Digital Commons Network^™

Spatial Ecology Of Urban Raccoons In Northeastern Ohio: Implications For Oral Rabies Vaccination, Are R. Berentsen, Mike R. Dunbar, Chadd E. Fitzpatrick, W. David Walter

United States Department of Agriculture Wildlife Services: Staff Publications

In 1977, rabies was detected in a raccoon (Procyon lotor) in West Virginia, and since the mid-1980s raccoon variant rabies has spread throughout the eastern United States and moved west as far as the eastern edge of Cleveland, Ohio. The primary tool to combat this spread is the distribution of oral rabies vaccine (ORV) baits. A thorough knowledge of raccoon space use is critical in determining bait placement, particularly in urban areas. We monitored nine raccoons in urban areas of Cleveland, Ohio, calculated home range sizes, monitored raccoon movement with respect to potential movement barriers, and used resource …

Rabies, Canine Distemper, And Canine Parvovirus Exposure In Large Carnivore Communities From Two Zambian Ecosystems, Are R. Berentsen, Mike R. Dunbar, Matthew S. Becker, Jassiel M'Soka, Egil Droge, Nicholas M. Sakuya, Wigganson Matandiko, Rachel Mcrobb, Cathleen A. Hanlon

United States Department of Agriculture Wildlife Services: Staff Publications

Disease transmission within and among wild and domestic carnivores can have significant impacts on populations, particularly for threatened and endangered species. We used serology to evaluate potential exposure to rabies virus, canine distemper virus (CDV), and canine parvovirus (CPV) for populations of African lions (Panthera leo), African wild dogs (Lycaon pictus), and spotted hyenas (Crocuta crocuta) in Zambia’s South Luangwa National Park (SLNP) and Liuwa Plain National Park (LPNP) as well as community lands bordering these areas. In addition, domestic dogs in the study region were evaluated for exposure to CDV and rabies. We provide …

Evolutionary Characterization Of The Pandemic H1n1/ 2009 Influenza Virus In Humans Based On Non-Structural Genes, Chengmin Wang, Yanyu Zhang, Bin Wu, Shelan Liu, Ping Xu, Yanmin Lu, Jing Luo, Dale L. Nolte, Thomas J. Deliberto, Mingxing Duan, Hong Zhang, Hongxuan He

United States Department of Agriculture Wildlife Services: Staff Publications

The 2009 influenza pandemic had a tremendous social and economic impact. To study the genetic diversity and evolution of the 2009 H1N1 virus, a mutation network for the non-structural (NS) gene of the virus was constructed. Strains of the 2009 H1N1 pandemic influenza A virus could be divided into two categories based on the V123I mutation in the NS1 gene: G1 (characterized as 123 Val) and G2 (characterized as 123 Ile). Sequence homology analysis indicated that one type of NS sequence, primarily isolated from Mexico, was likely the original type in this pandemic. The two genotypes of the virus presented …

Mutation From Arginine To Lysine At The Position 189 Of Hemagglutinin Contributes To The Antigenic Drift In H3n2 Swine Influenza Viruses, Jianqiang Ye, Yifei Xu, Jillian Harris, Hailiang Sun, Andrew S. Bowman, Fred L. Cunningham, Carol Cardona, Kyoungjin J. Yoon, Richard D. Slemons, Xiu-Feng Wan

United States Department of Agriculture Wildlife Services: Staff Publications

Two distinct antigenic clusters were previously identified among the H3N2 swine influenza A viruses (IAVs) and were designated H3N2SIV-alpha and H3N2SIV-beta (Feng et al., 2013. Journal of Virology 87(13), 7655–7667). A consistent mutation was observed at the position 189 of hemagglutinin (R189K) between H3N2SIV-alpha and H3N2SIV-beta fair isolates. To evaluate the contribution of R189K mutation to the antigenic drift from H3N2SIV-alpha to H3N2SIV-beta, four reassortant viruses with189R or189K were generated. The antigenic cartography demonstrated that the R189K mutation in the hemagglutinin of H3N2IAV contributed to the antigenicdrift, separating these viruses into H3N2SIV-alpha to H3N2SIV- beta. This R189K mutation was also …

Wild Ungulates As Disseminators Of Shiga Toxin- Producing Escherichia Coli In Urban Areas, Alan B. Franklin, Kurt C. Vercauteren, Hugh Maguire, Mary K. Cichon, Justin W. Fischer, Michael J. Lavelle, Amber Powell, J. Jeffrey Root, Elaine Scallan

United States Department of Agriculture Wildlife Services: Staff Publications

Background: In 2008, children playing on a soccer field in Colorado were sickened with a strain of Shiga toxin-producing Escherichia coli (STEC) O157:H7, which was ultimately linked to feces from wild Rocky Mountain elk. We addressed whether wild cervids were a potential source of STEC infections in humans and whether STEC was ubiquitous throughout wild cervid populations in Colorado.

