Digital Commons Network^™

Baculovirus Translocation Through Maize: Examining A Novel Route For Insect Herbivore Infection, Peter Pierre Issa

Honors Capstones

No abstract provided.

Designing And Evaluating The Utility Of Novel Primers For The Detection Of An Emerging Fungal Disease Of Soybean, Brooklyn Squiers

Honors Capstones

No abstract provided.

Industrial Emission Patterns: A Study Of Two Refineries In Louisiana, Khanh Vu

Honors Capstones

No abstract provided.

Preparedness, Planning, And Advances In Operational Response, David G. Westerholm, Cameron H. Ainsworth, Christopher H. Barker, Peter G. Brewer, John W. Farrington, Dubravko Justić, Vassiliki H. Kourafalou, Steven A. Murawski, John G. Shepherd, Helena M. Solo-Gabriele

Faculty Publications

During the last 50 years, the numbers and sizes of oil spills have been significantly reduced through prevention. But spills still occur, and it is critical to prepare for these events through planning and exercises. Operational decisions are designed to expedite cleanup and minimize overall impacts, yet they often involve complex tradeoffs between a multitude of competing interests. It is imperative to apply the best technology and science when events occur. However, while planning and response tactics have evolved over time, determining what may be most at risk is often confounded by sparse background data, modeling limitations, scalability, or research …

Characterization Of The Spatial Distribution Of Alfalfa Weevil, Hypera Postica, And Its Natural Enemies, Using Geospatial Models, Govinda Shrestha, Jhalendra P. Rijal, Gadi V.P. Reddy

Faculty Publications

BACKGROUND: Understanding the spatio-temporal dynamics of prey and predator distributions can provide valuable insights into pest management strategies and conservation of natural enemies in agro-ecosystems. The alfalfa weevil, Hypera postica (Gyllenhal), is an economically important pest of alfalfa throughout the western United States. Coccinellids and nabids are among the most important natural enemies of this species, contributing to the biological control of H. postica in alfalfa fields. The spatio-temporal dynamics of H. postica and these two predator groups were investigated using 81 (= 9 × 9 grid) sample points in each of five alfalfa fields in north-central Montana. The data …

Trends In Growth Modeling In Fisheries Science, Shane A. Flinn, Stephen R. Midway

Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

Marginal Warming Associated With A Covid-19 Quarantine And The Implications For Disease Transmission, P. W. Miller, C. Reesman, M. K. Grossman, S. A. Nelson, V. Liu, P. Wang

Faculty Publications

During January-February 2020, parts of China faced restricted mobility under COVID-19 quarantines, which have been associated with improved air quality. Because particulate pollutants scatter, diffuse, and absorb incoming solar radiation, a net negative radiative forcing, decreased air pollution can yield surface warming. As such, this study (1) documents the evolution of China's January-February 2020 air temperature and concurrent particulate changes; (2) determines the temperature response related to reduced particulates during the COVID-19 quarantine (C19Q); and (3) discusses the conceptual implications for temperature-dependent disease transmission. C19Q particulate evolution is monitored using satellite analyses, and concurrent temperature anomalies are diagnosed using surface …

Reconstructing Genomes Of Carbon Monoxide Oxidisers In Volcanic Deposits Including Members Of The Class Ktedonobacteria, Marcela Hernández, Blanca Vera-Gargallo, Marcela Calabi-Floody, Gary M. King, Ralf Conrad, Christoph C. Tebbe

Faculty Publications

© 2020 by the authors. Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. Microorganisms can potentially colonise volcanic rocks using the chemical energy in reduced gases such as methane, hydrogen (H2) and carbon monoxide (CO). In this study, we analysed soil metagenomes from Chilean volcanic soils, representing three different successional stages with ages of 380, 269 and 63 years, respectively. A total of 19 metagenome-assembled genomes (MAGs) were retrieved from all stages with a higher number observed in the youngest soil (1640: 2 MAGs, 1751: 1 MAG, 1957: 16 MAGs). Genomic similarity indices showed that several MAGs had amino-acid identity (AAI) values >50% to …

The Central Role Of Taxonomy In The Study Of Neotropical Biodiversity1, Laura P. Lagomarsino, Laura A. Frost

Faculty Publications

© 2020 Missouri Botanical Garden. All rights reserved. The Neotropics are the most species-rich area of the planet. Understanding the origin and maintenance of this diversity is an important goal of ecology and evolutionary biology. Success in this endeavor relies heavily on the past work of taxonomists who have collected specimens and produced the floras and monographs that constitute the foundation for the study of plant diversity. To illustrate this, we visualize collecting efforts through time and identify the importance of past taxonomic and collection efforts in generating the bulk of specimen data that broad-scale analyses rely on today. To …

