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A Review Of Marine Turtle Orientation And Artificial Lighting Impacts With Novel Results From Florida’S Gulf Coast, Andrea M. Fisher

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Artificial light (i.e. unnatural light emitting from a human-made source) is one of the most extensively distributed, and least managed, type of anthropogenic pollution. Due to the disproportionally high rates of urbanization in critical coastal ecosystems, species, like marine turtles that use beach habitat for nesting activities, are especially vulnerable. Marine turtles employ the use of multiple visual cues (e.g. wavelength, intensity, background illumination, and dark silhouettes) to conduct sea-finding behavior and different variations in cue usage exist across species and geographic location. During nesting and emergence activities, orientation can be interrupted and manipulated by artificial lighting resulting in lower …

Cetacean Maternal Investment: Importance In Conservation Across Species And Drivers For Interspecific Altruism, Christopher Klein

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Cetacean maternal investments can be useful for conservation management as well as examining behaviors such as interspecific altruism in the humpback whale, Megaptera novaeangliae. Cetaceans are among the most threatened group of marine mammals. In the second chapter, maternal investments across ~90 species/subspecies of Cetacea were analyzed to aid in the understanding of recovery/replacement for conservation and management. Using Principal Components Analysis (PCA), a relative maternal-investment index for 41 cetacean species was built. The maternal-investment index was a composite of four maternal-investment variables, the duration of gestation, lactation, calving intervals, and the number of reproduction years per female per species. …

Home Range Area, Overlap, Homing Behavior And Movement Patterns In Plestiodon Reynoldisi, Paul Wieczorek Ii

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Home range and home range overlap information are crucial to create management plans for species of conservation concern. It provides information as to how much land a viable population needs to survive. The South Florida Multi-Species Recovery Plan highlights the need for home range and movement information for Plestiodon reynoldsi (Florida Sand Skink), a threatened lizard species precinctive to Florida Scrub habitat. We investigated home range sizes, their relationship with SVL and mass, home range overlap, homing behavior, and movement patterns of the Florida Sand Skink (FSS) and over a three-year period in the Lake Wales Ridge National Wildlife Refuge. …

The Brain Transcriptome Of The Wolf Spider, Schizocosa Ocreata, Daniel Stribling, Peter L. Chang, Justin E. Dalton, Christopher A. Conow, Malcolm Rosenthal, Eileen Hebets, Rita M. Graze, Michelle N. Arbeitman

School of Biological Sciences: Faculty Publications

Objectives: Arachnids have fascinating and unique biology, particularly for questions on sex differences and behavior, creating the potential for development of powerful emerging models in this group. Recent advances in genomic techniques have paved the way for a significant increase in the breadth of genomic studies in non-model organisms. One growing area of research is comparative transcriptomics. When phylogenetic relationships to model organisms are known, comparative genomic studies provide context for analysis of homologous genes and pathways. The goal of this study was to lay the groundwork for comparative transcriptomics of sex differences in the brain of wolf spiders, a …

Toxoplasma Gondii Infections Are Associated With Costly Boldness Toward Felids In A Wild Host, Eben Gering, Zachary M. Laubach, Patty Sue D. Weber, Gisela Soboll Hussey, Kenna D. S. Lehmann, Tracy M. Montgomery, Julie W. Turner, Wei Perng, Malit O. Pioon, Kay E. Holekamp, Thomas Getty

Biology Faculty Articles

Toxoplasma gondii is hypothesized to manipulate the behavior of warm-blooded hosts to promote trophic transmission into the parasite’s definitive feline hosts. A key prediction of this hypothesis is that T. gondii infections of non-feline hosts are associated with costly behavior toward T. gondii’s definitive hosts; however, this effect has not been documented in any of the parasite’s diverse wild hosts during naturally occurring interactions with felines. Here, three decades of field observations reveal that T. gondii-infected hyena cubs approach lions more closely than uninfected peers and have higher rates of lion mortality. We discuss these results in light …

Spiders You May Encounter While Social Distancing: A Field Guide To Oregon, Daniel K. Hufnagel

Anthós

This document is simply a short field guide on the many endearing spiders you have encountered or will potentially encounter while social distancing in Oregon. Included are journal entries for six different species of spider, with each log containing an illustration and a description of the physical appearance, behavior, and habitat of the arachnid listed. Also included is a basic diagram depicting the anatomy of the common spider.

