Current Projects:
>	Ontogeny of chewing motor patterns and jaw-muscle coordination
>	Evolution of chewing motor patterns
	During chewing, the jaw muscles of mammals exhibit rhythmic coordination to move the jaw and generate forces to break down the food. Although some similarities in the motor patterns underlying this coordination are apparent in most mammals sampled to date, there appear to be just as many notable differences among species. In ongoing research across a variety of species, we are investigating the evolution of motor patterns in mammals. Research suggests a strong link between jaw-muscle activity patterns and diet and morphology irrespective of phylogeny. More generally, we are capitalizing on the wealth of feeding EMG (and associated bone strain and kinematic) data that has been collected over the last 40 years from mammals and are developing the Feeding Experiments End-User Database (F.E.E.D.) to promote synthetic works on mammalian feeding motor patterns. F.E.E.D will be a public-access database containing data from all of the major labs collecting feeding physiology data from mammals. Collaborators: Dr. Christopher Vinyard (NEOUCOM), Dr. Christine Wall (Duke Univ.), and Dr. Rebecca German (Johns Hopkins Univ.). Funded by the National Science Foundation, and the National Evolutionary Synthesis Center (NESCent).
>	Ecological physiology of feeding in howler monkeys
>	Masticatory biomechanics and jaw form in mammals
>	Adaptations for gape and bite force production in rodents
>	Morphology of the feeding apparatus in vampire bats

    
 

Vinyard CJ, CE Wall, SH Williams, WL Hylander. 2008. Patterns of variation in jaw-muscle electromyography during mastication across primates. Integrative and Comparative Biology 48:294-311.

Williams, SH, CJ Vinyard, CE Wall, and WL Hylander. 2007. Masticatory motor patterns in ungulates: a quantitative assessment of jaw-muscle coordination in goats, alpacas and horses. Journal of Experimental Zoology Part A: Comparative Experimental Biology 307A: 226-240.

Vinyard, CJ, CE Wall, SH Williams, KR Johnson, WL Hylander. 2006. Masseter electromyography during chewing in ring-tailed lemurs (Lemur catta). American Journal of Physical Anthropology 130: 85-95.

Wall, CE, Vinyard, CJ, Johnson, KR, SH Williams, and WL Hylander. 2006. Phase II Occlusion in Relation to Jaw Movement and Masseter Muscle Recruitment during Chewing in Papio anubis. American Journal of Physical Anthropology 129: 215-224.

Vinyard, CJ, SH Williams, CE Wall, KR Johnson and WL Hylander. 2005. Jaw-muscle electromyography during chewing in Belanger's Treeshrews (Tupaia belangeri). American Journal of Physical Anthropology 127:26-45.

Hylander, WL, CE Wall, CJ Vinyard, C. Ross, MJ Ravosa, SH Williams and KR Johnson. 2005. Temporalis function in anthropoids and strepsirrhines: an EMG study. American Journal of Physical Anthropology 128:35-56.