Methodology/Principal Findings: We collected 483 fecal samples from Rocky Mountain elk and mule deer in urban and non-urban areas. Samples testing positive for STEC were higher in urban (11.0%) than non-urban (1.6%) areas. Elk fecal samples in urban areas had a …

Ecology Of Zoonotic Infectious Diseases In Bats: Current Knowledge And Future Directions, D. T. S. Hayman, R. A. Bowen, P. M. Cryan, G. M. Mccracken, T. J. O'Shea, A. J. Peel, A. T. Gilbert, C. T. Webb, J. L. N. Wood

United States Department of Agriculture Wildlife Services: Staff Publications

Bats are hosts to a range of zoonotic and potentially zoonotic pathogens. Human activities that increase exposure to bats will likely increase the opportunity for infections to spill over in the future. Ecological drivers of pathogen spillover and emergence in novel hosts, including humans, involve a complex mixture of processes, and understanding these complexities may aid in predicting spillover. In particular, only once the pathogen and host ecologies are known can the impacts of anthropogenic changes be fully appreciated. Cross-disciplinary approaches are required to understand how host and pathogen ecology interact. Bats differ from other sylvatic disease reservoirs because of …

Effects Of Deer Density And Land Use On Mass Of White-Tailed Deer, Trevor J. Hefley, Scott E. Hygnstrom, Jason M. Gilsdorf, Gregory M. Clements, Myndi J. Clements, Andrew J. Tyre, David M. Baasch, Kurt C. Vercauteren

United States Department of Agriculture Wildlife Services: Staff Publications

Local and regional land use changes, such as the expansion of cropland for cellulosic biofuels, and the population density of white-tailed deer can affect the health and body mass of white-tailed deer Odocoileus virginianus. We collected hunterharvest data for 1,731 white-tailed deer from DeSoto National Wildlife Refuge in eastern Nebraska and western Iowa from 2003 to 2010. We used linear mixed-effects models and information theoretic methods to estimate effects of density of white-tailed deer and proportion of total landcover area converted from cropland to cool- or warm-season grassland on body mass of white-tailed deer. Density of white-tailed deer at …

A Comparison Of Bats And Rodents As Reservoirs Of Zoonotic Viruses: Are Bats Special?, Angela D. Luis, David T. S. Hayman, Thomas J. O'Shea, Paul M. Cryan, Amy T. Gilbert, Juliet R. C. Pulliam, James N. Mills, Mary E. Timonin, Craig K. R. Willis, Andrew A. Cunningham, Anthony R. Fooks, Charles E. Rupprecht, James L. N. Wood, Colleen T. Webb

United States Department of Agriculture Wildlife Services: Staff Publications

Bats are the natural reservoirs of a number of high-impact viral zoonoses. We present a quantitative analysis to address the hypothesis that bats are unique in their propensity to host zoonotic viruses based on a comparisonwith rodents, another important host order. We found that bats indeed host more zoonotic viruses per species than rodents, and we identified life-history and ecological factors that promote zoonotic viral richness. More zoonotic viruses are hosted by species whose distributions overlap with a greater number of other species in the same taxonomic order (sympatry). Specifically in bats, therewas evidence for increased zoonotic viral richness in …

Feral Swine Brucellosis In The United States And Prospective Genomic Techniques For Disease Epidemiology, Owen P. Leiser, Joseph L. Corn, Brandon S. Schmit, Paul S. Keim, Jeffrey T. Foster

United States Department of Agriculture Wildlife Services: Staff Publications

Brucellosis is a common infection of feral swine throughout the United States. With the recent expansion of feral swine populations across the country, this disease poses an increasing threat to agriculture and hunters. The standard approach to Brucella surveillance in feral swine has been serological testing, which gives an indication of past exposure and is a rapid method of determining populations where Brucella is present. More in-depth analyses require bacterial isolation to determine the Brucella species and biovar involved. Ultimately, for a comprehensive understanding of Brucella epizootiology in feral swine, incorporation of genotyping assays has become essential. Fortunately, the past …

