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Estimation Of Presettlement Populations Of The Black-Tailed Prairie Dog: A Reply, Dallas Virchow, Scott E. Hygnstrom

Great Plains Research: A Journal of Natural and Social Sciences (through 2013)

Determination of the historical distribution and abundance of the black-tailed prairie dog (Cynomys ludovicanus) is important as a component of the science underlying decisions on the future management of this species. Clearly, we differ from Knowles and colleagues (2002) in our interpretation of those data (see below). In addition, Knowles et al. (2002) introduce other lines of evidence rather than focusing on the historical record as we did. The new lines of evidence they present include physical evidence, contemporary knowledge of prairie dog ecology, and distribution of the black-footed ferret, Mustela nigripes. Unfortunately, these new lines of …

Migration Of The Great Plains An Introduction, Charles A. Braithwaite

Great Plains Quarterly (through 2013)

The 26th annual Center for Great Plains Studies symposium, "Great Plains Migrations," held at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, 7 -9 May 2002, was innovative in its interdisciplinary concept and content. The co-chairs of the symposium, Mary Liz Jameson, Research Assistant Professor of Entomology and Museum, University of Nebraska-Lincoln, and David Wishart, Professor of Geography, University of Nebraska-Lincoln, brought together scholars from the humanities, social sciences, and biological sciences to examine migration in all its dimensions-from historical and contemporary human migrations to migrations of flora and fauna. The concept of migration is central to the development and dynamics of the Great …

Nebraska Blueprint – Fall 2002

Nebraska Blueprint (Student Publication)

Table of Contents:

From the Editor

You Never Know Where the Road Will Lead – Civil engineering graduate student takes research on the road.

Feel the POWER! – Quarter-scale tractor team strives for excellence in competition and continues to move up in the ranks.

Independent Study Team Goes Robotic – The story behind the making of a robot by an undergraduate independent study team.

A Fine-Tuned Balance – Biological systems engineering student balances school and musical interests.

100 Hundred Years of Nebraska Blueprint – Serving engineering students of NU for a century, the Nebraska Blueprint celebrates its 100th Anniversary with …

Evaluation Of Buffalograss Germplasm For Resistance To Blissus Occiduus (Hemiptera: Lygaeidae), Tiffany Heng-Moss, Frederick P. Baxendale, Terrance P. Riordan, John E. Foster

Department of Entomology: Faculty Publications

Blissus occiduus Barber has emerged as an important insect pest of buffalograss, Buchloe dactyloides (Nuttall) Engelmann, in Nebraska. This research evaluated selected buffalograss germplasm for resistance to B. occiduus. Eleven buffalograss selections were screened for chinch bug resistance in three greenhouse studies and two field evaluations. Based on chinch bug damage, NE91-118, ‘Tatanka’, ‘Bonnie Brae’, and ‘Cody’ were rated highly to moderately resistant. These four buffalograsses exhibited minimal damage, even though all were heavily infested with chinch bugs. NE84-45-3 and ‘378’ were highly susceptible to B. occiduus. Field evaluations confirmed chinch bug resistance ratings under field conditions. NE91-118 …

How Many Black-Tailed Prairie Dogs Were There? A Dialogue Demonstrates Both The Process Of Science And The Role Of Science In Environmental Issues, Svata M. Louda

Svata M. Louda Publications

In this Dialogue, Dallas Virchow and Scott Hygnstrom challenge the present, widely held view that the numbers of black-tailed prairie dogs have declined significantly in post-settlement times. Using quotes and numbers from historical accounts of the occurrence of the prairie dog by the early explorers and settlers, they build a case that occurrence and abundance of the prairie dog in the shortgrass prairies and midgrass regions to the west of the tallgrass region in the Great Plains cannot be used to estimate the presettlement abundance of the species in tallgrass areas. They argue that the activities of early settlers, including …

Review Of Medicine That Walks: Disease, Medicine, And Canadian Plains Native People, 1880-1940 By Maureen K. Lux, R. Wesley Heber