Abq Streets: Creating Alternative Residential Street Designs, Gregory Rowangould Ph.D, Nick N. Ferenchak Ph.D

Publications

This research evaluates opportunities for retrofitting residential streets with alterative designs with the overall goal of improving their function, reducing their negative impacts and reducing maintenance costs. This is accomplished through three main research tasks. First, we conduct a comprehensive review of the street design literature with a focus on studies that report how alterative or unique designs that are relevant to the residential street context affect travel behavior, traffic flow, safety, crime and environmental impacts. We then survey residential streets in several study neighborhoods to measure typical design features and cross sections. With this information we then evaluate which …

Racial Disparities In Air Pollution Burden And Covid-19 Deaths In Louisiana, Usa, In The Context Of Long-Term Changes In Fine Particulate Pollution, Kimberly A. Terrell, Wesley James

Faculty Publications

Black Americans in Louisiana are disproportionately dying from COVID-19, and environmental disparities may be contributing to this injustice. While Black communities in Louisiana's industrialized regions (e.g., Cancer Alley, Calcasieu Parish) have been overburdened with pollution for decades, this disparity has not been evaluated by using recent data. Here, we explore statewide relationships among air pollution burden, race, COVID-19 death rates, and other health/socioeconomic factors. Measures of pollution burden included satellite-derived particulate matter (PM2.5) concentrations and health risks from toxic air pollution (i.e., respiratory hazard [RH] and immunological hazard [IH], estimated by the Environmental Protection Agency). In addition, we evaluate changes …

Fire As A Fundamental Ecological Process: Research Advances And Frontiers, Kendra K. Mclauchlan, Philip E. Higuera, Jessica Miesel, Brendan M. Rogers, Jennifer Schweitzer, Jacquelyn K. Shuman, Alan J. Tepley, J. Morgan Varner, Thomas T. Veblen, Solny A. Adalsteinsson, Jennifer K. Balch, Patrick Baker, Enric Batllori, Erica Bigio, Paulo Brando, Megan Cattau, Melissa L. Chipman, Janice Coen, Raelene Crandall, Lori Daniels, Neal Enright, Wendy S. Gross, Brian J. Harvey, Jeff A. Hatten, Sharon Hermann, Rebecca E. Hewitt, Leda N. Kobziar, Jennifer B. Landesmann, Michael M. Loranty, S. Yoshi Maezumi, Linda Mearns, Max Moritz, Jonathan A. Myers

Faculty Publications

© 2020 The Authors. Journal of Ecology published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd on behalf of British Ecological Society Fire is a powerful ecological and evolutionary force that regulates organismal traits, population sizes, species interactions, community composition, carbon and nutrient cycling and ecosystem function. It also presents a rapidly growing societal challenge, due to both increasingly destructive wildfires and fire exclusion in fire-dependent ecosystems. As an ecological process, fire integrates complex feedbacks among biological, social and geophysical processes, requiring coordination across several fields and scales of study. Here, we describe the diversity of ways in which fire operates as …

Phyr: Anrpackage For Phylogenetic Species-Distribution Modelling In Ecological Communities, Daijiang Li, Russell Dinnage, Lucas A. Nell, Matthew R. Helmus, Anthony Ives

Faculty Publications

Model-based approaches are increasingly popular in ecological studies. A good example of this trend is the use of joint species distribution models to ask questions about ecological communities. However, most current applications of model-based methods do not include phylogenies despite the well-known importance of phylogenetic relationships in shaping species distributions and community composition. In part, this is due to a lack of accessible tools allowing ecologists to fit phylogenetic species distribution models easily. To fill this gap, therpackagephyr(pronounced fire) implements a suite of metrics, comparative methods and mixed models that use phylogenies to understand and predict community composition and other …

The Roles Of Host Species, Geographic Scale And Environmental Stressors In Shaping The Composition Of Coral Microbiomes, Alicia Marie Riegel Parker

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

Reef-building corals are long-lived and may take many centuries to adapt, making them especially susceptible to climate change. However, corals host microbial symbionts that can change quickly, potentially speeding acclimation. My dissertation aimed to determine the degree of coevolution and flexibility between corals and their microbiomes among hosts, across space, and in response to stress.

