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Reassignment Of Some Caryospora Species (Apicomplexa: Eimeriidae) To Eumonospora (Apicomplexa: Sarcocystidae) And A Summary, Donald W. Duszynski

MANTER: Journal of Parasite Biodiversity

This review was crafted to clear up some of the current confusion regarding the correct taxonomic placement of those apicomplexan coccidians that produce unique monosporocystic octosporozoic (1 sporocyst with 8 sporozoites) oocysts during the sexual phase of their life history in vertebrate hosts. Currently, such oocysts have been placed in 1 of 4 genera, Avispora, Caryospora, Karyospora, or Eumonospora, 2 of which are no longer accepted or useful (Avispora and Karyospora). My review suggests that to present (2023) there are 62 valid Caryospora and 26 valid Eumonospora species. Caryospora species are recorded from a bird …

Mammalian & Avian Community Response To African Elephant (Loxodonta Africana) Habitat Modification In Southeastern Kenya, Dakota Vaccaro

Masters Theses & Specialist Projects

African elephants (Loxodonta africana) play a significant role in the modification of their habitat, foremost by decreasing woody vegetation cover and density and in some parts of Africa high elephant densities damage small sanctuaries and preserves. For wildlife that depend on forested patches, this increased modification could lead to displacement and/or decreases in abundance. If suitable habitat is not available elsewhere, elephants and other wildlife may move closer to humans in search of resources, which can result in increased human-wildlife conflict. Evaluating this impact was one of the goals of the Elephants and Sustainable Agriculture in Kenya (ESAK) …

Investigating The Impact Of Land Use On Avian Diversity And Abundance In Areas Surrounding Mabamba Swamp, Uganda, Sydney Marie Jones

Independent Study Project (ISP) Collection

The primary objective of this study was to investigate the impact of wetland-adjacent land use on avian species richness and abundance areas surrounding Mabamba Swamp, Uganda. Four types of land use were investigated: Eucalyptus plantations, wetland-edge agricultural fields, residential areas, and mature secondary forests. A total of 40-morning point counts were conducted for ten days in late November and late December of 2021. One-way ANOVA tests and Tukey’s HSD tests revealed significant differences in mean avian richness and abundance between all sites except residential areas and Nkima Forest. Additionally, Nkima Forest was found to contain the most number of specialist …

Vignette 03: Birds Of The Salish Sea, Rob Butler

Institute Publications

The significance of the Salish Sea comes into focus when we look at the diversity and abundance of its birds and mammals, some of which are globally, continentally, and nationally important. Of particular importance is the diversity and abundance of species on the Fraser River Delta. There are more species of birds on the delta than any comparable area in Canada, and nearly half of all 550 species of birds reported for British Columbia have been seen on the delta. Despite all that has been learned about marine birds and mammals, large areas of the Salish Sea in Canada have …

Seasonal Plumage Condition Variation And The Thermal Value Of The Feather Coats Of House Sparrows (Passer Domesticus), Jordana Mf Graveley, Margaret Rubega, Kevin R. Burgio

Honors Scholar Theses

Feathers are critical to how birds thermoregulate, and thus their total energy balance. The feather coat insulates birds by trapping air next to the skin and acting as a physical barrier to heat loss. Despite previous work studying thermal balance in birds, relatively few studies have focused on the thermal contribution of the feather coat alone; most studies have focused on physiological and behavioral responses. Moreover, to our knowledge, no studies have directly measured the effect of feather wear through the annual cycle on the thermal performance of the feather coat. To address this, we used a thermal camera to …

Patterns And Potential Causes Of Changing Winter Bird Distributions In South Dakota, David L. Swanson, Reza Goljani Amirkhiz, Mark D. Dixon

The Prairie Naturalist

Average winter temperatures in the north-central United States have been increasing since the 1970s, and this warming might influence winter distributions of birds in the region. Species potentially influenced by such winter warming include short-distance migrants for which the northern boundary of the winter range is influenced by temperature, such as hermit thrush (Catharus guttatus), yellow-rumped warbler (Setophaga coronata), and fox sparrow (Passerella iliaca). We examined winter records during 1974–2017 from a citizen-science bird observation database for South Dakota to determine recent trends in winter records for these three species. We compared their occurrence patterns with those for three benchmark …

Relationships Among Biodiversity Dimensions Of Birds In Nebraska, Nadejda Mirochnitchenko

School of Natural Resources: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

Biological diversity, or biodiversity, is a multi-dimensional concept that can be decomposed to measure information about taxonomic, phylogenetic, and functional variation within communities. Although the dimensions of biodiversity are interrelated, the assumption that measuring one dimension of diversity can inform about patterns in another dimension does not necessarily follow from theory or empirical study. The relationships among biodiversity dimensions is not well understood, nor how differences among dimensions could influence conservation decision making. Using the avian community as a study system, we explored the relationships of breadth metrics from the taxonomic, phylogenetic, and functional dimensions among each other and across …

