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Full-Text Articles in Life Sciences

Book Review: Habitantes De La Obscuridad (Fauna Ibero-Balear De Las Cuevas) – Inhabitants Of The Darkness (Ibero-Baleric Fauna Of Caves), Oana Teodora Moldovan Oct 2023

Book Review: Habitantes De La Obscuridad (Fauna Ibero-Balear De Las Cuevas) – Inhabitants Of The Darkness (Ibero-Baleric Fauna Of Caves), Oana Teodora Moldovan

International Journal of Speleology

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Why The Delay In Recognizing Terrestrial Obligate Cave Species In The Tropics?, Francis G. Howarth Feb 2023

Why The Delay In Recognizing Terrestrial Obligate Cave Species In The Tropics?, Francis G. Howarth

International Journal of Speleology

“Nothing could possibly live there!” They believed. Indeed, until recently, few specialized cave- adapted animals were known from volcanic, tropical, or oceanic island caves, and plausible theories had been put forward to explain their absence. But assume nothing in science! One must illuminate, explore, and survey habitats before declaring them barren. Our understanding of cave biology changed dramatically about 50 years ago following the serendipitous discovery of cave-adapted terrestrial arthropods in Brazil and on the young oceanic islands of the Galápagos and Hawai‘i. These discoveries and subsequent studies on the evolutionary ecology of cave animals have revealed a remarkable hidden …


Population Demography, Spatial Ecology, And Habitat Use Of The Florida Box Turtle (Terrapene Bauri) On A Barrier Island, Michael D. Mills Nov 2022

Population Demography, Spatial Ecology, And Habitat Use Of The Florida Box Turtle (Terrapene Bauri) On A Barrier Island, Michael D. Mills

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Turtles are one the most threatened vertebrate groups in the world due to anthropogenic threats such as habitat loss and overexploitation. In addition to occupying a range that has been vulnerable to major habitat loss, the Florida box turtle (Terrapene bauri) is particularly at risk of overexploitation due to its popularity in the pet trade. Sanibel Island is a barrier island in southwest Florida that has experienced major habitat loss and is the site of a recent poaching event. In response to these threats, studies of both the population demography and spatial ecology were conducted on Sanibel’s Florida box turtle …


Status, Change, And Futures Of Zooplankton In The Southern Ocean, Nadine M. Johnston, Eugene J. Murphy, Angus Atkinson, Andrew J. Constable, Cédric Cotté, Martin Cox, Kendra L. Daly, Ryan Driscoll, Hauke Flores, Svenja Halfter, Natasha Henschke, Simeon L. Hill, Juan Höfer, Brian P. Hunt, So Kawaguchi, Dhugal Lindsay, Cecilia Liszka, Valerie Loeb, Clara Manno, Bettina Meyer, Evgeny A. Pakhomov, Matthew H. Pinkerton, Christian S. Reiss, Kate Richerson, Walker O. Jr., Deborah K. Steinberg, Kerrie M. Swadling, Geraint A. Tarling, Sally E. Thorpe, Devi Veytia, Peter Ward, Christine K. Weldrick, Guang Yang Jan 2022

Status, Change, And Futures Of Zooplankton In The Southern Ocean, Nadine M. Johnston, Eugene J. Murphy, Angus Atkinson, Andrew J. Constable, Cédric Cotté, Martin Cox, Kendra L. Daly, Ryan Driscoll, Hauke Flores, Svenja Halfter, Natasha Henschke, Simeon L. Hill, Juan Höfer, Brian P. Hunt, So Kawaguchi, Dhugal Lindsay, Cecilia Liszka, Valerie Loeb, Clara Manno, Bettina Meyer, Evgeny A. Pakhomov, Matthew H. Pinkerton, Christian S. Reiss, Kate Richerson, Walker O. Jr., Deborah K. Steinberg, Kerrie M. Swadling, Geraint A. Tarling, Sally E. Thorpe, Devi Veytia, Peter Ward, Christine K. Weldrick, Guang Yang

Marine Science Faculty Publications

In the Southern Ocean, several zooplankton taxonomic groups, euphausiids, copepods, salps and pteropods, are notable because of their biomass and abundance and their roles in maintaining food webs and ecosystem structure and function, including the provision of globally important ecosystem services. These groups are consumers of microbes, primary and secondary producers, and are prey for fishes, cephalopods, seabirds, and marine mammals. In providing the link between microbes, primary production, and higher trophic levels these taxa influence energy flows, biological production and biomass, biogeochemical cycles, carbon flux and food web interactions thereby modulating the structure and functioning of ecosystems. Additionally, Antarctic …


Examining The Presence Of A Possible Species Complex Of Octopus Joubini (Cephalopoda: Octopodidae) In The Eastern Gulf Of Mexico, Haley Holloway Jun 2021