Great Plains Quarterly (through 2013)

Medicine That Walks recounts the impact of the federal government's Indian policy on the health and well-being of Canadian Plains Indians. The end of the bison as a staple of life, the treaties with the Crown, and the subsequent removal of Indians from the land, followed by settlement replacement-these form the backdrop for a thesis on historical cause and effect. The thesis is that race-based federal policies resulted in social, physical, and spiritual degradation for Indian people. Lux's account unfolds as a clash of cultures in which Indian traditions and practices struggle to survive the relentless onslaught of western domination …

Community Dynamics Of An Ecotonal Forest-Prairie Interface In Northeastern Kansas, Elizabeth Hane, Steven Hamburg

Great Plains Research: A Journal of Natural and Social Sciences (through 2013)

Climate change models predict that ecotones, which are boundaries between two biomes, are likely to be the first place we see the effects of climate change. However, very little baseline data exist for these areas and their current community structure. In order to better understand the community dynamics of an ecotonal forest, a 2.2 ha 60- year-old upland forest in northeastern Kansas was monitored for 10 years. This oak-hickory forest at the ecotone with the tallgrass prairie biome is growing more slowly than other forests of similar species composition farther east, possibly due to lower levels of available soil moisture …

Review Of Kansas Breeding Bird Atlas By William H. Busby And John L. Zimmerman, Paul A. Johnsgard

Great Plains Research: A Journal of Natural and Social Sciences (through 2013)

Kansas has now joined the expanding group of Midwestern states for which breeding bird atlases have recently been published, including South Dakota (1995), Iowa (1996), Missouri (1997), and Nebraska (200 I). Atlases are also in preparation or in press for Oklahoma and Texas, which will soon help fill out distributional knowledge of the Great Plains avifauna in a way unimaginable when I was assembling regional data for my Birds of the Great Plains: The Breeding Species and Their Distribution (1979).

Redescriptions Of Haemonchus Mitchelli And Haemonchus Okapiae (Nematoda: Trichostrongyloidea) And Description Of A Unique Synlophe For The Haemonchinae, J. Ralph Lichtenfels, Patricia A. Pilitt, Lynda M. Gibbons, Eric P. Hoberg

Harold W. Manter Laboratory of Parasitology: Faculty Publications

In the course of a revision of Haemonchus Cobb, 1898 (Nematoda), commonly referred to as large stomach worms, significant new morphological information was discovered that allows the recognition of two species believed for more than 50 years to be synonymous. Both species, Haemonchus mitchelli Le Roux, 1929, from the eland Taurotragus oryx and other African ruminants and H. okapiae van den Berghe, 1937, from the okapi Okapia johnstoni, have a synlophe of 42 ridges, but the synlophe of H. mitchelli is longer than that of H. okapiae. The distal tip of the left spicule of H. mitchelli bears …

Molecular Phylogeny Of Subtribe Artemisiinae (Asteraceae), Including Artemisia And Its Allied And Segregate Genera, Linda E. Watson, Paul E. Bates, Timonthy M. Evans, Matthew M. Unwin, James R. Estes

School of Biological Sciences: Faculty Publications

Background: Subtribe Artemisiinae of Tribe Anthemideae (Asteraceae) is composed of 18 largely Asian genera that include the sagebrushes and mugworts. The subtribe includes the large cosmopolitan, wind-pollinated genus Artemisia, as well as several smaller genera and Seriphidium, that altogether comprise the Artemisia-group. Circumscription and taxonomic boundaries of Artemisia and the placements of these small segregate genera is currently unresolved.

