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Full-Text Articles in Life Sciences

Drivers Of White-Tailed Deer (Odocoileus Virginianus) Behavior, Survival, And Population Growth In The Piedmont Of South Carolina, Michael Muthersbaugh May 2023

Drivers Of White-Tailed Deer (Odocoileus Virginianus) Behavior, Survival, And Population Growth In The Piedmont Of South Carolina, Michael Muthersbaugh

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Prey species adjust behaviors in response to various stimuli, responding to both top-down and bottom-up pressures. Large herbivores must attempt to avoid predation either through adjusting behaviors or seeking spatial or temporal refugia, which can scale up to influence individual fitness and ultimately population dynamics. Specifically, predation risk has a great potential to influence ungulate populations by impacting behaviors and survival. Our objective was to quantify ungulate behavioral and population response to a regionally important predator through a case study – white-tailed deer (Odocoileus virginianus) responses to coyotes (Canis latrans) on private lands in the Piedmont …


Range Collapse, Genetic Differentiation, And Climate Change: An Ecological History Of The Diana Fritillary, Speyeria Diana And Projections For Its Future, Carrie Wells May 2014

Range Collapse, Genetic Differentiation, And Climate Change: An Ecological History Of The Diana Fritillary, Speyeria Diana And Projections For Its Future, Carrie Wells

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The geographic ranges of most plant and animal species are tied closely to climatic factors, including temperature, precipitation, and soil moisture. For this reason, recent changes in the global climate due to human activities are predicted to have profound effects on natural populations, communities and ecosystems over a relatively short period of time. Combined effects from global warming and other anthropogenic activities such as land-use changes, pollution, and habitat loss/fragmentation, are altering species' distributions faster than they can be documented. Recent climate change has also been shown to alter species' breeding behaviors and alter the synchrony and timing of species' …


Zoos As Experiment Environments: Biology Of Larval And Adult Mosquitoes (Diptera: Culicidae), Holly Tuten Aug 2011

Zoos As Experiment Environments: Biology Of Larval And Adult Mosquitoes (Diptera: Culicidae), Holly Tuten

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Zoos are a unique environment where humans and animals are in close daily contact, potential mosquito habitats exist, exotic plants and animals are introduced regularly, and wild animals roam. Studies of mosquito behaviors in zoos will lead to a better understanding, both within and outside zoos, of disease transmission routes and mosquito biology. To investigate whether the unique assemblage of habitats in zoos affects mosquito behavior, I sampled larvae and adults in the Greenville Zoo and the Riverbanks Zoo, South Carolina, USA, from March 2008 to January 2011. The objectives of my study were to investigate mosquito oviposition behavior, blood-host …


Biology And Ecology Of Wild Radish (Raphanus Raphanistrum), Mayank Malik May 2009

Biology And Ecology Of Wild Radish (Raphanus Raphanistrum), Mayank Malik

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Wild radish ( L.), a facultative winter annual is a troublesome weed in small grain crops of the Southeastern United States. Besides being a weed, it may also be used as a cover crop for weed management due to its production of glucosinolates. Studies were conducted to evaluate the biology and ecology of wild radish as well as its glucosinolate production and its weed management possibilities.
Wild radish emerging in fall months formed a rosette of leaves which aided its winter survival. Plants emerging from December through March that did not form a rosette had minimal survival. Wild radish life …