The Use Of Contraception As A Disease Management Tool In Wildlife, Jack C. Rhyan, Lowell A. Miller, Kathleen A. Fagerstone

United States Department of Agriculture Wildlife Services: Staff Publications

Contraception offers potential as a tool for managing certain diseases in wildlife, most notably venereally transmitted diseases or diseases transmitted at parturition. Brucellosis is an excellent example of an infectious disease present in wild populations that could potentially be managed through immunocontraception. Previous studies in bison (Bison bison) suggest that a single injection of GonaCon^TM (National Wildlife Research Center, U.S. Department of Agriculture/Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service/Wildlife Services, Fort Collins, Colorado 80521, USA) results in 3 or more yr of infertility. Ongoing studies will determine if the use of GonaCon in bison decreases shedding of Brucella …

Graphically Characterizing The Movement Of A Rabid Striped Skunk Epizootic Across The Landscape In Northwestern Wyoming, Craig A. Ramey, Kenneth W. Mills, Justin W. Fischer, Robert G. Mclean, Kathleen A. Fagerstone, Richard M. Engeman

United States Department of Agriculture Wildlife Services: Staff Publications

A striped skunk (Mephitis mephitis) rabies epizootic in northwestern Wyoming was studied from the Index Case in 1988 to the last case in 1993, and possibly is the first rabies epizootic in a previously rabies-free zone monitored from beginning to end. The 843 km² study area comprised skunk habitat along 90 km of Shoshone River’s floodplain from Bighorn Lake upstream to Cody. Of 1,015 skunks tested, 215 were rabiespositive. Integrating spatial and temporal data from positive cases, we analyzed the epizootic’s movements and dynamics at 6-month intervals using multivariate movement maps, a new multivariate descriptive methodology presented …

Detection Of African Swine Fever Virus-Like Sequences In Ponds In The Mississippi Delta Through Metagenomic Sequencing, Xiu-Feng Wan, J. Lamar Barnett, Fred Cunningham, Si Chen, Guohua Yang, Shannon Nash, Li-Pong Long, Lorelei Ford, Sherry Blackmon, Yan Zhang, Larry Hanson, Qiang He

United States Department of Agriculture Wildlife Services: Staff Publications

Metagenomic characterization of water virome was performed in four Mississippi catfish ponds. Although differing considerably from African swine fever virus (ASFV), 48 of 446,100 sequences from 12 samples were similar enough to indicate that they represent new members in the family Asfarviridae. At present, ASFV is the only member of Asfarviridae, and this study presents the first indication of a similar virus in North America. At this point, there is no indication that the identified virus(es) pose a threat to human or animal health, and further study is needed to characterize their potential risks to both public health and agricultural …

Surveillance And Movements Of Virginia Opossum (Didelphis Virginiana) In The Bovine Tuberculosis Region Of Michigan, W. D. Walter, Justin W. Fischer, C. W. Anderson, D. R. Marks, T. J. Deliberto, S. Robbe-Austerman, K. C. Vercauteren

United States Department of Agriculture Wildlife Services: Staff Publications

Wildlife reservoir hosts of bovine tuberculosis (bTB) include Eurasian badgers (Meles meles) and brushtail possum (Trichosurus vulpecula) in the UK and New Zealand, respectively. Similar species warrant further investigation in the northern lower peninsula of Michigan, USA due to the continued presence of bTB on cattle farms. Most research in Michigan, USA has focused on interactions between white-tailed deer (Odocoileus virginianus) and cattle (Bos taurus) for the transmission of the infectious agent of bTB, Mycobacterium bovis, due to high deer densities and feeding practices. However, limited data are available on medium-sized …

West Nile Virus Infection In American Robins: New Insights On Dose Response, Kaci K. Vandalen, Jeffrey S. Hall, Larry Clark, Robert G. Mclean, Cynthia Smeraski

United States Department of Agriculture Wildlife Services: Staff Publications

West Nile virus (WNV) is a vector-borne pathogen that was first detected in the United States in 1999. The natural transmission cycle of WNV involves mosquito vectors and avian hosts, which vary in their competency to transmit the virus. American robins are an abundant backyard species in the United States and appear to have an important role in the amplification and dissemination of WNV. In this study we examine the response of American robins to infection with various WNV doses within the range of those administered by some natural mosquito vectors. Thirty American robins were assigned a WNV dosage treatment …

