Digital Commons Network^™

The Drivers Of Tropical Speciation, Brian Tilston Smith, John E. Mccormack, Andrés M. Cuervo, Michael J. Hickerson, Alexandre Aleixo, Carlos Daniel Cadena, Jorge Pérez-Emán, Curtis W. Burney, Xiaoou Xie, Michael G. Harvey, Brant C. Faircloth, Travis C. Glenn, Elizabeth P. Derryberry, Jesse Prejean, Samantha Fields, Robb T. Brumfield

Faculty Publications

© 2014 Macmillan Publishers Limited. All rights reserved. Since the recognition that allopatric speciation can be induced by large-scale reconfigurations of the landscape that isolate formerly continuous populations, such as the separation of continents by plate tectonics, the uplift of mountains or the formation of large rivers, landscape change has been viewed as a primary driver of biological diversification. This process is referred to in biogeography as vicariance. In the most species-rich region of the world, the Neotropics, the sundering of populations associated with the Andean uplift is ascribed this principal role in speciation. An alternative model posits that rather …

Lsu Research Fall 2014, Louisiana State University And Agricultural & Mechanical College

Research Magazine

LSU Research is published annually by the Office of Research & Economic Development, Louisiana State University.

Relative Importance Of Environmental, Geographic, And Spatial Variables On Zooplankton Metacommunities, Tad Dallas, John M. Drake

Faculty Publications

© 2014 Dallas and Drake. Understanding the factors responsible for structuring ecological communities is a central goal in community ecology. Previous work has focused on determining the relative roles of two classes of variables (e.g., spatial and environmental) on community composition. However, this approach may ignore the disproportionate impact of variables within classes, and is often confounded by spatial autocorrelation leading to collinearity among variables of different classes. Here, we combine pattern-based metacommunity and machine learning analyses to characterize metacommunity structure of zooplankton from lakes in the northeast United States and to identify environmental, spatial, and geographic covariates associated with …

Competing Identities In The U.S. South: The Role Of Youth And Southern Identities In Politics, Olivia Mcclure

Honors Capstones

No abstract provided.

The Women Of Shakespeare’S Hamlet In Modern Film Adaptations, Meredith Will

Honors Capstones

No abstract provided.

Lessons From 3-D Surface Scanning Of 19th Century Coffin Plates From St. Thomas Anglican Churchyard, Belleville, Ontario, Canada, Abigail Woltering

Honors Capstones

No abstract provided.

The Immigration Cycle? : A Comparative Analysis Of Historical Determinants Of State Level Immigration Policy, Rome Gonsoulin

Honors Capstones

No abstract provided.

Genetic Variation Among Western Populations Of The Horned Lark (Eremophila Alpestris) Indicates Recent Colonization Of The Channel Islands Off Southern California, Mainland-Bound Dispersal, And Postglacial Range Shifts, Nicholas A. Mason, Pascal O. Title, Carla Cicero, Kevin J. Burns, Rauri C.K. Bowie

Faculty Publications

© 2014 American Ornithologists' Union. The Channel Islands off the coast of southern California host >50 species of terrestrial vertebrates with varying degrees of phenotypic differentiation. However, most organisms that breed on the Channel Islands remain unstudied with respect to genetic differentiation from mainland populations. By comparing patterns of genetic variation between the Channel Islands and the mainland, we aimed to further our understanding of the role that the Channel Islands have played in diversification of the North American biota. We evaluated long-standing, untested hypotheses regarding colonization patterns and evolutionary relationships among western populations of the Horned Lark (Eremophila alpestris), …

Creole & Multiracial (Research Report #122), Michael Cope, Nile Patterson, Mark Schafer, Dari Green, Amanda Cowley, Troy Blanchard

LSU AgCenter Research Reports

This is the eighth in this series of reviews. This review focuses primarily on the Creoles. It also describes some multiracial groups with a historical presence, as well as the current trends in multiracial identity in the Gulf of Mexico region. Concentrated in coastal Louisiana, Creoles represent one of the larger and more well-known multiracial (or mixed-race) groups that have long histories in the region.

