Life Sciences Commons^™

Hydropower To The People: Implications Of A Comparative Macroinvertebrate Study On Either Side Of The Central Hidroeléctrica Topo In Tungurahua, Ecuador, Grace Mazur

Independent Study Project (ISP) Collection

This study uses macroinvertebrates as bioindicators to assess the water quality upstream and downstream of a hydroelectric project in Ecuador’s eastern cloud forest. Ecuador has increasingly turned to hydropower to supply its energy needs as pressure mounts to turn away from fossil fuels. This transition has been realized on the Río Topo, located in the province of Tungurahua. This study aims to determine how the Central Hidroeléctrica Topo (CHT), a diversion hydroelectric project (HEP) constructed on the Río Topo in the 2010s, has affected the water quality of the river. Samples were taken of benthic (bottom-dwelling) macroinvertebrates in the Río …

Can Financialization Save Nature? The Case Of Endangered Species, Diane-Laure Arjalies, Delphine Gibassier

Business Publications

The current biodiversity loss is dramatic. Over the past 50 years, more than 68% of the mammals, birds, amphibians, reptiles, and fish on earth have disappeared, putting the planet's survival and its inhabitants – including human beings – at risk (WWF, 2020). Financialization, or the transformation of nature into financial assets, is increasingly proposed as a solution to the biodiversity crisis. Proponents of financialization believe that assigning a monetary value to nature will incentivize human beings to protect habitats and their species. This article offers a four-mechanism model of nature’s financialization, explaining why it is virtually impossible to financialize nature. …

First Description Of Deep Benthic Habitats And Communities Of Oceanic Islands And Seamounts Of The Nazca Desventuradas Marine Park, Chile, Jan M. Tapia-Guerra, Ariadna Mecho, Erin E. Easton, María De Los Ángeles Gallardo, Matthias Gorny, Javier Sellanes

School of Earth, Environmental, and Marine Sciences Faculty Publications and Presentations

Seamounts and oceanic islands of the Chilean Exclusive Economic Zone at the intersection of the Nazca and Salas y Gómez ridges lie within one of the least explored areas in the world. The sparse information available, mainly for seamounts outside Chilean jurisdiction and shallow-water fauna of the Desventuradas Islands, suggests that the area is a hotspot of endemism. This apparent uniqueness of the fauna motivated the creation of the large Nazca-Desventuradas Marine Park (NDMP, ~ 300,000 km2) around the small islands San Felix and San Ambrosio in 2015. We report for the first time a detailed description of benthic microhabitats …

Dung Beetle (Scarabaeinae) Diversity Of The Highest Elevation In West Africa: The Nimba Mountain Range, Jacob Bowen

Mahurin Honors College Capstone Experience/Thesis Projects

The Nimba Mountain Range in Guinea, Ivory Coast, and Liberia is within the Upper Guinean Forests, a critical biodiversity hotspot highly threatened by various human activities. The region is home to many endemic species including the viviparous Nimba toad, Nimba otter-shrew, and the discrete Bossou chimpanzee population. Dung beetles can act as a focal taxon from which extrapolation to the diversity of other taxa and ecosystem health can be made. Elevational trends in dung beetle diversity were investigated on the Nimba Mountain Range and in the nearby Bossou Chimpanzee reserve in Guinea. Dung beetle species diversity surveys aimed to document …

Invasive Rat Establishment And Changes In Small Mammal Populations On Caribbean Islands Following Two Hurricanes, Aaron B. Shiels, Claudia D. Lombard, Laura Shiels, Zandy Hillis-Starr

USDA Wildlife Services: Staff Publications

Invasive mammals, particularly black rats (Rattus rattus), house mice (Mus musculus), and mongoose (Herpestes auropunctatus) are established on many tropical islands and threaten natural resources such as native birds, sea turtles, lizards, invertebrates, and plants. St. Croix (U.S. Virgin Islands, Caribbean) has a diversity of natural resources being protected from invasive mammals by U.S. conservation agencies. Sandy Point National Wildlife Refuge and Buck Island Reef National Monument receive among the highest density of nesting sea turtles in the region, including annual nesting populations of 50e250 leatherbacks (Dermochelys coriacea), 25e80 hawksbills (Eretmochelys imbricata), and 100e250 green turtles (Chelonia mydas). Buck Island …

Impact Of The Human Footprint On Anthropogenic Mortality Of North American Reptiles, Jacob E. Hill, Travis L. Devault, Jerrold L. Belant

