assess via morphology due to paedomorphosis, the retention of juvenile characters in the adult form, resulting in a large discrepancy between the topologies recovered by morphological and molecular datasets, prompting one author to comment that ontogeny “discombobulates” phylogeny. To investigate whether the addition of braincase morphology, an evolutionarily conserved module, to the current character set can resolve the incongruence between morphological and molecular datasets, I scanned 28 specimens of salamander, representing all 10 families, with micro-computed tomography; this represents the first time all 10 families have been visualized in 3D. I created a set of morphological characters describing the braincase, which I concatenated with the current datasets and performed both parsimony and Bayesian analyses. My results suggest that metamorphosis is strongly misleading morphological topologies, and demonstrate the importance of understanding how development impacts terminal morphology for character selection in future phylogenetic analyses.en_US
dc.identifier.citationSzostakiwskyj, M. (2016). Salamander Braincase Morphology, and its Impact on Discombobulation (Master's thesis, University of Calgary, Calgary, Canada). Retrieved from https://prism.ucalgary.ca. doi:10.11575/PRISM/27705en_US
dc.identifier.doihttp://dx.doi.org/10.11575/PRISM/27705
dc.identifier.urihttp://hdl.handle.net/11023/3268
dc.language.isoeng
dc.publisher.facultyGraduate Studies
dc.publisher.institutionUniversity of Calgaryen
dc.publisher.placeCalgaryen
dc.rightsUniversity of Calgary graduate students retain copyright ownership and moral rights for their thesis. You may use this material in any way that is permitted by the Copyright Act or through licensing that has been assigned to the document. For uses that are not allowable under copyright legislation or licensing, you are required to seek permission.
dc.subjectAnatomy
dc.subjectZoology
dc.subject.classificationSalamanderen_US
dc.subject.classificationBraincaseen_US
dc.subject.classificationSystematicsen_US
dc.subject.classificationAmphibianen_US
dc.subject.classificationPaedomorphosisen_US
dc.titleSalamander Braincase Morphology, and its Impact on Discombobulation
dc.typemaster thesis
thesis.degree.disciplineBiological Sciences
thesis.degree.grantorUniversity of Calgary
thesis.degree.nameMaster of Science (MSc)
ucalgary.item.requestcopytrue
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