Erratum To: The Great Recession And The Changing Geography Of Food Stamp Receipt, Tim Slack, Candice A. Myers

Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

Notes On The Avifauna Of The Floodplain Forest Of The Rio Mamoré, Beni, Bolivia, With A Description Of The Juvenile Plumage Of Unicolored Thrush (Turdus Haplochrous) (Aves: Turdidae), Ryan S. Terrill, Miguel Angel Aponte Justiniano, Michael G. Harvey, Glenn F. Seeholzer, Rosa Ines Strem

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

Notes on the avifauna of the floodplain forest of the Rio Mamoré, Beni, Bolivia, with a description of the Juvenile plumage of Unicolored Thrush (Turdus haplochrous) – The floodplain forest along the Rio Mamoré is an isolated stretch of riverine forest in the matrix of flooded grassland and gallery forest of the Llanos de Moxos in the department of Beni, Bolivia and contains an understudied avifauna. This habitat potentially represents a stronghold for certain bird taxa. During Dec 2010-Jan 2011, we conducted daily audiovisual censuses, targeted collecting with shotguns, and general collecting with mist-nets for birds at a …

A Conceptual Framework For Analyzing Social-Ecological Models Of Emerging Infectious Diseases, Melissa L. Finucane, Jefferson Fox, Sumeet Saksena, James H. Spencer

Faculty Publications

Unraveling mechanisms that underlie new and reemerging infectious diseases (EID) requires exploring complex interactions within and among coupled natural and human (CNH) systems. This scientifi c problem poses one of the most diffi cult challenges for society today (Wilcox and Colwell 2005 ). EID are diseases that have recently increased in incidence or in geographic or host range (e.g., tuberculosis, cholera, malaria, dengue fever), and diseases caused by new pathogens and new variants assigned to known pathogens (e.g., HIV, SARS, Nipah virus, and avian infl uenza) (Morse 2005 ). Wilcox and Gubler ( 2005 ) and Wilcox and Colwell ( …

Exploring Local Adaptation And The Ocean Acidification Seascape - Studies In The California Current Large Marine Ecosystem, G. E. Hofmann, T. G. Evans, M. W. Kelly, J. L. Padilla-Gamiño, C. A. Blanchette, L. Washburn, F. Chan, M. A. Mcmanus, B. A. Menge, B. Gaylord, T. M. Hill, E. Sanford, M. Lavigne, J. M. Rose, L. Kapsenberg, J. M. Dutton

Faculty Publications

The California Current Large Marine Ecosystem (CCLME), a temperate marine region dominated by episodic upwelling, is predicted to experience rapid environmental change in the future due to ocean acidification. The aragonite saturation state within the California Current System is predicted to decrease in the future with near-permanent undersaturation conditions expected by the year 2050. Thus, the CCLME is a critical region to study due to the rapid rate of environmental change that resident organisms will experience and because of the economic and societal value of this coastal region. Recent efforts by a research consortium-the Ocean Margin Ecosystems Group for Acidification …

The Economics Of Dead Zones: Causes, Impacts, Policy Challenges, And A Model Of The Gulf Of Mexico Hypoxic Zone, S S. Rabotyagov, C. L. Kling, P. W. Gassman, Nancy N. Rabalais, R. Euigene Turner

Faculty Publications

This article reviews and analyzes the issues related to worldwide hypoxic zones and the range of economic questions sorely in need of answers. We begin by describing the extent and causes of hypoxic zones worldwide, followed by a review of the evidence concerning ecological effects of hypoxic zones and their impacts on ecosystem services. We describe what is known about abatement options and cost-effective policy design, and then focus on the large seasonally recurring hypoxic zone in the Gulf of Mexico. We offer a simple econometric model to estimate the relationship between pollutants (nutrients) and the size of the hypoxic …

Contribution Of Tropical Cyclones To The Sediment Budget For Coastal Wetlands In Louisiana, Usa, A W. Tweel, R. Eugene Turner

Faculty Publications

The storm surge from a single hurricane can deposit tens of millions of tons of sediment on coastal wetlands within 100 km of landfall, but the distribution and cumulative amount from hurricanes at a centurial timescale is unknown. Here we use a model calibrated by three storms to estimate the average deposition on the deteriorating Louisiana coast from 1851 to 2008. The total deposition on Louisiana coastal wetlands, exclusive of open water, averages 5.6 million tons of inorganic sediment per year, equivalent to 3.8 % of the modern annual Mississippi River sediment load. Seventy nine percent of this sediment is …

