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Tapping Into Natural History Collections To Assess Latitudinal Gradients Of Parasite Diversity, Sebastian Botero-Cañola, Scott Lyell Gardner

Scott L. Gardner Publications

Parasites are key components of the biosphere not only due to their huge diversity, but also because they exert important influences on ecological processes. Nevertheless, we lack an understanding of the biogeographical patterns of parasite diversity. Here, we tap into the potential of biodiversity collections for understanding parasite biogeography. We assess species richness of supracommunities of helminth parasites infecting mammal assemblages in the Nearctic, and describe its relation to latitude, climate, host diversity, and land area. We compiled data from parasitology collections and assessed parasite diversity in Nearctic ecoregions for the entire parasite supracommunity of mammals in each ecoregion, as …

Investigating The Effects Of Disturbance And Competition On Establishment, Growth, And Reproduction Of The Endangered Ripariosida Hermaphrodita, Daniel Engelking

Theses and Dissertations (Comprehensive)

Ripariosida hermaphrodita (Virginia Mallow) is a perennial riparian plant with broad, maple-like leaves. It grows up to three meters high and is often found in large clonal patches, but sexually reproduces readily. While this plant may seem like a redoubtable competitor when growing in large colonies, it is declining across its range in North America. The only known occurrences in Canada are in southern Ontario. Prior to this study, no new populations had been recorded even though one of the known populations produces copious amounts of viable seed with potential to disperse. There are many hypotheses for its rarity, but …

An Automatic System To Evaluate Bait Station Visitation By Brown Treesnakes And Mongooses, Robert T. Sugihara, William C. Pitt, Are R. Berentsen, Francis L. Benevides Jr.

Human–Wildlife Interactions

Understanding the temporal, spatial, and behavioral patterns of the free-ranging target species in response to candidate baits and baiting strategies is important to ensure control success. This information can also assist in the development and deployment of feeding stations and can exclude non-target species while constituting effective bait delivery and control strategies for certain invasive animals, especially at environmentally sensitive sites. We used passive integrated transponder (PIT) tags in conjunction with very-high frequency radio-telemetry to remotely record bait station visitations and evaluate bait attractiveness in separate field research studies of brown treesnakes (Boiga irregularis) on Andersen Air Force …

Confocal Analysis Of Sindbis Virus In Aedes Aegypti Unveils Novel Infection Site At Pyloric Armature, Katie Gillian Peters

UNF Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Arthropod-borne viruses (arboviruses), such as Sindbis virus (SINV), generate foci of infection within the midgut of viremic blood-fed mosquitoes. Arboviruses can disseminate out of the midgut into the surrounding musculature and hemolymph, eventually making it to the salivary glands where virus can be transmitted by saliva during a subsequent blood-feed. In this study, the virus SINV containing the reporter gene GFP, combined with immunohistochemistry, was imaged using confocal microscopy and used to evaluate the infection within the vector mosquito Aedes aegypti. The spatial distribution of SINV infection revealed two common characteristics of foci generated in the midgut. (1) There …

Variation In Carapace Damage Within And Among Loggerhead Musk Turtle (Sternotherus Minor) Populations In Florida Spring-Fed Ecosystems, Joseph J. Pignatelli Iii, Katrina Campbell, Brian P. Butterfield, Gerald R. Johnston, Joseph C. Mitchell, Grover J. Brown, J. Brian Hauge, Andrew D. Walde, Eric C. Munscher

Research, Publications & Creative Work

Damage to a turtle’s shell can provide evidence of past events such as vehicle collisions, disease, predator encounters, or even a behavioural interaction between members of the same species. Documenting shell damage as part of long-term mark and recapture studies enables researchers to determine population trends, intraspecific interactions and identify potential issues within turtle populations. This paper analyses shell damage in populations of the Loggerhead Musk Turtle (Sternotherus minor) (Agassiz, 1857). We examined carapace shell damage frequency and severity in 2701 individual S. minor (1468 males and 1233 females) captured in spring-fed habitats in one state preserve and five state …

Community Ecology And Disease Dynamics In Pacific Oysters: Unraveling Microbiome-Pathogen Interactions In The Wild, Victoria E. Cifelli

Cal Poly Humboldt theses and projects

In the context of multispecies microbial assemblages, disruptions can occur when there are alterations in host conditions, such as the onset of a disease. Notably, viruses have the potential to reshape a host's microbial community. However, the role of the host's habitat and environment, which could be pivotal in communities with shifting niche space and habitat filters, is often overlooked in host-microbe-pathogen interactions. Recognizing the importance of these factors, I employed a field-based approach to understand microbial community dynamics in the presence of disease. To address the influence of geographical location, I conducted an analysis involving healthy and infected oysters …

