Prof. Dr. John Nyakatura
John Nyakatura studied Biology and Geography at the Friedrich-Schiller-University in Jena, Germany. After completing a degree to become a secondary school teacher, he decided to persue an academic career and earned his doctoral degree in Zoology with a dissertation on the evolution and functional morphology of sloths.
As a postdoc he conducted research on the form-function-interface in the musculo-skeletal system of salamanders, lizards, birds, and primates. He routinely collaborated with paleontologists, biomechanists, roboticists, and scientific illustrators.
Since being appointed as a joint juniorprofessor at Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin in 2014, John Nyakatura leads a group concerned with the functional morphology of vertebrates and with historical and epistemic aspects of image use in his field. In 2019 he became a visiting professor at the Zürcher Hochschule der Künste.
Symbolic Material (Principal Investigator)
Material Form Function (Principal Investigator)
Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin
Institut für Biologie
Philippstraße 13, Haus 2
10115 Berlin
Articles
Alfieri, F., Nyakatura, J., Amson, E. 2020. »Evolution of bone cortical compactness in slow arboreal mammals.« Evolution, https://doi.org/10.1111/evo.14137
Granatosky, M. C., McElroy, E. J., Lemelin, P., Reilly, S. M., Nyakatura, J. A., Andrada, E., Kilbourne, B. M., Allen, V. R., Butcher, M. T., Blob, R. W., Ross, C. F. 2020. »Variation in limb loading magnitude and timing in tetrapods.« The Journal of Experimental Biology, 223, (2): jeb201525. https://doi.org/10.1242/jeb.201525
Mielke, M., Nyakatura, J. 2019. »Bone microstructure in finite element modeling: the functional role of trabeculae in the femoral head of Sciurus vulgaris.« Zoomorphology, 138, (4): 535. https://doi.org/10.1007/s00435-019-00456-2
Nyakatura, J. 2019. »Early primate evolution: Insights into the functional significance of grasping from motion analyses of extant mammals.« Biological Journal of the Linnean Society, 127, (3): 611. https://doi.org/10.1093/biolinnean/blz057
Nyakatura, J. A., Baumgarten, R., Baum, D., Stark, H., Youlatos, D. 2019. »Muscle internal structure revealed by contrast-enhanced μCT and fibre recognition: The hindlimb extensors of an arboreal and a fossorial squirrel.« Mammalian Biology, 99, 71-80. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.mambio.2019.10.007
Nyakatura, J. A., Melo, K., Horvat, T., Karakasiliotis, K., Allen, V. R., Andikfar, A., Andrada, E., Arnold, P., Lauströer, J., Hutchinson, J. R., Fischer, M. S., Ijspeert, A. J. 2019. »Reverse-engineering the locomotion of a stem amniote.« Nature, 565, 351 - 355. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41586-018-0851-2
Scheidt, A., Wölfer, J., Nyakatura, J. A. 2019. »The evolution of femoral cross‐sectional properties in sciuromorph rodents: Influence of body mass and locomotor ecology.« Journal of Morphology, https://doi.org/10.1002/jmor.21007
Wölfer, J., Amson, E., Arnold, P., Botton‐Divet, L., Fabre, A., Heteren, A. H., Nyakatura, J. A. 2019. »Femoral morphology of sciuromorph rodents in light of scaling and locomotor ecology.« Journal of Anatomy, 234, (6): 731-747. https://doi.org/10.1111/joa.12980
Wölfer, J., Arnold, P., Nyakatura, J. 2019. »Effects of scaling and locomotor ecology suggest a complex evolution of scapular morphology in sciuromorph rodents.« Biological Journal of the Linnean Society, 127, (2): 175. https://doi.org/10.1093/biolinnean/blz042
Wölfer, J., Nyakatura, J. A. 2019. »Weighing homoplasy against alternative scenarios with the help of macroevolutionary modeling: A case study on limb bones of fossorial sciuromorph rodents.« Ecology and Evolution, 9, (19): 11025-11039. https://doi.org/10.1002/ece3.5592
Montañez-Rivera, I., Nyakatura, J. A., Amson, E. 2018. »Bone cortical compactness in ‘tree sloths’ reflects convergent evolution.« Journal of Anatomy, 233, (5): 580-591. https://doi.org/10.1111/joa.12873
Talks & Presentations
Granatosky, M. C., Laurence-Chasen, J. D., Gartner, S. M., Whitlow, K. R., Westneat, M. W., Nyakatura, J. A. An XROMM and kinetic analysis of underwater walking in the West African lungfish (Protopterus annectens) with implications for the role of quadrupedal gaits during the fin-to-limb transition. Talk at Conference. SICB Annual Meeting 2020, January 3-7, 2020, Austin, TX. 6 January 2020.
Nyakatura, J. A. The Anatomy of Movement and Nature's Design. Vertebrate Function, Evolution, and Scaling. Talk at MoA Talks. MoA Talks, weißensee school of art and design, Berlin. 19 November 2019. https://www.matters-of-activity.de/en/activities/938/moa-talks
Teaching & Courses
Sauer, C., Guiducci, L., Razghandi, K., Kycia, A. Scaling Nature (2) – Fibers, Muscles & Bones. Design Research Studio. With contributions by Peter Fratzl, Mason Dean, John A. Nyakatura, Iva Rešetar and Mareike Stoll. weißensee school of art and design berlin. 15 October 2019 - 11 February 2020. https://www.matters-of-activity.de/en/activities/1142/moa-design-studio-scaling-nature-2-fibers-muscles-bones, https://kh-berlin.de/projekt-detail/Project/detail/scaling-nature-2-fibers-muscles-bones-3102.html
Podcasts & Videos
Rasehorn, F., Zwick, C., Petruschat, J., Dean, M., Yang, B., Rosenthal, N., Nyakatura, J. A., Van Le, M.-L. Tessellated Material Systems - A workflow towards designing surfaces with distinct kinematic properties. Video. 4 minutes, 24 February 2021. https://vimeo.com/manage/videos/524787023