Life Sciences Commons^™

Using Conservative And Biological Tracers To Better Understand The Transport Of Agricultural Contaminants From Soil Water Through The Epikarstic Zone, Brian Ham

Masters Theses & Specialist Projects

Agriculture contamination is very common in karst systems due to the vulnerability of these aquifers. Animal waste is often spread across crop land to enrich the soil with nitrates and phosphates. Herbicides and pesticides are also applied to the crops. The transport of these pollutants through the soil and epikarst is a difficult process to monitor due to the complex, heterogeneous behavior of the groundwater as it makes its way down to the aquifer below.

An experimental site at Crumps Cave lended a unique opportunity to monitor the vadose zone at a waterfall in the cave below. A previous dye …

On The Zoological Geography Of The Malay Archipelago (1859), Alfred Russel Wallace

Alfred Russel Wallace Classic Writings

No abstract provided.

Kentucky Warbler (Vol. 85, No. 4), Kentucky Library Research Collections

Kentucky Warbler

No abstract provided.

The Development And Role Of Peripheral Auditory Structures In Otocinclus Affinis, Sri Kiran Kumar Reddy Botta

Masters Theses & Specialist Projects

Loricariidae is a very diverse family of catfishes found primarily in the Amazon River basin. These catfishes have a unique characteristic feature of having fenestrae (holes) in the skull region (compound pterotic bone) adjacent to their bi-lobed swim bladder. Since the swim bladders and the compound pterotic may act as an external ear for hearing in this taxon, I hypothesized that these swim bladders structures have an acoustical functional in the loricariid Otocinclus affinis. In order to understand the development of these structures in O. affinis, I first monitored the ontogeny of the compound pterotic bone by clearing …

Pet Milk Company, 1949-1957 (Mss 263), Manuscripts & Folklife Archives

MSS Finding Aids

Two annual field reports, 1951 and 1954, profiling dairy farmers and their operations in Warren and Simpson Counties in Kentucky as well as Robertson County, Tennessee; also includes miscellaneous copies of the newsletter "Pet Dairy Chats", 1949 to 1957.

Kentucky Warbler (Vol. 85, No. 3), Kentucky Library Research Collections

Kentucky Warbler

No abstract provided.

Wyatt, Albert F., 1861-1943 (Sc 1959), Manuscripts & Folklife Archives

MSS Finding Aids

Finding aid only for Manuscripts Small Collection 1959. Letter, 14 April 1908, from A. F. Wyatt, Mt. Sterling, Kentucky to H. R. Cowles, Statesville, North Carolina regarding the availability of horses for sale.

The Effect Of Breeding Herd Parity Structure On Genetic Improvement Of The Sow Herd, Caitlyn E. Abell

Mahurin Honors College Capstone Experience/Thesis Projects

This study focuses on the value of the genetic lag associated with maintaining sows for additional parities in a commercial swine herd. Three traits were included in this study: number born alive (NBA), 21 day litter weight (W21), and days to market (D250). The economic values assigned to these traits were $22.00/pig, $0.70/lb., and $0.17/day, respectively. The genetic improvement per generation made for each trait was assumed to be 0.3 pigs, 3.0 lbs., and 3.0 days, respectively. It was estimated that the value of the genetic lag associated with retaining a sow to P3, P5, and P7 was $24.80, $46.89, …

Kentucky Warbler (Vol. 85, No. 2), Kentucky Library Research Collections

Kentucky Warbler

No abstract provided.

Effects Of Early Spring Growth Annual Ryegrass Pasture Consumption On Parameters Associated With Laminitis In Horses, Morgan Nicole Akers

Masters Theses & Specialist Projects

Ten adult Quarter Horses (5 mares and 5 geldings) were placed in dry lot for 90 days and allowed free choice access to a diet consisting of average quality orchard grass hay, salt and water. The horses were then allowed free choice access to early-growth annual ryegrass pasture, salt and water for a 28 day period. Random hay and grass samples were analyzed for nutrient content. Blood samples were collected at 6 am, 8 am, 6 pm, and 8 pm on the final day of hay consumption and on the 4th, 9th and 28th days of grass consumption. Samples were …

Kentucky Warbler (Vol. 85, No. 1), Kentucky Library Research Collections

Kentucky Warbler

No abstract provided.

