SICB journals

@sicbjournals.bsky.social

This account spotlights manuscripts & authors from from The Society for Integrative and Comparative
Biology's(sicb.bsky.social) journals- ICB & IOB (OA) -header art done by Noah Bressman

@sicbjournals.bsky.social Oct 13, 2026, 1:00 PM

ICB- With our desire to keep sharing the beautiful works being created in tough times, we are happy to share our October #art in #biology featured #artist / Marine #conservationist Dark Water Ink's Tyler Ball @ darkwaterink on Insta

integrativeandcomparativebiology.wordpress.com/fine-art-ame...

"I always saw #scientific #illustrations in research papers and #academic books when I was in school. In one class we had an assignment to pick an artifact, photograph it and then draw it. From that point on, I learned that these skills could be useful and contribute to the field I love, for a cause worth protecting. I could also help others reach wider audiences by combining my art with their research."

@sicbjournals.bsky.social Oct 13, 2026, 12:53 PM

Get to know IOB co author Brandi Goss

environment.ucdavis.edu/people/brand...

of SABER
saberbio.wildapricot.org

Strategies to Build Observation Skills for Integrative and Organismal #Biology #Undergraduates: A Scoping Review

doi.org/10.1093/iob/...

#education #teaching #organisms

@sicbjournals.bsky.social Oct 12, 2026, 12:13 PM

This #IndigenousPeoplesDay read

Indigenous #Sciences As #Scientific Systems in Dialogue with Integrative and Comparative #Biology

Jessica Hernandez ,

Keon Vereen

doi.org/10.1093/icb/... ;

& read more about co author Jessica Hernandez, Ph.D.https://www.jessicabhernandez.com/

Integrative and Comparative Biology (ICB) seeks to explain #biological diversity through the integration of form, function, development, #physiology, behavior, and #ecology across #organisms and environments. Yet the field’s history of synthesis has largely excluded Indigenous sciences, not because they lack empirical rigor, predictive capacity, or explanatory power, but because colonial scientific institutions have narrowly defined what counts as legitimate knowledge. Indigenous sciences are longstanding, place-based systems of inquiry grounded in careful observation, experimentation, interspecies relationships, and sustained intergenerational monitoring. They are not complementary supplements to Western science, nor alternative ways of knowing awaiting validation. They are autonomous scientific traditions that have generated sophisticated understandings of ecological processes over millennia. This paper argues that the exclusion of Indigenous sciences from ICB reflects broader histories of colonial knowledge production and the co-development of biological science with ethnological frameworks that marginalized Indigenous intellectual traditions. Drawing on Indigenous and decolonial science studies scholarship alongside canonical histories of comparative biology, this paper examines Indigenous salmon and fire stewardship as living scientific systems that continue to generate ecological knowledge while confronting state-imposed management regimes. Rather than asking how Indigenous sciences might be incorporated into existing biological frameworks, this paper asks what ICB can learn from scientific traditions that have long practiced integration across species, ecosystems, and generations, and what a genuinely reciprocal dialogue between sovereign scientific systems would require.

@sicbjournals.bsky.social Oct 12, 2026, 12:07 PM

IOB & Society for the Advancement of Biology @Education Research (SABER)

Strategies to Build Observation Skills for Integrative and Organismal #Biology #Undergraduates: A Scoping Review

Brandi Goss ,

Kelly Goedde-Matthews ,

Robert Furrow

doi.org/10.1093/iob/...

#teaching #academic

The ability to observe natural phenomena and connect those observations to theoretical concepts and processes is critical for knowledge integration and scientific inquiry in integrative and organismal #biology. However, no published effort had reviewed evidence-based #pedagogical methods for teaching scientific observation skills in integrative and organismal biology. This review found 53 papers with relevant pedagogical interventions for increasing observation skills from a diversity of disciplines (e.g., #ecology, health #sciences, and environmental sciences) and participant populations (preschool through postgraduate). However, only 2 studies assessed interventions aimed at improving observation skills for undergraduate biology students. More #research is needed to understand how these pedagogical strategies might translate to undergraduate integrative and organismal biology students. Pedagogical strategies fell into 4 main categories (manipulating the learning environment, scaffolding the observation process, and engaging with arts interpretation or creation), with arts interpretation showing particular promise for translation to integrative and organismal biology applications.