Concentrations And Sources Of Polycyclic Aromatic Hydrocarbons In Surface Coastal Sediments Of The Northern Gulf Of Mexico, Zucheng Wang, Zhanfei Liu, Kehui Xu, Lawrence M. Mayer, Zulin Zhang, Alexander S. Kolker, Wei Wu

Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

Response Of Native Insect Communities To Invasive Plants, T. Martijn Bezemer, Jeffrey A. Harvey, James T. Cronin

Faculty Publications

Invasive plants can disrupt a range of trophic interactions in native communities. As a novel resource they can affect the performance of native insect herbivores and their natural enemies such as parasitoids and predators, and this can lead to host shifts of these herbivores and natural enemies. Through the release of volatile compounds, and by changing the chemical complexity of the habitat, invasive plants can also affect the behavior of native insects such as herbivores, parasitoids, and pollinators. Studies that compare insects on related native and invasive plants in invaded habitats show that the abundance of insect herbivores is often …

Relative Importance Of Host Environment, Transmission Potential And Host Phylogeny To The Structure Of Parasite Metacommunities, Tad Dallas, Steven J. Presley

Faculty Publications

Identification of mechanisms that shape parasite community and metacommunity structures have important implications to host health, disease transmission, and the understanding of community assembly in general. Using a long-term dataset on parasites from desert rodents, we examined the relative contributions of host traits that represent important aspects of parasite environment, transmission probability between host species, and host phylogeny to the structure of a parasite metacommunity as well as for taxonomically restricted parasite metacommunities (coccidians, ectoparasites and helminths). This was done using a combination of metacommunity analysis and variance partitioning based on canonical correspondence analysis. Coccidian and ectoparasite metacommunities did not …

Genetic Species Delineation Among Branching Caribbean Porites Corals, C. Prada, M. B. De Biasse, J. E. Neigel, B. Yednock, J. L. Stake, Z. H. Forsman, I. B. Baums, M. E. Hellberg

Faculty Publications

© 2014, Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg. Coral species are difficult to discern because of their morphological plasticity, long generation times, and slow rates of mitochondrial DNA evolution. Among Caribbean representatives of the genus Porites are three named species (P. divaricata, P. furcata, and P. porites) with branching colony morphologies whose validity as genetically isolated species has been debated. We present sequence data from the mitochondrial control region, nuclear ITS, and nine single-copy nuclear loci for the Caribbean Porites and a related eastern Pacific species. mtDNA sequences were nearly invariant among the three branching species and their crustose sister P. branneri, and …

Cryptic Diversity Hides Host And Habitat Specialization In A Gorgonian-Algal Symbiosis, Carlos Prada, Shelby E. Mcilroy, Diana M. Beltrán, Daniel J. Valint, Scott A. Ford, Michael E. Hellberg, Mary Alice Coffroth

Faculty Publications

Shallow water anthozoans, the major builders of modern coral reefs, enhance their metabolic and calcification rates with algal symbionts. Controversy exists over whether these anthozoan-algae associations are flexible over the lifetimes of individual hosts, promoting acclimative plasticity, or are closely linked, such that hosts and symbionts co-evolve across generations. Given the diversity of algal symbionts and the morphological plasticity of many host species, cryptic variation within either partner could potentially confound studies of anthozoan-algal associations. Here, we used ribosomal, organelle and nuclear sequences, along with microsatellite variation, to study the relationship between lineages of a common Caribbean gorgonian and its …

John Brown's Spy: The Adventurous Life And Tragic Confession Of John E. Cook, Fred Johnson

Civil War Book Review

The Harper's Ferry Raid and Trials from a New Perspective

More than 150 years after John Brown’s failed attempt to seize the Federal arsenal at Harper’s Ferry, Virginia [on October 16, 1859], the fiery abolitionist and self-proclaimed instrument of God’s judgment upon American slavery rem....

Free Black Communities And The Underground Railroad: The Geography Of Resistance, Brent M.S. Campney

Civil War Book Review

Free Black Communities and Resistance

In Free Black Communities and the Underground Railroad, American Studies scholar Cheryl Janifer LaRoche “weave[s] together history, archaeology, and landscape studies" (15) to examine the role of black communities, churches, and fraternal organ....