Prospecting For Mammalian Chemical Signals Via Solventless Extraction Techniques: An Elephantine Task, Thomas Goodwin, Bruce A. Schulte

Biology Faculty Publications

In contrast to a plethora of known insect pheromones, a paucity of mammalian pheromones has been identified, two of which have been in elephants (Albone, 1984; Brown and Macdonald, 1985; Wyatt, 2003; Burger, 2005). Elephants possess one of the world’s best chemosensory systems, due in no small measure to their prehensile trunk. The trunk is not only the gateway to smelling (primary olfaction), but also the means by which chemical signals are conveyed from their source to the openings of the vomeronasal organ ducts in the roof of the mouth (the flehmen response; secondary olfaction) (Rasmussen, 1999). The late L. …

Investigation Of A Fresh African Elephant Carcass By Conspecifics, Christen Merte, Katie Gough, Bruce A. Schulte

Biology Faculty Publications

This examination of elephant bones and ivory indicates that elephants show an elevated level of interest in conspecifics over other dead animals. Elephants do not seem to express special interest in dead kin but rather they appear to have a generalized response to injured, dying and deceased conspecifics (Douglas Hamilton et al. 2006, McComb et al. 2006). The present study reports the behaviour of a group of elephants in response to a euthanized adult male elephant that suffered severe wounds inflicted by a conspecific male. Most of the observations from previous studies have been on females and female group members. …

On The Monkeys Of The Amazon (1852), Alfred Russel Wallace

Alfred Russel Wallace Classic Writings

No abstract provided.

On The Tendency Of Varieties To Depart Indefinitely From The Original Type (1858), Alfred Russel Wallace

Alfred Russel Wallace Classic Writings

No abstract provided.

On The Law Which Has Regulated The Introduction Of New Species (1855), Alfred Russel Wallace

Alfred Russel Wallace Classic Writings

No abstract provided.

Isolation Of A 3-Methylindole-Producing Bacterium From A Swine Waste Lagoon, Michelle L. Fusting

Mahurin Honors College Capstone Experience/Thesis Projects

With an increase in animal production closer to populated areas, odorants from animal waste are a rapidly rising concern. 3-Methylindole (3-MI) is an odorant produced from the biodegradation of L-tryptophan by bacteria in animal waste. Currently, no 3-MI producing bacterium has been isolated from swine waste, and isolation of such an organism would provide insight into production and regulation of 3-MI. Therefore, an experiment was designed to isolate a 3-MI producer based on previous work which indicates the presence of Fe(III) increases 3-MI levels. An Enterococcus sp. was isolated from WKU's primary swine waste lagoon in rich, anaerobic medium plus …

Curing Nature-Deficit Disorder: How Environmental Education Helps Kids Learn, Jamie Leigh Langley

Mahurin Honors College Capstone Experience/Thesis Projects

Walk into any public school and talk with the children about their experiences in nature and you will begin to see a pattern. Children have made few connections with the world around them. They do not spend much time outdoors and the time they do spend outdoors is not spent interacting directly with nature. Why does this matter? Look at these same kids and you will see another pattern emerging: Attention-Deficit Disorder, depression, obesity, emotional problems, etc. While not all of these problems are directly caused by a lack of interaction with the natural world, current research shows that there …

Where Do They Go When They Die?, Meridith L. Bartley

Mahurin Honors College Capstone Experience/Thesis Projects

Food webs and matrices are vital to understanding feeding relationships and ecology. Adjacency matrices can be employed to present the direct relationships between predators and prey; these binary matrices utilize 0’s to denote no direct link and 1’s to denote a direct link. We analyzed a variety of published food webs ranging from pine forests in the United States to tussock grasslands in New Zealand. The food webs varied in number of distinguishable taxa present, functional diversity, climates and habitats. Consequently, we expect that our results are not specific to a given system. The published food webs lack flows from …

Ua94/6/1 Student / Alumni Personal Papers Western Kentucky University Small Collections, Wku Archives

WKU Archives Collection Inventories

Small collections of personal papers and oral histories relating to the Western Kentucky University.