Examining The Presence Of A Possible Species Complex Of Octopus Joubini (Cephalopoda: Octopodidae) In The Eastern Gulf Of Mexico, Haley Holloway

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

The Pygmy Octopus Octopus joubini (Robson, 1929) is a small, shallow water species found throughout the Gulf of Mexico (GoM), western Atlantic Ocean and the northeastern Caribbean Sea (Mather, 1982; Jereb & Roper, 2014; Judkins, 2009). This species is believed to belong to a complex based upon morphological features including arm length, web depth, sucker size, egg size, hatchling ecology, and chromatophore coloration. It has been proposed that Octopus mercatoris, another pygmy species found in the GoM, may belong in this complex; however, no analyses have been performed to verify this claim. The present study incorporated morphological comparisons with …


Shorebird Response To Human-Induced Changes At Three Pinellas County Beaches, Rebecca J. Ruthberg-Campagna Mar 2021

Shorebird Response To Human-Induced Changes At Three Pinellas County Beaches, Rebecca J. Ruthberg-Campagna

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Worldwide, shorebird habitat is being destroyed and degraded by development and sea level rise. Shorebirds depend on availability of pristine, undisturbed coastal habitats for resting and feeding during migration as well as for reproduction. Migratory shorebirds using the East Atlantic Flyway visit the Gulf of Mexico Beaches of Pinellas County, Florida as a stopover site during Fall and Spring migration. In addition to hosting migratory species, Pinellas County beaches are home to several year-round resident species that breed during Summer. Pinellas County is the most densely populated county in Florida, and its Gulf Coast is heavily developed with commercial and …


Active Humans, Inactive Carnivores, And Hiking Trails Within A Suburban Preserve, Sonny Bandak, Ronald J. Sarno, Michaela C. Peterson, Daniel Farkas, Melissa M. Grigione Mar 2020

Active Humans, Inactive Carnivores, And Hiking Trails Within A Suburban Preserve, Sonny Bandak, Ronald J. Sarno, Michaela C. Peterson, Daniel Farkas, Melissa M. Grigione

Suburban Sustainability

As urban areas continue to proliferate, so does the demand for outdoor recreation. Hiking trails permeate almost all remaining forest fragments within highly urbanized areas. The effects of hiking trails on carnivores remain unclear, especially in the northeastern United States. Therefore, our objectives were to investigate the spatial and temporal activity patterns of mammalian carnivores in relation to distance from hiking trails. From 2011-2012, 236 camera stations were randomly deployed between trail and off-trail areas that covered an area of 4.8km2. A total of 3880 trap nights yielded 346 coyote (Canis latrans), 371 raccoon (Procyon …


Impacts Of Invasive Rats On Hawaiian Cave Resources, Francis G. Howarth, Fred D. Stone Feb 2020

Impacts Of Invasive Rats On Hawaiian Cave Resources, Francis G. Howarth, Fred D. Stone

International Journal of Speleology

Although there are no published studies and limited data documenting damage by rodents in Hawaiian caves, our incidental observations during more than 40 years of surveying caves indicate that introduced rodents, especially the roof rat, Rattus rattus, pose significant threats to vulnerable cave resources. Caves, with their nearly constant and predictable physical environment often house important natural and cultural features including biological, paleontological, geological, climatic, mineralogical, cultural, and archaeological resources. All four invasive rodents in Hawai‘i commonly nest in cave entrances and rock shelters, but only the roof rat (Rattus rattus) habitually enters caves and utilizes areas …


Improving The Integration Of Restoration And Conservation In Marine And Coastal Ecosystems: Lessons From The Deepwater Horizon Disaster, Richard L. Wallace, Gilbert Gilbert, John E. Reynolds Iii Nov 2019

Improving The Integration Of Restoration And Conservation In Marine And Coastal Ecosystems: Lessons From The Deepwater Horizon Disaster, Richard L. Wallace, Gilbert Gilbert, John E. Reynolds Iii

C-IMAGE Publications

In the wake of the Deepwater Horizon disaster, much has been learned about the biological, ecological, physical, and chemical conditions of the Gulf of Mexico. In parallel, the research community has also gained insight about the social and organizational structures and processes necessary for oil spill response and subsequent marine and coastal restoration. However, even with these lessons from both the Deepwater Horizon and previous spills, including 1989’s Exxon Valdez and the Ixtoc 1 in 1979, our understanding of how to avoid future crises has not advanced at the same pace as offshore oil and gas development. We argue that …


Fifty Years Of Cave Arthropod Sampling: Techniques And Best Practices, J. Judson Wynne, Francis G. Howarth, Stefan Sommer, Brett G. Dickson Feb 2019

