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The Effectiveness Of Individual Identification Of Bobcats Using Automatically Triggered Cameras In Michigan, Karen Ickes, Paul Keenlance

Student Summer Scholars Manuscripts

Through the research of bobcat (Lynx rufus) populations a better understanding of their range in lower Michigan can be found. The use of automatically triggered cameras is an effective way to obtain bobcat range and status information. Automatically triggered cameras allow for population studies to be executed without having to trap any animals.

Predatory Senescence In Ageing Wolves, Daniel R. Macnulty, Douglas W. Smith, John A. Vucetich, L. David Mech, Craig Packer

United States Geological Survey, Northern Prairie Wildlife Research Center: Publications

It is well established that ageing handicaps the ability of prey to escape predators, yet surprisingly little is known about how ageing affects the ability of predators to catch prey. Research into long-lived predators has assumed that adults have uniform impacts on prey regardless of age. Here we use longitudinal data from repeated observations of individually-known wolves (Canis lupus) hunting elk (Cervus elaphus) in Yellowstone National Park to demonstrate that adult predatory performance declines with age and that an increasing ratio of senescent individuals in the wolf population depresses the rate of prey offtake. Because this ratio fluctuates independently of …

Problems With The Claim Of Ecotype And Taxon Status Of The Wolf In The Great Lakes Region, Matthew A. Cronin, L. David Mech

United States Geological Survey, Northern Prairie Wildlife Research Center: Publications

Koblmuller et al. (2009) analyzed molecular genetic data of the wolf in the Great Lakes (GL) region of the USA and concluded that the animal was a unique ecotype of grey wolf and that genetic data supported the population as a discrete wolf taxon. However, some of the literature that the researchers used to support their position actually did not, and additional confusion arises from indefinite use of terminology. Herein, we discuss the problems with designation of a wolf population as a taxon or ecotype without proper definition and assessment of criteria.

Koblmuller et al. (2009) wrote ‘The GL …

A Serological Survey Of Infectious Disease In Yellowstone National Park’S Canid Community, Emily S. Almberg, L. David Mech, Douglas W. Smith, Jennifer W. Sheldon, Robert L. Crabtree

United States Geological Survey, Northern Prairie Wildlife Research Center: Publications

Background: Gray wolves (Canis lupus) were reintroduced into Yellowstone National Park (YNP) after a .70 year absence, and as part of recovery efforts, the population has been closely monitored. In 1999 and 2005, pup survival was significantly reduced, suggestive of disease outbreaks.

Methodology/Principal Findings: We analyzed sympatric wolf, coyote (Canis latrans), and red fox (Vulpes vulpes) serologic data from YNP, spanning 1991–2007, to identify long-term patterns of pathogen exposure, identify associated risk factors, and examine evidence for disease-induced mortality among wolves for which there were survival data. We found high, constant exposure to canine …

A Redescription Of Three Species Of Monoecocestus (Cestoda: Anoplocephalidae) Including Monoecocestus Threlkeldi Based On New Material, Terry R. Haverkost, Scott Lyell Gardner

Scott L. Gardner Publications

Because we have new and detailed data on species in the genus, herein we redescribe both Monoecocestus macrobursatus and M. minor based on existing museum specimens. We also redescribe M. threlkeldi (Parra, 1952) using material collected in Bolivia. Based on the specimens representing M. thelkeldi, we affirm that Perutaenia Parra, 1953 should remain a junior synonym of Monoecocestus.

Evolution Of Dna Polymerases: An Inactivated Polymerase-Exonuclease Module In Pol Ε&#;And A Chimeric Origin Of Eukaryotic Polymerases From Two Classes Of Archaeal Ancestors, Tahir Tahirov, Kira Makarova, Igor Rogozin, Youri Pavlov, Eugene Koonin

Papers in Evolution

Background: Evolution of DNA polymerases, the key enzymes of DNA replication and repair, is central to any reconstruction of the history of cellular life. However, the details of the evolutionary relationships between DNA polymerases of archaea and eukaryotes remain unresolved.
Results: We performed a comparative analysis of archaeal, eukaryotic, and bacterial B-family DNA polymerases, which are the main replicative polymerases in archaea and eukaryotes, combined with an analysis of domain architectures. Surprisingly, we found that eukaryotic Polymerase ε consists of two tandem exonuclease-polymerase modules, the active N-terminal module and a C-terminal module in which both enzymatic domains are inactivated. The …

Costs And Benefits Of Freezing Behavior In The Harvestman Eumesosoma Roeweri (Arachnida, Opiliones), Marie-Claire Chelini, Rodrigo H. Willemart, Eileen Hebets