System Shock: Using -Omics Data To Characterize Biological Remodeling In The Microbiome, Resistome, And Transcriptome Of Bacteria, Winston Eugene Anthony

Arts & Sciences Graduate Student Theses and Dissertations

The human experience is indelibly linked to microbial life. So much so, that the holobiont theory has been coined to define the assemblage of host and microbe as a discrete ecological unit. Perturbation of the commensal microbiome can create niche space for pathogens, which through the concomitant rise of antimicrobial resistance represent an ever-evolving danger. In Chapter 2 of this dissertation, I describe the results of an interventional study designed to directly perturb the healthy gut microbiome and observe the dynamics of taxonomic composition and functional recovery. I observe significant decreases after 5 days of antibiotic treatment in the gold …

Urban Green Roofs Can Support A Diversity Of Parasitoid Wasps, Aramee C. Diethelm, Susan Masta

Biology Faculty Publications and Presentations

Green roofs are often installed atop buildings to provide ecological services such as mitigating storm water runoff and cooling air within urban heat islands. We found that green roofs in Portland, Oregon, also can support biodiversity, including a diverse assemblage of parasitoid wasps, with 20 morphospecies from 10 families present on the four roofs we surveyed. The roofs with greater plant diversity and structural complexity harbored comparatively more parasitoid morphospecies than the structurally simpler Sedum-dominated roofs. The oldest green roof supported much greater diversity than the younger roofs, including a comparably planted roof three times its size. Parasitoid wasps from …

Drone Imagery Protocols To Map Vegetation Are Transferable Between Dryland Sites Across An Elevational Gradient, Anna Roser, Josh Enterkine, Juan M. Requena-Mullor, Nancy F. Glenn, Alex R. Boehm, Marie-Anne De Graaff, Patrick E. Clark, Fred Pierson, T. Trevor Caughlin

Biology Faculty Publications and Presentations

The structure and composition of plant communities in drylands are highly variable across scales, from microsites to landscapes. Fine spatial resolution field surveys of dryland plants are essential to unravel the impact of climate change; however, traditional field data collection is challenging considering sampling efforts and costs. Unoccupied aerial systems (UAS) can alleviate this challenge by providing standardized measurements of plant community attributes with high resolution. However, given widespread heterogeneity in plant communities in drylands, and especially across environmental gradients, the transferability of UAS imagery protocols is unclear. Plant functional types (PFTs) are a classification scheme that aggregates the diversity …

Avian Species Distribution Models: Using Location Data To Inform Management Decisions, Marilyn E. Wright

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Spring 1920 to Summer 2023

Both state and federal wildlife agencies strive to conserve and protect wildlife and their habitats as an important public resource. Applied management decisions often rely on being able to obtain data that can efficiently and effectively enhance the understanding of these systems for informing management actions. Wildlife managers often focus efforts on a small subset of species from an ecosystem, typically called focal species, who can serve as surrogates for understanding the health and function of the system. Models that consider how these focal species interact with the ecosystem are often used to better understand important aspects of their life …

Landscape Genomics Of The Tussock Cottongrass (Eriophorum Vaginatum) And The Dwarf Birch (Betula Nana) In North Central Alaska, Elizabeth Stunz

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

Global climate change has resulted in geographic range shifts of flora and fauna at a global scale. Extreme environments, like the Arctic, are seeing some of the most pronounced changes. This region covers 14% of the Earthâ??s land area, and while many arctic species are widespread, understanding ecotypic variation at the genomic level will be important for elucidating how range shifts will affect ecological processes. Increase in shrub cover is a major effect of ongoing climate change in arctic tundra ecosystems. The relative increases in abundance and cover of shrub species such as birch, willow, and alder (Betula, Salix, and …

Biology And Epidemiology Of Dengue Viruses In The El Paso And The Surrounding Usa And Mexico Border Communities, Pedro Miguel Palermo Infante

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

Dengue is considered one of the most important human arboviral diseases worldwide. Dengue cases have increased in the last three decades in the Americas, especially along the United States (US)- Mexico (MX) border region, where the main vector of dengue, Aedes aegypti mosquito, is widely distributed. Explosive outbreaks of dengue in northern Mexico have been associated with imported and local transmission of dengue in the US border communities, especially in the Southeast Texas area, also known as Rio Grande Valley. Due to the unknown if dengue virus (DENV) is present in other areas in the US border located west of …