New World Bats Harbor Diverse Influenza A Viruses, Suxiang Tong, Xueyong Zhu, Yan Li, Mang Shi, Jing Zhang, Melissa Bourgeois, Hua Yang, Xianfeng Chen, Sergio Recuenco, Jorge Gomez, Li-Mei Chen, Adam Johnson, Ying Tao, Cyrille Dreyfus, Wenli Yu, Ryan Mcbride, Paul J. Carney, Amy T. Gilbert, Jessie Chang, Zhu Guo, Charles T. Davis, James C. Paulson, James Stevens, Charles E. Rupprecht, Edward C. Holmes, Ian A. Wilson, Ruben O. Donis

United States Department of Agriculture Wildlife Services: Staff Publications

Aquatic birds harbor diverse influenza A viruses and are a major viral reservoir in nature. The recent discovery of influenza viruses of a new H17N10 subtype in Central American fruit bats suggests that other New World species may similarly carry divergent influenza viruses. Using consensus degenerate RT-PCR, we identified a novel influenza A virus, designated as H18N11, in a flat-faced fruit bat (Artibeus planirostris) from Peru. Serologic studies with the recombinant H18 protein indicated that several Peruvian bat species were infected by this virus. Phylogenetic analyses demonstrate that, in some gene segments, New World bats harbor more influenza …

Wildlife In Airport Environments: Chapter 6 Wildlife Translocation As A Management Alternative At Airports, Paul D. Curtis, Jonathon D. Cepek, Rebecca Mihalco, Thomas W. Seamans, Scott R. Craven

United States Department of Agriculture Wildlife Services: Staff Publications

Wildlife in urban settings may be a welcome sight for many, but negative interactions between people and various wild species are increasing (Conover et al. 1995, Conover 2002). Wildlife populations are commonly managed in part to reduce these conflicts, particularly in high-risk areas such as roadways and airports (Conover 2002). However, the public often opposes lethal control or management methods perceived as causing harm to nuisance animals (Reiter et al. 1999, Conover 2002, Treves et al. 2006), and attitudes vary considerably depending on the particular wildlife species involved (Kretser et al. 2009). Consequently, a variety of nonlethal management approaches are …

Surveillance And Movements Of Virginia Opossum (Didelphis Virginiana) In The Bovine Tuberculosis Region Of Michigan, W. D. Walter, J. W. Fischer, C. W. Anderson, D. R. Marks, T. J. Deliberto, S. Robbe-Austerman, K. C. Vercauteren

United States Department of Agriculture Wildlife Services: Staff Publications

Wildlife reservoir hosts of bovine tuberculosis (bTB) include Eurasian badgers (Meles meles) and brushtail possum (Trichosurus vulpecula) in the UK and New Zealand, respectively. Similar species warrant further investigation in the northern lower peninsula of Michigan, USA due to the continued presence of bTB on cattle farms. Most research in Michigan, USA has focused on interactions between white-tailed deer (Odocoileus virginianus) and cattle (Bos taurus) for the transmission of the infectious agent of bTB, Mycobacterium bovis, due to high deer densities and feeding practices. However, limited data are available on medium-sized mammals …

Ecology Of Zoonoses: Natural And Unnatural Histories, William B. Karesh, Andy Dobson, James O. Lloyd-Smith, Juan Lubroth, Matthew A. Dixon, Malcolm Bennett, Stephen Aldrich, Todd Harrington, Pierre Formenty, Elizabeth H. Loh, Catherine C. Machalaba, Mathew Jason Thomas, David L. Heymann

United States Public Health Resources

More than 60% of human infectious diseases are caused by pathogens shared with wild or domestic animals. Zoonotic disease organisms include those that are endemic in human populations or enzootic in animal populations with frequent cross-species transmission to people. Some of these diseases have only emerged recently. Together, these organisms are responsible for a substantial burden of disease, with endemic and enzootic zoonoses causing about a billion cases of illness in people and millions of deaths every year. Emerging zoonoses are a growing threat to global health and have caused hundreds of billions of US dollars of economic damage in …

Structure-Function Analysis Of A Protein Encoded By The Bhv-1 Latency Related Gene, Devis Sinani

School of Veterinary and Biomedical Sciences: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

Bovine herpes virus 1 (BHV-1) is a significant viral pathogen in cattle that induces a myriad of clinical symptoms. These symptoms include: conjunctivitis, upper respiratory tract infections, genital disorders, and abortions. BHV-1 infection can also lead to transient immune-suppression, which predisposes cattle to secondary bacterial infection leading to life-threatening pneumonia referred to as bovine respiratory disease (BRD). Following acute infection, BHV-1 establishes latency in sensory neurons within trigeminal ganglia. Reactivation of the virus can occur periodically, resulting in virus transmission. The latency-related (LR) RNA is the only abundantly expressed transcript in latently infected sensory neurons and it encodes several proteins, …

Insights From Characterizing Extinct Human Gut Microbiomes, Raul Y. Tito, Dan Knights, Jessica Metcalf, Alexandra J. Obregon-Tito, Lauren Cleeland, Fares Najar, Bruce Roe, Karl Reinhard, Kristin Sobolik, Samuel Belknap, Morris Foster, Paul Spicer, Rob Knight, Cecil M. Lewis, Jr.