Eileen Hebets Publications

Animals present an enormous variety of behavioral defensive mechanisms, which increase their survival, but often at a cost. Several animal taxa reduce their chances of being detected and/or recognized as prey items by freezing (remaining completely motionless) in the presence of a predator. We studied costs and benefits of freezing in immature Eumesosoma roeweri (Opiliones, Sclerosomatidae). Preliminary observations showed that these individuals often freeze in the presence of the syntopic predatory spider Schizocosa ocreata (Araneae, Lycosidae). We verified that harvestmen paired with predators spent more time freezing than when alone or when paired with a conspecific. Then, we determined that …

Condition-Dependent Alternative Mating Tactics In A Sexually Cannibalistic Wolf Spider, Dustin J. Wilgers, Amy C. Nicholas, David H. Reed, Gail E. Stratton, Eileen Hebets

Eileen Hebets Publications

Condition-dependent male mating tactics often involve high-quality males capitalizing on the outcome of intersexual selection, whereas low-quality males use behaviors that circumvent female choice to achieve copulation. In the wolf spider Rabidosa punctulata, males display 2 distinct mating tactics: 1) “courtship”—consisting of visual and seismic components or 2) “direct mount”—consisting of males grappling/holding females until they assume a copulatory posture. We tested for condition-dependent tactic expression using both field-collected individuals (representing natural variation in body mass and condition) and individuals whose diet we manipulated in the laboratory (representing extreme divergences in body size and condition). Across both natural and …

Ecological Genomics Of Nematode Community Interactions: Model And Non-Model Approaches, Michael A. Herman, Joseph D. Coolon, Kenneth L. Jones, Timothy Todd

School of Biological Sciences: Faculty Publications

The effects of human-induced environmental change are evident at multiple levels of biological organization. To date, most environmental change studies have focused on effects at the ecosystem, community, and organismal levels. However, the ultimate controls of biological responses are located in the genome. Thus, genetic and genomic studies of organismal responses to environmental changes are necessary. Recent advances in genome analysis now make such analyses possible. In this chapter we describe a research approach and program that can begin to span this gap by using genome-enabled approaches to characterize organismal changes and then employing a genetically tractable model organism to …

The Costs Of Transportation At Mckillop Library, Elizabeth Giambusso, Timothy Hanrahan, Raine Raab

BIO140 Carbon Footprint Project

Much like other libraries and institutions across the United States, Salve Regina faces its share of efficiency problems. In turn, these problems add to the many environmental issues we face today. These are mostly paper waste, recycling, or lack thereof, and the amount of energy needed to heat buildings. Notwithstanding the excessive consumption and waste, our group focused on transportation. The main goal of this project was to measure the current transportation costs and explore ways to cut carbon emissions. By sending a questionnaire through email, the staff responded with the type of vehicle they drive and their commuting distance. …

Student Assessment Of The Environmental Footprint Of The Mckillop Library, Salve Regina University - Executive Summary, Jameson Chace

BIO140 Carbon Footprint Project

No abstract provided.

Paper Waste In Mckillop Library, Kristina Lowe, Charles "Ben" Parrish, William Pearce, Sarah Petro, Allison Smith, Sarah Tolman

BIO140 Carbon Footprint Project

The goals of our project were to determine the amount of the library’s paper waste. In order to do this we decided to focus on the total sheets of paper used, the recycling that occurs in the library, the use of recycled paper, and the discarding of books. The methods that were used were talking to library staff about the amount of paper used and the discarding of books, surveying the students who use the library about their recycling practices, and hanging educational flyers about the benefits of recycling. After researching the amount of paper waste in McKillop Library, the …

Green Heating And The Mckillop Library Building, Alexandra Riewer, Anthony Rothwell, Kalei Sullivan, Other Student

BIO140 Carbon Footprint Project

As global warming becomes an ever increasing problem, it is Salve Regina University and the Newport communities job to do their part. In an effort to reduce their carbon footprint, we performed a series of tests on the heating and building of McKillop library at Salve Regina to measure its carbon emissions and environmental impact. As a team, we tested for areas of heat loss and temperature change and internal temperature and humidity fluctuation. We also focused on the types of insulation that the building uses and the efficiency of its HVAC – heating, ventilation, and air conditioning – system. …

Appendices

BIO140 Carbon Footprint Project

No abstract provided.