Fifty Years Of Cave Arthropod Sampling: Techniques And Best Practices, J. Judson Wynne, Francis G. Howarth, Stefan Sommer, Brett G. Dickson

International Journal of Speleology

Ever-increasing human pressures on cave biodiversity have amplified the need for systematic, repeatable, and intensive surveys of cave-dwelling arthropods to formulate evidence-based management decisions. We examined 110 papers (from 1967 to 2018) to: (i) understand how cave-dwelling invertebrates have been sampled; (ii) provide a summary of techniques most commonly applied and appropriateness of these techniques, and; (iii) make recommendations for sampling design improvement. Of the studies reviewed, over half (56) were biological inventories, 43 ecologically focused, seven were techniques papers, and four were conservation studies. Nearly one-half (48) of the papers applied systematic techniques. Few papers (24) provided enough information …


Seascapes As A New Vernacular For Pelagic Ocean Monitoring, Management And Conservation, Maria T. Kavanaugh, Matthew J. Oliver, Francisco P. Chavez, Ricardo M. Letelier, Frank E. Muller-Karger, Scott C. Doney Jul 2016

Seascapes As A New Vernacular For Pelagic Ocean Monitoring, Management And Conservation, Maria T. Kavanaugh, Matthew J. Oliver, Francisco P. Chavez, Ricardo M. Letelier, Frank E. Muller-Karger, Scott C. Doney

Marine Science Faculty Publications

For terrestrial and marine benthic ecologists, landscape ecology provides a framework to address issues of complexity, patchiness, and scale—providing theory and context for ecosystem based management in a changing climate. Marine pelagic ecosystems are likewise changing in response to warming, changing chemistry, and resource exploitation. However, unlike spatial landscapes that migrate slowly with time, pelagic seascapes are embedded in a turbulent, advective ocean. Adaptations from landscape ecology to marine pelagic ecosystem management must consider the nature and scale of biophysical interactions associated with organisms ranging from microbes to whales, a hierarchical organization shaped by physical processes, and our limited capacity …


Genetic Analyses Determine Connectivity Among Cave And Surface Populations Of The Jamaican Endemic Freshwater Crab Sesarma Fossarum In The Cockpit Country, Manuel Stemmer, Christoph D. Schubart Nov 2015

Genetic Analyses Determine Connectivity Among Cave And Surface Populations Of The Jamaican Endemic Freshwater Crab Sesarma Fossarum In The Cockpit Country, Manuel Stemmer, Christoph D. Schubart

International Journal of Speleology

The Jamaican freshwater crab Sesarma fossarum (Decapoda: Brachyura: Sesarmidae) is endemic to western central Jamaica where it occurs in cave and surface streams of karst regions. In the present study, we examine the population genetic structure of the species, providing evidence for intraspecific differentiation and genetic substructure among twelve sampled populations. Interestingly, crabs from caves appear genetically undistinguishable from representatives of nearby surface waters, despite previously observed and described morphometric differentiation. In contrast, genetic isolation takes place among populations from rivers and caves belonging to different watersheds. In one case, even populations from different tributaries of the same river were …


North American River Otter (Lontra Canadensis) Presence And Habitat Analysis In Florida As Compared To Historical Data, Samantha Wilber Nov 2015

North American River Otter (Lontra Canadensis) Presence And Habitat Analysis In Florida As Compared To Historical Data, Samantha Wilber

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

North American river otters are considered common in the state of Florida, but their populations have not been studied since the 1980’s. Since that time, Florida’s human population has more than doubled, and many natural areas of Florida have been developed. The aim of this study was to determine the presence or absence of river otters at locations in Florida which they historically inhabited. Forty-six sample sites where otters were historically found were obtained from the Florida Museum of Natural History Mammals Master Database (FMNH MMD). These sites were condensed to two focus areas, in and around Alachua and Collier …


Management In A Neotropical Show Cave: Planning For Invertebrates Conservation, Thais Giovannini Pellegrini, Rodrigo Lopes Ferreira Jan 2012

Management In A Neotropical Show Cave: Planning For Invertebrates Conservation, Thais Giovannini Pellegrini, Rodrigo Lopes Ferreira

International Journal of Speleology

Lapa Nova is a dolomitic cave about 4.5 km long located in northwestern Minas Gerais state, Brazil. The cave experiences intense tourism, concentrated over a single period of the year, during the Feast of Our Lady of Lapa. In order to evaluate the impacts felt by the invertebrate community from this tourism, a new methodology was proposed. Four types of areas (intense visitation area, outlying visitation areas, moderate visitation areas and no-visitation areas) were sampled for invertebrates. There was one sampling prior and another on the last day of the 128th feast, to evaluate the effects of visitation on …