*Please contact me through ResearchGate if you are unable to access any of the pdfs. I am happy to send them to you!*

high school/undergraduate student mentee

17) Law CJ. 2019. Evolutionary shifts in extant mustelid (Mustelidae: Carnivora) cranial shape, body size, and body shape coincides with the Mid-Miocene Climate Transition. Biology Letters. 15:20190155. doi.org/10.1098/rsbl.2019.0155

Extant mustelid subclades evolved more elongate body plans followed by concurrent shifts towards smaller body sizes and more robust crania during the Late Miocene

These cranial and body adaptations allowed mustelids to exploit new resources, which in turn facilitated significant increases in species richness

Future work incorporating the fossil record is needed to understand whether selection for smaller, more elongate bodies and stronger jaws occurred within crown-ward mustelids or if extinct ancestors already exhibited those characteristics

16) Law CJ, Slater GJ, & Mehta RS. 2018. Shared extremes by ectotherms and endotherms: Body elongation in mustelids is associated with small size and reduced limbs. Evolution. 73:735–749. doi.org/10.1111/evo.13702

Weasels are elongate! Specifically, mustelids exhibit an evolutionary transition toward more elongate bodies driven by the elongation of the head and various regions of the axial skeleton

The elongation of the body is associated with the evolutionary reduction of body size and a reduction in forelimb length but not hindlimb length

The relationship between body elongation and forelimb length has not previously been quantitatively established for mammals but is consistent with trends exhibited by ectothermic vertebrates and suggests a common pattern of trait covariance associated with body shape evolution

15) Law CJ, Duran E, Hung N, Richards E, Santillan I, & Mehta RS. 2018. Effects of diet on cranial morphology and biting ability in musteloid mammals. Journal of Evolutionary Biology. 31:1918-1931. doi.org/10.1111/jeb.13385 

Cranial size but not cranial shape predicts estimated bite forces in musteloids

Many-to-one mapping of form to function may explain this pattern as the cranium is complex, and a variety of morphological shape differences contribute to similar relative biting performance outcomes

Musteloids with different diets exhibit different cranial shapes; however, they have similar estimated bite forces suggesting that other feeding performance metrics and potentially nonfeeding traits are also important contributors to cranial evolution

14) Higgins BA, Law CJ, & Mehta RS. 2018. Eat whole and less often: ontogenetic shift reveals size specialization on kelp bass by the California moray eel, Gymnothorax mordax. Oecologia. 188:875–887. doi.org/10.1007/s00442-018-4260-x 

California morays are dietary specialists, feeding primarily on kelp bass despite not being the most commonly occurring fish species in the environment

California morays exhibit an ontogenetic shift for kelp bass where maximum prey size increases with moray size but smaller prey are dropped from the diet

Moray bite forces increased disproportionately with increasing head size, suggesting that larger morays can consume prey that exceed their head lengths; however, there was no significant relationship between prey size and moray bite force, indicating that prey size selection is not limited by moray bite force

13) Law CJ & Mehta RS. 2018. Carnivory maintains cranial dimorphism between males and females: Evidence for niche divergence in extant Musteloidea. Evolution. 72:1950–1961. doi.org/10.1111/evo.13514

Niche divergence rather than sexual selection maintains the evolution of sexual dimorphism in cranial size and bite force across Musteloidea

Hypercarnivorous musteloids exhibit the greatest degree of cranial size and bite force dimorphism; in contrast, neither dietary regime nor social system influenced the evolution of sexual dimorphism in cranial shape

These results demonstrate the importance of diet in reducing intraspecific competition for resources as an important mechanism that maintains the evolution of sexual dimorphism in extant musteloids.

12) Law CJ, Slater G, & Mehta RS. 2018. Lineage diversity and size disparity in Musteloidea: testing patterns of adaptive radiation using molecular and fossil-based methods. Systematic Biology. 67:127–144. doi.org/10.1093/sysbio/syx047

Musteloids do not exhibit an adaptive radiation as previously hypothesized; however, a subclade of “elongate” mustelids exhibit increased lineage carrying capacity and increased rates of body length evolution but not body mass evolution

Lack of correspondence in rates of body mass and length evolution suggest that phenotypic evolutionary rates under a single morphological metric may not capture the evolution of diversity in clades that exhibit elongate body shapes

These results suggest that body elongation led to the radiation of some musteloids

