Life Sciences Commons^™

Seed‐To‐Seedling Transitions Exhibit Distance‐Dependent Mortality But No Strong Spacing Effects In A Neotropical Forest, Philippe Marchand, Liza S. Comita, S. Joseph Wright, Richard Condit, Stephen P. Hubbell, Noelle G. Beckman

Biology Faculty Publications

Patterns of seed dispersal and seed mortality influence the spatial structure of plant communities and the local coexistence of competing species. Most seeds are dispersed in proximity to the parent tree, where mortality is also expected to be the highest, because of competition with siblings or the attraction of natural enemies. Whereas distance‐dependent mortality in the seed‐to‐seedling transition was often observed in tropical forests, few studies have attempted to estimate the shape of the survival‐distance curves, which determines whether the peak of seedling establishment occurs away from the parent tree (Janzen–Connell pattern) or if the peak attenuates but remains at …

Variations In Tetrodotoxin Levels In Populations Of Taricha Granulosa Are Expressed In The Morphology Of Their Cutaneous Glands, Pedro Luiz Mailho-Fontana, Carlos Jared, Marta Maria Antoniazzi, Juliana Mozer Sciani, Daniel Carvalho Pimenta, James P. Strange, Taran Grant, Edmund D. Brodie Jr., Edmund D. Brodie Jr.

Biology Faculty Publications

Tetrodotoxin (TTX), one of the most toxic substances in nature, is present in bacteria, invertebrates, fishes, and amphibians. Marine organisms seem to bioaccumulate TTX from their food or acquire it from symbiotic bacteria, but its origin in amphibians is unclear. Taricha granulosa can exhibit high TTX levels, presumably concentrated in skin poison glands, acting as an agent of selection upon predatory garter snakes (Thamnophis). This co-evolutionary arms race induces variation in T. granulosa TTX levels, from very high to undetectable. Using morphology and biochemistry, we investigated differences in toxin localization and quality between two populations at the extremes …

Collaborative Proposal: Msa: Predicting The Effects Of Nitrogen Deposition On The Soil Carbon Sink With A Continental-Scale Experiment, Bonnie G. Waring, John M. Stark

Funded Research Records

No abstract provided.

Global Imprint Of Mycorrhizal Fungi On Whole-Plant Nutrient Economics, Colin Averill, Jennifer M. Bhatnagar, Michael C. Dietze, William D. Pearse, Stephanie N. Kivlin

Biology Faculty Publications

Mycorrhizal fungi are critical members of the plant microbiome, forming a symbiosis with the roots of most plants on Earth. Most plant species partner with either arbuscular or ectomycorrhizal fungi, and these symbioses are thought to represent plant adaptations to fast and slow soil nutrient cycling rates. This generates a second hypothesis, that arbuscular and ectomycorrhizal plant species traits complement and reinforce these fungal strategies, resulting in nutrient acquisitive vs. conservative plant trait profiles. Here we analyzed 17,764 species level trait observations from 2,940 woody plant species to show that mycorrhizal plants differ systematically in nitrogen and phosphorus economic traits. …

Larger Genomes Linked To Slower Development And Loss Of Late-Developing Traits, Molly C. Womack, Marissa J. Metz, Kim L. Hoke

Biology Faculty Publications

Genome size varies widely among organisms and is known to affect vertebrate development, morphology, and physiology. In amphibians, genome size is hypothesized to contribute to loss of late-forming structures, although this hypothesis has mainly been discussed in salamanders. Here we estimated genome size for 22 anuran species and combined this novel dataset with existing genome size data for an additional 234 anuran species to determine whether larger genome size is associated with loss of a late-forming anuran sensory structure, the tympanic middle ear. We established that genome size is negatively correlated with development rate across 90 anuran species and found …

Piezoelastic Pvdf/Tpu Nanofibrous Composite Membrane: Fabrication And Characterization, Eman Elnabawy, Ahmed H. Hassanin, Nader Shehata, Anton Popelka, Remya Nair, Saifallah Yousef, Ishac Kandas

