Ecology and Evolutionary Biology Commons^™

Climate Matching Drives Spread Rate But Not Establishment Success In Recent Unintentional Bird Introductions, Pedro Abellán, José L. Tella, Martina Carrete, Laura Cardador, José D. Anadón

Publications and Research

Understanding factors driving successful invasions is one of the cornerstones of invasion biology. Bird invasions have been frequently used as study models, and the foundation of current knowledge largely relies on species purposefully introduced during the 19th and early 20th centuries in countries colonized by Europeans. However, the profile of exotic bird species has changed radically in the last decades, as birds are now mostly introduced into the invasion process through unplanned releases from the worldwide pet and avicultural trade. Here we assessed the role of the three main drivers of invasion success (i.e., event-, species-, and location-level factors) on …

Memory For Stimulus Sequences: A Divide Between Humans And Other Animals?, Ghirlanda Stefano, Johan Lind, Magnus Enquist

Publications and Research

Humans stand out among animals for their unique capacities in domains such as language, culture and imitation, yet it has been difficult to identify cognitive elements that are specifically human. Most research has focused on how information is processed after it is acquired, e.g. in problem solving or ‘insight’ tasks, but we may also look for species differences in the initial acquisition and coding of information. Here, we show that non-human species have only a limited capacity to discriminate ordered sequences of stimuli. Collating data from 108 experiments on stimulus sequence discrimination (1540 data points from 14 bird and mammal …

Characterizing The Impacts Of Contaminants On Fish Embryogenesis And Revealing An Alternate Molecular Mechanism Of Ahr Mediated Cardiac Defects, Corinna Singleman

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

There is a long history of damage to natural ecosystems from environmental pollution. Many environmental contaminants are man-made and have been released with abandon over the last 100 years including dioxins, 2,3,7,8-tetrachlorodibenzo-p-dioxin (TCDD), and polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs). These chemicals act on similar cellular processes and cause skin lesions, cancer, learning disabilities and reproductive problems in many vertebrates. There are many studies exploring various aspects of TCDD and PCB exposure on model and wild organisms. Few studies however, have compared effects of PCB mixtures on ecosystems to effects of individual PCBs in the lab. The first aim of this thesis is …

Oldest Skeleton Of A Plesiadapiform Provides Additional Evidence For An Exclusively Arboreal Radiation Of Stem Primates In The Palaeocene, Stephen B. Chester, Thomas E. Williamson, Jonathan I. Bloch, Mary T. Silcox, Eric J. Sargis

Publications and Research

Palaechthonid plesiadapiforms from the Palaeocene of western North America have long been recognized as among the oldest and most primitive euarchontan mammals, a group that includes extant primates, colugos and treeshrews. Despite their relatively sparse fossil record, palaechthonids have played an important role in discussions surrounding adaptive scenarios for primate origins for nearly a half-century. Likewise, palaechthonids have been considered important for understanding relationships among plesiadapiforms, with members of the group proposed as plausible ancestors of Paromomyidae and Microsyopidae. Here, we describe a dentally associated partial skeleton of Torrejonia wilsoni from the early Palaeocene (approx. 62Ma) of New Mexico, which …

The Paucity Of Frugivores In Madagascar May Not Be Due To Unpredictable Temperatures Or Fruit Resources, Sarah Federman, Miranda Sinnott-Armstrong, Andrea L. Baden, Colin A. Chapman, Douglas C. Daly, Alison R. Richard, Kim Valenta, Michael J. Donoghue

Publications and Research

The evolution of ecological idiosyncrasies in Madagascar has often been attributed to selective pressures stemming from extreme unpredictability in climate and resource availability compared to other tropical areas. With the exception of rainfall, few studies have investigated these assumptions. To assess the hypothesis that Madagascar's paucity of frugivores is due to unreliability in fruiting resources, we use statistical modeling to analyze phenology datasets and their environmental correlates from two tropical wet forests, the Réserve Naturelle Intégrale Betampona in Madagascar, and Kibale National Park in Uganda. At each site we found that temperature is a good environmental predictor of fruit availability. …