School of Natural Resources: Faculty Publications

In an effort to better understand the ancestral state of the human distal gut microbiome, we examine feces retrieved from archaeological contexts (coprolites). To accomplish this, we pyrosequenced the 16S rDNA V3 region from duplicate coprolite samples recovered from three archaeological sites, each representing a different depositional environment: Hinds Cave (~8000 years B.P.) in the southern United States, Caserones (1600 years B.P.) in northern Chile, and Rio Zape in northern Mexico (1400 years B.P.). Clustering algorithms grouped samples from the same site. Phyletic representation was more similar within sites than between them. A Bayesian approach to source-tracking was used to …

Glutaredoxin 2 (Grx2) Knockout Increases Sensitivity To Oxidative Stress In Mouse Lens Epithelial Cells, Hongli Wu, Liren Lin, Frank Giblin, Ye-Sheh Ho, Marjorie F. Lou

School of Veterinary and Biomedical Sciences: Faculty Publications

Glutaredoxin belongs to the oxidoreductase family with cytosolic glutaredoxin 1 (Grx1) and mitochondrial gluraredoxin 2 (Grx2) isoforms. Of the two isozymes, the function of Grx2 is not well understood. This paper studied the effect of Grx2 deletion on cellular function using primary lens epithelial cell cultures isolated from Grx2 gene knockout (KO) and wild type (WT) mice. We found that both cell types showed similar growth patterns and morphology, and comparable mitochondrial glutathione pool and complex I activity. Cells with deleted Grx2 did not show affected Grx1 or thioredoxin (Trx) expression but exhibited high sensitivity to oxidative stress. Under treatment …

Molecular Evolution And Phylogenetics Of Rodent Malaria Parasites, Ricardo S. Ramiro, Sarah E. Reece, Darren J. Obbard

Harold W. Manter Laboratory of Parasitology: Library Materials

Background: Over the last 6 decades, rodent Plasmodium species have become key model systems for understanding the basic biology of malaria parasites. Cell and molecular parasitology have made much progress in identifying genes underpinning interactions between malaria parasites, hosts, and vectors. However, little attention has been paid to the evolutionary genetics of parasites, which provides context for identifying potential therapeutic targets and for understanding the selective forces shaping parasites in natural populations. Additionally, understanding the relationships between species, subspecies, and strains, is necessary to maximize the utility of rodent malaria parasites as medically important infectious disease models, and for …

Group Testing Regression Models, Boan Zhang

Department of Statistics: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

Group testing, where groups of individual specimens are composited to test for the presence or absence of a disease (or some other binary characteristic), is a procedure commonly used to reduce the costs of screening a large number of individuals. Statistical research in group testing has traditionally focused on a homogeneous population, where individuals are assumed to have the same probability of having a disease. However, individuals often have different risks of positivity, so recent research has examined regression models that allow for heterogeneity among individuals within the population. This dissertation focuses on two problems involving group testing regression models. …

Cultivation Of Whipple Bacillus: The Irony And The Ecstasy, David N. Fredricks, David A. Relman

United States Department of Veterans Affairs: Publications

For 90 years investigators (including George Whipple) have been unable to propagate the microbe responsible for Whipple’s disease, despite many published and probably many more unpublished attempts.¹ Evidence that a bacterium causes Whipple’s disease has accumulated in recent decades. Light and electron microscopy show rod-shaped bacilli in the affected tissues of these patients, usually free in the lamina propria of the small bowel but also as partly degraded structures within macrophage vacuoles.² On the basis of histology, investigators have suggested that these organisms propagate extracellularly,³ although intact organisms have been detected within several types of cells.^{4 …}

Scwds Briefs: Volume 28, Number 3 (October 2012), Jeanenne Brewton, Michael J. Yabsley

Southeastern Cooperative Wildlife Disease Study: Publications

Hemorrhagic Disease 2012 - One for the Record Books?