Biology Faculty Publications

Poly (vinylidene fluoride) nanofibers (PVDF NFs) have been extensively used in energy harvesting applications due to their promising piezoresponse characteristics. However, the mechanical properties of the generated fibers are still lacking. Therefore, we are presenting in this work a promising improvement in the elasticity properties of PVDF nanofibrous membrane through thermoplastic polyurethane (TPU) additives. Morphological, physical, and mechanical analyses were performed for membranes developed from different blend ratios. Then, the impact of added weight ratio of TPU on the piezoelectric response of the formed nanofibrous composite membranes was studied. The piezoelectric characteristics were studied through impulse loading testing where the …

Developmental And Molecular Changes Underlying The Vernalization-Induced Transition To Flowering In Aquilegia Coerulea (James), Bharti Sharma, Timothy A. Batz, Rakesh Kaundal, Elena M. Kramer, Uriah R. Sanders, Valerie J. Mellano, Naveen Duhan, Rousselene B. Larson

Center for Integrated Biosystems Publications

Reproductive success in plants is dependent on many factors but the precise timing of flowering is certainly among the most crucial. Perennial plants often have a vernalization or over-wintering requirement in order to successfully flower in the spring. The shoot apical meristem undergoes drastic developmental and molecular changes as it transitions into inflorescence meristem (IM) identity, which then gives rise to floral meristems (FMs). In this study, we have examined the developmental and gene expression changes underlying the transition from the vegetative to reproductive phases in the basal eudicot Aquilegia coerulea, which has evolved a vernalization response independently relative …

Demographic Assessment Of The Triploid Parthenogenetic Lizard Aspidoscelis Neotesselatus At The Northern Edge Of Its Range, Lise M. Aubry, Douglas Eifler, Kaera Utsumi, Susannah S. French

Biology Faculty Publications

Aspidoscelis neotesselatus (Colorado Checkered Whiptail) is a hybrid-derived triploid parthenogenetic lizard with a natural range overlapping with six counties in southeastern Colorado, USA. It has also become established by anthropogenic causation in Grant County, Washington State, approximately 1,600 km northwest of its range in Colorado. Large parts of its natural range are within military reservations. Reduced genetic variation in all-female species makes them especially susceptible to environmental disturbances, such as military activities. At Fort Carson (FC), we estimated an abundance index via a catch-per-unit estimator, weekly survival using Cormack-Jolly-Seber models, and body condition and clutch size as indicators of population …

Phylogeny Of The Subfamilies Of Ichneumonidae (Hymenoptera), Andrew M.R. Bennett, Sophie Cardinal, Ian D. Gauld, David B. Wahl

Biology Faculty Publications

A combined morphological and molecular phylogenetic analysis was performed to evaluate the subfamily relationships of the parasitoid wasp family Ichneumonidae (Hymenoptera). Data were obtained by coding 135 morphological and 6 biological characters for 131 exemplar species of ichneumonids and 3 species of Braconidae (the latter as outgroups). The species of ichneumonids represent all of the 42 currently recognized subfamilies. In addition, molecular sequence data (cytochrome oxidase I “DNA barcoding” region, the D2 region of 28S rDNA and part of the F2 copy of elongation factor 1-alpha) were obtained from specimens of the same species that were coded for morphology (1309 …

Extracellular Vesicles At The Fetal-Maternal Interface In Cattle, Heloisa M. Rutigliano

Funded Research Records

No abstract provided.

Loss Of Developmental Diapause As Prerequisite For Social Evolution In Bees, Priscila Karla Ferreira Santos, Maria Cristina Arias, Karen M. Kapheim

Biology Faculty Publications

Diapause is a physiological arrest of development ahead of adverse environmental conditions and is a critical phase of the life cycle of many insects. In bees, diapause has been reported in species from all seven taxonomic families. However, they exhibit a variety of diapause strategies. These different strategies are of particular interest since shifts in the phase of the insect life cycle in which diapause occurs have been hypothesized to promote the evolution of sociality. Here we provide a comprehensive evaluation of this hypothesis with phylogenetic analysis and ancestral state reconstruction (ASR) of the ecological and evolutionary factors associated with …

Leveraging Synthetic Root-Soil Systems To Quantify Relationships Between Plant Traits And The Formation Of Soil Organic Carbon, Bonnie G. Waring

Funded Research Records

No abstract provided.

