Life Sciences Commons^™

Are Weevils Picky Eaters? Community Structure And Host Specificity Of Neotropical Saproxylic Beetles (Coleoptera: Curculionidae), Jhunior A. Morillo

Dissertations and Theses

Abstract Primary saproxylic beetles play a major role in forest nutrient cycling and making deadwood accessible to other decomposers. Understanding beetle host preferences and patterns of community assembly is critical for their conservation, and for predicting which species might become invasive. This project aims to investigate the ecological and host specificity, as well as the community composition of curculionids in a mosaic of old-growth (OG) and secondary forest on the Osa Peninsula, Costa Rica. The subfamily Scolytinae was expected to be the most species-rich and abundant. Ambrosia beetles were expected to have more generalist species than other curculionids. Old growth …

Defining The Relationship Between Maternal Care Behavior And Hearing Development In Wistar Rats, Jingyun Qiu

Dissertations and Theses

Previous studies in rodents have demonstrated the profound effects that variations in maternal care play during the postnatal development of the brain. However, much less is known about how maternal care affects hearing development. Recently, manipulations of maternal care have been investigated to accelerate hearing onset. We hypothesized that accelerated hearing development results from changes in maternal care behavior. To test this hypothesis, we used a selection model in which natural variations in maternal care were identified in a large cohort of dams by measuring the frequency of different behaviors including LG followed by selection of dams with LG scores …

Verbal Behaviors During Employment Interviews Of College Students With And Without Asd, Dennis James Bublitz, Katherine Fitzgerald, Maria Alarcon, Joanne D'Onofrio, Kristen Gillespie-Lynch

Publications and Research

BACKGROUND: Even well-educated people with ASD struggle with obtaining employment, partially due to social difficulties during interviews. Although increasing numbers of individuals with ASD are entering college, little research focuses on this population. Particularly little is known about how to help college students with ASD obtain jobs.

OBJECTIVE: This study attempts to identify challenges with verbal communication during employment interviews that are specific to college students with ASD.

METHODS: We administered mock employment interviews to 16 college students with ASD and 14 college students without disabilities. Responses to interview questions were coded for content and timing.

RESULTS: Students with ASD …

Large-Scale Surveillance Of Captive Naked Mole-Rat Colonies Shows Caste Differences In Space Utilization, Michael Kress, Edward F. Meehan, Dan Mccloskey

Publications and Research

African naked mole-rats are eusocial mammals that provide unique opportunity to study complex mammalian social behavior and large-group dynamics in a controlled vivarium setting. Previous reports of captive and wild naked mole-rats have identified a division of labor among non-reproductive colony members along a size polyethism, with large animals specializing in defense behaviors, and small animals performing foraging, nest building, and caretaking functions. This study utilized radio frequency identification (RFID) and advanced computational approaches to monitor the activity patterns and place preferences of all members in two naked mole-rat colonies (N = 36 and 37 animals) for a period of …