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An Algorithmic And Information-Theoretic Approach To Multimetric Index Construction, Donald R. Schoolmaster Jr., James B. Grace, E. William Schweiger, Glenn R. Guntenspergen, Brian R. Mitchell, Kathryn M. Miller, Amanda M. Little

United States Geological Survey: Staff Publications

The use of multimetric indices (MMIs), such as the widely used index of biological integrity (IBI), to measure, track, summarize and infer the overall impact of human disturbance on biological communities has been steadily growing in recent years. Initially, MMIs were developed for aquatic communities using preselected biological metrics as indicators of system integrity. As interest in these bioassessment tools has grown, so have the types of biological systems to which they are applied. For many ecosystem types the appropriate biological metrics to use as measures of biological integrity are not known a priori. As a result, a variety of …

Partners In The Parks: Field Guide To An Experiential Program In The National Parks (First Edition), Joan Digby, Bill Atwill, Angela Calise, James Clarke, Rebecca Cole-Will, Rony Enriquez, Greg Fahy, Sarah L. Fann, Pavel Goriacko, Andy Grube, Kathleen King, Matt Nickerson, Joy Ochs, Elizabeth O’Donnell, C. P. Price, Heather Thiessen-Reily

National Collegiate Honors Council Monographs

When Joan Digby first proposed taking collegiate honors students into our national parks, I jumped at the chance. Within minutes of reading her email, I not only responded with an enthusiastic “Yes!” but went so far as to volunteer the resources of the Southern Utah University Honors Program to get things started. Nestled among 5 national parks in southwestern Utah, I felt our campus would be a natural focal point for the kind of program Joan envisioned. Within weeks we had laid the groundwork for a proof-of-concept pilot project at nearby Bryce Canyon National Park. Little did I know at …

Finfish And Aquatic Invertebrate Pathology Resources For Now And The Future, Jan M. Spitsbergen, Vicki S. Blazer, Paul R. Bowser, Keith C. Cheng, Keith R. Cooper, Timothy K. Cooper, Salvatore Frasca Jr., David B. Groman, Claudia M. Harper, Jerry M. (Mac) Law, Gary D. Marty, Roxanna M. Smolowitz, Judy St. Leger, Douglas C. Wolf, Jeffrey C. Wolf

United States Environmental Protection Agency: Publications

Utilization of finfish and aquatic invertebrates in biomedical research and as environmental sentinels has grown dramatically in recent decades. Likewise the aquaculture of finfish and invertebrates has expanded rapidly worldwide as populations of some aquatic food species and threatened or endangered aquatic species have plummeted due to overharvesting or habitat degradation. This increasing intensive culture and use of aquatic species has heightened the importance of maintaining a sophisticated understanding of pathology of various organ systems of these diverse species. Yet, except for selected species long cultivated in aquaculture, pathology databases and the workforce of highly trained pathologists lag behind those …

Fundulus As The Premier Teleost Model In Environmental Biology: Opportunities For New Insights Using Genomics, Karen G. Burnett, Lisa J. Bain, William S. Baldwin, Gloria V. Callard, Sarah Cohen, Richard T. Di Giulio, David H. Evans, Marta Gómez-Chiarri, Mark E. Hahn, Cindi A. Hoover, Sibel I. Karchner, Fumi Katoh, Deborah L. Maclatchy, William S. Marshall, Joel N. Meyer, Diane E. Nacci, Marjorie F. Oleksiak, Bernard B. Rees, Thomas D. Singer, John J. Stegeman, David W. Towle, Peter A. Van Veld, Wolfgang K. Vogelbein, Andrew Whitehead, Richard N. Winn, Douglas L. Crawford

United States Environmental Protection Agency: Publications

A strong foundation of basic and applied research documents that the estuarine fish Fundulus heteroclitus and related species are unique laboratory and field models for understanding how individuals and populations interact with their environment. In this paper we summarize an extensive body of work examining the adaptive responses of Fundulus species to environmental conditions, and describe how this research has contributed importantly to our understanding of physiology, gene regulation, toxicology, and ecological and evolutionary genetics of teleosts and other vertebrates. These explorations have reached a critical juncture at which advancement is hindered by the lack of genomic resources for these …

The Art Of Open Spaces Contemporary Sea And Prairiescapes, Elizabeth Schultz

Great Plains Quarterly (through 2013)

Once part of a great inland sea, Kansas and other Great Plains states have been landlocked for millennia. Yet the prairies' "grassy waves" and "islands of cottonwoods" continue to evoke these ancient waters. Diane Quantic in The Nature of the Place: A Study of Great Plains Fiction points out that "[ilt is a rare plains writer who does not invoke the image of the sea of grass, and a rare critic or observer [of the plains] who does not comment upon [this image's] ubiquity." In his index for The Great Prairie Fact and Literary Imagination, under "Prairie, likened to ocean," …

North American Members Of The Hydrellia Crassipes Species Group (Diptera: Ephydridae), D. L. Deonier

Insecta Mundi

The known members of the Hydrellia crassipes species group in North America are described or redescribed, including H. crassipes Cresson, H. procteri Cresson, H. saltator Deonier, H. amplecta n.sp., H. bryani n.sp., H. ocalae n.sp., and H. tibiospica n.sp. Adults of these species exhibit the following synapomorphies: dilated male metafemur and expanded (and flange din some) male metatibia and striate (fibrillate) distiphallus. Only a single species (H. tibiospica n.sp.) was reared from its host-plant species, Juncus debilis Gray, but there are associated habitat data to indicate that the entire species group may have sedges andrushes as host plants.

Body Fluid Solutes Of Juveniles And Adults Of The Euryhaline Bull Shark Carcharhinus Leucas From Freshwater And Saline Environments, Thomas B. Thorson, C. Michael Cowan, Donald E. Watson

Investigations of the Ichthyofauna of Nicaraguan Lakes

Since the discovery of the phenomenally high urea content of the body fluids of cartilaginous fishes by Staedeler and Frerichs (1858), the unique osmoregulatory system of this vertebrate class has been studied by many investigators. In broad outline, the mechanisms are essentially similar in all three of the major subtaxa: the selachians, the batoids, and the holocephalans. A single exception is the genus Potamotrygon (fresh-water stingrays of South America and Africa), which has apparently lost the ability to concentrate urea even when transferred to salt water.

Some Marine Fish Trematodes Of Maine, Harold W. Manter

Harold W. Manter Laboratory of Parasitology: Library Materials

During the summer of 1924 a study of marine fish parasites was made at the Mount Desert Island (Maine, USA) Biological Laboratory. The present paper represents a preliminary report on the trematode group. Three new species of trematodes are described. Only brief consideration is here given to species already known. A later paper will deal more completely with these and related forms.

Includes brief descriptions of Podocotyle atomon (Rud. 1802), Podocotyle olssoni Odhner 1905, Stephanochasmus baccatus Nicoll 1907, Lepidapedon rachion (Cobb.) 1858, Lepidapedon elongatum (Lebour 1908), Homalometron pallidum Staff. 1904, Steganoderma formosum Staff. 1904, Otodistomum cestoides (van Ben. 1870), Hemiurus …