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Investigating The Avian Species Composition, Diversity, And Abundance Of Engelhorn Pond, Kiana Rose

Undergraduate Honors Theses

Central Washington University’s Engelhorn Pond contains important habitats for many organisms, particularly migratory birds, and is a valuable resource for students. However, little information is available about the wildlife inhabiting the pond. The pond’s discrete location means that many people are unaware of its existence. In addition, the pond is threatened by a number of anthropogenic sources, including chemical runoff, garbage, and feral cats. By using point counts, a common ornithological survey technique, I recorded the bird species present at the pond during all seasons of the year. I collected data using point counts during 13 visits from June of …

Ticks On Lizards: Parasite-Host Interactions Of The Southern Alligator Lizard (Elgaria Multicarinata) In Washington State, Emma Houghton

All Undergraduate Projects

I investigated interactions between ectoparasites (ticks) and their host, the southern alligator lizard (Elgaria multicarinata). Alligator lizards are capable of complement-mediated killing of the Lyme disease spirochete carried by ticks and may potentially reduce Lyme disease prevalence by cleansing pathogenic organisms from ticks. Despite this, little is known about host-parasite dynamics in alligator lizards. My goals were to 1) assess patterns of tick presence (i.e. parasite load) on alligator lizards and 2) investigate potential negative effects of ticks on alligator lizards. I sampled lizards during the summer of 2019 near Catherine Creek, along the Columbia River Gorge in southern Washington. …

Investigating The Effects Of Uv Filters In Sunscreen On Human And Environmental Health, Brittany M. Thompson

Honors Undergraduate Theses

Ultraviolet filters are active ingredients in sunscreen that protect us from harmful UV radiation. However, organic UV filters are thought to have adverse effects on the environment and humans. In recent years, fear of harmful impacts of sunscreen has caused a surge of coral reef safe sunscreens to hit the market. These sunscreens, which contain inorganic metal oxides as UV filters, have been accepted as safe for humans and the environment until recently. Metal oxides in reef safe sunscreens may form intermediates in the water that can harm marine life and can absorb through the skin and into the blood, …

Sensing Symbiosis: Investigating The Symbiotic Magnetic Sensing Hypothesis In Fish Using Genomics, Elizabeth Boggs

Honors Undergraduate Theses

The mechanism behind magnetoreception – the ability to sense magnetic fields for orientation and navigation – still remains one of the most difficult questions to answer in sensory biology, with fish being just one of many taxa known to possess this sense. Characterizing a magnetic sense in fish is crucial for understanding how they navigate their environment and can inform on how increasing anthropogenic sources of electromagnetic fields in aquatic environments may affect threatened fish species. This study examined the hypothesis put forth by Natan and Vortman (2017) that magnetotactic bacteria (MTB), bacteria that create their own chains of magnetic …

Role Of Polyploidy In Leaf Functional Trait Evolution Across Wild Helianthus, Anestacia S. Robinson

Honors Undergraduate Theses

Whole genome duplication, or polyploidy, is a common process in plants by which failures in meiosis or fertilization result in offspring with twice the number of chromosomes. This doubles the number of copies of every gene, an effect thought to generate new ‘raw material' upon which natural selection can act. Few studies exist examining the consequences of polyploidy for plant physiological traits. Doubling the number of gene copies may have unknown effects on leaf structure and function. In this study, I compare diploid, tetraploid, and hexaploid species within the genus Helianthus (wild sunflowers). Forty different accessions of wild sunflowers were …

Evaluation Of The Efficacy Of A Cholera Toxin-Based Staphylococcus Aureus Vaccine Against Bovine Intramammary Challenge, Hussain A. Alabdullah, Elise Overgaard, Danielle Scarbrough, Janet E. Williams, Omid Mohammad Mousa, Gary Dunn, Laura Bond, Mark A. Mcguire, Juliette K. Tinker