Do Genetic Differences Explain The Ability Of An Alkaline Shrub To Grow In Both Uplands And Wetlands?, Carol A. Rowe, Paul G. Wolf, Robert W. Lichvar

Biology Faculty Publications

The hydrophyte Allenrolfea occidentalis (S. Watson) Kuntze (iodinebush) is a halophytic shrub of the arid southwest that is listed as a facultative wetland species on the National Wetland Plant List. This rating means that the species is usually a hydrophyte but occasionally is found in uplands. We tested for genetic (ecotypic) differences between plants sampled from wetlands versus uplands. We used the technique of genotyping by sequencing to generate data from 132 plants from 30 locations representing both wetland and upland occurrences for over 1300 loci. Analyses indicated that the strongest genetic signal is from differences in geographic distribution: samples …

Contributions Of Fire Refugia To Resilient Ponderosa Pine And Dry Mixed‐Conifer Forest Landscapes, Jonathan D. Coop, Timothy J. Delory, William M. Downing, Sandra L. Haire, Meg A. Krawchuk, Carol Miller, Marc-André Parisien, Ryan B. Walker

Biology Faculty Publications

Altered fire regimes can drive major and enduring compositional shifts or losses of forest ecosystems. In western North America, ponderosa pine and dry mixed‐conifer forest types appear increasingly vulnerable to uncharacteristically extensive, high‐severity wildfire. However, unburned or only lightly impacted forest stands that persist within burn mosaics—termed fire refugia—may serve as tree seed sources and promote landscape recovery. We sampled tree regeneration along gradients of fire refugia proximity and density at 686 sites within the perimeters of 12 large wildfires that occurred between 2000 and 2005 in the interior western United States. We used generalized linear mixed‐effects models to elucidate …

Integrating Arthropod And Weed Management In A Water-Stressed Agro-Ecosystem, Ricardo Ramirez

Funded Research Records

No abstract provided.

Antifungal Activities Of 4”,6”-Disubstituted Amphiphilic Kanamycins, Madher N. Alfindee, Yagya Prasad Subedi, Michelle M. Grilley, Jon Y. Takemoto, Cheng-Wei Tom Chang

Biology Faculty Publications

Amphiphilic kanamycins derived from the classic antibiotic kanamycin have attracted interest due to their novel bioactivities beyond inhibition of bacteria. In this study, the recently described 4″,6″-diaryl amphiphilic kanamycins reported as inhibitors of connexin were examined for their antifungal activities. Nearly all 4″,6″-diaryl amphiphilic kanamycins tested had antifungal activities comparable to those of 4″,6″-dialkyl amphiphilic kanamycins, reported previously against several fungal strains. The minimal growth inhibitory concentrations (MICs) correlated with the degree of amphiphilicity (cLogD) of the di-substituted amphiphilic kanamycins. Using the fluorogenic dyes, SYTOX^TM Green and propidium iodide, the most active compounds at the corresponding MICs or at …

Notes On Rhopalosomatid Wasps Of Dominican And Mexican Amber (Hymenoptera: Rhopalosomatidae) With A Description Of The First Fossil Species Of Rhopalosoma Cresson, 1865, Volker Lohrmann, Michael Ohl, Peter Michalik, James P. Pitts, Laurent Jeanneau, Vincent Perrichot