A Big Year for West Nile Virus

A New Tick-Borne Virus in Missouri?

EEE Virus in 2012

Hantavirus Outbreak – Yosemite National Park

Zebra Virus in Polar Bears

A New Virus in Australian Bats

Fourth Annual Interdisciplinary Conference On Human Trafficking, 2012: Program Schedule And Abstracts

Annual Interdisciplinary Conference on Human Trafficking: 4th (2012)

Program = 12 pages

Abstracts = 56 pages

Survey Of Gastrointestinal Parasite Infection In African Lion (Panthera Leo), African Wild Dog (Lycaon Pictus) And Spotted Hyaena (Crocuta Crocuta) In The Luangwa Valley, Zambia, Are R. Berentsen, Matthew S. Becker, Heather Stockdale-Walden, Wigganson Matandiko, Rachel Mcrobb, Mike R. Dunbar

United States Department of Agriculture Wildlife Services: Staff Publications

Little is known about gastrointestinal parasite infections in large carnivores in Africa and what is available is largely from East Africa. We collected faecal samples from nine spotted hyaenas (Crocuta crocuta), 15 lions (Panthera leo) and 13 African wild dog (Lycaon pictus) from Luangwa Valley, Zambia. The most common gastrointestinal parasites found were Isospora spp., Spirometra sp., Taeniidae and Sarcosystis spp. Twenty-eight percent of all samples were co-infected with Spirometra sp. and Taeniidae, with co-infection rates highest among lions (67%). Thirty-three per cent (3/9) of spotted hyaenas were infected with Isospora sp. Ninety-two per …

Dissecting A Wildlife Disease Hotspot: The Impact Of Multiple Host Species, Environmental Transmission And Seasonality In Migration, Breeding And Mortality, Vicki L. Brown, John M. Drake, David E. Stallknecht, Justin D. Brown, Kerri Pedersen, Pejman Rohani

United States Department of Agriculture Wildlife Services: Staff Publications

Avian influenza viruses (AIVs) have been implicated in all human influenza pandemics in recent history. Despite this, surprisingly little is known about the mechanisms underlying the maintenance and spread of these viruses in their natural bird reservoirs. Surveillance has identified an AIV ‘hotspot’ in shorebirds at Delaware Bay, in which prevalence is estimated to exceed other monitored sites by an order of magnitude. To better understand the factors that create an AIV hotspot, we developed and parametrized a mechanistic transmission model to study the simultaneous epizootiological impacts of multi-species transmission, seasonal breeding, host migration and mixed transmission routes. We scrutinized …

Ultraviolet Radiation–Induced Cataract In Mice: The Effect Of Age And The Potential Biochemical Mechanism, Jie Zhang, Hong Yan, Stefan Lofgren, Xiaoli Tian, Marjorie F. Lou

School of Veterinary and Biomedical Sciences: Faculty Publications

PURPOSE. To study the effect of age on the morphologic and biochemical alterations induced by in vivo exposure of ultraviolet radiation (UV).

METHODS. Young and old C57BL/6 mice were exposed to broadband UVBþUVA and euthanized after 2 days. Another batch of UV-exposed young mice was monitored for changes after 1, 2, 4, and 8 days. Age-matched nonexposed mice served as controls. Lens changes were documented in vivo by slit-lamp biomicroscopy and dark field microscopy photographs ex vivo. Lens homogenates were analyzed for glutathione (GSH) level, and the activities of thioredoxin (Trx), thioltransferase (TTase), and glyceraldehyde-3-phosphate dehydrogenase (G3PD). Glutathionylated lens proteins …

Evolutionary History Of Assassin Bugs (Insecta: Hemiptera: Reduviidae): Insights From Divergence Dating And Ancestral State Reconstruction, Wei Song Hwang, Christiane Weirauch

Harold W. Manter Laboratory of Parasitology: Library Materials

Assassin bugs are one of the most successful clades of predatory animals based on their species numbers (~ 6,800 spp.) and wide distribution in terrestrial ecosystems. Various novel prey capture strategies and remarkable prey specializations contribute to their appeal as a model to study evolutionary pathways involved in predation. Here, we reconstruct the most comprehensive reduviid phylogeny (178 taxa, 18 subfamilies) to date based on molecular data (5 markers). This phylogeny tests current hypotheses on reduviid relationships emphasizing the polyphyletic Reduviinae and the blood-feeding, diseasevectoring Triatominae, and allows us, for the first time in assassin bugs, to reconstruct ancestral states …