Biology Faculty Publications and Presentations

Staphylococcus aureus (S. aureus) is a primary agent of bovine mastitis and a source of significant economic loss for the dairy industry. We previously reported antigen-specific immune induction in the milk and serum of dairy cows following vaccination with a cholera toxin A₂ and B subunit (CTA₂/B) based vaccine containing the iron-regulated surface determinant A (IsdA) and clumping factor A (ClfA) antigens of S. aureus (IsdA + ClfA-CTA₂/B). The goal of the current study was to assess the efficacy of this vaccine to protect against S. aureus infection after intramammary challenge. Six mid-lactation …

Oxidative Stress Responses And Nutrient Starvation In Mchm Treated Saccharomyces Cerevisiae, Michael C. Ayers, Zachary N. Sherman, Jennifer E. G. Gallagher

Faculty & Staff Scholarship

In 2014, the coal cleaning chemical 4-methylcyclohexane methanol (MCHM) spilled into the water supply for 300,000 West Virginians. Initial toxicology tests showed relatively mild results, but the underlying effects on cellular biology were underexplored. Treated wildtype yeast cells grew poorly, but there was only a small decrease in cell viability. Cell cycle analysis revealed an absence of cells in S phase within thirty minutes of treatment. Cells accumulated in G1 over a six-hour time course, indicating arrest instead of death. A genetic screen of the haploid knockout collection revealed 329 high confidence genes required for optimal growth in MCHM. These …

Temporal Variability Of Polycyclic Aromatic Hydrocarbons In Deep-Sea Cephalopods Of The Northern Gulf Of Mexico, Isabel C. Romero, Heather L. Judkins, Michael Vecchione

USF St. Petersburg Campus Faculty Publications

As part of the effort to understand the effects of the Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill (DWHOS), we analyzed tissue from five species of midwater oceanic cephalopods in the northern Gulf of Mexico (GoM) during three time periods, including one period sampled fortuitously just before the spill (2010), and two periods sampled after the spill (2011 and 2015–2016). The species, Japetella diaphana, Abralia redfieldi, Histioteuthis corona, Leachia atlantica, and Onychoteuthis banksii were collected in three geographic areas in the GoM (east, south and southeast of the Macondo wellhead). Results indicate a shift in the composition of polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) in …

Small Herbaria Contribute Unique Biogeographic Records To County, Locality, And Temporal Scales, Travis D. Marsico, Erica R. Krimmel, J. Richard Carter, Emily L. Gillespie, Phillip D. Lowe, Ross Mccauley, Ashley B. Morris, Gil Nelson, Michelle Smith, Diana L. Soteropoulos, Anna K. Monfils

Scholarship and Professional Work - LAS

With digitization and data sharing initiatives underway over the last 15 years, an important need has been prioritizing specimens to digitize. Because duplicate specimens are shared among herbaria in exchange and gift programs, we investigated the extent to which unique biogeographic data are held in small herbaria vs. these data being redundant with those held by larger institutions. We evaluated the unique specimen contributions that small herbaria make to biogeographic understanding at county, locality, and temporal scales.

Using Northern Pike And Yellow Perch To Attempt A Trophic Cascade, Bryan Sea

Journal of Earth and Life Science

In the midwestern USA, water clarity has decreased in shallow lakes as a result of large populations of Fathead Minnow Pimephales promelas and agriculture that impact the life that depend on shallow habitats, such as waterfowl, fish, and aquatic plants. Northern Pike Esox lucius and Yellow Perch Perca flavescens were stocked in a few lakes in attempt to create a tropic cascade and reduce populations of nuisance Fathead Minnows. Northern Pike were stocked as fry and Yellow Perch were stocked as adults either pre-spawn or post-spawn. Lake managers hypothesized adult Yellow Perch would spawn and the age-0 Perch would feed …

Salamander Stress And Duress: The Relationship Between Cort, Autotomy And Regeneration, And Exploratory Behaviour, Aaron M. Sullivan, Jacquelyn L. Lewis

Faculty Publications - Department of Biological & Molecular Science

Responses to stress are generally mediated through the production of glucocorticoids by the hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal (or -interrenal) axis. The prolonged production of stress hormones can contribute to delayed wound healing and growth, but little is known about their influence on regeneration following tail autotomy, or exploratory behaviour in autotomized individuals. Here we examined the relationship between stress, re-generation, and exploratory behaviour in Allegheny Mountain dusky salamanders (Desmognathus ochrophaeus) by manipulating corticosterone (CORT) levels via cutaneous patch. First, we measured tail regeneration in salamanders with elevated CORT for 13 weeks after the induction of tail autotomy. Test subjects received a weekly patch …

