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Effects Of Food Supplementation On The Physiological Ecology Of Female Western Diamond‐Backed Rattlesnakes (Crotalus Atrox), Emily N. Taylor, Michael A. Malawy, Dawn M. Browning, Shea V. Lemar, Dale F. Denardo

Biological Sciences

Food availability is an important factor in the life histories of organisms because it is often limiting and thus can affect growth, mass change, reproduction, and behaviors such as thermoregulation, locomotion, and mating. Experimental studies in natural settings allow researchers to examine the effects of food on these parameters while animals are free to behave naturally. The wide variation among organisms in energy demands and among environmental food resources suggest that responses to changes in food availability may vary among organisms. Since most supplemental feeding field experiments have been conducted on species with high energy demands, we conducted a supplemental …

Linking Patterns And Processes In Alpine Plant Communities: A Global Study, Zaal Kikvidze, Francisco I. Pugnaire, Robin W. Brooker, Philippe Choler, Christopher J. Lortie, Richard Michalet, Ragan M. Callaway

Biological Sciences Faculty Publications

Predictable relationships among patterns, processes, and properties of plant communities are crucial for developing meaningful conceptual models in community ecology. We studied such relationships in 18 plant communities spread throughout nine Northern Hemisphere high-mountain subalpine and alpine meadow systems and found linear and curvilinear correlative links among temperature, precipitation, productivity, plant interactions, spatial pattern, and richness. We found that sites with comparatively mild climates have greater plant biomass, and at these sites strong competition corresponds with overdispersed distribution of plants, reducing intraspecific patchiness and in turn increasing local richness. Sites with cold climates have little biomass, and at these sites …

A Phylogenomic Study Of The Genus Alphavirus Employing Whole Genome Comparison, Aimée J. Luers, Sandra Adams, John V. Smalley, James Campanella

Department of Biology Faculty Scholarship and Creative Works

The phylogenetics of the genus Alphavirus have historically been characterized using partial gene, single gene or partial proteomic data. We have mined cDNA and amino acid sequences from GenBank for all fully sequenced and some partially sequenced alphaviruses and generated phylogenomic analyses of the genus Alphavirus genus, employing capsid encoding structural regions, non-structural coding regions and complete viral genomes. Our studies support the presence of the previously reported recombination event that produced the Western Equine Encephalitis clade, and confirm many of the patterns of geographic radiation and divergence of the multiple species. Our data suggest that the Salmon Pancreatic Disease …

Environmental, Genetic, And Maternal Effects On Life-History Traits Of The Striped Ground Cricket, Allonemobius Socius, Diana Lea Huestis

Biology Theses - Archive

Organismal fitness is affected by environmental and genetic factors. More importantly, an interaction between an individual's genotype and current environmental conditions influences the success of that individual in its environment. Significant geographic and environmental correlates of allele frequencies at the Idh-1 locus, combined with a significant genotype-by-environment (GxE) interaction between Idh-1 genotype and temperature that affected fitness of Allonemobius socius, support the hypothesis that allele distributions in this species are the result of natural selection on performance of different genotypes at different temperatures. Additionally, I found that an interaction between parental diapause history and egg-incubation temperature affected the proportion of …

Fisheries Occasional Publication No.21 - Allocation Of The Western Rock Lobster Resource Between User Groups, Department Of Fisheries Western Australia

Fisheries Occasional Publications

In this submission to IFAAC, the Department will outline what it believes are the most practical and cost effective ways of managing a system of allocation amongst the commercial, customary and recreational sectors. This recommendation recognises that cost efficiencies and outcomes will be greatly affected by the type of allocation model that is chosen. Consequently the Department recommends that the allocation system should be based on a single allocation to each sector that is available over the entire fishery.

The Department does not recommend having any finer scale zoning of the allocations, or the creation of exclusive recreational fishing areas. …

Reductionism And Holism, Chance And Selection, Mechanism And Mind, Ursula Goodenough

Biology Faculty Research

Despite its rich and deepening panoply of empirical support, evolutionary theory continues to generate widespread concern. Some of this concern can be attributed to misunderstandings of the original concept, some to unfamiliarity with its current trajectories, and some to strongly held fears that it strips the human of cherished attributes. In this essay I seek to deconstruct such misunderstandings, lift up current concepts of what evolution entails, and address some of the existential issues it generates.