Population Demography, Spatial Ecology, And Habitat Use Of The Florida Box Turtle (Terrapene Bauri) On A Barrier Island, Michael D. Mills

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Turtles are one the most threatened vertebrate groups in the world due to anthropogenic threats such as habitat loss and overexploitation. In addition to occupying a range that has been vulnerable to major habitat loss, the Florida box turtle (Terrapene bauri) is particularly at risk of overexploitation due to its popularity in the pet trade. Sanibel Island is a barrier island in southwest Florida that has experienced major habitat loss and is the site of a recent poaching event. In response to these threats, studies of both the population demography and spatial ecology were conducted on Sanibel’s Florida box turtle …

An Assessment Of Future Tidal Marsh Resilience In The San Francisco Estuary Through Modeling And Quantifiable Metrics Of Sustainability, James T. Morris, Judith Z. Drexler, Lydia J.S. Vaughn, April H. Robinson

Faculty Publications

Quantitative, broadly applicable metrics of resilience are needed to effectively manage tidal marshes into the future. Here we quantified three metrics of temporal marsh resilience: time to marsh drowning, time to marsh tipping point, and the probability of a regime shift, defined as the conditional probability of a transition to an alternative super-optimal, suboptimal, or drowned state. We used organic matter content (loss on ignition, LOI) and peat age combined with the Coastal Wetland Equilibrium Model (CWEM) to track wetland development and resilience under different sea-level rise scenarios in the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta (Delta) of California. A 100-year hindcast of …

Combining Isotopic And Genetic Analyses To Quantify Microbial Facilitation Of Recalcitrant Resource Use By Terrestrial And Aquatic Consumers, Alexi Christina Besser

Biology ETDs

Quantifying the flow of energy and nutrients through food webs is foundational to understanding the structure and function of ecosystems. Here, I utilize the stable carbon and nitrogen isotope analysis of individual amino acids to trace the movement of essential amino acids through terrestrial and freshwater food webs in New Mexico, USA. I first explore isotopic patterns among co-occurring terrestrial plants and aquatic algae. I then combine this molecular isotopic approach with 16S and 18S rRNA sequencing to demonstrate the importance of gut microbiota as sources of essential amino acids to wild mammalian hosts. Next, I explore the roles of …

County-Level Societal Predictors Of Covid-19 Cases And Deaths Changed Through Time In The United States: A Longitudinal Ecological Study, Philip J. Bergmann, Nathan A. Ahlgren, Rosalie A. Torres Stone

Biology

People of different racial/ethnic backgrounds, demographics, health, and socioeconomic characteristics have experienced disproportionate rates of infection and death due to COVID-19. This study tests if and how county-level rates of infection and death have changed in relation to societal county characteristics through time as the pandemic progressed. This longitudinal study sampled monthly county-level COVID-19 case and death data per 100,000 residents from April 2020 to March 2022, and studied the relationships of these variables with racial/ethnic, demographic, health, and socioeconomic characteristics for 3125 or 97.0% of U.S. counties, accounting for 96.4% of the U.S. population. The association of all county-level …

Design And Assessment Of A Novel Edna Survey Method For The Eastern Indigo Snake (Drymarchon Couperi), Emily K. Galbraith

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

1. Accurate information about species range declines is the cornerstone of effective conservation when habitat loss drives biodiversity loss. The Eastern Indigo snake (Drymarchon couperi) is an apex predator in Florida and, like many other native Florida species, is threatened by widespread habitat destruction. Environmental DNA (eDNA) monitoring of this elusive snake would provide a low-risk and low-cost approach to expand our knowledge of the species’ range and distribution.