Bird Population Changes Following The Establishment Of A Diverse Stand Of Woody Plants In A Former Crop Field In North Dakota, 1975– 2015, Lawrence D. Igl, Harold A. Kantrud, Wesley Newton

USGS Northern Prairie Wildlife Research Center

Changes in the coverage of trees and shrubs on the North Dakota landscape since Euro- American settlement have likely had a pronounced impact on bird species that favor woody vegetation. Long- term data sets on breeding bird populations in wooded habitats in North Dakota or in the Great Plains are scarce. In 1975 a wildlife habitat plot was established in a 10.5 ha cropland field with a long history of small- grain production. Th e objective of this article is to evaluate the successional changes in bird populations as the habitat at this site became more biologically and structurally complex …

Comparison Of Feather Pigments In Red-Winged Blackbirds (Agelaius Phoenicus) Between Historical And Modern Samples, Genevieve Nuttall

University Scholar Projects

Coloration is vital to birds; it is involved in mating, territorial display, communication, camouflage, and predation. Birds rely on their environment for the raw materials necessary to make most colors present in their feathers. As a result, habitat quality can have lifetime fitness consequences through the color pathway. Widescale habitat change has affected the quality of habitats accessible to birds worldwide. Consequently, the availability of pigment-containing resources within many altered habitats has shifted, leading to modification in the coloration of some birds’ feathers. I hypothesized that the red pigmentation in the feather shoulders, or epaulets, of red-winged blackbirds (Agelaius …

Comparison Of Feather Pigments In Red-Winged Blackbirds (Agelaius Phoenicus) Between Historical And Modern Samples, Genevieve Nuttall

Honors Scholar Theses

Coloration is vital to birds; it is involved in mating, territorial display, communication, camouflage, and predation. Birds rely on their environment for the raw materials necessary to make most colors present in their feathers. As a result, habitat quality can have lifetime fitness consequences through the color pathway. Widescale habitat change has affected the quality of habitats accessible to birds worldwide. Consequently, the availability of pigment-containing resources within many altered habitats has shifted, leading to modification in the coloration of some birds’ feathers. I hypothesized that the red pigmentation in the feather shoulders, or epaulets, of red-winged blackbirds (Agelaius …

Sandhill And Whooping Cranes, Jeb Barzen, Ken Ballinger

Wildlife Damage Management Technical Series

As sandhill crane populations continue to grow in the United States, so too does crop damage, property damage to homeowners, and the risk of crane collisions with aircraft. Whooping crane populations also continue to grow, but with a global population of about 500 individuals (as of 2017), damage is rare and problems often require different solutions due to the species’ endangered status. The behavioral characteristics and habitat needs of sandhill and whooping cranes set the stage for conflict between these birds and people. Recognizing behavioral differences between territorial and non-territorial cranes greatly improves the effectiveness of any management effort.

Human-Wildlife …

Regional Evolutionary Distinctiveness And Endangerment As A Means Of Prioritizing Protection Of Endangered Species, Emily K. Brantner

FIU Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Conservation is costly, and choices must be made about where to best allocate limited resources. I propose a regional evolutionary diversity and endangerment (RED-E) approach to prioritization of endangered species. It builds off of the evolutionary diversity and global endangerment (EDGE) approach, but will allow conservation agencies to focus their efforts on species in specific regions. I used the RED-E approach to prioritize mammal and bird species listed under the U.S. Endangered Species Act (ESA), as well as to make a ranking of species without ESA critical habitat (CH), as a practical application. Regional conservation approaches differ significantly from global …

Gene Loss, Adaptive Evolution And The Co-Evolution Of Plumage Coloration Genes With Opsins In Birds, Rui Borges, Imran Khan, Warren E. Johnson, M. Thomas P. Gilbert, Guojie Zhang, Erich D. Jarvis, Stephen J. O'Brien, Agostinho Antunes

Biology Faculty Articles

Background: The wide range of complex photic systems observed in birds exemplifies one of their key evolutionary adaptions, a well-developed visual system. However, genomic approaches have yet to be used to disentangle the evolutionary mechanisms that govern evolution of avian visual systems.

Results: We performed comparative genomic analyses across 48 avian genomes that span extant bird phylogenetic diversity to assess evolutionary changes in the 17 representatives of the opsin gene family and five plumage coloration genes. Our analyses suggest modern birds have maintained a repertoire of up to 15 opsins. Synteny analyses indicate that PARA and PARIE pineal …

For The Birds, Milan Bull

Wrack Lines

A new column about shore birds, starting with piping plovers.