Biology Faculty Publications

Rhopalosomatidae are a family of aculeate wasps that are ectoparasitoids of crickets as larvae and are predominantly distributed pantropically. The published fossil record of the family is scarce. Here, we report three new fossil rhopalosomatid wasp specimens from Dominican and Mexican amber. Rhopalosoma hispaniola Lohrmann sp. nov. is described and documented from Dominican amber by two separate inclusions – one of each sex. An additional fossil female Rhopalosoma is described and documented from Mexican amber but is not named due to the insufficient preservation of the fossil. The new fossils, which are morphologically intermediate between Townes' isopus and poeyi species …

What Does The Snake Eat? Breadth, Overlap, And Non-Native Prey In The Diet Of Three Sympatric Natricine Snakes, Emily E. Virgin, Richard B. King

Biology Faculty Publications

We investigated diet breadth and diet overlap in three sympatric snakes of similar body size: Dekay’s Brownsnakes (Storeria dekayi), Red-bellied Snakes (S. occipitomaculata), and sub-adult Common Gartersnakes (Thamnophis sirtalis), by examining recently consumed prey (n = 388) collected from wild-caught snakes (n = 263) in northern Illinois. Storeria occipitomaculata were dietary specialists, feeding nearly exclusively on slugs. Storeria dekayi fed predominately on slugs but also consumed snails and earthworms. Sub-adult T. sirtalis fed predominately on earthworms but also consumed frogs and small mammals. Diet overlap was extensive between Storeria species but relatively low between …

Life‐History Differences Across Latitude In Common Side‐Blotched Lizards (Uta Stansburiana), Geoffrey D. Smith, Peter A. Zani, Susannah S. French

Biology Faculty Publications

1. Life‐history strategies are known to shift with latitude in many species. While life‐history variation related to body size, reproductive investment, and behavior has been studied for years, another crucial life‐history component is the immune system, which can influence an animal's survival.
2. We measured selected life‐history traits in side‐blotched lizards in southern Utah and Oregon in the field for two consecutive years and conducted a common‐garden experiment in the laboratory to determine how organisms from different latitudes optimize either immunity or reproduction. We observed lizards from southern populations, which are known to be shorter‐lived, had lower immune function during reproduction when …

Wild Bee Diversity Increases With Local Fire Severity In A Fire‐Prone Landscape, Sara M. Galbraith, James H. Cane, Andrew R. Moldenke, James W. Rivers

All PIRU Publications

As wildfire activity increases in many regions of the world, it is imperative that we understand how key components of fire‐prone ecosystems respond to spatial variation in fire characteristics. Pollinators provide a foundation for ecological communities by assisting in the reproduction of native plants, yet our understanding of how pollinators such as wild bees respond to variation in fire severity is limited, particularly for forest ecosystems. Here, we took advantage of a natural experiment created by a large‐scale, mixed‐severity wildfire to provide the first assessment of how wild bee communities are shaped by fire severity in mixed‐conifer forest. We sampled …

The Effect Of Phylogenetic Uncertainty And Imputation On Edge Scores, K. Bodie Weedop, Arne Ø. Mooers, Caroline M. Tucker, William D. Pearse

Biology Faculty Publications

Faced with the challenge of saving as much diversity as possible given financial and time constraints, conservation biologists are increasingly prioritizing species on the basis of their overall contribution to evolutionary diversity. Metrics such as EDGE (Evolutionary Distinct and Globally Endangered) have been used to set such evolutionarily based conservation priorities for a number of taxa, such as mammals, birds, corals, amphibians, and sharks. Each application of EDGE has required some form of correction to account for species whose positions within the tree of life are unknown. Perhaps the most advanced of these corrections is phylogenetic imputation, but to date …

Consequences Of Intraspecific Variation In Seed Dispersal For Plant Demography, Communities, Evolution And Global Change, Rebecca S. Snell, Noelle G. Beckman, Evan Fricke, Bette A. Loiselle, Carolina S. Carvalho, Landon R. Jones, Nathanael I. Lichti, Nicky Lustenhouwer, Sebastian J. Schreiber, Christopher Strickland, Lauren L. Sullivan, Brittany R. Cavazos, Itamar Giladi, Alan Hastings, Kimberly M. Holbrook, Eelke Jongejans, Oleg Kogan, Flavia Montaño-Centellas, Javiera Rudolph, Haldre S. Rogers, Rafal Zwolak, Eugene W. Schupp