Fire Severity Effects On Herpetofaunal Diversity In Florida Scrub Communities Of The Lake Wales Ridge, Michelle Lindsay

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Fires, either natural or prescribed, are essential for conserving pyrogenic ecosystems; however, climate change is predicted to increase fire severity that could negatively impact species diversity. Reptile and amphibian species may be particularly at risk given they are ectothermic species. The objective of this study was to better understand the impacts of fire severity on the herpetofaunal communities of the Florida scrub habitats, which is an imperiled ecosystem that sustains over two-thirds of listed reptiles and amphibians in Florida. We conducted a field-based study to test taxonomic and functional herpetofaunal diversity differences across four varying fire severities: unburned, low, medium …

Dental Calculus As A Proxy For Animal Microbiomes, Andrew T. Ozga, Claudio Ottoni

Biology Faculty Articles

The field of dental calculus research has exploded in recent years, predominantly due to the multitude of studies related to human genomes and oral pathogens. Despite having a subset of these studies devoted to non-human primates, little progress has been made in the distribution of oral pathogens across domestic and wild animal populations. This overlooked avenue of research is particularly important at present when many animal populations with the potentiality for zoonotic transmission continue to reside in close proximity to human groups due to reasons such as deforestation and climatic impacts on resource availability. Here, we analyze all previously available …

Public Discussion Of Anthrax On Twitter: Using Machine Learning To Identify Relevant Topics And Events, Michele Miller, William Lee Romine, Terry L. Oroszi

Biological Sciences Faculty Publications

Background: Social media allows researchers to study opinions and reactions to events in real time. One area needing more study is anthrax-related events. A computational framework that utilizes machine learning techniques was created to collect tweets discussing anthrax, further categorize them as relevant by the month of data collection, and detect discussions on anthrax-related events. Objective: The objective of this study was to detect discussions on anthrax-related events and to determine the relevance of thetweets and topics of discussion over 12 months of data collection. Methods: This is an infoveillance study, using tweets in English containing the keyword “Anthrax” and …

The Sensitivity Of Neotoma To Climate Change And Biodiversity Loss Over The Late Quaternary, Catalina P. Tomé, S. Kathleen Lyons, Seth D. Newsome, Felisa A. Smith

School of Biological Sciences: Faculty Publications

The late Quaternary in North America was marked by highly variable climate and considerable biodiversity loss including a megafaunal extinction event at the terminal Pleistocene. Here, we focus on changes in body size and diet in Neotoma (woodrats) in response to these ecological perturbations using the fossil record from the Edwards Plateau (Texas) across the past 20,000 years. Body mass was estimated using measurements of fossil teeth and diet was quantified using stable isotope analysis of carbon and nitrogen from fossil bone collagen. Prior to ca. 7,000 cal yr BP, maximum mass was positively correlated to precipitation and negatively correlated …

Nutrient Limitation Of Algae And Macrophytes In Streams: Integrating Laboratory Bioassays, Field Experiments, And Field Data, Christopher A. Mebane, Andrew M. Ray, Amy Marcarelli

Michigan Tech Publications, Part 1

Successful eutrophication control strategies need to address the limiting nutrient. We conducted a battery of laboratory and in situ nutrient-limitation tests with waters collected from 9 streams in an agricultural region of the upper Snake River basin, Idaho, USA. Laboratory tests used the green alga Raphidocelis subcapitata, the macrophyte Lemna minor (duckweed) with native epiphytes, and in situ nutrient-limitation tests of periphyton were conducted with nutrient-diffusing substrates (NDS). In the duckweed/epiphyte test, P saturation occurred when concentrations reached about 100 μg/L. Chlorophyll a in epiphytic periphyton was stimulated at low P additions and by about 100 μg/L P, epiphytic periphyton …

Trait-Based Variation In The Foraging Performance Of Individuals, John P. Delong, Stella F. Uiterwaal, Anthony I. Dell

School of Biological Sciences: Faculty Publications

Although average, species-level interaction strength plays a key role in driving population dynamics and community structure, predator-prey interactions occur among individuals. As a result, individual variation in foraging rates may play an important role in determining the effects of predator-prey interactions on communities. Such variation in foraging rates stems from individual variation in traits that influence the mechanistic components of the functional response, such as movements that determine encounters and behaviors such as decisions to attack. However, we still have little information about individual-level variation in functional responses or the traits that give rise to such variation. Here we combine …

Fructose Causes Liver Damage, Polyploidy, And Dysplasia In The Setting Of Short Telomeres And P53 Loss, Christopher Chronowski, Viktor Akhanov, Doug Chan, Andre Catic, Milton Finegold, Ergün Sahin