African Arrivals And Transformations, Andrew Sluyter

Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

Painting A Map Of Sixteenth-Century Mexico City: Land, Writing, And Native Rule, Andrew Sluyter

Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

Temperature-Dependent Development, Cold Tolerance, And Potential Distribution Of Cricotopus Lebetis (Diptera: Chironomidae), A Tip Miner Of Hydrilla Verticillata (Hydrocharitaceae), Karen N. Stratman, William A. Overholt, James P. Cuda, A. Mukherjee, R. Diaz, Michael D. Netherland, Patrick C. Wilson

Faculty Publications

© The Author 2014. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of the Entomological Society of America. A chironomid midge, Cricotopus lebetis (Sublette) (Diptera: Chironomidae), was discovered attacking the apical meristems of Hydrilla verticillata (L.f. Royle) in Crystal River, Citrus Co., Florida in 1992. The larvae mine the stems of H. verticillata and cause basal branching and stunting of the plant. Temperature-dependent development, cold tolerance, and the potential distribution of the midge were investigated. The results of the temperature-dependent development study showed that optimal temperatures for larval development were between 20 and 30°C, and these data were used to construct …

The Influence Of The Complex Topography And Dynamic History Of The Montane Neotropics On The Evolutionary Differentiation Of A Cloud Forest Bird (Premnoplex Brunnescens, Furnariidae), Eugenio Valderrama, Jorge L. Pérez-Emán, Robb T. Brumfield, Andrés M. Cuervo, Carlos Daniel Cadena

Faculty Publications

Aim: To examine the effect of geographical barriers and habitat dynamics related to climatic oscillations on the phylogeography of a widespread passerine of Neotropical cloud forests, the spotted barbtail (Premnoplex brunnescens). Location: Neotropical humid forests of montane areas in lower Central America and South America. Methods: We sequenced two mitochondrial genes and one nuclear intron from specimens collected across the distribution of P. brunnescens. Phylogenetic relationships were inferred using Bayesian and maximum-likelihood methods. Groups with maximum differentiation were estimated with spatial analysis of molecular variance (SAMOVA). We estimated timing of differentiation and relationships among groups with a species-tree approach and …

Implementing Renaissance Literature And Close Reading Into Gifted And Talented High School Curriculums, Ashley Thibodeau

Honors Capstones

No abstract provided.

Evaluating Summary Statistics Used To Test For Incomplete Lineage Sorting: Mito-Nuclear Discordance In The Reef Sponge Callyspongia Vaginalis, Melissa B. Debiasse, Bradley J. Nelson, Michael E. Hellberg

Faculty Publications

Conflicting patterns of population differentiation between the mitochondrial and nuclear genomes (mito-nuclear discordance) have become increasingly evident as multilocus data sets have become easier to generate. Incomplete lineage sorting (ILS) of nucDNA is often implicated as the cause of such discordance, stemming from the large effective population size of nucDNA relative to mtDNA. However, selection, sex-biased dispersal and historical demography can also lead to mito-nuclear discordance. Here, we compare patterns of genetic diversity and subdivision for six nuclear protein-coding gene regions to those for mtDNA in a common Caribbean coral reef sponge, Callyspongia vaginalis, along the Florida reef tract. We …

The Hoosier Cavefish, A New And Endangered Species (Amblyopsidae, Amblyopsis) From The Caves Of Southern Indiana, Prosanta Chakrabarty, Jacques A. Prejean, Matthew L. Niemiller

Faculty Publications

We describe a new species of amblyopsid cavefish (Percopsiformes: Amblyopsidae) in the genus Amblyopsis from subterranean habitats of southern Indiana, USA. The Hoosier Cavefish, Amblyopsis hoosieri sp. n., is distinguished from A. spelaea, its only congener, based on genetic, geographic, and morphological evidence. Several morphological features distinguish the new species, including a much plumper, Bibendumlike wrinkled body with rounded fins, and the absence of a premature stop codon in the gene rhodopsin. This is the first new cavefish species described from the United States in 40 years and exemplifies how molecular data can alert us to the presence of otherwise …

Lsu General Catalog 2014-2015, Louisiana State University And Agricultural And Mechanical College

LSU General Catalog

The LSU General Catalog describes all undergraduate and graduate departments and programs with degree requirements and courses offered for each one. The LSU General Catalog includes information on registration and financial aid as well as academic services offered to all students.