Life Sciences Commons^™

Reconstructing The Ecological Relationships Of Late Cretaceous Antarctic Dinosaurs And How Functional Tooth Morphology Influenced These Relationships, Ian D. Broxson

2022 Symposium

The Sandwich Bluff Formation of the James Ross Basin of Antarctica has recently yielded a group of five late Cretaceous dinosaurs that lived contemporaneously with each other, a first for Antarctica. These five dinosaurs include fragmentary remains of two differently sized elasmarian ornithopods, a possible megaraptor, a hadrosaur, and a nodosaur. In this study we will construct a model of the ecological relationships of late Cretaceous Antarctica. Additionally, we will look at what specific factors allowed this group of four herbivores and a carnivore to coexist in a restricted locality and what niches were filled by each species. Methods to …

Editorial: Ecology, Metabolism And Evolution Of Archaea-Perspectives From Proceedings Of The International Workshop On Geo-Omics Of Archaea, Brian P. Hedlund, Chuanlun Zhang, Fengping Wang, Christian Rinke, William F. Martin

Life Sciences Faculty Research

To facilitate global efforts in addressing fundamental questions related to the biology of archaea, an international consortium of experts organized the International Workshop on Geo-Omics of Archaea (IWGOA), with the overarching themes of Ecology/Biogeochemistry, Metabolism, and Evolution. The IWGOA was held in Shenzhen, China, from October 25th to 27th, 2019. The meeting was attended by more than 200 attendees from China, Japan, USA, Australia, Germany, and France. Some of the most exciting oral and poster presentations made at the IWGOA are celebrated in this Research Topic Figure 1. The 21 manuscripts herein span different aspects of archaeal biology in both …

Ecology And Evolution, David J. Lohman

Open Educational Resources

Introduction to the basic principles of ecology and evolutionary biology emphasizing quantitative approaches and hypothesis testing. Scientific reasoning, computer literacy, and writing skills are developed in the laboratory.

Traffic Noise And Sexual Selection: Studies Of Anthropogenic Impact On Bird Songs And Undergraduate Student Reasoning Of Evolutionary Mechanisms, Sarah Spier

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

Humans have transformed much of the natural landscape and are continuing to do so at an accelerated rate, compromising natural areas that serve as important habitat for many species. Roads impact much of the environment as they fragment habitat and introduce traffic noise into the acoustic environment, deferentially affecting wildlife in roadside habitat. I explored how traffic noise affects the detection of birds based on whether their vocalizations were masked by traffic noise. Masked species detection was not affected by an increase in traffic noise amplitude, while there was a negative effect of traffic noise amplitude on unmasked species detection, …

Confirming World-Wide Distribution Of An Agriculturally Important Lacewing, Chrysoperla Zastrowi Sillemi, Using Songs, Morphology, Mitochondrial Gene Sequencing, And Phylogenetic Reconstruction, Zoe Mandese

Honors Scholar Theses

The Chrysoperla carnea-group of green lacewings is a cryptic species complex. Species within the group are morphologically similar, yet isolated from one another via reproductive mating song. Chrysoperla zastrowi, a species within the carnea-group, is currently described with a distribution ranging from South Africa to the Middle East and India. However, recent collections of carnea-group lacewings from Guatemala and California were preliminarily identified as Chrysoperla zastrowi based upon similarities in their vibrational courtship songs. This analysis aims to place six specimens, collected by collaborators in Guatemala, Armenia, Iran, and California, into a pre-existing phylogeny of the …

Using Introduced Species Of Anolis Lizards To Test Adaptive Radiation Theory, James T. Stroud

FIU Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Adaptive radiation – the proliferation of species from a single ancestor and diversification into many ecologically different forms – has long been heralded as an important process in the generation of phenotypic diversity. However, the early stages of adaptive radiation are notoriously elusive to observe and study. In this dissertation, I capitalize on communities of introduced non-native Anolis lizards as analogues of early stage adaptive radiations. In Chapter II, I begin by reviewing the concept of “ecological opportunity” – a classic hypothesis put forward as a potential key to understanding when and how adaptive radiation occurs. In Chapter III, I …

There’S More Than One Way To Climb A Tree: Limb Length And Microhabitat Use In Lizards With Toe Pads, Travis J. Hagey, Scott Hart, Matthew Vickers, Luke J. Harmon, Lin Schwarzkopf

