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dr. jenn dearolf
I have a longstanding interest in vertebrate biology, specifically how mammals, both neonates and adults, interact with their environment. One of the main ways that animals engage their surroundings is through movement. Movement, in turn, is accomplished through the interaction of muscles with an animal's skeletal system, and thus, I have chosen to study muscle biology. Primarily, I study the construction of muscles from the gross to the molecular level. I then utilize this information to make hypotheses about the function of these muscles.
My distinctive approach to studying muscle function has been driven by the species that I have chosen to study, marine mammals. These animals are difficult to study with standard physiological methods because of their totally aquatic habitat as well as their protected status. However, to understand how the mammalian body has evolved to engage the marine environment, I have undertaken studies of the morphology of both the locomotor and breathing muscles of bottlenose dolphins. In addition, I have investigated the ventilatory muscles of Florida manatees and their role in buoyancy control.
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Assistant Professor
Biology Department
DW Reynolds 230
501-450-4530
dearolf@hendrix.edu
Nature, they say, has caused the
Dolphin to be in perpetual motion,
and for the Dolphin, motion ends
with the end of life
Aelian
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