11) Jones K† & Law CJ†. 2018. Differentiation of craniomandibular morphology in two sympatric Peromyscus mice (Cricetidae: Rodentia). Mammal Research. 63:277–283. †Joint first authors doi.org/10.1007/s13364-018-0364-2 

Granivorous Pinyon mice (Peromyscus truei) exhibit skulls that facilitate relatively larger jaw adductor muscles compared to insectivorous California mice (Peromyscus californicus)

Pinyon mice also exhibit higher mechanical advantage of the masseter jaw muscle

These traits are consistent with the dietary differences exhibited by the two sympatric species

10) Law CJ. 2018. Mustela sibirica (Carnivora: Mustelidae). Mammalian Species. 50:109-118. doi.org/10.1093/mspecies/sey013

Literature review of the Siberian weasel

9) Kienle SS, Law CJ, Costa DP, Berta A, & Mehta RS. 2017. Revisiting the behavioural framework of feeding in predatory aquatic mammals. Proceedings of the Royal Society B. 284:20171035. doi.org/10.1098/rspb.2017.1035

An aquatic tetrapod feeding cycle with 5 stages—ingestion, intraoral transport, processing, water removal and swallowing—allows aquatic mammals to be examined in the same framework as other tetrapods and provides flexibility to accommodate behaviorally diverse lineages

Evolution of aquatic tetrapod feeding is not a progression of linear events and should be modeled as a tree-like process

8) Law CJ, Baliga VB, Tinker MT, & Mehta RS. 2017. Asynchrony in craniomandibular development and growth in Enhydra lutris nereis (Carnivora: Mustelidae): Are southern sea otters born to bite? Biological Journal of Linnean Society. 121:420-438 doi.org/10.1093/biolinnean/blw050

The majority of sea otter skull growth and development occurs during the pup stage; however, the skull does not fully mature until adulthood and therefore may constrain feeding on hard-shelled prey

Sexual dimorphism in adult skulls arose through differences in developmental and growth rates and duration

Male crania mature faster to presumably reach adult biting ability sooner, gaining a competitive advantage in obtaining food and in male–male agonistic interactions

7) Hung N & Law CJ. 2016. Lutra lutra (Carnivora: Mustelidae). Mammalian Species. 48:109–122. doi.org/10.1093/mspecies/sew011

Literature review of the Eurasian otter

6) Law CJ, Young C, and Mehta RS. 2016. Ontogenetic scaling of theoretical bite forces in southern sea otters (Enhydra lutris nereis). Physiological and Biochemical Zoology 89:347-363. doi.org/10.1086/688313

Sea otters exhibit positive allometric increases in theoretical bite force, which is primarily driven by allometric increases in temporalis muscle mass

Adult males exhibited greater bite forces as a result of their larger sizes

However, scaling patterns of theoretical bite force and morphological traits do not differ between the sexes

5) Law CJ, Venkatram V, & Mehta RS. 2016. Sexual dimorphism of craniomandibular morphology in southern sea otters (Enhydra lutris nereis). Journal of Mammalogy. 97:1764-1773. doi.org/10.1093/jmammal/gyw148

Male sea otters exhibit larger skulls compared to females

Sea otters also exhibit significant shape differences driven by 3 craniomandibular traits that increase the surface area of jaw muscle attachment sites

These morphological differences indicate males and females may also exhibit differences in biting abilities

4) Baliga VB & Law CJ. 2016. Cleaners amongst wrasses: phylogenetics and evolutionary patterns of cleaning behavior within Labridae. Molecular Phylogenetics and Evolution. 94A:424–435. doi.org/10.1016/j.ympev.2015.09.006

3) Law CJ, Dorgan KM, & Rouse GW. 2014. Relating divergence in polychaete musculature to different burrowing behaviors: A study using Opheliidae (Annelida). Journal of Morphology. 571:548–571. doi.org/10.1002/jmor.20237

2) Dorgan KM, Law CJ, & Rouse GW. 2013. Meandering worms: Mechanics of undulatory burrowing in muds. Proceedings of the Royal Society B. 280:20122948. doi.org/10.1098/rspb.2012.2948

1) Law CJ, Dorgan KM, & Rouse GW. 2013. Validation of three sympatric Thoracophelia species (Annelida: Opheliidae) from Dillon Beach, California using mitochondrial and nuclear DNA sequence data. Zootaxa. 3608:67–74. doi.org/10.11646/zootaxa.3608.1.4