The Evolution Of Line-1 In Vertebrates, Stephane Boissinot, Akash Sookdeo

Publications and Research

The abundance and diversity of the LINE-1 (L1) retrotransposon differ greatly among vertebrates. Mammalian genomes contain hundreds of thousands L1s that have accumulated since the origin of mammals. A single group of very similar elements is active at a time in mammals, thus a single lineage of active families has evolved in this group. In contrast, non-mammalian genomes (fish, amphibians, reptiles) harbor a large diversity of concurrently transposing families, which are all represented by very small number of recently inserted copies. Why the pattern of diversity and abundance of L1 is so different among vertebrates remains unknown. To address this …

Evolutionary Interpretations Of Mycobacteriophage Biodiversity And Host-Range Through The Analysis Of Codon Usage Bias, Laura A. Esposito, Swati Gupta, Fraida Streiter, Ashley Prasad, John J. Dennehy

Publications and Research

In an genomics course sponsored by the Howard Hughes Medical Institute (HHMI), undergraduate students have isolated and sequenced the genomes of more than 1,150 mycobacteriophages, creating the largest database of sequenced bacteriophages able to infect a single host, Mycobacterium smegmatis, a soil bacterium. Genomic analysis indicates that these mycobacteriophages can be grouped into 26 clusters based on genetic similarity. These clusters span a continuum of genetic diversity, with extensive genomic mosaicism among phages in different clusters. However, little is known regarding the primary hosts of these mycobacteriophages in their natural habitats, nor of their broader host ranges. As such, it …

Comparative Population Genomics And Speciation Of Snakes Across The North American Deserts, Edward A. Myers

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Understanding the process of speciation is of central interest to evolutionary biologists. Speciation can be studied using a phylogeographic approach, by identifying regions that promote lineage divergence, addressing whether speciation has occurred with gene flow, and when extended to multiple taxa, addressing if the same patterns of speciation are shared across codistributed groups with different ecologies. Here I examine the comparative phylogeographic histories and population genomics of thirteen snake taxa that are widely distributed and co-occur across the arid southwest of North America. I first quantify the degree to which these species groups have a shared history of population divergence …

A Species-Level Phylogeny Of Extant Snakes With Description Of A New Colubrid Subfamily And Genus, Alex Figueroa, Alexander D. Mckelvy, L. Lee Grismer, Charles D. Bell, Simon P. Lailvaux

Publications and Research

Background With over 3,500 species encompassing a diverse range of morphologies and ecologies, snakes make up 36% of squamate diversity. Despite several attempts at estimating higherlevel snake relationships and numerous assessments of generic- or species-level phylogenies, a large-scale species-level phylogeny solely focusing on snakes has not been completed. Here, we provide the largest-yet estimate of the snake tree of life using maximum likelihood on a supermatrix of 1745 taxa (1652 snake species + 7 outgroup taxa) and 9,523 base pairs from 10 loci (5 nuclear, 5 mitochondrial), including previously unsequenced genera (2) and species (61).

Results Increased taxon sampling resulted …

When Human-Leopard Conflict Turns Deadly: A Cross-Country Situational Analysis, Julie S. Viollaz

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Habitat destruction and pollution are two of the main causes for the decline of the planet’s biodiversity. Yet environmentalists are now recognizing that illegal wildlife killings, both poaching and retaliatory killings due to human-wildlife conflict, are perhaps the next major threat. Biologists have researched illegal killings and their effect on species conservation, but few researchers have applied criminological principles of crime reduction to them. This research will explore the situational factors that drive retaliatory leopard killings in parts of South Africa, Kenya, and India. These factors, human and environmental, include local expectations from wildlife, sensitivity to environmental issues, communication between …

Molecular Diversity And Gene Evolution Of The Venom Arsenal Of Terebridae Predatory Marine Snails, Juliette Gorson, Girish Ramrattan, Aida Verdes, Elizabeth M. Wright, Yuri Kantor, Ramakrishnan Rajaram Srinivasan, Raj Musunuri, Daniel Packer, Gabriel Albano, Wei-Gang Qiu, Mandë Holford

Publications and Research

Venom peptides from predatory organisms are a resource for investigating evolutionary processes such as adaptive radiation or diversification, and exemplify promising targets for biomedical drug development. Terebridae are an understudied lineage of conoidean snails,which also includes cone snails and turrids. Characterization of cone snail venompeptides, conotoxins, has revealed a cocktail of bioactive compounds used to investigate physiological cellular function, predator-prey interactions, and to develop novel therapeutics. However, venom diversity of other conoidean snails remains poorly understood. The present research applies a venomics approach to characterize novel terebrid venom peptides, teretoxins, from the venom gland transcriptomes of Triplostephanus anilis and Terebra …