Faculty, Staff and Students Publications

Studies in humans and model systems have established an important role of short telomeres in predisposing to liver fibrosis through pathways that are incompletely understood. Recent studies have shown that telomere dysfunction impairs cellular metabolism, but whether and how these metabolic alterations contribute to liver fibrosis is not well understood. Here, we investigated whether short telomeres change the hepatic response to metabolic stress induced by fructose, a sugar that is highly implicated in non-alcoholic fatty liver disease. We find that telomere shortening in telomerase knockout mice (TKO) imparts a pronounced susceptibility to fructose as reflected in the activation of p53, …

Covid-19: A One Health Issue, Karen Gruszynski

Cumberland Mountain Naturalist

COVID-19 has very rapidly become part of modern societal lexicon as the disease highlights the importance understanding zoonotic diseases and the impact they can have on human life. With a 177million human cases and 3.82million deaths globally at the time of this publication, the "One Health" nature of the disease has had a lasting impact across the planet. As the disease spread rapidly, it highlighted the dissemination of information through social media and other sources. With this in mind, Dr. Gary Vroegindewey, Director for One Health at LMU-CVM, put forth the idea to have students collect and summarize information about …

Potential Therapeutic Effects Of Snake Venom Components On Pain Management In Rheumatoid Arthritis Patients, Maggie Metzger

University Honors Theses

This paper reviews the existing literature on the uses of snake venom in the treatment of rheumatoid arthritis and pain management. Venom from the families Elapidae and Viperidae have been shown to have anti-inflammatory and analgesic effects. The analgesic findings of research on arthritis murine models are discussed, and the existing uses of snake venom in medicine to suggest the therapeutic potential of venom in the pain management of rheumatoid arthritis are taken into account. Snake venom has anti-inflammatory effects by reducing levels of pro-inflammatory cytokines and increasing levels of anti-inflammatory cytokines. Additionally, snake venom can reduce structural damage from …

The Usage Of Resveratrol For Eye Pain After Refractive Surgery, Dennis Nguyen

University Honors Theses

LASEK and PRK are common laser corrective eye procedures that aim to correct the refractive errors of the eye, although these procedures do carry the potential of post-operation complications of dry eye and symptoms of pain and photophobia as a result of corneal innervation damage. Resveratrol was tested on the surface of the cornea to see if the drug would be effective at attenuating post-corrective eye pain. Male and female rats underwent a unilateral corneal abrasion surgery that aimed to mimic the post-op symptoms of PRK. The rats either received the resveratrol drug treatment or a vehicle formulation. The Rat …

Full Issue: The International Undergraduate Journal Of Health Sciences, Volume 1, Issue 1, June 2021, Iujhs Full Issue

International Undergraduate Journal of Health Sciences

The full June 2021 issue (Volume 1, Issue 1) of the International Undergraduate Journal of Health Sciences

Fruits, Frugivores, And The Evolution Of Phytochemical Diversity, Susan R. Whitehead, Gerald F. Schneider, Ray Dybzinski, Annika S. Nelson, Mariana Gelambi, Elsa Jos, Noelle G. Beckman

Biology Faculty Publications

Plants produce an enormous diversity of secondary metabolites, but the evolutionary mechanisms that maintain this diversity are still unclear. The interaction diversity hypothesis suggests that complex chemical phenotypes are maintained because different metabolites benefit plants in different pairwise interactions with a diversity of other organisms. In this synthesis, we extend the interaction diversity hypothesis to consider that fruits, as potential hotspots of interactions with both antagonists and mutualists, are likely important incubators of phytochemical diversity. We provide a case study focused on the Neotropical shrub Piper reticulatum that demonstrates: 1) secondary metabolites in fruits have complex and cascading effects for …

The Effects Of Repeat Concussive Injury On Hippocampal Neurogenesis In Rats, Duane Yu

College of Science and Health Theses and Dissertations

Abstract

A concussion is one of the most common types of traumatic brain injury. Repeat concussion has been associated with an increased likelihood of developing neurodegenerative diseases, such as Parkinson's and Alzheimer's Disease, and chronic traumatic encephalopathy. Although treatments are available to tolerate the symptoms, one potential treatment to address the pathology is to use adult neurogenesis to promote and recruit cells to injury sites for repair. Neurogenesis is the study of new neurons from neural stem cells (NSCs) present in adult humans at the hippocampal dentate gyrus. This study explored whether repeat concussion induces the proliferative capabilities of NSCs …