Stress Tolerance And Competitive-Response Ability Determine The Outcome Of Biotic Interactions, Pierre Liancourt, Ragan M. Callaway, Richard Michalet

Biological Sciences Faculty Publications

Theoretical models predict that the net outcome of biotic interactions among plants is the sum of co-occurring negative and positive interactions, with facilitation generally increasing in importance with increasing abiotic stress. However, species differ in fundamental niche optima; thus the intensity of stress is relative among species and important only in the context of these relative differences. We tested the hypothesis that the facilitative response of a species is relative to how much abiotic conditions deviate from the optimum conditions for that particular species (stress), and the competitive “response” ability of the species (i.e., its ability to tolerate the inhibitory …

Plasticity In Selective Phonotaxis And Neuronal Responses Of Acheta Domesticus, Benjamin Alejandro Navia

Loma Linda University Electronic Theses, Dissertations & Projects

Plasticity of phonotaxis in Acheta domesticus was evaluated in 207 young (5-7 days) and 328 old (28 days) female crickets. Of those that responded (508), their phonotaxis was grouped into selective (80% of young and 34% of old) and unselective (66% of old and 20% of young) on the basis of their responses to syllable period (SP). Two additional subcategories were also found. Some females were selective to the longer syllable periods (18% young, 20% old) while others were selective to the shorter syllable periods (7% young and 12% old). The L3 prothoracic auditory interneuron exhibits a decrementing response to …

Taxonomic Revision And Stratigraphic Provenance Of Histiophorus Rotundus Woodward 1901 (Teleostei, Perciformes), Kenneth A. Monsch, Harry L. Fierstine, Robert E. Weems

Biological Sciences

Until recently, Histiophorus rotundus Woodward 1901, was known from a single, poorly preserved rostrum from the Tertiary phosphate beds near Charleston, South Carolina, an area from which many fossils have been described. The specimen is relatively featureless externally; its internal anatomy is unknown and the documentation of its geological provenance was poor. In an earlier revision the species was transferred to the fossil billfish genus Xiphiorhynchus Van Beneden, 1871. Here we confirm this designation, supported by new morphological studies of the holotype, recently found specimens of tXiphiorhynchus rotundus (Woodward, 1901), and the stratigraphic record of tXiphiorhynchus. The systematic paleontology we …

The Effects Of Socioeconomic Development On Worldwide Hepatitis A Virus Seroprevalence Patterns, Kathryn H. Jacobsen, James S. Koopman

University Faculty Publications and Creative Works

Hepatitis A virus (HAV) infection confers long-term immunity, so mathematical analysis of age-specific seroprevalence in populations can reveal changes in the infection rate over time. HAV transmission is related to access to clean drinking water, personal hygiene and public sanitation. Methods: We used an SIR (susceptible-infectious-recovered) compartmental model with age structure to fit a time-dependent logistic function for HAV force of infection for 157 published age-seroprevalence data sets. We then fit linear regression models for socioeconomic variables and infection rate. Results: The proportion of the population with access to clean drinking water, the value of the human development index (HDI), …

Bioinformatics Study Of Mammalian Mrna Polydenylation, Haibo Zhang

Dissertations

Messenger RNA polyadenylation is one of the key post-transcriptional events in mammalian cells, which have influences on many aspects of mRNA metabolism. Several human diseases have been shown to associate with abnormal polyadenylation, highlighting the importance of this process. The availability of the complete sequence of human and mouse genomes, together with their gene expression data provides valuable resources to study mRNA polyadenylation on a system level. This dissertation addresses the following issues of mammalian mRNA polyadenylation through bioinformatics approaches: (1) the extensive documentation of several key aspects of polyadenylation sites in humans and mice on a genomic level; (2) …

Interspecific Divergence In Foliar Nutrient Dynamics And Stem Growth In A Temperate Forest In Response To Chronic Nitrogen Inputs, Jeffrey D. May, Sarah Beth Burdette, Frank S. Gilliam, Mary Beth Adams

Biological Sciences Faculty Research

We studied the effects of excessive nitrogen (N) fertilization on foliar nutrient dynamics and stem growth in three important tree species in a mixed-deciduous forest. Stem diameter growth, foliar N concentrations, nitrogen–phosphorus (N/P) ratios, and nutrient resorption were determined for Acer rubrum L. (ACRU), Liriodendron tulipifera L. (LITU), and Prunus serotina Ehrh. (PRSE) on two 30-year-old watersheds at the Fernow Experimental Forest, West Virginia, USA: WS3, fertilized annually with 35 kg ammonium sulfate·ha^-1 since 1989, and WS7, an untreated control watershed. In an earlier (1992) study, foliar N concentrations of all three species averaged 11% higher in WS3 than …

Cellulose Utilization By Clostridium Thermocellum: Bioenergetics And Hydrolysis Product Assimilation, Yi-Heng P. Zhang, Lee R. Lynd

