Nicole Webster

Name: Nicole Webster, graduate student

Hometown: Calgary, AB
Home university: University of Alberta
Previous degrees: BSc Hon Zoology, University of Calgary.
MSc Biology Universiteit Leiden, the Netherlands

I am working on the growth and development of shell ornamentation (ridges, ribs, lamellae, varices) in gastropods (snails). I want to know how a snail controls when and where to put ornaments, and how that affects them. My work at Bamfield is on two species, Ceratostoma foliatum, that has three, regularly spaced varices, that are precisely placed in the same position on each whorl, and Nucella lamellosa, that has many varices placed in a less controlled fashion.