2. We designed and tested an eDNA assay that can detect the presence of Eastern Indigo snake from soil samples of their natural habitat. This assay was …

Filamentous Green Algae (Cladophora Glomerata) In Near Shore Lake Ontario: An Investigation Of Tissue And Water Nutrient Dynamics Through A Period Of Growth And Decomposition., James L. Wagner Jr

Biology Theses

Cladophora glomerata, a filamentous green alga abundant in the Laurentian Great Lakes, has long been considered a nuisance throughout the region. Previous phosphorus (P) abatement practices and legislation successfully reduced the abundance of the algae, but with the introduction of dreissenid mussels, a resurgence has been observed. Though there is substantial literature and modeling of the growth cycle of Cladophora, relatively little research has been dedicated to the decomposition stage of the algae, a period which may contribute to a substantial influx of nutrients to near-shore environmental regions. By first examining a period of in-situ growth within Lake …

Investigations Into The Negative Impact Of Temperature Stress On Fertility In Wild Strains Of Caenorhabditis Elegans, Nicholas B. Sepulveda

Dissertations (1934 -)

Sexual reproduction and its coincident genetic recombination are powerful adaptive strategies. However, sexual reproduction has disadvantages. One ancient and conserved disadvantage is temperature sensitivity. In organisms diverse as plants, insects, nematode worms, and humans, as temperatures increase, fertility decreases. The goal of this dissertation is to examine the negative impact of elevated temperature stress on fertility in sexually reproducing organisms using wild strains of Caenorhabditis elegans. C. elegans presents a unique opportunity to study these effects broadly in two contexts, as worms may be either self-fertile hermaphrodites that produce both egg and sperm or males which produce only sperm. In …

Niche Overlap In Sympatric Rocio (Teleostei: Cichlidae) Of Guatemala, Cesar Estuardo Fuentes Montejo

College of Science and Health Theses and Dissertations

Rocio is a small genus of Neotropical freshwater fishes that is distributed in Atlantic drainages of northern Middle America. Two species in the genus exhibit sympatry in the Río Dulce basin (in Izabal, Guatemala), where one species is endemic (R. spinosissima), while the other only includes this area as part of a larger geographic range (R. octofasciata). Unfortunately, the ecology of these species has been poorly studied. This study sought to determine the ecological and morphological differences between these two closely related sympatric freshwater fishes. We hypothesized that R. octofasciata would exhibit greater ecological and morphological …

Population Genetics Of Cownose Rays, Rhinoptera Spp. In The Western Atlantic, Helen Weber

Master's Theses

Using molecular tools (e.g., the NADH subunit II mitochondrial gene), this study was the first to document the Brazilian cownose ray, Rhinoptera brasiliensis, within the northwestern Atlantic (NWA), and was the first study to examine population structure in R. brasiliensis within the NWA or northern Gulf of Mexico (GMX), revealing novel insights into the population biology of the animal and extending its range by nearly 1,500 km. This study also examined the sympatrically occurring American cownose ray, R. bonasus, and found population structure between the NWA and the GMX and the NWA and the southwestern Atlantic (SWA). High …

Illuminating Protist Diversity In Pitcher Plants And Bromeliad Tanks, Robin S. Sleith, Laura A. Katz

Biological Sciences: Faculty Publications

Many species of plants have evolved structures called phytotelmata that store water and trap detritus and prey. These structures house diverse communities of organisms, the inquiline microbiome, that aids breakdown of litter and prey. The invertebrate and bacterial food webs in these systems are well characterized, but less is known about microbial eukaryotic community dynamics. In this study we focus on microbes in the SAR clade (Stramenopila, Alveolata, Rhizaria) inhabiting phytotelmata. Using small subunit rDNA amplicon sequencing from repeated temporal and geographic samples of wild and cultivated plants across the Northeast U.S.A., we demonstrate that communities are variable within and …

What Are Mycorrhizal Traits?, V. Bala Chaudhary, E. Penelope Holland, Suw Charman-Anderson, Aidee Guzman, Lukas Bell-Dereske, Tanya E. Cheeke, Adriana Corrales, Jessica Duchicela, Cameron Egan, Pushpa G. Soti

School of Integrative Biological & Chemical Sciences (Formerly Dept. of Biology)

Highlights

• Applying trait-based approaches to ecological research on mycorrhizal symbioses broadens ecological inferences, but there is no single unified framework to unite disparate language, terminology, and methods across the many multidisciplinary scientists studying mycorrhizas.
• We propose an inclusive framework for trait-based mycorrhizal ecology aimed to stimulate scientists around the world to collect and use more mycorrhizal trait data, particularly in understudied areas. This would widen our understanding regarding the ecological role of mycorrhizal symbioses at individual, species, community, and ecosystem scales.
• Analyzing how mycorrhizal symbioses fit within existing trait definitions highlights significant theoretical and empirical knowledge gaps, novel questions, and …

Seasonality In Phytoplankton Species Composition And Their Influence On Small Pelagic Fish Along The Western Pemba Channel, Margareth S Kyewalyanga