Results: We constructed a molecular phylogeny for the subtribe using the internal transcribed spacers (ITS) of nuclear ribosomal DNA analyzed with parsimony, likelihood, and Bayesian criteria. The resulting tree is comprised of three major clades that correspond …

Development And Implementation Of A Comprehensive Lake And Reservoir Strategy For Nebraska As A Model For Agricultural Dominated Ecosystems, John C. Holz, James W. Merchant, Anatoly A. Gitelson, Sherilyn C. Fritz, Kyle D. Hoagland, Istvan Bogardi, Donald C. Rundquist

Department of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences: Faculty Publications

In agriculturally dominated regions, land use practices have an unusually large impact on water bodies and, therefore, land use may reduce the utility of current ecoregion-based approaches to lake classification by dampening the signals that underlie the ecoregion framework. A team of water quality researchers has been assembled to develop a comprehensive classification scheme for agriculturally dominated ecosystems, using Nebraska as a highly representative model. Three objectives critical to achieving this goal are to establish: (1) a protocol for aggregating water bodies in agricultural ecosystems into classification strata and identifying reference conditions for these classes; (2) the role of remote …

An Approach To Sequence Dna Without Tagging, Sanjun Niu, Ravi F. Saraf

Papers in Biotechnology

Microarray technology is playing an increasingly important role in biology and medicine and its application to genomics for gene expression analysis has already reached the market with a variety of commercially available instruments. In these combinatorial analysis methods, known probe single-strand DNA (ssDNA) ‘primers’ are attached in clusters of typically 100 μm × 100 μm pixels. Each pixel of the array has a slightly different sequence. On exposure to ‘unknown’ target ssDNA, the pixels with the right complementary probe ssDNA sequence convert to double-stranded DNA (dsDNA) by a hybridization reaction. To transduct the conversion of the pixel to dsDNA, the …

Dynamic Change In Photosynthetic Pigments And Chlorophyll Degradation Elicited By Cereal Aphid Feeding, Xinzhi Ni, Sharron S. Quisenberry, Tiffany Heng-Moss, John P. Markwell, Leon G. Higley, Frederick P. Baxendale, Gautam Sarath, Robert Klucas

Department of Entomology: Faculty Publications

The concentration of photosynthetic pigments (i.e., chlorophylls a and b, and carotenoids) and chlorophyll degradation enzyme (i.e., chlorophyllase, oxidative bleaching, and Mg-dechelatase) activities on aphid-damaged and non-damaged regions of the infested leaves were determined with two infestation periods (6 and 12 days). Russian wheat aphid [Diuraphis noxia (Mordvilko) (Hemiptera: Aphididae)] feeding caused significant losses of chlorophylls a and b and carotenoids in the damaged regions. However, bird cherry-oat aphid [Rhopalosiphum padi (L.) (Hemiptera: Aphididae)] feeding did not, except a significantly lower level of carotenoids was observed in the damaged regions from the short-infestation (6-day) samples. Interestingly, the non-damaged …

Endangered And Threatened Wildlife And Plants; Designation Of Critical Habitat For The Northern Great Plains Breeding Population Of The Piping Plover; Final Rule

United States Fish and Wildlife Service: Publications

We, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (Service), designate critical habitat for the northern Great Plains breeding population of the piping plover (Charadrius melodus), pursuant to the Endangered Species Act of 1973, as amended. The designation includes 19 critical habitat units containing prairie alkali wetlands, inland and reservoir lakes, totaling approximately 183,422 acres (ac) (74,228.4 hectares (ha)) and portions of 4 rivers totaling approximately 1,207.5 river miles (rm) (1,943.3 kilometers (km)) in the States of Minnesota, Montana, Nebraska, North Dakota, and South Dakota.

Critical habitat includes prairie alkali wetlands and surrounding shoreline, including 200 feet (ft) (61 meters …

Review Of Dispersal. Based On A Conference Held In Roscoff, France, 23 April–1 May 1999., Anthony J. Zera

Anthony Zera Publications

Edited by Jean Clobert, Etienne Danchin, André A Dhondt, and James D Nichols. Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press.