Pleistocene Faunal Fossils From Bayangol I Site, Bulgan Aimag, Mongolia, Takao Sato, Fedora Khenzykhenova, Toshiaki Tsurumaru, Masao Ambiru, Jun Takakura, Yoshiaki Otsuka, Shigeo Iida, Natalya Schepina, Batmunkh Tsogtbaatar

Erforschung biologischer Ressourcen der Mongolei / Exploration into the Biological Resources of Mongolia, ISSN 0440-1298

During excavation of the Bayan-gol I Palaeolithic site in the Bulgan Aimak, Mongolia, some faunistic remains were recovered attributable to Aves (two species), Anura (two species), and mammals (three species). The fossil remains bear a considerable similarity to the corresponding species of today in Mongolia.

Bird Red List And Its Future Development In Mongolia, Sundev Gombobaatar, D. Samiya, Jonathan M. Baillie

Erforschung biologischer Ressourcen der Mongolei / Exploration into the Biological Resources of Mongolia, ISSN 0440-1298

With the involvement of the World Bank, Zoological Society of London, Dutch Government and National University of Mongolia, the volumes of Mongolian Red Lists of Fish, Amphibians and Reptiles, Birds and Mammals were completed, and Mongolia is now among the few nations that have up-to-date conservation assessments for all vertebrates. Of the 476 assessed native bird species of Mongolia, 10% were categorized as regionally threatened including Near Threatened. A further 0.6% were categorized as Critically Endangered (CR), 1.7% as Endangered (EN), 3.3% as Vulnerable (VU), and 4.4% as Near Threatened (NT). Almost 90% of Mongolian birds are categorized as Least …

How Birds Combat Ectoparasites, Dale H. Clayton, Jennifer A. H. Koop, Christopher W. Harbison, Brett R. Moyer, Sarah E. Bush

Harold W. Manter Laboratory: Library Materials

Birds are plagued by an impressive diversity of ectoparasites, ranging from feather-feeding lice, to feather-degrading bacteria. Many of these ectoparasites have severe negative effects on host fitness. It is therefore not surprising that selection on birds has favored a variety of possible adaptations for dealing with ectoparasites. The functional significance of some of these defenses has been well documented. Others have barely been studied, much less tested rigorously. In this article we review the evidence--or lack thereof--for many of the purported mechanisms birds have for dealing with ectoparasites. We concentrate on features of the plumage and its components, as well …

Non-Blackbird Avian Occurrence And Abundance In North Dakota Sunflower Fields, Dionn A. Schaaf, George M. Linz, Curt Doetkott, Mark W. Lutman, William J. Bleier

The Prairie Naturalist

Sunflower fields are well-documented as foraging habitat for fallmigrating blackbirds (Family Icteridae). There is, however, a paucity of information on the use of sunflower fields by non-blackbirds. We assessed non-blackbird use of 12 ripening sunflower fields in the Prairie Pothole Region of central North Dakota. From mid-August to mid-October 2000, we counted 4,129 individual birds, consisting of 22 families and 61 species, in the sample fields and within 5 m of the field edges. We saw the largest number of birds from 18 September to 27 September. The Family Emberizidae (sparrows) accounted for 26% of the species and 20% of …

Slides: Threats To Biological Diversity: Global, Continental, Local, J. Michael Scott

Shifting Baselines and New Meridians: Water, Resources, Landscapes, and the Transformation of the American West (Summer Conference, June 4-6)

Presenter: J. Michael Scott, U.S. Geological Survey, Idaho Cooperative Fish and Wildlife Research Unit, University of Idaho

38 slides

Bulletin No. 37: Living Resources And Habitats Of The Lower Connecticut River, Glenn D. Dreyer, Marcianna Caplis

Bulletins

No abstract provided.

Breeding Birds In Cedar Stands In The Great Dismal Swamp, Karen A. Terwilliger, Robert K. Rose

Biological Sciences Faculty Publications

The Great Dismal Swamp located in the coastal plain on the Virginia- North Carolina border, has long been recognized as a vegetationally distinctive region with many unusual geological and biological features. Formerly at least twice the currently estimated size of 85,000 hectares (Carter 1979), the Great Dismal Swamp is still shrinking because of a dropping water table caused by more than 200 years of logging, ditching, and other human activities. In 1973, the Union Camp Corporation donated a 19,871-hectare tract located near Suffolk, Virginia. to The Nature Conservancy, which transferred the land to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. This …

Bulletin No. 27: Birds Of Connecticut Salt Marshes - 50th Anniversary, James Stone, J. Susan Cole-Stone, William A. Niering

Bulletins

48 pp. 1981. Illustrations and descriptions of 24 birds commonly seen on our tidal marshes.