The Journal of Vertebrate Paleontology Program and Abstracts Book (Abstracts Book) for the SVP 69th Annual Meeting and the 57th Symposium of Vertebrate Palaeontology and Comparative Anatomy (SVPCA) is now available on the SVP Web site. This ELECTRONIC ONLY version is accessible to SVP members and meeting registrants only. You will need a password to access the Abstracts Book, which has been E-mailed to you. If you did not receive the E-mail with your password, please contact the SVP Business Office at: 

E-mail: svp@vertpaleo.org
Phone: +1-847-480-9095

SAVE THE ABSTRACTS BOOK TO YOUR COMPUTER AND BRING YOUR LAPTOP TO BRISTOL!

Downloading
Save the entire JVP Program and Abstracts Book to your computer.

-OR-

Save the Abstracts Book in sections for easier downloading.

1.  Section I
    - Program at a Glance: A schedule of all primary oral presenters at-a-glance
    - All sessions listing (including date, time, abstract titles being presented and authors)
    - Schedule of Events: A listing of important events throughout the meeting 
2.  Section II
   - Full abstract texts (listed alphabetically by primary author)
   - Index 
3.  Back cover Features a map of key meeting locations

PDF Navigation Tips

Use the search function in the top tool bar to find abstracts you are interested in or press ctrl+F to search for keywords.
    - Each time that word is in the text, it will be highlighted.
    - By pressing the enter key, you move to the next place where that word appears in the text.
Use the Abstracts Book index (pages 208-211). Search for a specific author in the index, then type any page number in the box on the tool bar, and you will jump straight to that page.

Create Your Own Schedule to Bring to the Meeting With You
Copy and paste any presentation listing or abstract into your own document and create an easy-to-read schedule to bring to Bristol with you.
Here’s how:

    - Highlight the abstract listing (or abstract) you are interested in, press ctrl+C (copy).
    - Open a blank word processing document (such as Microsoft Word).
    - Place your cursor in the document and press ctrl+V (paste).
    - The abstract listing or abstract will be pasted into the word document.
    - IMPORTANT! Remember to also copy and paste the session time and location.

Wolf-Ernst Reif (27.6.1945-11.6.2009)

On the 11th of June 2009, Prof. Dr. Wolf-Ernst Reif died after a long illness. With his death, the world lost one of its most insightful, generous, and knowledgeable paleontologists. Wolf was born on the 27th of June 1945 in Heidenheim, in southern Germany. His interests in geology and paleontology began early: as a youth he collected fossils in the beautiful foothills of the Schwäbische Alb and prepared them at his home. He began his undergraduate studies of geology and paleontology under the supervision of Adolf Seilacher, then head of the University of Tübingen’s Institute of Geology and Paleontology, in 1965. During that time, Wolf worked on the fossil corals and sponge remains of the Nattheimer Chalk and described sponge spicules from these efforts in his first publication in 1967. His Diplomarbeit, which he published in 1971, was on the origin of the Muschelkalk, the middle part of the German Trias. Thereafter he began an investigation of the origin of bonebeds, particularly as related to the famous Grenz bonebed of the German Rhaetic.

At this time, Wolf began conducting his dissertation research on the form, phylogeny, and hydrodynamic function of shark scales. This work, starting with publications in 1974 and continuing throughout his life, exemplified the constructional morphological research programme (Sonderforschungsbereich [SFB] 53 of the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft) for which the University of Tübingen is well known.

After the completion of his dissertation in 1973, he became scientific assistant to Seilacher at the University of Tübingen and undertook leadership of the Konstructionsmorphologie project section in SFB 53. Two years later, he and his family spent a year in Hawaii, where, through funding by NATO, he continued his study of the hydrodynamic effect of shark scales. In this work, he determined the role of scale morphology in reducing current drag at different swimming speeds in sharks. The practical aspects of this research, reported in five of his publications, led to the industrial development of riblet foils that cut down on surface drag on ships and commercial airplanes. For this work, Wolf was honored with the Ernst Mach Prize of the German Aerospace Centre in Stuttgart in 1986.

Around this time I got to know Wolf, who served as supervisor on my own NATO postdoctoral fellowship in Tübingen in 1982-1983. A very engaging and multi-facetted person, he not only introduced me to the world of Konstruktionsmorphologie and the history of paleontology in Germany, he also taught me about, and how to make, Egyptian-style cylinder seals. Together we wrote three papers, one on Franz Baron Nopcsa and his contribution to Germanic paleobiology during the first third of the 20th century, another on shark swimming and caudal fin morphology, and the third an annotated bibliography of theoretical morphology. A fourth, on the biomechanical writings of Dominik von Kripp, we never finished.

In 1982, Wolf published his habilitation research on the odontode-regulation theory and the evolution of dermal skeletons and teeth. He was appointed to professor of paleontology as the successor of Prof. Frank Westphal in 1988.

Because of ever declining health, Wolf took early retirement in 1996. I say “retirement,” but for Wolf this was a time of even more scientific output: more than 50 scientific publications! He continued his work on constructional morphology (including theoretical morphology and morphospace), but also focused on Darwin’s evolutionary theory and the place of paleontology within it, suggesting that paleontological research was idiographic – to be assessed hermeneutically as individual case studies – and not nomothetic (law-like), as has been argued. Adjoined to these subjects, he also wrote about the history of German evolutionary biology and paleontology (including the influence [or lack of it] of the evolutionary synthesis on German paleontology), and the fundamentals of cladistics, which he critically investigated in more than 20 studies at the end of his life. During this time, Wolf-Ernst Reif also took over the editorship of the Neues Jahrbuch für Geologie und Paläontologie. In November 2008, Wolf-Ernst Reif was appointed honorary member of the Palaeontologische Gesellschaft.

Wolf achieved international scientific fame above all through his investigation of the hydrodynamics of sharks, the microstructure of enamel in shark teeth, and through scientific- theoretical works on evolutionary theory and phylogenetics. His influence on others, certainly including me, was considerable. Perhaps more than he might have recognized, Wolf was my friend and inspiration. He will be missed.

David B. Weishampel
Center for Functional Anatomy and Evolution
Johns Hopkins University
Baltimore, Maryland 21205 

Photo courtesy of the University of Tuebingen.

Please note this year the poster dimension guidelines are:

One horizontal poster display board is provided for each presenter. Each unframed board measures approximately 1,950 mm wide x 975 mm tall (76.5 inches wide x 38 inches tall).

Note: boards may be 2.5 cm (one inch or 25 mm) smaller in either direction. Your can make your poster smaller, but it must fit inside the poster board.

For full details, including presentation information, policies, poster session location and schedules, download the Poster Guidelines and Schedule.