Dispersal is a phenomenon of central importance in ecology and evolution. Yet many of its fundamental aspects remain poorly understood or barely investigated. This excellent, broad-ranging volume is a collection of 26 short reviews derived from a Centre National de la Recherche (CNRS)-National Science Foundation (NSF) sponsored workshop held in 1999. As stated by the editors, this book is mainly comprised of “reviews and more theoretical approaches, with a limited number of empirical examples” (p. xx) on dispersal.

I highly …

Prairie Dogs And The Prairie Ecosystem, Scott E. Hygnstrom, Dallas R. Virchow

School of Natural Resources: Faculty Publications

Prairie dogs play an important role in the prairie ecosystem by creating unique patches of habitat in the expansive prairies of the American West. Their daily activities change the physical characteristics of the community, which leads to increased plant and animal diversity. Prairie dogs are a source of food for several predators, and their burrows provide homes for a variety of species, including the burrowing owl and endangered black-footed ferret. They also provide recreational opportunities for nature observers, photographers, and the sporting public. The presence of large, healthy prairie dog towns, however, is not always compatible with agriculture and other …

Cropwatch No. 2002-21, Sept. 6, 2002, Lisa Brown Jasa

Crop Watch (1994–2005)

Assessing 2002; planning for 2003

Inside

Field updates…………..192

Management tips…………..192

Youth farm safety…………..194

Tips for selecting crops…………..195

Post-drought nitrogen…………..196

Common smut in corn…………..196

Minimizing tillage…………..197

Pollination failure…………..197

Herbicide carryover…………..198

Drought humor…………..198

Stalk rots…………..199

Husker Harvest Days…………..200

Creating Nanocavities Of Tunable Sizes: Hollow Helices, Bing Gong, Huaqiang Zeng, Jin Zhu, Lihua Yuan, Yaohua Han, Shizhi Cheng, Mako Furukawa, Ruben D. Parra, Audrey Y. Kovalevsky, Jeffrey L. Mills, Ewa Skrzypczak-Jankun, Suzana Martinovic, Richard D. Smith, Chong Zheng, Thomas Szyperski, Xiao Cheng Zeng

Xiao Cheng Zeng Publications

A general strategy for creating nanocavities with tunable sizes based on the folding of unnatural oligomers is presented. The backbones of these oligomers are rigidified by localized, threecenter intramolecular hydrogen bonds, which lead to well-defined hollow helical conformations. Changing the curvature of the oligomer backbone leads to the adjustment of the interior cavity size. Helices with interior cavities of 10 Å to >30 Å across, the largest thus far formed by the folding of unnatural foldamers, are generated. Cavities of these sizes are usually seen at the tertiary and quaternary structural levels of proteins. The ability to tune molecular dimensions …

Ard News September 2002

Agricultural Research Division: News and Annual Reports

CONTENTS:
Comments from the Dean
UNL Program Enhancement Projects
UNL Facilities and Administrative (F & A) Cast Policy
Federal Project Reporting - Just what is an SY, PY, and a TY?
ARD Advisory Council Membership Change
Research Nebraska Receives Honors
Stephen Russell Grant Writing Workshop
Grants and Contracts Received August and September 2002
Proposals Submitted for Federal Grants

Revision Of The South American Genus Brachysternus Guérin-Méneville (Coleoptera: Scarabaeidae: Rutelinae: Anoplognathini: Brachysternina), Mary Liz Jameson, Andrew Smith

University of Nebraska State Museum: Entomology Papers

The southern South American genus Brachysternus Guérin-Méneville is revised and now includes seven species: B. angustus (Philippi and Philippi), B. germaini (Ohaus) new combination, B. marginatus Germain, B. olivaceus Philippi and Philippi, B. patagoniensis Jameson and Smith new species, B. prasinus Guérin-Méneville, and B. spectabilis Erichson. The following species names are new synonyms of B. prasinus: B. vicinus Guérin-Méneville, B. sinuatifrons Germain, B. pubescens Germain, B. viridis Germain, B. dilatatus Germain, B. viridipes Ohaus, and B. hirtus Ohaus. The following species names are new synonyms of B. olivaceus: B. chloris Philippi and Philippi, B. riverae Germain, …