Dartmouth Scholarship

The bioenergetics of cellulose utilization by Clostridium thermocellum was investigated. Cell yield and maintenance parameters, Y(X/ATP)True = 16.44 g cell/mol ATP and m = 3.27 mmol ATP/g cell per hour, were obtained from cellobiose-grown chemostats, and it was shown that one ATP is required per glucan transported. Experimentally determined values for G(ATP)P-T (ATP from phosphorolytic beta-glucan cleavage minus ATP for substrate transport, mol ATP/mol hexose) from chemostats fed beta-glucans with degree of polymerization (DP) 2-6 agreed well with the predicted value of (n-2)/n [corrected] (n = mean cellodextrin DP assimilated). A mean G(ATP)(P-T) value of 0.52 +/- 0.06 was calculated …

An Overview Of The 2nd National Invasive Rodent Summit, Gary Witmer, John D. Eisemann

Wildlife Damage Management Conference

On October 19-21, 2004, the USDA, APHIS, Wildlife Services, National Wildlife Research Center (NWRC) in Fort Collins, CO, hosted the 2nd National Invasive Rodent Summit. The conference was jointly sponsored by the NWRC, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS) and The Wildlife Society's Wildlife Damage Management Working Group. The conference was a follow-up to the 2001 "Rat Summit" held in San Francisco, CA. Like the "Rat Summit," this conference emphasized the management of rodents to conserve plants, other wildlife and habitats. The scope of the problem, concerns, species involved, and lands affected were all considered. The conference began with …

Predator Control For The Protection Of The Federally Endangered Great Lakes Piping Plover (Charadrius Melodus) At Dimmick's Point, North Manitou Island, Kimberly S. Struthers, Patrick J. Ryan

Wildlife Damage Management Conference

The recovery plan for the federally endangered Great Lakes Piping Plover (Charadrius melodus) identifies the need for predator control/removal to increase Piping Plover chick fledging success. The U.S. Department of Agriculture, Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service, Wildlife Services entered into an interagency agreement with the National Park Service to conduct predator management on North Manitou Island (NMI), Dimmick's Point, located in Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore, during the 2003-2005 field seasons. Six control methods were used to remove American Crow (Corvus brachyrhynchos), Common Raven (Corvus corax), Ring-billed Gull (Larus delawarensis), and …

Compressed Air, Wooden Clappers, And Other Non-Traditional Methods For Dispersing European Starlings From An Urban Roost, Randolph J. White, Richard A. Dolbeer, Craig R. Hicks

Wildlife Damage Management Conference

During autumn 2003, several thousand European starlings (Sturnus vulgaris) began roosting on exposed I-beams in a newly constructed, decorative glass canopy that covered the passenger pick-up area at the terminal building for Cleveland Hopkins International Airport, Ohio. The use of lethal control or conventional dispersal techniques, such as pyrotechnics and fire hoses, were not feasible in the airport terminal area. The design and aesthetics of the structure precluded the use of netting and other exclusion materials. In January 2004, an attempt was made to disperse the birds using recorded predator and distress calls broadcast from speakers installed in …

Alien Birds In North America - Challenges For Wildlife Managers, Michael L. Avery, Eric A. Tillman

Wildlife Damage Management Conference

In Executive Order 13112 "Invasive Species", an alien species is defined as one "that is not native" to a particular ecosystem. In North America today, there are nearly 100 alien bird species with self-sustaining populations. These include numerous game birds (primarily gallinaceous birds) and escaped pet birds (primarily psittacine species). Others, such as house sparrows (Passer domesticus), European starlings (Sturnus vulgaris), and mute swan (Cygnus olor), were originally introduced for aesthetic reasons or to control agricultural insect pests. The establishment of alien bird populations through purposeful or accidental introductions has resulted in numerous problems …

Overview Of Impacts Of Feral And Introduced Ungulates On The Environment In The Eastern United States And Caribbean, Martin S. Lowney, Paul Schoenfeld, William Haglan, Gary W. Witmer

Wildlife Damage Management Conference

Non-native wild and feral ungulates have been introduced throughout the world for many centuries. Often the reasons for introductions were narrow in scope and benefits or the ungulates escaped or were released. Justifications for some introductions have included providing hunting opportunity, meeting cultural and dietary needs of people, fund raising, and aesthetics. Evaluations about the impacts to the environment, native wildlife, livestock, and people were most likely looked at in a narrow prism or not fully evaluated. Ungulates commonly introduced in the Eastern United States and Caribbean islands over the last 150 years included white-tailed deer, sika deer, hogs, horses, …

Feral And Introduced Carnivores: Issues And Challenges, Gary Witmer, Bernice U. Constantin, Frank Boyd

Wildlife Damage Management Conference

Feral and invasive carnivores have been intentionally or unintentionally introduced to many parts of the world for a variety of reasons. Once established, they have often caused significant impacts to endemic species because of their predatory nature and, in numerous cases, have altered ecosystem structure and function in important conservation areas. They can also cause competition for native predators, hybridization with native species, losses to livestock and companion animals, and disease hazards. We provide examples of the extent of introductions, resulting impacts, and efforts to control or eradicate these populations. Working with introduced or feral carnivores presents many challenges to …