High Intralocus Variability And Interlocus Recombination Promote Immunological Diversity In A Minimal Major Histocompatibility System, Anthony B. Wilson, Camilla M. Whittington, Angela Bahr

Publications and Research

Background: The genes of the major histocompatibility complex (MHC/MH) have attracted considerable scientific interest due to their exceptional levels of variability and important function as part of the adaptive immune system. Despite a large number of studies on MH class II diversity of both model and non-model organisms, most research has focused on patterns of genetic variability at individual loci, failing to capture the functional diversity of the biologically active dimeric molecule. Here, we take a systematic approach to the study of MH variation, analyzing patterns of genetic variation at MH class IIα and IIβ loci of the seahorse, which …

Ecological Niches, Species Distributions, And Biogeographic Processes In Rodents On Neotropical Sky Islands, Mariano Soley

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This dissertation focused on the methodological and theoretical improvement of correlative ecological niche models (ENMs) to better understand the processes governing species distributions and associated evolutionary divergence in rodents inhabiting mesic conditions in the Neotropics. Focusing on a widespread rodent from northern South America (Heteromys anomalus), in the first chapter I proposed and tested a methodological approach to surmount the challenge of incorporating environmental information from the margins of species geographic ranges into ENMs. In so doing, I argue how populations that exist on the borders of species' local ranges (spatial margins) can lead to exaggerated estimates of their niches …

Foraging Ecology Of Shorebirds At A Stopover Site: Niche Dynamics, Aggression And Resource Use In Delaware Bay, Ivana Novcic

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Classical ecological theory predicts that generally similar species ought to partition resources in order to minimize competition amongst themselves. This basic idea becomes complex when one is dealing with species that migrate over thousands of miles and forage in a broad diversity of habitats and geographical locations. I studied a suite of migratory sandpipers, and asked whether they partitioned niches at a major migratory stopover in Delaware Bay. During migration, shorebirds form large, usually mixed-species flocks, which forage on marshes, mudflats, beaches or similar two-dimensional habitats where all individuals are distributed on the same horizontal plane. These habitats are often …

High Local Diversity Of Trypanosoma In A Common Bat Species, And Implications For The Biogeography And Taxonomy Of The T. Cruzi Clade, Veronika M. Cottontail, Elisabeth K. V. Kalko, Iain Cottontail, Nele Wellinghausen, Marco Tschapka, Susan L. Perkins, C. Miguel Pinto

Publications and Research

The Trypanosoma cruzi clade is a group of parasites that comprises T. cruzi sensu lato and its closest relatives. Although several species have been confirmed phylogenetically to belong to this clade, it is uncertain how many more species can be expected to belong into this group. Here, we present the results of a survey of trypanosome parasites of the bat Artibeus jamaicensis from the Panama´ Canal Zone, an important seed disperser. Using a genealogical species delimitation approach, the Poisson tree processes (PTP), we tentatively identified five species of trypanosomes – all belonging to the T. cruzi clade. A small monophyletic …

Variation In Habitat Thresholds: An Analysis Of Minimum Habitat Requirements Of North American Breeding Birds, Yntze Van Der Hoek

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Many species show dramatic changes in population extinction or persistence probability at particular habitat amounts. These `extinction thresholds' could be translated to conservation targets, under the condition that we can derive generalities. I investigated the level of variation in landscape-level habitat thresholds for a suite of North American, forest-associated, breeding birds. Records from Breeding Bird Atlases and the availability of remotely-sensed land cover data allowed me to compare habitat thresholds for 25 species across the states of Massachusetts, Michigan, New York, Ohio, Pennsylvania, and Vermont. I show that variation in thresholds is considerable (Chapter II, III), as thresholds range from …

Testing Assumptions Of Coevolution In An Egg-Rejecting Brood Parasite Host: Uncovering Sensory, Cognitive, And Evolutionary Drivers Of Responses To Parasitism In American Robins (Turdus Migratorius), Rebecca Croston