An Ortholog Of The Vasa Intronic Gene Is Required For Small Rna-Mediated Translation Repression In Chlamydomonas Reinhardtii, Xinrong Ma, Fadia Ibrahim, Eun-Jeong Kim, Scott Shaver, James Becker, Fareha Razvi, Ronald L. Cerny, Heriberto D. Cerutti

School of Biological Sciences: Faculty Publications

Small RNAs (sRNAs) associate with Argonaute (AGO) proteins in effector complexes, termed RNA-induced silencing complexes (RISCs), which regulate complementary transcripts by translation inhibition and/or RNA degradation. In the unicellular alga Chlamydomonas, several metazoans, and land plants, emerging evidence indicates that polyribosome-associated transcripts can be translationally repressed by RISCs without substantial messenger RNA (mRNA) destabilization. However, the mechanism of translation inhibition in a polyribosomal context is not understood. Here we show that Chlamydomonas VIG1, an ortholog of the Drosophila melanogaster Vasa intronic gene (VIG), is required for this process. VIG1 localizes predominantly in the cytosol and comigrates with monoribosomes and …

Mitochondrial Dna Repair In An Arabidopsis Thaliana Uracil N-Glycosylase Mutant, Emily L. Wynn, Emma Purfeerst, Alan Christensen

School of Biological Sciences: Faculty Publications

Substitution rates in plant mitochondrial genes are extremely low, indicating strong selective pressure as well as efficient repair. Plant mitochondria possess base excision repair pathways; however, many repair pathways such as nucleotide excision repair and mismatch repair appear to be absent. In the absence of these pathways, many DNA lesions must be repaired by a different mechanism. To test the hypothesis that double-strand break repair (DSBR) is that mechanism, we maintained independent self-crossing lineages of plants deficient in uracil-N-glycosylase (UNG) for 11 generations to determine the repair outcomes when that pathway is missing. Surprisingly, no single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) were …

Temperature Alters The Shape Of Predator–Prey Cycles Through Effects On Underlying Mechanisms, John P. Delong, Shelby Lyon

School of Biological Sciences: Faculty Publications

Background: Predicting the effects of climate warming on the dynamics of ecological systems requires understanding how temperature influences birth rates, death rates and the strength of species interactions. The temperature dependance of these processes—which are the underlying mechanisms of ecological dynamics—is often thought to be exponential or unimodal, generally supported by short-term experiments. However, ecological dynamics unfold over many generations. Our goal was to empirically document shifts in predator–prey cycles over the full range of temperatures that can possibly support a predator–prey system and then to uncover the effect of temperature on the underlying mechanisms driving those changes.

Methods: We …

Divergent Density Feedback Control Of Migratory Predator Recovery Following Sex-Biased Perturbations, Daisuke Goto, Martin J. Hamel, Mark A. Pegg, Jeremy J. Hammen, Matthew L. Rugg, Valery E. Forbes

School of Biological Sciences: Faculty Publications

Uncertainty in risks posed by emerging stressors such as synthetic hormones im-pedes conservation efforts for threatened vertebrate populations. Synthetic hor-mones often induce sex-biased perturbations in exposed animals by disrupting gonad development and early life-history stage transitions, potentially diminishing per capita reproductive output of depleted populations and, in turn, being manifest as Allee effects. We use a spatially explicit biophysical model to evaluate how sex-biased perturbation in life-history traits of individuals (maternal investment in egg production and male-skewed sex allocation in offspring) modulates density feedback control of year-class strength and recovery trajectories of a long-lived, migratory fish—shovelnose sturgeon (Scaphirhynchus platorynchus)—under spatially …

A High-Throughput Method To Quantify Feeding Rates In Aquatic Organisms: A Case Study With Daphnia, Jessica L. Hite, Alaina C. Pfenning-Butterworth, Rachel E. Vetter, Clayton E. Cressler

School of Biological Sciences: Faculty Publications

1. Food ingestion is one of the most basic features of all organisms. However, obtaining precise—and high-throughput—estimates of feeding rates remains challenging, particularly for small, aquatic herbivores such as zooplankton, snails, and tadpoles. These animals typically consume low volumes of food that are time-consuming to accurately measure.

