Data from: Examination of a historic collection of isolated cranial and appendicular hadrosaurid material from the lower Kirtland Formation of the San Juan Basin, New Mexico

The Field Museum of Natural History collection contains several isolated hadrosaurid specimens collected by Charles H. Sternberg from the lower Kirtland Formation of the San Juan Basin, New Mexico, that have been previously overlooked. Cranial elements described herein consist of a dentary and three jugals while appendicular material is limited to two humeri and two pubes. Many of the specimens preserve taxonomically informative characters that show strong affinities with Kritosaurini but are distinct from Kritosaurus navajovius (Brown, 1910) suggesting that the saurolophine-dominated San Juan Basin diversity is greater than currently recognized. Future examination of currently unprepared material will add to our developing understanding of the ambiguous hadrosaurid diversity of the San Juan Basin

Perinatal specimens of Maiasaura from the Upper Cretaceous of Montana (USA) : Insights into the early ontogeny of saurolophine hadrosaurid dinosaurs

Perinatal specimens of hadrosaurids discovered in the late 1970's by field crews from Princeton University were significant in providing evidence of the early ontogenetic stages in North American dinosaurs. These specimens from the Campanian (Upper Cretaceous) Two Medicine Formation of Montana consist of over a dozen skeletons referable to the saurolophine hadrosaurid Maiasaura peeblesorum, but never fully figured or described. Here, we provide a more complete documentation of the morphology of these specimens, along with an examination of variation during a large span of the development of saurolophine hadrosaurids. Many ontogenetic changes in the available facial and mandibular elements are associated with the progressive elongation of the preorbital region of the skull and mandible. In the postcranium, limb bones change nearly isometrically, with exception of certain elements of the forelimb. Some cranial and postcranial characters commonly used for inferring hadrosaurid phylogenetic relationships remain invariable during the ontogeny of M. peeblesorum. This indicates that early ontogenetic stages may still provide a limited amount of character information useful for systematics and phylogenetic inference

Supplementary Materials 1 - Description of characters

Characters (Prieto-Márquez, 2010a) used for Sternberg SJB materials in the present study

Supplementary Materials 2 - Character state scores

Character state scores of Sternberg SJB materials used in this analysis are listed for each respective element

When Do Students “Learn-to-Comprehend” Scientific Sources?: Evaluation of a Critical Skill in Undergraduates Progressing through a Science Major

In response to the publication of <em>Vision and Change</em>, the biology department at Elmhurst College revised our curriculum to better prepare students for a career in science with the addition of various writing assignments in every course.<em> </em>One commonality among all of the assignments is the ability to comprehend and critically evaluate scientific literature to determine relevancy and possible future research. Several previous reports have analyzed specific methodologies to improve student comprehension of scientific writing and critical thinking skills, yet none of these examined student growth over an undergraduate career. In this study, we hypothesized upper-level students would be better able to comprehend and critically analyze scientific literature than introductory biology majors. Biology students enrolled in an introductory (200-level), mid- (300-level), or late-career (400-level) course were tasked with reading and responding to questions regarding a common scientific article and rating their comfort and confidence in reading published literature. As predicted, upper-level (mid- and late-career) students showed increases in comprehension and critical analysis relative to their first-year peers. Interestingly, we observed that upper-level students read articles differently than introductory students, leading to significant gains in understanding and confidence. However, the observed gains were modest overall, indicating that further pedagogical change is necessary to improve student skills and confidence in reading scientific articles while fulfilling the <em>Vision and Change </em>recommendations

A one-year introductory biology majors’ lab sequence incorporating Vision & Change

The introduction of Vision and Change by AAAS and the recommendation that biology departments amend their curricula to focus on key concepts and skills necessary for graduates has led to a re-envisioning of introductory curricula across the nation.  Many of the “standard” biology textbooks have realigned their focus with Vision and Change while new texts have emerged that completely revise how we teach introductory biology majors.  One such textbook is Integrating Concepts in Biology (ICB) by Campbell, Heyer, and Paradise.  Many departments, including ours, have adopted this text as a novel way to teach biology majors, focusing on active-learning, the scientific method, and specifically, understanding data.  However, with all of these revisions to biology textbooks, there have been no revisions or insights into corresponding labs for a typical 1-year introductory course sequence.  Here we provide a description of our 1-year lab sequence, emphasizing the scientific method and novel research, with a focus on the 5 “Big Ideas” presented in ICB.  By removing the “cookbook” labs typical of most introductory labs, we found that this system better emphasized the focus of Vision and Change and, concomitantly, students appeared to enjoy the lab experience and see the relevance to class material better compared to previous years.  We believe that this lab organization is a simple design that is not resource-intensive and can be utilized at schools of any size or budget.