@sicbjournals.bsky.social Oct 10, 2026, 11:02 PM

A special #WorldMigratoryBirdDay
iobopen.com blog by

Katrina Pinili on this Oxford University Press #book: New Perspectives on Ornithology

Read in full

iobopen.com/2026/10/10/a...

#ornithology #science #nonfiction

@sicbjournals.bsky.social Oct 9, 2026, 12:33 PM

For ICB's wrap up of World Octopus Day spotlights, be sure to check out upcoming SICB Pittsburgh presenter
Horst Obenhaus who will speak about
Development of quiet and active sleep states in #Octopus bimaculoides juveniles

grassfoundation.org/people/horst...

#scientist #cephalopods

@sicbjournals.bsky.social Oct 9, 2026, 12:25 PM

Meet IOB author R.L. Turner

Of his 66 publications, 50 appear in refereed journals and books, and he is coauthor of the textbook Introduction to Marine #Biology, now in its fourth edition.

www.fit.edu/faculty-prof... nbsp; nbsp;

& read
The Tagmatized #Echinoderm
doi.org/10.1093/iob/...

Fig. 7
Specialized tagmata in euryalid ophiuroids. (A) The basketstar Gorgonocephalus eucnemis, with basal arm branches strengthening the disc. Asterisks (*) show approximate locations of the axillary ossicles (branch point as in crinoids); dashed lines indicate the junctions between the fixed-arm tagma and free-arm tagma. Scale bar 1 cm. (B) Asteroporpa annulata, strongly curled arm tip with hooked arm spines (sp), which differ from pedicellarial valves (pv) and fully grown arm spines (inset). Scale bars 100 µm. (C) Asteroschema tenue, a snakestar with gonads that extend into the coelom of basal arm segments. Scale bar 5 mm.
https://www.fit.edu/faculty-profiles/emeritus/turner-richard/

@sicbjournals.bsky.social Oct 8, 2026, 11:41 AM

#WorldOctopusDay with Colleen Hecker's ICB blog
& where researchers share fun #octopus facts and their work with this amazing #species.
We also touch base with past ICB #cephalopod authors on what they're up to now on our one question many answers page.

lnkd.in/p/esqyy74X

#science

@sicbjournals.bsky.social Oct 8, 2026, 11:23 AM

IOB
"The argument is advanced here that examples of #tagmosis are not hard to find among echinoderms, a fourth major group of metameric animals; but the degree of tagmosis is weak in most cases. "
The Tagmatized #Echinoderm
R L Turner
doi.org/10.1093/iob/...

#science #biology

Fig. 3 Comactinia meridionalis and pinnules. (A) Whole preserved specimen with most of its 10 arms visible and with examples of oral (orp), genital (gep), and distal pinnules (dip) indicated by pointers. Scale bar 5 mm. (B) An oral pinnule in foreground, with others in background. Scale bar 2 mm. (C) Five genital pinnules of a non-gravid specimen. Scale bar 2 mm. (D) A distal section of arm with numerous distal (feeding) pinnules. Scale bar 2 mm.

@sicbjournals.bsky.social Oct 7, 2026, 11:52 AM

World #Octopus day lead up with

Chelsea Bennice, PhD (@theoctogirl) an avid #scientific communicator who will be a symposium speaker at SICB 2027 in Pittsburgh.

read more in the ICB blog by Colleen Hecker (image description link)

& see Chelsea's amazing photos

youtube.com/shorts/2b0st...