2. We extend a standard high-throughput fluorometry technique, which uses a microplate reader and 96-well plates, as a practical tool for studies in ecology, evolution, and disease biology. We outline technical and methodological details to optimize quantification of individual feeding rates, improve accuracy, and minimize sampling error.

3. This high-throughput assay offers several …

Adaptations Of Interferon Regulatory Factor 3 With Transition From Terrestrial To Aquatic Life, Monica Angeletti, Wan-Ling Nicole Hsu, Nashaat Majo, Hideaki Moriyama, Etsuko Moriyama, Luwen Zhang

School of Biological Sciences: Faculty Publications

Interferon regulatory factor 3 (IRF3) and IRF7 are closely related IRF members and the major factors for the induction of interferons, a key component in vertebrate innate immunity. However, there is limited knowledge regarding the evolution and adaptation of those IRFs to the environments. Two unique motifs in IRF3 and 7 were identified. One motif, GASSL, is highly conserved throughout the evolution of IRF3 and 7 and located in the signal response domain. Another motif, DPHK, is in the DNA-binding domain. The ancestral protein of IRF3 and 7 seemed to possess the DPHK motif. In the ray-finned fish lineage, while …

Functional Responses Are Maximized At Intermediate Temperatures, Stella F. Uiterwaal, John Delong

School of Biological Sciences: Faculty Publications

Functional responses describe how consumer foraging rates change with resource density. Despite extensive research looking at the factors underlying foraging interactions, there remains ongoing controversy about how temperature and body size control the functional response parameters space clearance (or attack) rate and handling time. Here, we investigate the effects of temperature, consumer mass, and resource mass using the largest compilation of functional responses yet assembled. This compilation contains 2,083 functional response curves covering a wide range of foragers and prey types, environmental conditions, and habitats. After accounting for experimental arena size, dimensionality of the foraging interaction, and consumer taxon, we …

Invited Commentaries On Shizuka & Johnson 2020, & Response From The Authors, Adriana A. Maldonado-Chaparro, Damien R. Farine, Amiyaal Ilany, Orr Spiegel, Noa Pinter-Wollman, Ipek G. Kulahci, Eric Vander Wal, Quinn M.R. Webber, Daniel I. Rudenstein, Daizaburo Shizuka, Allison E. Johnson

School of Biological Sciences: Faculty Publications

Adriana A. Maldonado-Chaparro and Damien R. Farine, Demographic processes in animal networks are a question of time

Amiyaal Ilany, Complex societies, simple processes

Orr Spiegel and Noa Pinter-Wollman, Placing the effects of demography on networks in ecological context

Ipek G. Kulahci, Individual differences can affect how networks respond to demography

Eric Vander Wal and Quinn M.R. Webber, Density dependence and eco-evolutionary dynamics of animal social networks

Daniel I. Rubenstein, On assessing the importance of demographic change for social structure

Daizaburo Shizuka and Allison E. Johnson, The long view on demographic effects on social networks: A response to comments on Shizuka …

First Genome Sequence Of The Gunnison’S Prairie Dog (Cynomys Gunnisoni), A Keystone Species And Player In The Transmission Of Sylvatic Plague, Mirian T. N. Tsuchiya, Rebecca B. Dikow, Loren Cassin-Sackett

Integrative Biology Faculty and Staff Publications

Prairie dogs (genus Cynomys) are a charismatic symbol of the American West. Their large social aggregations and complex vocalizations have been the subject of scientific and popular interest for decades. A large body of literature has documented their role as keystone species of western North America’s grasslands: They generate habitat for other vertebrates, increase nutrient availability for plants, and act as a food source for mammalian, squamate, and avian predators. An additional keystone role lies in their extreme susceptibility to sylvatic plague (caused by Yersinia pestis), which results in periodic population extinctions, thereby generating spatiotemporal heterogeneity in both …