Early Post-Fire Plant Establishment On A Mojave Desert Burn, Scott R. Abella, E. Cayenne Engel, Christina L. Lund, Jessica E. Spencer

Public Policy and Leadership Faculty Research

Fire has become more extensive in recent decades in southwestern United States arid lands. Burned areas pose management challenges and opportunities, and increasing our understanding of post-fire plant colonization may assist management decision-making. We examined plant communities, soils, and soil seed banks two years after the 2005 Loop Fire, located in a creosote-blackbrush community in Red Rock Canyon National Conservation Area in southern Nevada’s Mojave Desert. Based on a spring sampling of 20, 0.01-ha plots, live + dead cover of the exotic annual Bromus rubens averaged nine times lower on the burn than on a paired unburned area. Perennial species …

Progress In Strategic Research Areas, Scott R. Abella

Public Policy and Leadership Faculty Research

Three years ago through conversations with resource managers, assessing the status of knowledge of the scientific literature, and our own interests, we set forth several strategic research areas that we believed would be timely for advancing Mojave Desert conservation and management.

Mojave Applied Ecology Notes Winter 2009, Scott R. Abella, Lindsay P. Chiquoine, Alice C. Newton

Mojave Applied Ecology Notes

Chronology of forest structure and use in the Spring Mountains, Soil-Tech’s restoration work balancing construction with nature, species performance and treatment effectiveness for revegetation projects, and strategic research areas for Mojave conservation and management

Distribution And Population Characteristics Of Lower Walleye In The Eleven Point River, Arkansas, Ronald L. Johnson, S. D. Henry, Sam W. Barkley

Journal of the Arkansas Academy of Science

Walleye Sander vitreus (Mitchill) distributions and ecology have been poorly studied in southern river basins. We studied the longitudinal distribution and population characteristics of walleye in an unregulated river within the Ozark region of the U.S., the lower Eleven Point River, Arkansas, which has high species diversity. Walleye were collected in a 60 km segment of the river by daytime boat electrofishing over a three year period (2002-2004). Catch rates, growth rates and size structure were high relative to other streams studied in North America. Catch per effort ( = 5.2/h) was similar seasonally, spatially and among years. Proportional stock …

“In The System:” A Qualitative Study Of African-American Women’S Foster Care Stories, Meghan Spell

Honors Capstones

No abstract provided.

Impacts Of Marine Docks On Eelgrass In New England: A Spreadsheet-Based Model For Managers And Planners, David M. Burdick, Frederick T. Short, Gregg Moore

Faculty Publications

none

Common Raven Nests In North Dakota After 100-Year Hiatus, Melvin P. Nenneman, Todd A. Grant, Ron E. Martin

The Prairie Naturalist

Our observations represent the first documented nesting by the common raven in North Dakota since the late 1800's. Houston (1977) suggested that the expansion of the American crow onto the Canadian prairies was limited by the scarcity of trees for nest sites, which also might have limited the extent of the common raven. Aspen woodland has increased substantially in and around J. Clark Salyer National Wildlife Refuge since European settlement, due primarily to fire suppression and extirpation of large herbivores (Grant and Murphy 2005). Thus, plausibly these increases in woodland habitat might be providing nest sites necessary for the common …

Factors Associated With Duck Use Of Impounded And Natural Wetlands In Western South Dakota, Jane E. Austin, Deborah A. Buhl

The Prairie Naturalist

Many wetlands in the northern Great Plains west of the Missouri River are stock ponds, created by impoundment of natural drainages or excavation of existing wetlands to provide water for livestock or improve habitat for waterfowl. We evaluated factors influencing use of wetlands by breeding duck pairs and broods relative to modification, water regime, size, and hydrological location on United States Forest Service lands within the Grand River National Grassland in northern South Dakota (2003 and 2004). Responses for both indicated pairs and broods were related positively to wet area, total wetland area within 4 km, emergent edge cover, and …

Brood Parasitism In A North American Population Of White-Faced Ibis, Mark E. Clark

The Prairie Naturalist

In 2007 while monitoring reproductive success among various overwater nesting birds at J. Clark Salyer National Wildlife Refuge in North Dakota, I observed parasitism of a white-faced ibis nest by a cattle egret. I located a nest on 23 May 2007 that contained four white-faced ibis eggs and one cattle egret egg. The nest was located in the middle of a small colony of nesting white-faced ibis (approximately 35 pairs) and black-crowned night herons (approximately 30 pairs). On 3 June 2007 all of the eggs were still present in the nest, but two of the white-faced ibis eggs began hatching …

Detection Of Free-Ranging West Indian Manatees Trichechus Manatus Using Side-Scan Sonar, Daniel Gonzalez-Socoloske, Leon David Olivera-Gomez, Robert E. Ford