Biology

Ecomorphology links microhabitat and morphology. By comparing ecomorphological associations across clades, we can investigate the extent to which evolution can produce similar solutions in response to similar challenges. While Anolis lizards represent a well-studied example of repeated convergent evolution, very few studies have investigated the ecomorphology of geckos. Similar to anoles, gekkonid lizards have independently evolved adhesive toe pads and many species are scansorial. We quantified gecko and anole limb length and microhabitat use, finding that geckos tend to have shorter limbs than anoles. Combining these measurements with microhabitat observations of geckos in Queensland, Australia, we observed geckos using similar …

Studying The Effects Of Serpentine Soil On Adapted And Non-Adapted Species Using Arduino Technology, Kiana Saniee, Edward Himelblau, Brian Paavo

STAR Program Research Presentations

Abstract: Serpentine soils are formed from ultramafic rocks and are represent an extreme environment for plants. Serpentine soils are unique in that they carry high concentrations of heavy metals, are nutrient deficient, particularly in calcium, and have poor water retention capabilities. Although these soils constitute harsh conditions for plant growth, there are a number of species that are adapted and even endemic to serpentine soil. Water retention by commercial potting mix was compared with serpentine soil. Also, serpentine adapted and non-adapted species were grown in both soil treatments and physiological data were collected. We used the Arduino electronic platform to …

Sediment Loss Of Santa Rosa Island Slopes: An Erosional Study, Michael Perez

STAR Program Research Presentations

Ranching began on Santa Rosa Island in the 1840’s, consequently introducing nonnative megafauna that put novel selective grazing pressures on endemic plant species. Their movement patterns also altered sediment integrity as the land was denuded of any stabilizing vegetation. Dense groves of island oak (Q. tomentella) are known to aid in sediment deposition and retention. The groves also function to collect water during periods of intense fog that are common to the island. This experiment sought to quantify the volume of sediment that has been lost on a south facing slope in the middle of the island that …

Pelargonium (Geraniaceae) And The Long-Tongued Fly Pollination Guild: Coevolution And Polymorphism In A Specialized Pollination System, Emily M. Blank

Honors Scholar Theses

In South Africa, a group of long-tongued flies and the flowering plants they pollinate form a unique and diverse pollination guild system almost entirely endemic to the Greater Cape Floristic Region. This system makes up only a small portion of the biodiversity of the Region, but it is likely a key to understanding the evolutionary processes that have lead to the observed biodiversity. Aside from its unusual pollinators, this guild system is of particular interest due to the extremely labile morphology of both the fly species and the associated flowering plant species, which geographically vary significantly in proboscis lengths and …

Some Biogeographers, Evolutionists And Ecologists: Chrono-Biographical Sketches, Charles H. Smith, Joshua Woleben, Carubie Rodgers

DLPS Faculty Publications

Each name in the following list of naturalists is linked to a corresponding capsule "chrono-biographical" sketch of that individual prepared by the authors. Coverage extends from approximately 1950 backward in time as far as the eighteenth century; figures from all over the world are included (though there is admittedly a decided Anglo-American bias). The target subject here is biogeography, but this being a broad field there are many persons on the list who are better known as climatologists, zoologists, botanists, ecologists, oceanographers, paleontologists, etc.--in other words, who made their main reputations in cognate disciplines.

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Ecology And Relationships Of Rhabdias Spp. (Nematoda: Rhabdiasidae) From North American Amphibians And Reptiles, Gabriel J. Langford

School of Biological Sciences: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

Lungworms of the cosmopolitan genus Rhabdias (Nematoda: Rhabdiasidae) are among the most common parasites of amphibians and squamate reptiles. The life cycles, life histories, host specificities, and evolutionary relationships of Rhabdias spp. were studied through examination of their free-living and parasitic stages in amphibians and reptiles. This study found free-living development of anuran lungworms was primarily limited to heterogonic reproduction, whereas snake lungworms primarily reproduced homogonically. Infective anuran lungworms penetrated the skin of frogs and toads; in contrast, snake lungworms penetrated snake esophageal tissue during per os infections. Our molecular phylogeny strongly supported separate clades for anuran and snake lungworms, …

Perspectives On Reproduction And Life History In Baboons, Larissa Swedell, Steven R. Leigh

Publications and Research

No abstract provided.

Areographic Representation Of Faunal Characteristics Through A "Second Order" Relational Approach, Charles H. Smith

DLPS Faculty Publications

Areographic analysis has traditionally depended on primary data consisting of location-specific tallies of presence or absence of given forms. In the present work, an alternate manner of representing distributions is suggested. Regional units are first established, and presence and absence of the forms under consideration in these units is noted. The relation of the biota at any given point location to all others is then established through examination of the former's characteristics of inclusion in the latter. This is accomplished by detailing regional level trends of inclusion and setting up a "second-order" distribution of associations. Two kinds of descriptive information …