Genetic Analysis Of The Endangered Gray Bat Species (Myotis Grisescens), Emma Fitzgerald

Lewis Honors College Capstone Collection

This study attempts to analyze the genetics using specific haplotype sequences of the endangered gray bat to determine genetic events that have happened in the past as well as determining how the species population has changed over time. We were able to conduct a Tajima’s D test to investigate whether a potential bottleneck has occurred. A linear regression of the genetic vs. geographical distance was produced to investigate the patterns of haplotype distribution. The species past distribution was compared to the current distribution using known collected specimens. A map of future predictions was constructed using present and future climate layers …

Pedigree Validation Using Genetic Markers In An Intensively-Managed Taonga Species, The Critically Endangered Kakī (Himantopus Novaezelandiae), Ashley Overbeek, Stephanie Galla, Liz Brown, Simon Cleland, Cody Thyne, Richard Maloney, Tammy Steeves

Biology Faculty Publications and Presentations

Many species recovery programmes use pedigrees to understand the genetic ancestry of individuals to inform conservation management. However, incorrect parentage assignment may limit the accuracy of these pedigrees and subsequent management decisions. This is especially relevant for pedigrees that include wild individuals, where misassignment may not only be attributed to human error, but also promiscuity (i.e. extra-pair parentage) or egg-dumping (i.e. brood parasitism). Here, we evaluate pedigree accuracy in the socially monogamous and critically endangered kakī (black stilt, Himantopus novaezelandiae) using microsatellite allele-exclusion analyses for 56 wild family groups across three breeding seasons (2014–2016, n= 340). We identified …

Direct And Indirect Effects Of Sex Steroids On Gonadotrope Cell Plasticity In The Teleost Fish Pituitary, Romain Fontaine, Muhammad Rahmad Royan, Kristine Von Krogh, Finn-Arne Weltzien, Dianne M. Baker

Biological Sciences Research

The pituitary gland controls many important physiological processes in vertebrates, including growth, homeostasis, and reproduction. As in mammals, the teleost pituitary exhibits a high degree of plasticity. This plasticity permits changes in hormone production and secretion necessary to meet the fluctuating demands over the life of an animal. Pituitary plasticity is achieved at both cellular and population levels. At the cellular level, hormone synthesis and release can be regulated via changes in cell composition to modulate both sensitivity and response to different signals. At the cell population level, the number of cells producing a given hormone can change due to …

Molecular Tools For Coral Reef Restoration: Beyond Biomarker Discovery, John Everett Parkinson, Andrew C. Baker, Iliana B. Baums, Sarah W. Davies, Andréa G. Grottoli, Sheila A. Kitchen, Mikhail V. Matz, Margaret W. Miller, Andrew A. Shantz, Carly D. Kenkel

Integrative Biology Faculty and Staff Publications

As coral reefs continue to decline due to climate change and other stressors, scientists have proposed adopting genomic tools, such as biomarkers, to aid in the conservation and restoration of these threatened ecosystems. Biomarkers are easily measured indicators of biological processes that can be used to predict or diagnose health, resilience, and other key performance metrics. The ultimate goal of developing biomarkers is to determine the conservation value and utility of a given coral colony, including the host animal, its algal symbionts, and their microbial partners. However, this goal remains distant because most efforts have not yet moved beyond the …

Diversity And Abundance Of Dragonflies And Damselflies In Tampa Bay, Florida, Meredith A. Krause, Thomas Koster, Bryan N. Macneill, Daniel J. Zydek, Nicholas T. Ogburn, Jonathan Sharpin, Robert Shell, Marc J. Lajeunesse

Integrative Biology Faculty and Staff Publications

Little is known about the community of dragonflies and damselflies in Tampa Bay, Florida, USA. To address this gap, we conducted 2 longitudinal surveys of adult odonates in a natural floodplain of the Hillsborough River in 2013 and 2017. Along with abundance and species diversity, we also measured intraspecific variation in body size, sexual dimorphism, wing-cell asymmetry, and water mite ectoparasitism. Our first weekly survey from Oct 2013 to Oct 2014 sampled 327 adults (230 female, 97 male) from 8 dragonfly species, with the eastern pondhawk (Erythemis simplicicollis Say; Odonata: Libellulidae) representing 79% of captures, followed by the second …