@sicbjournals.bsky.social Oct 7, 2026, 11:44 AM

IOB

Fig. 2 Comactinia meridionalis tagmata. (see image description)

The Tagmatized #Echinoderm

R L Turner

doi.org/10.1093/iob/...
#science #biology

IOB

Fig. 2 Comactinia meridionalis tagmata. The dorsal-most part of the body of this 10-armed featherstar consists of a tight cluster of ossicles: a #centrodorsal (cd, mostly hidden by cirri), to which are attached a circlet of cirri (ci) and a ring of five basals (hidden). Five arm bases arise from a second ring of five radials, one partly showing between the asterisks (*). Radials give rise to the first tagma of the axial skeleton: one brachial (br) and an axillary (ax). Two branches, free arms, arise from the axillary, each branch a long series of brachials that form a second (distal) tagma. Scale bar 2 mm.

from

The Tagmatized #Echinoderm

R L Turner

https://doi.org/10.1093/iob/obag040

#science #biology

@sicbjournals.bsky.social Oct 6, 2026, 11:31 AM

Help us celebrate #OCTO-ber

with Colleen Hecker's ICB blog piece

integrativeandcomparativebiology.wordpress.com/2026/10/05/s...

featuring #scientists, like

Dr. Kim Kirchoff who studies #venom systems, with an emphasis on #cephalopods including #octopus, #cuttlefish, and #squid.

@sicbjournals.bsky.social Oct 6, 2026, 11:23 AM

IOB

The Tagmatized #Echinodermnbsp; R L Turner

doi.org/10.1093/iob/...

Fig. 1 Examples of perioral tagmata in #echinoderms.

#science #biologist

(A) The oral frame of Ctenodiscus crispatus (Asteroidea; dissected and briefly treated with bleach, aboral view) includes 35 elements: 10 first ambulacral ossicles (am1), each representing the conjoined first and second ambulacral #ossicles in the juvenile rudiment; 10 second ambulacral ossicles (2); 10 oral plates (op), mostly hidden from view by the ambulacral ossicles but revealed by some of their oral spines (sp); 5 odontophores (od), unpaired interradial extraxial elements present in many families of seastar. Scale bar 5 mm. (B) The oral frame of Ophiomastix wendtii (Ophiuroidea; view of oral surface) includes 30 externally visible ossicles as well as other internal ones: 5 oral shields (os); 10 adoral shields (as); 10 oral plates (op); 5 first ventral arm plates (vp); 5 dental plates (dp, position indicated but mostly obscured by clusters of their tooth papillae [encircled]). Scale bar 2 mm. (C) The perignathic girdle of Lytechinus variegatus (Echinoidea, dissected, treated with bleach, internal view of test) consists of 5 pairs of auricles (au), each pair at the proximal end of an ambulacral column (am), and 5 apophyses (ap) of the interambulacral columns (ia). Scale bar 5 mm. nbsp;

@sicbjournals.bsky.social Oct 5, 2026, 3:36 PM

OCTO - ber is here!
Be sure to read todays blog Scientist Spotlight: Perspectives from #Cephalopod #Biologists for World #Octopus Day
by Colleen Hecker
integrativeandcomparativebiology.wordpress.com/2026/10/05/s...

#science #biology

@sicbjournals.bsky.social Oct 5, 2026, 11:25 AM

IOB

The Tagmatized #Echinoderm

R L Turner

doi.org/10.1093/iob/...

Tagmosis is a derived condition of metamerism in annelids, #arthropods, and chordates in which groups of adjacent segments are modified to perform specific functions.

#science #biology

Examples are the clitellum of #earthworms, the carapace of #lobsters, and the sacrum of #tetrapods, to mention a few. The argument is advanced here that examples of tagmosis are not hard to find among echinoderms, a fourth major group of metameric animals; but the degree of tagmosis is weak in most cases. The first few segments of the axial skeleton are often conjoined as a perioral tagma (e.g., the jaws and other parts of the oral frame of asteroids and ophiuroids and the lantern supports of echinoids).

Several segments beyond the oral frame unite the disc with the base of the arm in #ophiuroids. Crinoid pinnules occur in groups along the arms as oral, genital, and feeding pinnules. Porcellanasterid seastars have cribriform organs along the marginal ossicles on the base of the arm for generation of respiratory currents. Well-developed podial pores and podia are restricted to basal segments of the ophiuroid genus #Ophiomusium. Ambulacral plates of most post-Paleozoic #echinoids occur in clusters that result in arcs of variable numbers of pore pairs and spine tubercles, giving rise to several non-cidaroid tagmatized patterns. The strongest degree of tagmosis occurs in the bilaterally symmetrical echinoids, with petals, phyllodes, plastrons, and frontal ambulacra; and tagmosis differs among the axes. Tagmosis is absent in extant holothuroids, bodies of which are almost entirely composed of extra-axial elements. Tagmosis occurs in the oral regions of many extinct echinoderm classes, and the ambulacra are tagmatized in some, particularly in blastozoan classes and those with branched ambulacra.

