Life Sciences Commons^™

Body Shape Divergence In Invasive Round Goby, Cat Collins

DePaul Discoveries

The round goby, Neogobius melanostomus, originally native to the Black and Caspian seas, was introduced into the Great Lakes via ballast water in the 1990’s. Since then, the species has spread to all of the Great Lakes, thriving in the Lake Michigan region and spreading to surrounding bays and rivers. Invasive species are considered to have a high evolutionary potential. Differences in environmental conditions between native and introduced ranges stimulate adaptive evolution. Multiple introductions of an exotic species can result in separate instances of founder effects, further increasing the chance of evolutionary change. A total of 267 round goby specimens …

Arthropod Communities And Red-Headed Woodpecker (Melanerpes Erythrocephalus) Habitat Selection, Michael C. Lordon

DePaul Discoveries

Red-headed woodpecker populations are near-threatened. Their habitat selection and reproductive success may be related to the availability of arthropods. We sampled the arthropod community within 0.04 ha plots surrounding known nests and compared these findings to plots without nests in the same fragments of forest or park in Cook County, IL. After 14 days, the traps were recovered, yielding close to 45,000 arthropods across 10 orders. Nest and control site differences were not statistically significant. Differences between park and forest diversity were not statistically significant either, but the greater diversity values in forests were consistent with expectations. We conclude that …

Investigating The Viability Of Two Stenotrophomonas Maltophilia Isolates After Air-Drying, Samantha Lane, Joanna Brooke

DePaul Discoveries

Abstract

Stenotrophomonas maltophilia is a water-borne infectious bacterium that is found in both clinical (hospitals) and non-clinical environments. This human pathogen is commonly recovered from respiratory tract infections. A recent study at a hospital in Taiwan suggested that dry patient charts can serve as a vehicle of transmission of this bacterium⁷. As S. maltophilia is not commonly isolated from dry surfaces, this current study tested the hypothesis that this pathogen can remain viable for some time on a dry surface. This study was designed to determine how long S. maltophilia could remain viable after air-drying by observing …

Vitamin A Deficiency Causes Ovulation Abnormalities In Mice, Rebecca Ursin

DePaul Discoveries

Retinoic acid (RA) is an active metabolite of vitamin A (VA) and is involved in tissue organization, patterning, and growth. RA has been shown to regulate male reproduction, however information on its role in ovary development is limited. To investigate the functions of RA in the ovary, we examined its role in ovary development and ovulation using an in vivo dietary VA-deprivation animal model. Our preliminary results have shown that VA deficiency causes a variety of ovarian pathologies, including reduced numbers of total follicles and corpus lutea, formation of hemorrhagic and atretic follicles, and formation of bursa and follicular cysts. …