USDA Wildlife Services: Staff Publications

Human activities frequently result in reptile mortality, but how direct anthropogenic mortality compares to natural morality has not been thoroughly investigated. There has also been a limited examination of how anthropogenic reptile mortality changes as a function of the human footprint. We conducted a synthesis of causespecific North American reptile mortality studies based on telemetry, documenting 550 mortalities of known cause among 2461 monitored individuals in 57 studies. Overall 78% of mortality was the result of direct natural causes, whereas 22% was directly caused by humans. The single largest source of mortality was predation, accounting for 62% of mortality overall. …

The Neotropical Variegated Squirrel, Sciurus Variegatoides (Rodentia: Sciuridae) In Nicaragua, With The Description Of A New Subspecies, Hugh H. Genoways, Robert M. Timm

University of Nebraska State Museum: Mammalogy Papers

The Neotropical variegated squirrel, Sciurus variegatoides, is represented in Nicaragua by five known subspecies—adolphei, belti, boothiae, dorsalis, and underwoodi. Analyses of morphometrics, color, and color patterns of 394 specimens from throughout the country and all available literature support the retention of these subspecies, but also reveal the presence of a sixth population of these squirrels, which is worthy of description and recognition as a new subspecies. This new subspecies is confined to Isla de Ometepe in Lago de Nicaragua. Variegated squirrels on Ometepe are on average the smallest variegated squirrels in the country …

Effectiveness Of Snap And A24-Automated Traps And Broadcast Anticoagulant Bait In Suppressing Commensal Rodents In Hawaii, Aaron B. Shiels, Tyler Bogardus, Jobriath Rohrer, Kapua Kawelo

USDA Wildlife Services: Staff Publications

Commensal rodents (invasive rats, Rattus spp.; house mice, Mus musculus) are well established globally. They threaten human health by disease transfer and impact economies by causing agricultural damage. On island landscapes, they are frequent predators of native species and affect biodiversity. To provide managers with better information regarding methods to suppress commensal rodent populations in remote island forests, in 2016 we evaluated the effectiveness of continuous rat trapping using snap-traps, Goodnature® A24 self-resetting rat traps, and a 1-time (2-application) hand-broadcast of anticoagulant rodenticide bait pellets (Diphacinone-50) applied at 13.8 kg/ha per application in a 5-ha forest on Oahu, Hawaii, USA. …

Hiding In The Lianas Of The Tree Of Life: Molecular Phylogenetics And Species Delimitation Reveal Considerable Cryptic Diversity Of New World Vine Snakes, Robert C. Jadin, Christopher Blair, Michael J. Jowers, Anthony Carmona, John C. Murphy

Publications and Research

The Brown Vine Snake, Oxybelis aeneus, is considered a single species despite the fact its distribution covers an estimated 10% of the Earth’s land surface, inhabiting a variety of ecosystems throughout North, Central, and South America and is distributed across numerous biogeographic barriers. Here we assemble a multilocus molecular dataset (i.e. cyt b, ND4, cmos, PRLR) derived from Middle American populations to examine for the first time the evolutionary history of Oxybelis and test for evidence of cryptic lineages using Bayesian and maximum likelihood criteria. Our divergence time estimates suggest that Oxybelis diverged from its sister genus, Leptophis …

Cause‐Specific Mortality Of The World’S Terrestrial Vertebrates, Jacob E. Hill, Travis L. Devault, Jerrold L. Belant

USDA Wildlife Services: Staff Publications

Aim: Vertebrates are declining worldwide, yet a comprehensive examination of the sources of mortality is lacking. We conducted a global synthesis of terrestrial vertebrate cause‐specific mortality to compare the sources of mortality across taxa and determine predictors of susceptibility to these sources of mortality.

Location: Worldwide.

Time period: 1970–2018.

Major taxa studied: Mammals, birds, reptiles and amphibians.