The Science Of Guessing: Critiquing Ancestral Estimation Through Computer Generated Statistical Analysis Within Forensic Anthropology In A Real-World Setting, Christopher J. Turner

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Research on current methods of ancestral estimation must reflect on biological heritage to aid in human identification. Using modern craniometrics methods, how do individuals with a varied biological history affect ancestral estimation? Today, the most used and reliable methods for craniometrics analysis for ancestral estimation in forensic anthropology are computer programs. Two programs are analyzed in this study, Fordisc 3.0 and 3D-ID. The analysis of these computer programs goes beyond the controlled environment provided by an osteological collection. These remains of individuals were unidentified, only to be identified later, through academic research, police work, and public outreach. The selection of …

Fossil Vertebrates From A Unique Marine Bonebed Of The Upper Cretaceous Niobrara Chalk, Western Kansas, U.S.A.: New Insights Into The Niobrara Vertebrate Paleoecology, Jonathan Allen

College of Science and Health Theses and Dissertations

The Smoky Hill Chalk Member of the Niobrara Chalk is a sedimentary deposit formed in the Western Interior Seaway of North America during the Late Cretaceous. In this study, I examined a unique fossiliferous bonebed from an uncertain horizon within the Smoky Hill Chalk in Gove County, Kansas, U.S.A. Over 40,450 taxonomically identifiable specimens were collected, where they consisted of at least four chondrichthyans, 24 osteichthyans, and two tetrapods, including taxa such as Nanocorax, Squalicorax, Rhinobatos, pycnodontids, Lepisosteidae, Protosphyraena, Pachyrhizodus, ichthyodectiforms, plethodids, Albulidae, Apateodus, Ichthyotringidae(?), cf. Stratodus, Cimolichthys, Enchodus, Acanthomorpha, Platecarpus, and Hesperornithiformes. The diversity of these vertebrates suggests the …

Targeting The Apoa1 Locus For Liver-Directed Gene Therapy, Marco De Giorgi, Ang Li, Ayrea Hurley, Mercedes Barzi, Alexandria M Doerfler, Nikitha A Cherayil, Harrison E Smith, Jonathan D Brown, Charles Y Lin, Karl-Dimiter Bissig, Gang Bao, William R Lagor

Faculty, Staff and Students Publications

Clinical application of somatic genome editing requires therapeutics that are generalizable to a broad range of patients. Targeted insertion of promoterless transgenes can ensure that edits are permanent and broadly applicable while minimizing risks of off-target integration. In the liver, the Albumin (Alb) locus is currently the only well-characterized site for promoterless transgene insertion. Here, we target the Apoa1 locus with adeno-associated viral (AAV) delivery of CRISPR-Cas9 and achieve rates of 6% to 16% of targeted hepatocytes, with no evidence of toxicity. We further show that the endogenous Apoa1 promoter can drive robust and sustained expression of therapeutic …

Poor Vector Competence Of The Human Flea, Pulex Irritans, To Transmit Yersinia Pestis, Adélaïde Miarinjara, David M. Bland, James R. Belthoff, B. Joseph Hinnebusch

Biology Faculty Publications and Presentations

Background: The human flea, Pulex irritans, is widespread globally and has a long association with humans, one of its principal hosts. Its role in plague transmission is still under discussion, although its high prevalence in plague-endemic regions and the presence of infected fleas of this species during plague outbreaks has led to proposals that it has been a significant vector in human-to-human transmission in some historical and present-day epidemiologic situations. However, based on a limited number of studies, P. irritans is considered to be a poor vector and receives very little attention from public health policymakers. In this study …

Agricultural Conservation Practices And Aquatic Ecological Responses, Richard E. Lizotte, Peter C. Smiley, Robert B. Gillespie, Scott S. Knight

Faculty and Student Publications

Conservation agriculture practices (CAs) have been internationally promoted and used for decades to enhance soil health and mitigate soil loss. An additional benefit of CAs has been mitigation of agricultural runoff impacts on aquatic ecosystems. Countries across the globe have agricultural agencies that provide programs for farmers to implement a variety of CAs. Increasingly there is a need to demonstrate that CAs can provide ecological improvements in aquatic ecosystems. Growing global concerns of lost habitat, biodiversity, and ecosystem services, increased eutrophication and associated harmful algal blooms are expected to intensify with increasing global populations and changing climate. We conducted a …

Qualitative Analysis Of A Modified Leslie-Gower Predator-Prey Model With Weak Allee Effect Ii, Manoj K. Singh, B. S. Bhadauria

Applications and Applied Mathematics: An International Journal (AAM)

