Life Sciences Commons^™

Review: Using Physiologically Based Models To Predict Population Responses To Phytochemicals By Wild Vertebrate Herbivores, J. S. Forbey, T. T. Caughlin

Biology Faculty Publications and Presentations

To understand how foraging decisions impact individual fitness of herbivores, nutritional ecologists must consider the complex in vivo dynamics of nutrient–nutrient interactions and nutrient–toxin interactions associated with foraging. Mathematical modeling has long been used to make foraging predictions (e.g. optimal foraging theory) but has largely been restricted to a single currency (e.g. energy) or using simple indices of nutrition (e.g. fecal nitrogen) without full consideration of physiologically based interactions among numerous co-ingested phytochemicals. Here, we describe a physiologically based model (PBM) that provides a mechanistic link between foraging decisions and demographic consequences. Including physiological mechanisms of absorption, digestion and metabolism …

Modeling How Land Use Legacy Affects The Provision Of Ecosystem Services In Mediterranean Southern Spain, Juan Miguel Requena-Mullor, Cristina Quintas-Soriano, Jodi Brandt, Javier Cabello, Antonio J. Castro

Biology Faculty Publications and Presentations

Land use decisions induce legacies that affect the welfare of future generations. Here, we present a spatial modeling approach for quantifying how past land use decisions influence provision of multiple ecosystem services(ESs) based on different land use trajectories. We modeled the effect of past land use changes on water regulation, soil protection and habitat quality in southern Spain, one of the most transformed areas of the Mediterranean region. We demonstrate a measurable influence of antecedent land use changes on the capacity of a given land use to provide ESs, and that the effect size can vary among different services and …

Genetic Testing: Should I Get Tested For Alzheimer’S Risk?, Troy Rohn

Biology Faculty Publications and Presentations

Genetic testing is available to people who want to know if they carry a variant of a gene that confers susceptibility for Alzheimer’s. But knowing whether to get tested is hard.

Resolving The Anomaly Of Lomatium Anomalum: Discovery Of A New Species In Southwestern Idaho (U.S.A.), Lomatium Andrusianum (Apiaceae), Mckayla Stevens, Donald H. Mansfield, James F. Smith, Mary Ann E. Feist

Biology Faculty Publications and Presentations

Apparent polyphyly within the unresolved clade of Lomatium (Apiaceae) containing L. triternatum, L. anomalum, L. thompsonii, and L. packardiae suggests conflict among current taxonomic classification schemes. To recover this clade and more clearly define species boundaries, we examined populations of L. anomalum from three geographic regions in Idaho and adjacent Oregon. Using phylogenetic, morphological, and ecological data, we conclude that the L. anomalum complex currently circumscribes multiple species. Phylogenetic analysis of the nuclear ribosomal ITS and ETS, and cpDNA rpl32-trnLUAG, rps-16 intron, trnD-trnT, ndhA intron, and psbA-trnH recovered populations from the Boise foothills as a distinct, monophyletic clade. Principal …

The Evolution Of Anti-Bat Sensory Illusions In Moths, Juliette J. Rubin, Chris A. Hamilton, Christopher J.W. Mcclure, Brad A. Chadwell, Akito Y. Kawahara, Jesse R. Barber

Biology Faculty Publications and Presentations

Prey transmit sensory illusions to redirect predatory strikes, creating a discrepancy between what a predator perceives and reality. We use the acoustic arms race between bats and moths to investigate the evolution and function of a sensory illusion. The spinning hindwing tails of silk moths (Saturniidae) divert bat attack by reflecting sonar to create a misleading echoic target. We characterized geometric morphometrics of moth hindwings across silk moths, mapped these traits onto a new, robust phylogeny, and found that elaborated hindwing structures have converged on four adaptive shape peaks. To test the mechanism underlying these anti-bat traits, we pit bats …

Modification Of Diet And Foraging Range By Harvester Ants In Response To Altered Seed Availability, Ian C. Robertson, Matthew S. Schmasow

Biology Faculty Publications and Presentations

Food collection is a critical component of an individual’s life, and for eusocial insects, the colony that individual foragers support and maintain. Changes to the distribution and composition of food types in the environment are expected influence diet selection if the economics of foraging are altered. For seed-harvesting ants, the abundance and composition of seed types available on the ground typically shows a high degree of spatial and temporal variability, and not all types of seed are equally valued by foragers. We evaluated the response of Owyhee harvester ants (Pogonomyrmex salinus) to reductions in the availability of Sandberg …