Biology Faculty Publications

As the single opportunity for plants to move, seed dispersal has an important impact on plant fitness, species distributions and patterns of biodiversity. However, models that predict dynamics such as risk of extinction, range shifts and biodiversity loss tend to rely on the mean value of parameters and rarely incorporate realistic dispersal mechanisms. By focusing on the mean population value, variation among individuals or variability caused by complex spatial and temporal dynamics is ignored. This calls for increased efforts to understand individual variation in dispersal and integrate it more explicitly into population and community models involving dispersal. However, the sources, …

Genbank 16s Rdna Sequences For Ca. Annandia Pinicola, Ca. Gillettellia Cooleyia, Ca. Hartigia Pinicola, Ca. Profftia Spp., Ca. Pseudomonas Adelgestsugas From Taiwan, And Ca. Vallotia Spp., Carol Von Dohlen, Usha Spaulding, Kistie B. Patch, Kathryn Weglarz, Robert G. Foottit, Nathan P. Havill, Gaelen R. Burke

Browse all Datasets

The attached .csv file contains accession number, definition, and GenBank URL for 28 rDNA sequences: MF077637–MF077640 and MF098761 (‘Ca. Annandia pinicola’), MF077633–MF077636 (‘Ca. Gillettellia cooleyia’), MF077641–MF077645 (‘Ca. Hartigia pinicola’), MF108835-MF108838 (‘Ca. Profftia spp.’), MF098762 (‘Ca. Pseudomonas adelgestsugas from Taiwan), MF063340- MF063348 (‘Ca. Vallotia spp.’).

Comparison Of Nest Defense Behaviors Of Goshawks (Accipiter Gentilis) From Finland And Montana, Marilyn Wright, Risto Tornberg, Dustin H. Ranglack, Nate Bickford

Biology Student Research

As human impacts on wildlife have become a topic of increasing interest, studies have focused on issues such as overexploitation and habitat loss. However, little research has examined potential anthropogenic impacts on animal behavior. Understanding the degree to which human interaction may alter natural animal behavior has become increasingly important in developing effective conservation strategies. We examined two populations of northern goshawks (Accipiter gentilis) in Montana and Finland. Goshawks in Finland were not protected until the late 1980s, and prior to this protection were routinely shot, as it was believed that shooting goshawks would keep grouse populations high. In the …

Breeding Record Of The Hooded Vulture Necrosyrtes Monachus (Timminek, 1823) At Emi Abumo Woro, Kogi State, Nigeria, K. L. Adang, D. Tanko, K. L. Saliu, Umarfarooq Abdulwahab

Watershed Sciences Student Research

The hooded vulture Necrosyrtes monachus is a critically endangered species and recently published evidence suggests that its population is experiencing an extremely rapid decline, owing to indiscriminate poisoning, trade for traditional medicine, hunting, persecution, electrocution, habitat loss and degradation. As a result of these threats, the species is gradually disappearing from its range and thus, the sighting of vultures or their nests is becoming very rare. This paper thus, presents a report on the sighting of the Hooded Vulture and its nest at Emi Abumo Woro Village, Kogi State, Nigeria. This is an evident and equally an indication that Emi …

Susceptibility Of Wild-Caught Lutzomyia Longipalpis (Diptera: Psychodidae) Sand Flies To Insecticide After An Extended Period Of Exposure In Western São Paulo, Brazil, Mikel A. González, Melissa J. Bell, Scott A. Bernhardt, Reginaldo P. Brazil, Erin Dilger, Orin Courtenay, James G. C. Hamilton

Biology Faculty Publications

Background

In Brazil, members of the sand fly species complex Lutzomyia longipalpis transmit Leishmania infantum, a protist parasite that causes visceral leishmaniasis. Male Lu. longipalpis produce a sex pheromone that is attractive to both females and males. During a cluster randomised trial, to determine the combined effect of synthetic sex-aggregation pheromone and insecticide on Le. infantum transmission Lu. longipalpis had been continuously exposed to insecticide for 30 months. The objective of this study was to determine the effect of continuous exposure to the insecticides used in the trial on the susceptibility of Lu. longipalpis population.