Microbial communities are usually surveyed by sequencing the 16S rRNA gene, however the PCR primers used also amplify coral DNA, thereby limiting prokaryotic read coverage. To mitigate this contamination, I designed a peptide nucleic acid clamp that increased the recovery of bacterial reads by 2-11x …

Salt Marsh Dynamics In A Period Of Accelerated Sea Level Rise, Sergio Fagherazzi, Giulio Mariotti, Nicoletta Leonardi, Alberto Canestrelli, William Nardin, William S. Kearney

Faculty Publications

Salt marshes are dynamic systems able to laterally expand, contract, and vertically accrete in response to sea level rise. Here, we present the grand challenges that need to be addressed to fully characterize marsh morphodynamics. The review focuses on physical processes and quantitative models. Without predictive models, it is impossible to determine the future marsh evolution under accelerated sea level rise. In these models, one of the challenges is to resolve both horizontal and vertical dynamics within the same framework. Vertically, the marsh has to accumulate enough material to contrast rising water levels. Horizontally, marsh erosion at the ocean side …

Ecology Of The Roseau Cane Scale (Nipponaclerda Biwakoensis, Hemiptera: Aclerdidae) In Coastal Louisiana, Leslie Alejandra Aviles Lopez

LSU Master's Theses

Common reed, Phragmites australis, is the dominant plant in the Mississippi River Delta (MRD), Louisiana. Phragmites australis stands reduce soil erosion from wave action, protect the oil infrastructure, and freshwater habitats. In the fall of 2016, widespread reed die-backs in the MRD were associated with outbreaks of an invasive scale Nipponaclerda biwakoensis (Hemiptera: Aclerdidae). Due to the recent detection of the scale, there was limited knowledge of its ecology in the adventive range, and its impacts on P. australis lineages. Therefore, the objectives of my thesis were to determine (1) the host specificity of the N. biwakoensis in important economic …

Floodplain Forest Regeneration Dynamics In The Lower Mississippi River Alluvial Valley, Whitney Anne Kroschel

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

Floodplain forest species diversity is driven, in part, by variation in disturbance regime. Flood patterns create heterogeneity in microsite quality from small differences in elevation across a floodplain which, in turn, influence flood timing and duration. Differences in species’ regeneration niches in relation to hydrologic patterns can account for long-term coexistence of various species. In the past century floodplain forests have exhibited a wide range of changes in stand development and species composition as a result of altered hydrology in rivers and floodplains. I evaluated the role of regeneration in floodplain forest systems of the Lower Mississippi River Alluvial Valley …

Insights To Gray Seal (Halichoerus Grypus) Foraging Ecology From Stable Isotope And Dna Metabarcoding Analyses, Keith Michael Hernandez

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

The enactment of wide-ranging conservation laws in the United States enabled the recovery of many marine mammal species. However, as many species have surpassed predicted recovery goals, there is an increasing number of marine mammal-human interactions. For example, in the northeast US, the recovery of gray seals (Halichoerus grypus atlantica), coupled with declines in commercially important fishery species, has prompted discussions of revised management, and potentially lethal control measures. Much of this concern stems from seal-fisheries interactions, which necessitates an understanding of seal diets and foraging ecology. However, existing research is out of date and reliant primarily on …

Effects Of Hurricane Harvey On The Trophic Status Of Juvenile Sport Fishes (Cynoscion Nebulosus, Sciaenops Ocellatus) In An Estuarine Nursery, Philip Matich, Kaya B. Moore, Jeffrey D. Plumlee

Faculty Publications

Understanding the implications of environmental disturbance is of growing importance as climate change and extreme weather events increasingly threaten estuaries and other coastal ecosystems. Among species at risk in estuarine habitats, sport fishes are of particular interest to conservation and management agencies, because of their ecological and economic value. Here, we evaluate the effects of Hurricane Harvey on the abundance, diet, and body condition of age-0 red drum (Sciaenops ocellatus) and spotted seatrout (Cynoscion nebulosus) in Powderhorn Lake, a nearshore estuary in Texas, USA. Catch data from seines indicated that the abundances of age-0 red drum and spotted seatrout were …

Impacts Of Commercial Biopesticides On Crapemyrtle Bark Scale (Acanthococcus Lagerstroemiae) And Beneficial Insects, Giovana Matos Franco

LSU Master's Theses

The crapemyrtle bark scale (CMBS), Acanthococcus lagerstroemiae (Kuwana) (Hemiptera: Eriococcidae), is an important pest of crapemyrtles, Lagerstromia spp. (Myrtales: Lythraceae) since its damage results in an unpleasant aesthetic. Current CMBS management methods depend heavily on pesticides which impact on beneficial insects. Biopesticides show potential for pest control, host specificity, and low impact towards non-target organisms. The objectives of my thesis were to determine (1) if biopesticides are effective against CMBS infestations when applied in different seasons, and (2) their effects towards coccinellids known to attack CMBS.