Effects Of Mowing And Tebuthiuron On The Nutritional Quality Of Wyoming Big Sagebrush, Kurt T. Smith, Jennifer S. Forbey, Jeffrey L. Black

Biology Faculty Publications and Presentations

Wyoming big sagebrush (Artemisia tridentata Nutt. ssp. wyomingensis Beetle & Young) is the most abundant and widely distributed subspecies of big sagebrush and has been treated through chemical application, mechanical treatments, and prescribed burning in efforts thought to improve habitat conditions for species such as greater sage-grouse (Centrocercus urophasianus) and mule deer (Odocoileus hemionus). Although the response of structural attributes of sagebrush communities to treatments is well understood, there is a need to identify how treatments influence the quality of sagebrush as winter food for wildlife. Our purpose was to identify how mowing and tebuthiuron …

Trade-Offs Between Carbon Stocks And Timber Recovery In Tropical Forests Are Mediated By Logging Intensity, Anand Roopsind, T. Trevor Caughlin, Peter Van Der Hout, Eric Arets, Francis E. Putz

Biology Faculty Publications and Presentations

Forest degradation accounts for ~70% of total carbon losses from tropical forests. Substantial emissions are from selective logging, a land-use activity that decreases forest carbon density. To maintain carbon values in selectively logged forests, climate change mitigation policies and government agencies promote the adoption of reduced-impact logging (RIL) practices. However, whether RIL will maintain both carbon and timber values in managed tropical forests over time remains uncertain. In this study, we quantify the recovery of timber stocks and aboveground carbon at an experimental site where forests were subjected to different intensities of RIL (4, 8, and 16 trees/ha). Our census …

Osm Potentiates Preintravasation Events, Increases Ctc Counts, And Promotes Breast Cancer Metastasis To The Lung, Ken Tawara, Celeste Bolin, Jordan Koncinsky, Sujatha Kadaba, Hunter Covert, Caleb Sutherland, Laura Bond, Cheryl L. Jorcyk

Biology Faculty Publications and Presentations

Background: Systemic and chronic inflammatory conditions in patients with breast cancer have been associated with reduced patient survival and increased breast cancer aggressiveness. This paper characterizes the role of an inflammatory cytokine, oncostatin M (OSM), in the preintravasation aspects of breast cancer metastasis.

Methods: OSM expression levels in human breast cancer tissue samples were assessed using tissue microarrays, and expression patterns based on clinical stage were assessed. To determine the in vivo role of OSM in breast cancer metastasis to the lung, we used three orthotopic breast cancer mouse models, including a syngeneic 4T1.2 mouse mammary cancer model, the MDA-MB-231 …

Dietary Partitioning Of Toxic Leaves And Fibrous Stems Differs Between Sympatric Specialist And Generalist Mammalian Herbivores, M. M. Crowell, L. A. Shipley, J. S. Forbey, J. L. Rachlow, R. G. Kelsey

Biology Faculty Publications and Presentations

Dietary specialists often reside in habitats that provide a high and predictable abundance of their primary food, which is usually difficult for other herbivores to consume because of high levels of plant toxins or structural impediments. Therefore, sympatric specialist and generalist herbivores may partition food resources within and among plants. We compared how a dietary specialist (pygmy rabbit, Brachylagus idahoensis) and generalist (mountain cottontail, Sylvilagus nuttallii) used sagebrush as a food resource during winter across 3 field sites in Idaho, USA, and in controlled feeding trials with captive rabbits. The proportion of sagebrush consumed by both rabbit species …

Group Characteristics Influence Distribution Patterns Of Off-Road Vehicle Recreation Within A Complex Trail System In Southwest Idaho, Eric Frey, Kathryn Demps, Ben Pauli, Julie A. Heath

Biology Faculty Publications and Presentations

Recreation on public lands is growing and is increasingly recognized as an ecosystem service providing improved health, connection to nature, and social time while also disturbing and degrading ecosystems. Human impacts must be managed, but often managers have little information about the factors that affect recreation patterns. We combined data from global positioning system receivers to record off-road vehicle (ORV) travel with a pretrip survey to determine how group characteristics, site experience, site knowledge, and motivation are associated with ORV trip patterns on public lands in southwest Idaho. Spatial and temporal extent and distribution could summarize most variation in ORV …

Dicer1 Syndrome: Dicer1 Mutations In Rare Cancers, Jake C. Robertson, Cheryl L. Jorcyk, Julia Thom Oxford