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Hosts of brood parasitic birds face fitness costs associated with rearing unrelated offspring. In response, the recognition and rejection of parasitic eggs is a common host defense. Brown-headed cowbirds (Molothrus ater) challenge coevolutionary theory, because although they exploit over 200 host species, they lay non-mimetic eggs, and most hosts do not combat cowbird parasitism with egg rejection. American robins (Turdus migratorius) are one of a handful of cowbird hosts known to recognize and remove cowbird eggs from the nest. I addressed the mechanistic and evolutionary drivers of egg rejection in this host species, by disentangling the roles of spectral tuning …

How Important Is Land-Based Foraging To Polar Bears (Ursus Maritimus) During The Ice-Free Season In Western Hudson Bay? An Examination Of Dietary Shifts, Compositional Patterns, Behavioral Observations And Energetic Contributions, Linda J. Gormezano

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Trophic mismatches between predators and their prey are increasing as climate change causes decoupling of phenological relationships. Predators linked to the life histories of a particular prey will have a more difficult time persisting through environmental change unless they can alter their behavior to maintain the historical match or possess the ability to pursue alternate prey. Arctic predators typically possess flexible foraging strategies to survive in the labile environment, however, quantifying the limits of those strategies can be difficult when life history information is incomplete. In such cases, piecing together different aspects of a predator's foraging behavior, particularly when environmental …

Are Characiform Fishes Gondwanan In Origin? Insights From A Time-Scaled Molecular Phylogeny Of The Citharinoidei (Ostariophysi: Characiformes), Jairo Arroyave, John S. S. Denton, Melanie L. J. Stiassny

Publications and Research

Fishes of the order Characiformes are a diverse and economically important teleost clade whose extant members are found exclusively in African and Neotropical freshwaters. Although their transatlantic distribution has been primarily attributed to the Early Cretaceous fragmentation of western Gondwana, vicariance has not been tested with temporal information beyond that contained in their fragmentary fossil record and a recent time-scaled phylogeny focused on the African family Alestidae. Because members of the suborder Citharinoidei constitute the sister lineage to the entire remaining Afro-Neotropical characiform radiation, we inferred a time-calibrated molecular phylogeny of citharinoids using a popular Bayesian approach to molecular dating …

Signatures Of Rapid Evolution In Urban And Rural Transcriptomes Of White-Footed Mice (Peromyscus Leucopus) In The New York Metropolitan Area, Stephen Edward Harris, Jason Munshi-South, Craig Oberfell, Rachel O'Neill

Publications and Research

Urbanization is a major cause of ecological degradation around the world, and human settlement in large cities is accelerating. New York City (NYC) is one of the oldest and most urbanized cities in North America, but still maintains 20% vegetation cover and substantial populations of some native wildlife. The white-footed mouse, Peromyscus leucopus, is a common resident of NYC’s forest fragments and an emerging model system for examining the evolutionary consequences of urbanization. In this study, we developed transcriptomic resources for urban P. leucopus to examine evolutionary changes in protein-coding regions for an exemplar “urban adapter.” We used Roche 454 …

Taxonomic Revision Of The Olingos (Bassaricyon), With Description Of A New Species, The Olinguito, Kristofer M. Helgen, C. Miguel Pinto, Roland Kays, Laura E. Helgen, Mirian T. N. Tsuchiya, Aleta Quinn, Don E. Wilson, Jesús E. Maldonado

Publications and Research

We present the first comprehensive taxonomic revision and review the biology of the olingos, the endemic Neotropical procyonid genus Bassaricyon, based on most specimens available in museums, and with data derived from anatomy, morphometrics, mitochondrial and nuclear DNA, field observations, and geographic range modeling. Species of Bassaricyon are primarily forest-living, arboreal, nocturnal, frugivorous, and solitary, and have one young at a time. We demonstrate that four olingo species can be recognized, including a Central American species (B. gabbii), lowland species with eastern, cis-Andean (B. alleni) and western, trans- Andean (B. medius) distributions, and a species endemic to cloud forests in …

Carcass Feeding For Captive Vultures: Testing Assumptions About Zoos And Effects On Birds And Visitors, Hannah Gaengler