To test the efficacy of selected biopesticides, treatments were delivered to potted plants or …

Applications Of Unmanned Aerial Vehicles For Conducting Mesocarnivore And Breeding Waterfowl Surveys In Southern Manitoba, Jacob Bushaw

LSU Master's Theses

Unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) are becoming an increasingly important tool for wildlife surveys and equipping UAVs with thermal imaging cameras could make these surveys even more effective. In my thesis I examined the feasibility of using a UAV equipped with a thermal imaging camera to conduct mesocarnivore surveys, search for duck nests built over water, and conduct duck brood surveys in southern Manitoba.

For my first objective, I conducted nighttime mesocarnivore surveys with the UAV and thermal camera. I used a modified point-count survey from six waypoints and surveyed 29.5 ha in each replicate. I conducted a total of 200 …

Taxonomy And Systematics Of The New Zealand Pselaphini (Coleoptera: Staphylinidae: Pselaphinae), Brittany Elin Owens

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

The New Zealand (NZ) Pselaphini was revised at the species level, a phylogenetic analysis was performed using morphological data, and first steps were taken towards the construction of a molecular analysis of the tribe. Eight new genera and 33 new species were discovered from specimens collected from the NZ mainland, offshore islands, Chatham Islands and the Subantarctic Islands. Of the 13 species originally described in the genus Pselaphus by Thomas Broun during the late 19^th and early 20^th centuries, all were either reassigned to the genera Pselaphaulax and Pselaphogenius, or were placed into new genera. Three names …

Ornithological Expeditions To Sarawak, Malaysian Borneo, 2007-2017, Frederick H. Sheldon, Haw Chuan Lim, Phred M. Benham, Matthew L. Brady, Clare E. Brown, Ryan C. Burner, Vivien L. Chua, John C. Mittermeier, Subir B. Shakya, Paul Van Els, Mustafa Abdul Rahman, Dency F. Gawin, Zahirunisa Abdul Rahim, Luisa Duya Setia, Robert Moyle

Occasional Papers of the Museum of Natural Science, Louisiana State University

Louisiana State University, the University of Kansas, and the Universiti Malaysia Sarawak undertook collaborative research on the evolution and ecology of Bornean birds starting in 2005. This collaboration included a series of expeditions from 2007–2017 to collect and study birds at >30 sites in Sarawak, Malaysian Borneo. Here we provide information on the study-sites and summarize the main discoveries resulting from the collaboration.

Wetland Biomass And Productivity In Coastal Louisiana: Base Line Data (1976-2015) And Knowledge Gaps For The Development Of Spatially Explicit Models For Ecosystem Restoration And Rehabilitation Initiatives, Victor H. Rivera-Monroy, Courtney Elliton, Siddhartha Narra, Ehab Meselhe, Xiaochen Zhao, Eric White, Charles E. Sasser, Jenneke M. Visser, Xuelian Meng, Hongqing Wang, Zuo Xue, Fernando Jaramillo

Faculty Publications

Coastal Louisiana hosts 37% of the coastal wetland area in the conterminous US, including one of the deltaic coastal regions more susceptible to the synergy of human and natural impacts causing wetland loss. As a result of the construction of flood protection infrastructure, dredging of channels across wetlands for oil/gas exploration and maritime transport activities, coastal Louisiana has lost approximately 4900 km2 of wetland area since the early 1930s. Despite the economic relevance of both wetland biomass and net primary productivity (NPP) as ecosystem services, there is a lack of vegetation simulation models to forecast the trends of those functional …

For Common Community Phylogenetic Analyses, Go Ahead And Use Synthesis Phylogenies, Daijiang Li, Lauren Trotta, Hannah E. Marx, Julie M. Allen, Miao Sun, Douglas E. Soltis, Pamela S. Soltis, Robert P. Guralnick, Benjamin Baiser