Methods: We searched for studies that used telemetry to determine the cause of death of terrestrial vertebrates. We determined whether each mortality was caused by anthropogenic or natural sources and further classified mortalities within these two categories (e.g. harvest, vehicle collision and predation). …

Science At Engineer Cantonment, Hugh H. Genoways, Brett C. Ratcliffe, Carl R. Falk, Thomas E. Labedz, Paul R. Picha, John R. Bozell

University of Nebraska State Museum: Mammalogy Papers

Conclusions

It is our contention that Thomas Say, Titian Peale, Edwin James, and their colleagues of the Stephen Long Expedition of 1819–1820 were heavily engaged in scientific research, which took the form of the first biodiversity inventory undertaken in the United States. This accomplishment has been overlooked both by biologists and historians, but it should rank among the most significant accomplishments of the expedition. The results of this inventory continue to inform us today about environmental, faunal, and floral changes along the Missouri River in an area that is known to be an ecotone between the deciduous forests of the …

An Engineer Cantonment Bestiary: The Art Of Titian Ramsay Peale, Hugh H. Genoways, Thomas E. Labedz

University of Nebraska State Museum: Mammalogy Papers

Includes an overview of the work of American nature artist Titian Ramsay Peale as part of the Stephen H. Long Expedition, 1819-1820, at Engineer Cantonment in eastern Nebraska, USA.

Includes textual descriptions and/or reproductions of watercolors and lined drawings by Peale of banded killifish (Fundulus diaphanous), American White Pelican (Pelecanus erythrothynchos), Wood Duck (Aix sponsa), Rough-legged Hawk (Buteo lagopus/Falco lagopus), Sandhill Crane (Grus canadensis tabida), Pectoral Sandpiper (Calidris melanotos), Scarlet Tanager (Piranga olivacea), American Tree Sparrow (Spizella arborea), Yellow-headed Blackbird (Xanthocephalus …

Historical Observations And Identifications Of Plants And Animals In The Vicinity Of Engineer Cantonment In 1819-1820, Hugh H. Genoways, Brett C. Ratcliffe, Carl R. Falk, John R. Bozell

University of Nebraska State Museum: Mammalogy Papers

Historical observations and identifications of plants and animals in the vicinity of Engineer Cantonment in 1819–1820 (James 1822) are shown below in Roman and Roman italic print. Specimens identified through phytoarcheological and zooarcheological analysis of materials and believed to be reasonably associated or contemporaneous with the Long Expedition use of the site (AU4) are shown in boldface. Species present in both the historical and archeological data are marked by an asterisk (*). References used in this compilation include Benedict (1996), Brewer (1970 [1840]), Conant and Collins (1991), Ducey (2000), Evans (1997), Falk et al. (this volume), Genoways et al. (2008), …

An Ecological Study Of The Anurans In Tea Plantations In A Biodiversity Hotspot, Lilly M. Eluvathingal

FIU Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Increasing human population size is increasing the demand for resources like timber, oil, tea, coffee, and other crops. Plantation crops mimic some aspects of native habitats, and there are studies that report the presence of some native anuran biodiversity in plantations. I focused on tea plantations in the Western Ghats-Sri Lanka Biodiversity Hotspot and studied the diversity and health of anurans in different habitats found within a tea cultivation area, near Munnar region in the Western Ghats, India. The landscape includes tea bushes, native evergreen shola forest patches, and eucalyptus forest stands. I reviewed 40 studies comparing amphibian species richness …

Identification Of Taenia Metacestodes From Mongolian Mammals Using Multivariate Morphometrics Of The Rostellar Hooks, Danielle M. Tufts, Nyamsuren Batsaikhan, Michael Pitner, Gábor R. Rácz, Altangerel Tsogtsaikhan Dursahinhan, Scott Lyell Gardner

Erforschung biologischer Ressourcen der Mongolei / Exploration into the Biological Resources of Mongolia, ISSN 0440-1298

Parasite diversity in and among various species of mammals within Mongolia is still poorly understood. The current paper focusses on a small part of the results of the Mongolian Vertebrate Parasite Project (MVPP), which entailed a broad-scale biodiversity survey of the vertebrates and their parasites of the Gobi and Altai regions of Mongolia. We report on the prevalence and morphological variation of larval cestodes of the family Taeniidae that occurred in small mammals that were collected from 2009-2012 from various locations in southern Mongolia. From these metacestodes, we studied both large and small rostellar hooks and analyzed both size and …

Prioritizing Non-Marine Invertebrate Taxa For Red Listing, Neil Cumberlidge, Justin Gerlach Phd

Journal Articles

The IUCN Red List of threatened species is biased towards vertebrate animals, a major limitation on its utility for overall biodiversity assessment. There is a need to increase the representation of invertebrates (currently 21 % of species assessed on the List;\1 % of all invertebrates). A prioritisation system of terrestrial and freshwater groups is presented here, categorising taxa by species richness, assessment practicality, value for human land use and bioindication, and potential to act as conservation flagships. 25 major taxonomic groupings were identified as priorities, including the Annelida, Arthropoda, Mollusca and Onycophora. Of these, the high-level taxa that emerge as …