Biology Faculty Publications and Presentations

DICER1 syndrome is a rare genetic disorder that predisposes individuals to multiple cancer types. Through mutations of the gene encoding the endoribonuclease, Dicer, DICER1 syndrome disrupts the biogenesis and processing of miRNAs with subsequent disruption in control of gene expression. Since the first description of DICER1 syndrome, case reports have documented novel germline mutations of the DICER1 gene in patients with cancers as well as second site mutations that alter the function of the Dicer protein expressed. Here, we present a review of mutations in the DICER1 gene, the respective protein sequence changes, and clinical manifestations of DICER1 syndrome. Directions …

Gymnosperms On The Edge, Sven Buerki

Biology Faculty Publications and Presentations

Driven by limited resources and a sense of urgency, the prioritization of species for conservation has been a persistent concern in conservation science. Gymnosperms (comprising ginkgo, conifers, cycads, and gnetophytes) are one of the most threatened groups of living organisms, with 40% of the species at high risk of extinction, about twice as many as the most recent estimates for all plants (i.e. 21.4%). This high proportion of species facing extinction highlights the urgent action required to secure their future through an objective prioritization approach. The Evolutionary Distinct and Globally Endangered (EDGE) method rapidly ranks species based on their evolutionary …

Allele Frequencies Of 15 Str Loci (Identifiler™ Kit) In Basque-Americans, Jason Besecker, Gianluca Peri, Michael Davis, Josu Zubizarreta, Greg Hampikian

Biology Faculty Publications and Presentations

Individuals with Basque ancestry form a historically and culturally important minority of the population of the western United States. Allele frequencies for the 15 autosomal STRs in the AmpFlSTR^® Identifiler^® PCR Amplification Kit (Applied Biosystems) from 156 unrelated self-identified Basque individuals born in the United States are presented. Allele frequencies were used to calculate parameters commonly used in genetics and forensics including power of discrimination (PD), power of exclusion (PE), polymorphic information content (PIC), and expected heterozygosity (He). The sample population was also compared with the European Basque population and the major American ethnicities.

Beyond The Matrix: The Many Non-Ecm Ligands For Integrins, Bryce Lafoya, Jordan A. Munroe, Alison Miyamoto, Michael A. Detweiler, Jacob J. Crow, Tana Gazdik, Allan R. Albig

Biology Faculty Publications and Presentations

The traditional view of integrins portrays these highly conserved cell surface receptors as mediators of cellular attachment to the extracellular matrix (ECM), and to a lesser degree, as coordinators of leukocyte adhesion to the endothelium. These canonical activities are indispensable; however, there is also a wide variety of integrin functions mediated by non-ECM ligands that transcend the traditional roles of integrins. Some of these unorthodox roles involve cell-cell interactions and are engaged to support immune functions such as leukocyte transmigration, recognition of opsonization factors, and stimulation of neutrophil extracellular traps. Other cell-cell interactions mediated by integrins include hematopoietic stem cell …

A Comparison Of Resveratrol And Other Polyphenolic Compounds On Notch Activation And Endothelial Cell Activity, Bryce Lafoya, Jordan A. Munroe, Allan R. Albig

Biology Faculty Publications and Presentations

Resveratrol is a polyphenolic compound produced by plants which makes its way into the human diet through plant-based foods. It has been shown to provide many health benefits, helping to ward of age-related diseases and promoting cardiovascular health. Additionally, resveratrol is a potent activator of the Notch signaling pathway. While resveratrol receives the most attention as a polyphenolic nutraceutical, other compounds with similar structures may be more potent regulators of specific cellular processes. Here, we compare resveratrol, apigenin, chrysin, genistein, luteolin, myricetin, piceatannol, pterostilbene, and quercetin for their ability to regulate Notch signaling. In addition, we compare the ability of …

Assessing Patterns Of Barn Owl Tyto Alba Occupancy From Call Broadcast Surveys, Tempe Regan, Christopher J.W. Mcclure, James R. Belthoff

Biology Faculty Publications and Presentations

Owing to habitat loss, changes in farming practices, urbanization, and high mortality through vehicle collisions, barn owls Tyto alba are a species of conservation concern in portions of their range. This species can be secretive and difficult to survey, particularly away from breeding sites, so factors related to barn owl occurrence often remain unknown. We conducted nighttime broadcast surveys for barn owls during the early- and post-breeding seasons and used an occupancy modeling framework to understand how factors related to landcover, landscape features, and human development related to occupancy in southern Idaho, USA. We also assessed the effectiveness of using …