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Stephen Deban
Assistant Professor

Contact

Office: SCA 334
Phone: 813/974-2242
Email:

Links

• Website

Education

Ph.D. University of California, Berkeley, 1997

Research

Research in my lab is driven by our desire to understand how animals move and how the physiological and biomechanical mechanisms that produce movement change through evolution. Our approach is grounded in the principle that biomechanics and physiology are overlapping and mutually enriching fields, and that in studies of musculoskeletal function, they are necessarily linked. To understand the function of a given system and to ultimately discover principles that unite such systems generally, we attempt to integrate these two perspectives. We also take an evolutionary perspective in our projects, in addition to our studies of proximal mechanisms, so that we can gain insight into how present form and function came to be. The ultimate goal is to formulate general principles about how complex systems evolve in the face of changing and conflicting functional demands, which is a key pursuit of evolutionary biology.

Current Courses

Recent Publications

Deban, S. M., O'Reilly, J. C., Dicke, U. and van Leeuwen, J. L. 2007.  Extremely high-power tongue projection in plethodontid salamanders.  Journal of Experimental Biology 210: 655-667.

Carrier, D.R., S.M. Deban and T. Fischbein. 2006. Locomotor function of the pectoral girdle 'muscular sling' in trotting dogs Journal of Experimental Biology 209: 2224-2237.

Deban, S.M. and J.C. O'Reilly. 2005. The ontogeny of feeding kinematics in the giant salamander Cryptobranchus alleganiensis: does current function or phylogenetic relatedness predict the scaling patterns of movement? Zoology 108: 155-167.

Deban, S.M. and U. Dicke. 2004. Activation patterns of the tongue-projector muscle during feeding in the imperial cave salamander, Hydromantes imperialis . Journal of Experimental Biology 207: 2071-2081. 

Deban, S.M. 2003. Constraint and convergence in the evolution of salamander feeding. In: Vertebrate Biomechanics and Evolution, J.-P. Gasc, A. Casinos, and V.L. Bels, eds., BIOS Scientific Publishers, Oxford. 163-180.

Deban, S.M. and W.M. Olson. 2002. Suction feeding by a tiny predatory tadpole. Nature 420: 41-42.

Deban, S.M. and D.R. Carrier. 2002. Hypaxial muscle activity during running and breathing in dogs. Journal of Experimental Biology 205: 1953-1967.

Carrier, D.R., S.M. Deban and J. Otterstrom. 2002. The face that sank the Essex : potential function of the spermaceti organ in aggression. Journal of Experimental Biology 205: 1755-1763.

Deban, S.M. and S. B. Marks. 2002. Metamorphosis and evolution of feeding behavior in salamanders of the family Plethodontidae. Zoological Journal of the Linnean Society. 134: 375-400.

Deban, S.M., J.C. O'Reilly and K.C. Nishikawa. 2001. The evolution of the motor control of feeding in amphibians. American Zoologist 41: 1280-1298.

Lee, D.V., R.M. Walter, S.M. Deban and D.R. Carrier. 2001. Influence of increased rotational inertia on the turning performance of humans. Journal of Experimental Biology, 204: 3927-3934. 

Deban, S.M. and D.B. Wake 2000. Aquatic Feeding in Salamanders, In: Feeding: form, function and evolution in tetrapod vertebrates. K. Schwenk, ed., Academic Press, San Diego. 65-94. 

Wake, D.B. and S.M. Deban 2000. Terrestrial Feeding in Salamanders, In: Feeding: form, function and evolution in tetrapod vertebrates. K. Schwenk, ed., Academic Press, San Diego. 95-116.

Deban, S.M. and U. Dicke. 1999. Motor control of tongue movement during prey capture in plethodontid salamanders. Journal of Experimental Biology 202: 3699-3714. 

Deban, S.M., D.B. Wake, and G. Roth. 1997. Salamander with a ballistic tongue. Nature 389: 27-28.