The article aims to study a modified Leslie-Gower predator-prey model with Allee effect II, affecting the functional response with the assumption that the extent to which the environment provides protection to both predator and prey is the same. The model has been studied analytically as well as numerically, including stability and bifurcation analysis. Compared with the predator-prey model without Allee effect, it is found that the weak Allee effect II can bring rich and complicated dynamics, such as the model undergoes to a series of bifurcations (Homoclinic, Hopf, Saddle-node and Bogdanov-Takens). The existence of Hopf bifurcation has been shown for …

Prawn Resource Of Exmouth Gulf Harvest Strategy : 2021-2026 : Version 2.0, Department Of Fisheries

Fisheries Management Papers

No abstract provided.

Decellularized Porcine Cartilage Scaffold: Validation Of Decellularization And Evaluation Of Biomarkers Of Chondrogenesis, Roxanne N. Stone, Stephanie M. Frahs, Makenna J. Hardy, Akina Fujimoto, Xinzhu Pu, Cynthia Keller-Peck, Julia Thom Oxford

Biology Faculty Publications and Presentations

Osteoarthritis is a major concern in the United States and worldwide. Current non-surgical and surgical approaches alleviate pain but show little evidence of cartilage restoration. Cell-based treatments may hold promise for the regeneration of hyaline cartilage-like tissue at the site of injury or wear. Cell–cell and cell–matrix interactions have been shown to drive cell differentiation pathways. Biomaterials for clinically relevant applications can be generated from decellularized porcine auricular cartilage. This material may represent a suitable scaffold on which to seed and grow chondrocytes to create new cartilage. In this study, we used decellularization techniques to create an extracellular matrix scaffold …

Unifying Community Detection Across Scales From Genomes To Landscapes, Stephanie F. Hudon, Andrii Zaiats, Anna Roser, Anand Roopsind, Cristina Barber, Brecken Robb, Britt Pendleton, Merry M. Davidson, Jonas Frankel-Bricker, Marcella Fremgen-Tarantino, Jennifer Sorensen Forbey, Eric Hayden, Olivia K. Rodriguez, T. Trevor Caughlin

Biology Faculty Publications and Presentations

Biodiversity science encompasses multiple disciplines and biological scales from molecules to landscapes. Nevertheless, biodiversity data are often analyzed separately with discipline-specific methodologies, constraining resulting inferences to a single scale. To overcome this, we present a topic modeling framework to analyze community composition in cross-disciplinary datasets, including those generated from metagenomics, metabolomics, field ecology and remote sensing. Using topic models, we demonstrate how community detection in different datasets can inform the conservation of interacting plants and herbivores. We show how topic models can identify members of molecular, organismal and landscape-level communities that relate to wildlife health, from gut microbes to forage …

Linking Behavioral States To Landscape Features For Improved Conservation Management, Maitreyi Sur, Jim R. Belthoff

Biology Faculty Publications and Presentations

1. A central theme for conservation is understanding how animals differentially use, and are affected by change in, the landscapes they inhabit. However, it has been challenging to develop conservation schemes for habitat-specific behaviors.
2. Here we use behavioral change point analysis to identify behavioral states of golden eagles (Aquila chrysaetos) in the Sonoran and Mojave Deserts of the southwestern United States, and we identify, for each behavioral state, conservation-relevant habitat associations.
3. We modeled behavior using 186,859 GPS points from 48 eagles and identified 2,851 distinct segments comprising four behavioral states. Altitude above ground level (AGL) best differentiated behavioral states, …

Understanding The Climate Impacts On Decadal Vegetation Change In Northern Alaska, Jacob A. Harris, Robert D. Hollister, Timothy F. Botting, Craig E. Tweedie, Katlyn Rose Betway, Jeremy May, Robert T.S. Barrett, Jenny A. Liebig, Hana L. Christoffersen, Sergio A. Vargas, Mariana Orejel, Tabatha L. Fuson

Open Access Publishing Support Funded Articles

The Arctic is experiencing rapid climate change. This research documents tundra vegetation changes near Atqasuk and Utqiaġvik, Alaska. At each location, 30 plots were sampled annually from 2010 to 2019 using a point frame. For every encounter, we recorded the height and classified it into eight groupings (deciduous shrubs, evergreen shrubs, forbs, graminoids, bryophytes, lichens, litter and standing dead vegetation); for vascular plants we also identified the species. We found an increase in plant stature and cover over time consistent with regional warming. Graminoid cover and height increased at both sites, with a fivefold increase in cover in Atqasuk. At …