Thermal Imaging Applications In Urban Deer Control, Earl L. Hodnett

Wildlife Damage Management Conference

Control of burgeoning populations of white-tailed deer (Odocoileus virginianus) is a challenging endeavor under the best of circumstances. The challenge is further complicated when control programs are attempted within an urban or suburban area. Wildlife managers often consider management techniques and equipment which have a proven track record. New challenges require new and innovative techniques. The deer management program in Fairfax County, Virginia has employed thermal imaging technology in a variety of ways to better address these unique challenges. In addition to the more commonly used aircraft-mounted FLIR (forward looking infrared), this program utilizes vehicle-mounted and hand-held thermal …

Initial Development Of A Web-Based Tool To Increase Hunter Harvest Of Female Ungulates, James E. Knight, Marc Kenyon, Linda Keddington

Wildlife Damage Management Conference

Landowners and agencies have expressed difficulty finding hunters willing to harvest the female portion of the ungulate populations, and likewise, hunters have expressed difficulty achieving access to private lands. Since 2003, the Montana "DoeCowHunt" website (www.doecowhunt.montana.edu) has provided an avenue to improve hunter-landowner contact and wild ungulate population management. A product of Montana State University Extension Wildlife Program, this website provides a means for hunters and landowners in Montana to contact each other by listing contact information (email address, physical address, and telephone number) for the purpose of harvesting antlerless ungulates. In the first year over 10,000 users visited the …

Deer-Vehicle Crash Patterns Across Ecoregions In Michigan, Krishnan Sudharsan, Shawn J. Riley, Brent A. Rudolph, Brian A. Maurer

Wildlife Damage Management Conference

Deer-vehicle collisions (DVCs) impact the economic and social well being of humans. We examined large-scale patterns behind DVCs across 3 ecoregions: Southern Lower Peninsula (SLP), Northern Lower Peninsula (NLP), and Upper Peninsula (UP) in Michigan. A 3 component conceptual model of DVCs with drivers, deer, and a landscape was the framework of analysis. The conceptual model was parameterized into a parsimonious mathematical model. The dependent variable was DVCs by county by ecoregion and the independent variables were percent forest cover, percent crop cover, mean annual vehicle miles traveled (VMT), and mean deer density index (DDI) by county. A discriminant function …

Elk In Nebraska: Opportunity Or Another Private-Public Land Conundrum, Scott E. Hygnstrom, Michael A. Cover, Bruce A. Stillings, R. Daniel Crank, Justin W. Fischer, James W. Merchant, Seth P. Korte

Wildlife Damage Management Conference

We conducted a comprehensive research project on elk in the Pine Ridge region of northwestern Nebraska from 1995 to 2002 to determine ecological factors that could be used to improve management and reduce damage. The population ranged from 120 to 150 animals, with an average calf:cow ratio of 0.5:1 and bull:cow ratio of 0.4:1. We located 21 radio-collared female elk 6,311 times during 1995 to 1997. Seasonal home ranges of 2 herds were 10 and 44 km², while average annual home ranges of the herds were much larger (483 and 440 km², respectively). All wintering areas …

Oral Rabies Vaccination - A Progress Report, Dennis Slate, Charles Rupprecht, Mike Dunbar, Robert Mclean

Wildlife Damage Management Conference

Oral rabies vaccination (ORV) targeting specific wild Carnivora species has emerged as an integral adjunct to conventional rabies control strategies to protect humans and domestic animals. ORV has been applied with progress toward eliminating rabies in red foxes (Vulpes vulpes) in western Europe and southern Ontario, Canada. Beginning in the 1990's, coordinated ORV was implemented in Texas to contain and eliminate variants of rabies virus in the gray fox (Urocyon cinereoargenteus) and coyote (Canis latrans) and in several eastern U.S. States with the goal of preventing spread of raccoon (Procyon lotor) rabies. …

Bovine Tb Eradication Project - Recognizing Hot Buttons Issues, Bridget Kavanagh-Patrick

Wildlife Damage Management Conference

The Michigan Departments of Agriculture, Community Health, and Natural Resources, US Department of Agriculture (USDA) and Michigan State University work cooperatively together as the bovine TB eradication project partners. The interagency group combines expertise in epidemiology, veterinary and human medicine, pathology, wildlife biology, animal husbandry, regulatory law and policy and risk communications. The stakeholders, those impacted by the disease, include agriculture and tourism industry representatives, " Mom-and-Pop" businesses, hunters, wildlife enthusiasts, farmers, Local Health Departments and legislators. The regulatory agencies are the above mentioned project partners, excluding MSU and USDA Wildlife Services, both of which offer services to agencies and …