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Full-Text Articles in Biology

Impacts Of Environmental And Anthropogenic Stressors On Amphibian Welfare, Diversity, And Distribution In The Upper Missouri River Basin, Kaitlyn Campbell Dec 2021

Impacts Of Environmental And Anthropogenic Stressors On Amphibian Welfare, Diversity, And Distribution In The Upper Missouri River Basin, Kaitlyn Campbell

Dissertations and Theses

Climate change and anthropogenic stressors have contributed to rapid declines among various taxonomic groups; however, amphibian declines have been particularly intense and primarily stemmed from warming temperatures, habitat loss, exposure to contaminants, disease, and their subsequent interactions. Several climate mitigation strategies, like Bioenergy with Carbon Capture and Storage, have been proposed to alleviate the impact of rising temperatures; however, these proposals often fail to recognize and quantify the true impact on fauna, including changes in species distributions. To address this critical gap in knowledge, this research identified current amphibian distributions in the Upper Missouri River Basin and projected distribution changes …


Influence Of The Covid-19 Pandemic On Amphibian Road Mortality, Gregory Leclair, Matthew H. Chatfield, Zachary Wood, Jeffrey Parmelee, Cheryle A. Frederick Sep 2021

Influence Of The Covid-19 Pandemic On Amphibian Road Mortality, Gregory Leclair, Matthew H. Chatfield, Zachary Wood, Jeffrey Parmelee, Cheryle A. Frederick

Teaching, Learning & Research Documents

The COVID-19 pandemic and its related human activity shutdowns provide unique opportunities for biodiversity monitoring through what has been termed the “anthropause” or the “great human confinement experiment.” The pandemic caused immense disruption to human activity in the northeastern United States in the spring of 2020, with notable reductions in traffic levels. These shutdowns coincided with the seasonal migration of adult amphibians, which are typically subject to intense vehicle-impact mortality. Using data collected as part of an annual community science monitoring program in Maine from 2018 to 2021, we examined how amphibian mortality probabilities responded to reductions in traffic during …


Diversity And Substrate-Specificity Of Green Algae And Other Micro-Eukaryotes Colonizing Amphibian Clutches In Germany, Revealed By Dna Metabarcoding, Sten Anslan, Maria Sachs, Lois Rancilhac, Henner Brinkmann, Jörn Petersen, Sven Künzel, Anja Schwarz, Hartmut Arndt, Ryan R. Kerney, Miguel Vences May 2021

Diversity And Substrate-Specificity Of Green Algae And Other Micro-Eukaryotes Colonizing Amphibian Clutches In Germany, Revealed By Dna Metabarcoding, Sten Anslan, Maria Sachs, Lois Rancilhac, Henner Brinkmann, Jörn Petersen, Sven Künzel, Anja Schwarz, Hartmut Arndt, Ryan R. Kerney, Miguel Vences

Biology Faculty Publications

Amphibian clutches are colonized by diverse but poorly studied communities of micro-organisms. One of the most noted ones is the unicellular green alga, Oophila amblystomatis, but the occurrence and role of other micro-organisms in the capsular chamber surrounding amphibian clutches have remained largely unstudied. Here, we undertook a multi-marker DNA metabarcoding study to characterize the community of algae and other micro-eukaryotes associated with agile frog (Rana dalmatina) clutches. Samplings were performed at three small ponds in Germany, from four substrates: water, sediment, tree leaves from the bottom of the pond, and R. dalmatina clutches. Sampling substrate strongly …


Comparison Of Skin Microbial Communities Between Striped And Unstriped Morphs Of Plethodon Cinereus In Massachusetts, Alyssa St. John May 2021

Comparison Of Skin Microbial Communities Between Striped And Unstriped Morphs Of Plethodon Cinereus In Massachusetts, Alyssa St. John

Honors Program Theses and Projects

The skin-microbial community on amphibians plays a large role in maintaining the general health of the organism. One of the most common patterns found in amphibian skin microbiomes pertains to the antifungal aspect of these communities: beneficial microbes protect amphibians against harmful pathogenic fungi. The eastern red-backed salamander is one of the few amphibian species with well-documented skin microbes that produce antifungal compounds. These compounds are potentially lethal to chytrid fungus, one of the deadliest amphibian pathogens. The eastern red-backed salamander also has two primary color morphs that coexist over a large geographic range. Physiological differences between morphs have been …