@sicbjournals.bsky.social Oct 4, 2026, 11:41 AM

Be sure to watch ICB author and co organizer, Meenakshi Vengarai's chat with author Jennie Durant
and learn more about threats to #pollinators and one of the top 3 fraudulent foods in the world.

#bees #nonfiction #books

@sicb.bsky.social Oct 3, 2026, 12:05 PMReposted by @sicbjournals.bsky.social

Looking for ideas of how to do great #scienceoutreach with your lab?
Join us Monday 12 noon est by emailing [email protected] for the link 👍
@cupress.bsky.social
#scientist Michael Childress will love to have you there.

@sicbjournals.bsky.social Oct 2, 2026, 12:47 PM

IOB co author
Kathy Liu
provided footage for research for this IOB paper

A Head of the Curve: Bonnethead #Shark (Sphyrna tiburo) Cephalofoil #Morphology and Trophic #Ecology

doi.org/10.1093/iob/...

watch via SICB's YouTube
youtu.be/_EVSL61jv6Y?...

@sicbjournals.bsky.social Oct 1, 2026, 11:38 AM

ICB Throwback Axolotl Thursday

#Morphological, #Biochemical and #Immunohistochemical Studies on Heart Development in Cardiac Mutant #Axolotls, Ambystoma mexicanum

LARRY F. LEMANSKI

doi.org/10.1093/icb/...

#amphibians #science

In this paper I describe morphological, biochemical and immunofluorescence studies which compare the contractile proteins in normal and mutant hearts. In addition, morphological studies on anterior endoderm, an important heart inductor tissue in salamanders, are reviewed. Detailed electron microscopic studies show that normal heart myocytes contain numerous well-organized myofibrils. Although mutant heart cells contain a few myosin and actin filaments, there are no organized myofibrils. Instead, amorphous proteinaceous collections are prominent in the peripheral cytoplasm of the cell where myofibrils would be expected to first form. SDS-polyacrylamide gel electrophoresis shows that actin is present in almost normal amounts in mutant hearts, myosin heavy chain is reduced and tropomyosin is virtually absent. #Immunofluorescence studies reveal that myosin, α-actinin and tropomyosin are located prominently in theorganized myofibrils of normal heart cells. In mutant hearts myosin is localized almost exclusively in the amorphous collections at the cell peripheries, α-actinin also is distributed mainly in the peripheral cell cytoplasm.

@sicbjournals.bsky.social Oct 1, 2026, 11:34 AM

Meet IOB co author Kathy L. - a landlocked Utahn, who became a #shark tagging water lover-

read in full
iobopen.com/2026/10/01/m...
& read
A Head of the Curve: Bonnethead #Shark (Sphyrna tiburo) Cephalofoil #Morphology and Trophic #Ecology
Liu et al
doi.org/10.1093/iob/...

During college, I was able to spend a semester around Panama with SIT learning about tropical #ecology, marine #ecosystems, and #biodiversity #conservation and the vast variety of research in those fields. It was an incredible opportunity to be in each ecosystem as we learned and implemented various methodologies to conduct our own research projects. As we went from cloud forests to urban natural parks to island archipelagos, my love of hands-on research flourished. The more time we spent in #mangrove forests, seagrass beds, and coral #reefs, the more my interest in those #coastal habitats grew. For my end of semester independent project, I chose to continue exploring those areas and studied reef fish diversity and distribution in seagrass and coral reef habitats off Isla Bastimentos. Days were spent kayaking, snorkeling, and readjusting schedules around the torrential downpours of the rainy season. I loved being able to play around with data visualization and seeing the collected data culminate into a final publication.

My path in science then brought me to Chile to study intertidal grazers, to Australia to offer support with fish ID in seagrass #habitats, and to remote areas of Utah with the Division of Wildlife Resources surveying trout and other native species, before leading me to Miami for my Master’s degree."

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