Dissertations and Theses

Carcass feeding is a potentially controversial feeding method for zoo animals. The common assumption is that many North American zoos refrain from feeding large carcasses to their carnivorous animals because zoo visitors might not approve of this feeding method. However, since there are several species of carnivores in zoos that feed from large carcasses in nature, this food type also has the potential to be beneficial to their welfare. In intelligent and usually inquisitive scavengers like vultures, a lack of activity and behavioral opportunities could be a welfare problem in captivity; providing them with a more complex food item might …

Tyrannobdella Rex N. Gen. N. Sp. And The Evolutionary Origins Of Mucosal Leech Infestations, Anna J. Phillips, Renzo Arauco-Brown, Alejandro Oceguera-Figueroa, Gloria P. Gomez, María Beltrán, Yi-Te Lai, Mark E. Siddall

Publications and Research

Background: Leeches have gained a fearsome reputation by feeding externally on blood, often from human hosts. Orificial hirudiniasis is a condition in which a leech enters a body orifice, most often the nasopharyngeal region, but there are many cases of leeches infesting the eyes, urethra, vagina, or rectum. Several leech species particularly in Africa and Asia are well known for their propensity to afflict humans. Because there has not previously been any data suggesting a close relationship for such geographically disparate species, this unnerving tendency to be invasive has been regarded only as a loathsome oddity and not a unifying …

Poly-Paraphyly Of Hirudinidae: Many Lineages Of Medicinal Leeches, Anna J. Phillips, Mark E. Siddall

Publications and Research

Background: Medicinal leeches became infamous for their utility in bloodletting popularized in the 19th century, and have seen a recent resurgence in post-operative treatments for flap and replantation surgeries, and in terms of characterization of salivary anticoagulants. Notorious throughout the world, the quintessential leech family Hirudinidae has been taken for granted to be monophyletic, as has the non-bloodfeeding family Haemopidae.

Results: This study is the first to evaluate molecular evidence from hirudinid and haemopid leeches in a manner that encompasses the global scope of their taxonomic distributions. We evaluated the presumed monophyly of the Hirudinidae and assessed previous well-accepted classification …

Measuring Knowledge Of Natural Selection: A Comparison Of The C.I.N.S., An Open-Response Instrument, And An Oral Interview, Ross Nehm, Irvin Sam Schonfeld

Publications and Research

Growing recognition of the central importance of fostering an in-depth understanding of natural selection has, surprisingly, failed to stimulate work on the development and rigorous evaluation of instruments that measure knowledge of it. We used three different methodological tools, the Conceptual Inventory of Natural Selection (CINS), a modified version of Bishop and Anderson's (Bishop and Anderson [1990] Journal of Research in Science Teaching 27: 415-427) open-response test that we call the Open Response Instrument (ORI), and an oral interview derived from both instruments, to measure biology majors' understanding of and alternative conceptions about natural selection. We explored how these instruments …

Does Increasing Biology Teacher Knowledge Of Evolution And The Nature Of Science Lead To Greater Advocacy For The Teaching Of Evolution In Schools?, Ross Nehm, Irvin Sam Schonfeld

Publications and Research

This study investigated whether or not an increase in secondary science teacher knowledge about evolution and the nature of science gained from completing a graduate-level evolution course was associated with greater preference for the teaching of evolution in schools. Forty-four precertified secondary biology teachers participated in a 14-week intervention designed to address documented misconceptions identified by a precourse instrument. The course produced statistically significant gains in teacher knowledge of evolution and the nature of science and a significant decrease in misconceptions about evolution and natural selection. Nevertheless, teachers' postcourse preference positions remained unchanged; the majority of science teachers still preferred …

Ecology Of The Malay Civet (Viverra Tangalunga) In A Logged And An Unlogged Forest In Sabah, East Malaysia, Christina P. Colon

Publications and Research

Malay civets in a dipterocarp rain forest were studied from December, 1995, through June, 1997, in the Ulu Segama Forest Reserve in Sabah, East Malaysia. To investigate the basic ecology of this species and explore the potential impact of selective logging, data on home range, activity and diet were collected on study animals in an unlogged and a selectively logged forest, and comparisons made.

Density in the unlogged forest was 1/0.46 km² , and 1/1.07 km² in the logged forest. Mean home range size based on a 95% minimum convex polygon was 110 ha. and did not differ …