Bats Of Barbados, Hugh H. Genoways, Roxanne J. Larsen, Scott C. Pedersen, Gary G. Kwiecinski, Peter A. Larsen

University of Nebraska State Museum: Mammalogy Papers

The chiropteran fauna of Barbados includes representatives of four families — Noctilionidae, Phyllostomidae, Vespertilionidae, and Molossidae — including 1 piscivore (Noctilio leporinus), 1 omnivore (Brachyphylla cavernarum), 1 pollenivore/nectarivore (Monophyllus plethodon), 1 frugivore (Artibeus jamaicensis), and 2 insectivorous species (Myotis nyctor and Molossus molossus). Despite an early report, we believe that preponderance of the evidence available at this time is that E. fuscus is not part of the fauna of Barbados. The Barbadian chiropteran fauna of 6 species is much smaller than those on the four neighboring Lesser Antillean islands to …

Bats Of The Grenadine Islands, West Indies, And Placement Of Koopman's Line, Hugh H. Genoways, Gary G. Kwiecinski, Peter A. Larsen, Scott C. Pedersen, Roxanne J. Larsen, Justin D. Hoffman, Mark De Silva, Carleton J. Phillips, Robert J. Baker

University of Nebraska State Museum: Mammalogy Papers

Almost nothing is known concerning the chiropteran fauna on the Grenadine Islands, a chain of islands between St. Vincent and Grenada located near the southern end of the Lesser Antilles. Previously, only a single species—Glossophaga longirostris—had been reported from the Grenadines. Our research, conducted on 4 occasions over the period of 1980 to 2006, provided museum vouchers and genetic specimens for the addition of 4 other species to the known fauna of these islands—Noctilio leporinus, Artibeus lituratus, Artibeus schwartzi, and Molossus molossus. The Grenadines, being situated between St. Vincent and Grenada, occupy an important zoogeographic position. …

Where The Tiger Survives, Biodiversity Thrives, Philip J. Nyhus, Ronald Tilson

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

New Records Of Bats From The British Virgin Islands, Gary G. Kwiecinski, Jean-Pierre Bacle, Kevel C. Lindsay, Hugh H. Genoways

University of Nebraska State Museum: Mammalogy Papers

As currently understood the bat fauna of the British Virgin Islands consists of five species – Noctilio leporinus, Brachyphylla cavernarum, Artibeus jamaicensis, Tadarida brasiliensis , and Molossus molossus. Our knowledge of distribution of bats in the British Virgin Islands is far more limited than that in the United States Virgin Islands. As part of ongoing research on the bats of the Virgin Islands, recent brief surveying periods in the British Virgin Islands have produced new records for some islands. Also, our researching of existing museum collections has discovered unreported new records. Our new data adds information for five species …

Results Of The Alcoa Foundation-Suriname Expeditions. Xiv. Mammals Of Brownsberg Nature Park, Suriname, Burton K. Lim, Mark D. Engstrom, Hugh H. Genoways, François M. Catzeflis, Kelly A. Fitzgerald, Sandra L. Peters, Marijem Djosetro, Sandra Brandon, Sutrisno Mitro

University of Nebraska State Museum: Mammalogy Papers

An inventory of mammals in the vicinity of Brownsberg Nature Park, Suriname, incorporated a number of different sampling methods including examining museum voucher specimens, an animal-rescue operation, transect surveys, camera photo-traps, and interviews with local inhabitants. We document a total of 125 mammal species present in the Park. These include ten opossums, five pilosans, four armadillos, 58 bats, eight monkeys, 13 carnivores, one tapir, four artiodactyls, and 22 rodents. Nine of these species are reported for the first time from Suriname: one mouse opossum (Marmosops pinheiroi); one naked-backed moustached bat (Pteronotus gymnonotus); four fruit-eating bats ( …

Recent Records Of Formerly Extirpated Carnivores In Nebraska, Justin D. Hoffman, Hugh H. Genoways

University of Nebraska State Museum: Mammalogy Papers

By the early 1900's, several large carnivores had been extirpated from Nebraska as a result of unrestricted hunting and trapping by early European settlers. Recently, there have been several confirmed records of carnivores that were once extirpated from Nebraska. In our study, we present new data for five species that recently were documented in Nebraska: Lynx canadensis, Ursus americanus, Canis lupus, Puma concolor, and Lontra canadensis. Restoration programs and legal protection afforded to these species in Nebraska and in adjacent states have allowed population numbers to increase. Because of the increase in populations of these …