Faculty Publications

Turbid and tannin-stained waterways are difficult habitats to study and present problems with respect to the management of aquatic fauna, and especially of endangered and cryptic animals such as manatees Trichechus spp. Linnaeus. Throughout much of the range of the extant trichechid species (T. inunguis, T. manatus, and T. senegalensis), the scientific approaches that are used successfully to document the status of the Florida subspecies (T. m. latirostris) are not feasible, due either to constraints associated with habitat or to the high costs involved. We examined the use of side-scan sonar as a novel way to acoustically detect free-ranging West …

Untangling The Biological Contributions To Soil Stability In Semiarid Shrublands, V. Bala Chaudhary, Matthew A. Bowker, Thomas E. O'Dell, James B. Grace, Andrea E. Redman, Mathias C. Rillig, Nancy C. Johnson

School of Environmental Sustainability: Faculty Publications and Other Works

Communities of plants, biological soil crusts (BSCs), and arbuscular mycorrhizal (AM) fungi are known to influence soil stability individually, but their relative contributions, interactions, and combined effects are not well understood, particularly in arid and semiarid ecosystems. In a landscape-scale field study we quantified plant, BSC, and AM fungal communities at 216 locations along a gradient of soil stability levels in southern Utah, USA. We used multivariate modeling to examine the relative influences of plants, BSCs, and AM fungi on surface and subsurface stability in a semiarid shrubland landscape. Models were found to be congruent with the data and explained …

Soil Nutrient Changes Following A Typha X Glauca Invasion In A Great Lakes Coastal Wetland, Lane Marie Vail

Master's Theses

Invasive species are one of the major threats to the integrity and health of Great Lakes coastal wetlands. Plant invaders, such as the hybrid cattail Typha x glauca, threaten wetlands, as they can cause shifts in ecosystem structure and function and modify biogeochemical cycles and nutrient availability. Cheboygan Marsh on the coast of Lake Huron is currently undergoing invasion by T. x glauca, and soils in T. x glauca-dominated areas of the marsh have greater soil carbon and nitrogen concentrations than in areas dominated by native vegetation. This study investigated whether T. x glauca is affecting the accumulation of carbon …

Horseshoe Crab Spawning Survey Protocol, Jennifer Mattei

Biology Faculty Publications

The protocol lists supplies and clothing needed for the survey, as well as which data is to be collected and when and how it should be entered for the census of horseshoe crabs on the Recapture Data Sheet for 2009. Adopted from Cape Cod and Delaware Bay survey protocols.

The Game Of Conservation: International Treaties To Protect The World’S Migratory Animals, Mark Cioc

Ohio University Press Open Access Books

The Game of Conservation is a brilliantly crafted and highly readable examination of nature protection around the world.

Twentieth-century nature conservation treaties often originated as attempts to regulate the pace of killing rather than as attempts to protect animal habitat. Some were prompted by major breakthroughs in firearm techniques, such as the invention of the elephant gun and grenade harpoons, but agricultural development was at least as important as hunting regulations in determining the fate of migratory species. The treaties had many defects, yet they also served the goal of conservation to good effect, often saving key species from complete …

Toward A More Wholly Communion: Cultivating Ecological Enlightenment And Sustainable Action In Christians, Cary Hauptman Gaunt

Antioch University Dissertations & Theses

Increasingly, environmental, scientific, and religious organizations and leaders are calling for people of faith to wake up to the global climate and other environmental crises and step up their ecological responsibility by leading more sustainable lives. Yet only a few seem to hear the calls and even fewer are responding in substantive ways. Many have commented on the gap between the religious theory for environmental care and the actual practice of living ecologically sustainable lives. Exploring how to bridge this gap is increasingly important as environmental regulatory, policy, and technology efforts fall short of goals and environmental professionals, including regulators, …

Seeing Shifts: Ecologists' Lived Experiences Of Climate Change In Mountains Of The American West, Kimberly Ford Langmaid

Antioch University Dissertations & Theses

This study explores the lived experiences of field ecologists who research the effects of global climate change on mountain species and ecosystems in the American West. The purpose is to generate narrative descriptions of ecologists’ experiences in order to communicate about both the scientific ecology and human ecology of climate change. Twenty prominent field ecologists participated in this study. Interviews with ecologists were transcribed and analyzed using a hermeneutic phenomenological methodology. Eight experiential themes emerged through the process of data analysis, and these themes provide the structure for presenting narratives of ecologists’ experiences. The eight themes are: thinking ecologically, the …