Demonstrating Mate Choice Copying In Spiders Requires Further Research, R. Tucker Gilman, Kasey Fowler-Finn, Eileen A. Hebets

Eileen Hebets Publications

Mate choice copying—when individuals learn to prefer mates or mate types that have been chosen by others—can influence trait evo-lution and speciation (Varela et al. 2018; Dion et al. 2019). Most examples of mate choice copying are from fish, birds, and mammals including humans (Varela et al. 2018). However, 2 invertebrate examples—fruit flies and wolf spiders—have been used to argue that the phenomenon may be phylogenetically widespread, and perhaps the rule rather than the exception in nature (Varela et al. 2018). Here, we revisit the evidence for mate choice copying in wolf spiders (Fowler-Finn et al. 2015) in light of …

Analysis Of Bacterial Dna And Water Quality: Surface Water Sampling At Gardner-Webb University, Celsea Reeder

Undergraduate Honors Theses

Part 1 of this experiment was to explore the bacterial types within the surface water on the campus of Gardner-Webb University, located in Boiling Springs, NC. Two water samples were collected from four locations on campus, including the boiling spring, Lake Hollifield, and an adjacent creek. Using the Zymo Research “Quick-DNA^™ Fungal/Bacterial Miniprep Kit,” the bacterial DNA within these samples was isolated and sent to Psomagen, Inc. for analysis. The resulting DNA sequences were analyzed through BLAST, and subsequently interpreted. For the second part of this experiment, one surface water sample was taken from the boiling spring, and another …

Fertility, Belief, And Sexuality, Madison F. Von Deylen, Kaylynne M. Glover, Vincent M. Cassone

Posters-at-the-Capitol Presentations

The human ovulatory cycle lasts an average of 28 days and is highly variable both within and among women, making ovulation and the fertile window difficult to estimate in humans. Commonly used methods for estimating fertility assume length consistency during various cycle phases, an assumption that often miscategorizes women as fertile when not and vice versa. This experiment analyzes several of the common methods used to estimate fertility, including forwards and backwards-counting methods and actuarial methods, and compares them against hormonal testing to determine the most accurate method for fertility identification. Additionally, we used hormonal ovulation tests combined with daily …

A New Genus Of Baetidae (Insecta, Ephemeroptera) From Southeast Asia, Thomas Kaltenbach, Jhoana M. Garces, Jean-Luc Gattolliat

Biology Faculty Publications

A new genus of Baetidae is described from Southeast Asia, Procerobaetis gen. nov. It has a wide distribution reaching from Indonesia (Sumatra) to the Philippines. Two new species are described from Indonesia, P. leptobranchius gen. et sp. nov. and P. petersorum gen. et sp. nov., and one new species from the Philippines, P. freitagi gen. et sp. nov. Procerobaetis gen. nov. is characterized by having seven pairs of elongate, apically pointed gills. At least gills I and II are very slender with strongly extended points, which is unique in Baetidae. Similar gills were described from Leptophlebiidae. Procerobaetis gen. nov. is …

Sediment Microbiomes Associated With Critical Habitat Of The Juvenile American Horseshoe Crab; Limulus Polyphemus, J. Petersen, Christina P. Colon, J. L. Joyner

Publications and Research

Plumb Beach, Brooklyn, New York in USA is an important horseshoe crab breeding and nursery ground that has experienced substantial anthropogenic influence, including pollution, erosion and subsequent restoration. Since little is known about the relationship between sediment microbial communities and juvenile horseshoe crab survival, next generation sequencing was used to characterize and compare the sediment microbiome of three distinct areas of Plumb Beach:- a tidal creek with abundant juveniles, East Beach with moderate number of juveniles, and West Beach- a highly disturbed area where juvenile crabs are rarely seen. The microbiome of juvenile crab intestinal content (both dissected gut content …