Methods

During the trial …

Lack Of Antinociceptive Cross-Tolerance With Co-Administration Of Morphine And Fentanyl Into The Periaqueductal Gray Of Male Sprague-Dawley Rats, Erin N. Bobeck, Shauna M. Schoo, Susan L. Ingram, Michael M. Morgan

Biology Faculty Publications

Tolerance to the antinociceptive effect of mu-opioid receptor (MOPr) agonists, such as morphine and fentanyl, greatly limits their effectiveness for long-term use to treat pain. Clinical studies have shown that combination therapy and opioid rotation can be used to enhance opioid-induced antinociception once tolerance has developed. The mechanism and brain regions involved in these processes are unknown. The purpose of this study was to evaluate the contribution of the ventrolateral periaqueductal gray (vlPAG) to antinociceptive tolerance and cross-tolerance between administration and co- administration of morphine and fentanyl. Tolerance was induced by pretreating rats with morphine or fentanyl or low-dose combination …

Survey Of Bird/Window Collisions At Utah State University-Brigham City, Spencer Smith

Research on Capitol Hill

When birds fly at full speed into the highly reflective glass windows of human structures, death is often the outcome. This research investigates the impact of architecture on bird population through a specific case study. Bird/window collisions claim from around 350 million to over 1 billion birds per year (Kahle, Flannery, & Dumbacher, 2016). Studies have shown that window surface area (Borden, Lockhart, Jones, & Lyons, 2011) can increase incidents of bird-window collisions. In 2015, Utah State University –Brigham City campus finished their new Classroom and Student Services building which features large windows and an interior tree that can be …

Silkworms With Spider Silklike Fibers Using Synthetic Silkworm Chow Containing Calcium Lignosulfonate, Carbon Nanotubes, And Graphene, Xiaoli Zhang, Ana Laura Licon, Thomas I. Harris, Paula F. Oliveira, Bailey J. Mcfarland, Blake E. Taurone, Brittney J. Walsh, Brianne E. Bell, Caleb T. Walker, Randolph V. Lewis, Justin A. Jones

Biology Faculty Publications

Silkworm silk has become increasingly relevant for material applications. However, the industry as a whole is retracting because of problems with mass production. One of the key problems is the inconsistent properties of the silk. A means by which to improve the silk material properties is through enhanced sericulture techniques. One possible technique is altering the feed of the silkworms to include single-wall carbon nanotubes (SWNTs) or graphene (GR). Recently published results have demonstrated substantial improvement in fiber mechanical properties. However, the effect of the surfactant used to incorporate those materials into the feed on the fiber mechanical properties in …

Draft Genome Assembly And Population Genetics Of An Agricultural Pollinator, The Solitary Alkali Bee (Halictidae: Nomia Melanderi), Karen M. Kapheim, Hailin Pan, Cai Li, Charles Blatti Ill, Brock A. Harpur, Panagiotis Ioannidis, Beryl M. Jones, Clement F. Kent, Livio Ruzzante, Laura Sloofman, Eckart Stolle, Robert M. Waterhouse, Amro Zayed, Guojie Zhang, William T. Wcislo

Biology Faculty Publications

Alkali bees (Nomia melanderi) are solitary relatives of the halictine bees, which have become an important model for the evolution of social behavior, but for which few solitary comparisons exist. These ground-nesting bees defend their developing offspring against pathogens and predators, and thus exhibit some of the key traits that preceded insect sociality. Alkali bees are also efficient native pollinators of alfalfa seed, which is a crop of major economic value in the United States. We sequenced, assembled, and annotated a high-quality draft genome of 299.6 Mbp for this species. Repetitive content makes up more than one-third of …