Faculty Publications

© 2019 by the Ecological Society of America Should we build our own phylogenetic trees based on gene sequence data, or can we simply use available synthesis phylogenies? This is a fundamental question that any study involving a phylogenetic framework must face at the beginning of the project. Building a phylogeny from gene sequence data (purpose-built phylogeny) requires more effort, expertise, and cost than subsetting an already available phylogeny (synthesis-based phylogeny). However, we still lack a comparison of how these two approaches to building phylogenetic trees influence common community phylogenetic analyses such as comparing community phylogenetic diversity and estimating trait …

Improving The Transferability Of Suspended Solid Estimation In Wetland And Deltaic Waters With An Empirical Hyperspectral Approach, Daniel Jensen, Marc Simard, Kyle Cavanaugh, Yongwei Sheng, Cédric G. Fichot, Tamlin Pavelsky, Robert Twilley

Faculty Publications

The deposition of suspended sediment is an important process that helps wetlands accrete surface material and maintain elevation in the face of sea level rise. Optical remote sensing is often employed to map total suspended solids (TSS), though algorithms typically have limited transferability in space and time due to variability in water constituent compositions, mixtures, and inherent optical properties. This study used in situ spectral reflectances and their first derivatives to compare empirical algorithms for estimating TSS using hyperspectral and multispectral data. These algorithms were applied to imagery collected by NASA’s Airborne Visible/Infrared Imaging Spectrometer-Next Generation (AVIRIS-NG) over coastal Louisiana, …

Broad-Scale Habitat Use By Fledgling Black-Capped Vireo, Marisa T. Martinez, Ashley M. Long, Heather A. Mathewson, Michael L. Morrison

Faculty Publications

Knowledge of avian habitat associations during the postfledging stage is lacking for most songbirds, which limits the ability to develop and implement management plans that address the full life cycle of birds. The Black-capped Vireo (Vireo atricapilla; hereafter vireo) is a Neotropical migratory songbird that breeds in early to mid-successional vegetation but has been documented using late-successional vegetation. We used data collected in 2013 and 2014 to determine the spatial distribution of vireo fledglings in relation to the availability of woodland cover in central Texas. We found that woodland cover was used less often than it was available in the …

Intraspecific Variation In A Dominant Prey Species Can Bias Marine Predator Dietary Estimates Derived From Stable Isotope Analysis, Michael J. Polito, Wayne Z. Trivelpiece, Christian S. Reiss, Susan G. Trivelpiece, Jefferson T. Hinke, William P. Patterson, Steven D. Emslie

Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

Applications Of Unmanned Aerial Vehicles To Survey Mesocarnivores, Jacob D. Bushaw, Kevin M. Ringelman, Frank C. Rohwer

Faculty Publications

With the widespread extirpation of top predators over the past two centuries, mesocarnivores play an increasingly important role in structuring terrestrial trophic webs. However, mesocarnivores are difficult to survey at a population level because their widely spaced territories and nocturnal behavior result in low detection probability. Existing field survey techniques such as track plates and motion-sensitive camera traps are time-consuming and expensive, and yet still yield data prone to systematic errors. Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) have recently emerged as a new tool for conducting population surveys on a wide variety of wildlife, eclipsing the efficiency and even accuracy of traditional …

A Comprehensive Evaluation Of Predictive Performance Of 33 Species Distribution Models At Species And Community Levels, Anna Norberg, Nerea Abrego, F. Guillaume Blanchet, Frederick R. Adler, Barbara J. Anderson, Jani Anttila, Miguel B. Araújo, Tad Dallas, David Dunson, Jane Elith, Scott D. Foster, Richard Fox, Janet Franklin, William Godsoe, Antoine Guisan, Bob O'Hara, Nicole A. Hill, Robert D. Holt, Francis K.C. Hui, Magne Husby, John Atle Kålås, Aleksi Lehikoinen, Miska Luoto, Heidi K. Mod, Graeme Newell, Ian Renner, Tomas Roslin, Janne Soininen, Wilfried Thuiller, Jarno Vanhatalo, David Warton, Matt White, Niklaus E. Zimmermann

Faculty Publications

© 2019 The Authors. Ecological Monographs published by Wiley Periodicals, Inc. on behalf of Ecological Society of America A large array of species distribution model (SDM) approaches has been developed for explaining and predicting the occurrences of individual species or species assemblages. Given the wealth of existing models, it is unclear which models perform best for interpolation or extrapolation of existing data sets, particularly when one is concerned with species assemblages. We compared the predictive performance of 33 variants of 15 widely applied and recently emerged SDMs in the context of multispecies data, including both joint SDMs that model multiple …