Tanzania Journal of Science

The influence of phytoplankton biomass on small pelagic fish groups was studied at three sites along the Western Pemba Channel, to assess the contribution of seasonality. Sampling took place at the three sites in the coastal waters of Tanga, Tanzania. The study used in-situ data from July 2016 to January 2017, remotely-sensed chlorophyll-a data from August 2016 to August 2017 and 2019–2020, and small pelagic fish catch data from the same periods as the remotely-sensed data. The dominant groups at all the three sites were diatoms, dinoflagellates, and cyanobacteria, with diatoms having the highest number of species compared to the …

High Daily And Year-Round Variability In Denitrification And Nitrogen Fixation In A Northern Temperate River, Kevin Nevorski, Amy M. Marcarelli

Michigan Tech Publications, Part 1

Rates of nitrogen (N) cycling processes like denitrification and dinitrogen (N2) fixation, which together are the primary contributors to N2 flux rates from surface waters, may change at different time scales from seasons to weeks to days. Yet, we know little about the magnitude, mechanisms or drivers of these temporal changes, especially at shorter daily and weekly timescales. Quantifying variation in rates and drivers across temporal scales is essential to understand how nutrient cycling processes operate in aquatic ecosystems and predict how they may respond to shifting seasonal dynamics caused by global change (i.e., earlier snowmelt and extreme weather events). …

A Decade Of Gigascience: A Perspective On Conservation Genetics, Stephen James O'Brien

Biology Faculty Articles

Wide interest in species conservation is young. To many it began early in 1903 when Teddy Roosevelt and John Muir set up a camp under the Grizzly Giant in the Mariposa Grove of California's Yosemite Valley. Over three days they decided to broaden the US National Park footprint across the USA. Conservationists were inspired in the coming decades by the writings of wildlife conservation pioneers—Osa Johnson (I Married Adventure), Karen Blixen (Out of Africa) and Rachel Carson (The Silent Spring). Countless crusaders developed a passion for preserving dwindling species in those early days, yet …

Collaborative Research: From Cooperation To Exploitation: Context-Dependent Effects Of Nectar Microbes On Pollination Mutualisms, Robert Nelson Schaeffer

Funded Research Records

No abstract provided.

Monitoring Avian Populations With Acoustic Indices In The Central Platte River Valley, Bethany Lynn Ostrom

Biology Theses, Dissertations, and Student Creative Activity

Acoustic indices are mathematical summaries of sound waves. Several researchers have tried to find relationships between them and vocal animal communities to use them as a passive monitoring method, as human-derived surveys are expensive, time-consuming, and suffer from observer bias. However, supplanting manual surveys with acoustic indices is a daunting task, considering effective indices for biological monitoring would need to differentiate biologically relevant sounds from the broader soundscape, including from human-derived (anthrophony) and earth-derived (geophony) sound. We collected avian community data and calculated six commonly used acoustic indices from acoustic recordings in the largest remaining intact lowland tallgrass prairie in …

A Review Of Current Methods In Avian Dietary Analysis And Their Integrated Application To Characterize The Trophic Niche Of Louisiana Waterthrush (Parkesia Motacilla)., Brandon Hoenig

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Characterizing a species’ dietary composition presents an avenue to understand many facets of its ecological niche and can provide essential information for the species’ long-term conservation. To date, the vast majority of diet studies have relied on direct identification of prey during foraging observations or from diet samples to characterize the dietary habits of birds. However, advancements in laboratory-based approaches have revolutionized the field of trophic ecology by allowing researchers to indirectly infer dietary habits with higher resolution across greater time scales. Here, I apply two of these laboratory-based techniques, namely DNA metabarcoding and stable isotope analysis, to characterize the …

Detection And Occurrence Of Nerodia Harteri (Serpentes: Colubridae) In An Upper Portion Of The Brazos River Watershed, Jessica Yates

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Semiaquatic snakes are disproportionately impacted by habitat alteration adjacent to wetlands because of their reliance on both terrestrial and aquatic habitats. Brazos River Watersnakes, Nerodia harteri, are endemic natricines with one of the most restricted geographic ranges in North America. I quantified detection and site occupancy probabilities of N. harteri and its sympatric congeners (N. erythrogaster and N. rhombifer), as well as microhabitat selection within the Nerodia community. Within occupied transects, search effort was positively correlated with detecting N. harteri, whereas environmental and/or habitat variables were better predictors for detecting the sympatric congeners. Microhabitat selection between …