Review Of The Genus Palaeophileurus (Coleoptera: Scarabaeidae: Dynastinae: Phileurini) With Description Of Two New Species From Peru, Brett C. Ratcliffe

University of Nebraska State Museum: Entomology Papers

The eight species in the genus Palaeophileurus are reviewed, including the description of two new species from Peru: P. carbo Ratcliffe and P. erebus Ratcliffe. The diagnostic male parameres for all species are illustrated, and a distribution map is provided.

Se revisan las ocho especies del género Palaeophileurus, y se incluye la descripción de dos nuevas especies de Perú: P. carbo Ratcliffe y P. erebus Ratcliffe. Se proveen ilustraciones diagnósticas de los parámeros de todas las especies, y una mapa de distribución.

The Nadca Probe, Issue 224

The Probe: Newsletter of the National Animal Damage Control Association

Development of Training Curricula for the Private I Wildlife Control Industry
What is catnip and are all cats attracted to it?
CALENDAR OF UPCOMING EVENTS
Damage Control, Springfield, Massachusetts
"Comprehensive Guide to Professional Mole Control" by Bob Jameson
Big-Ticket Mice
Free-Ranging Cats Publication Available
Graduate Student Opportunities at the Berryman Institute
A Review of the Impact of Predation on Sage-Grouse Populations

Inhibition Of Prostate Tumor Cell Hyaluronan Synthesis Impairs Subcutaneous Growth And Vascularization In Immunocompromised Mice, Melanie A. Simpson, Christopher M. Wilson, James B. Mccarthy

Department of Biochemistry: Faculty Publications

Hyaluronan (HA), a secreted glycosaminoglycan component of extracellular matrices, is critical for cellular proliferation and motility during development. However, elevated circulating and cell-associated levels correlate with various types of cancer, including prostate. We have previously shown that aggressive PC3M-LN4 prostate tumor cells synthesize excessive HA relative to less aggressive cells, and express correspondingly higher levels of the HA biosynthetic enzymes HAS2 and HAS3. Inhibition of these enzymes by stable transfection of PC3M-LN4 cells with anti-sense HAS2 or HAS3 expression constructs diminishes HA synthesis and surface retention. In this report, we used these HA-deficient cell lines to examine the role of …

The Atp:Co(I)Rrinoid Adenosyltransferase (Coba) Enzyme Of Salmonella Enterica Requires The 2'-Oh Group Of Atp For Function And Yields Inorganic Triphosphate As Its Reaction Byproduct, Maris V. Fonseca, Nicole R. Buan, Alexander R. Horswill, Ivan Rayment, Jorge C. Escalante-Semerena

Department of Biochemistry: Faculty Publications

The specificity of the ATP:corrinoid adenosyltransferase (CobA) enzyme of Salmonella enterica serovar Typhimurium LT2 for its nucleotide substrate was tested using ATP analogs and alternative nucleotide donors. The enzyme showed broad specificity for the nucleotide base and required the 2’-OH group of the ribosyl moiety of ATP for activity. ³¹P NMR spectroscopy was used to identify inorganic triphosphate (PPP_i) as the byproduct of the reaction catalyzed by the CobA enzyme. Cleavage of triphosphate into pyrophosphate and orthophosphate did not occur, indicating that triphosphate cleavage was not required for release of the adenosylcorrinoid product. Triphosphate was a strong …

Svmtrip: A Method To Predict Antigenic Epitopes Using Support Vector Machine To Integrate Tri-Peptide Similarity And Propensity, Bo Yao, Lin Zhang, Shide Liang, Chi Zhang

School of Biological Sciences: Faculty Publications

Identifying protein surface regions preferentially recognizable by antibodies (antigenic epitopes) is at the heart of new immuno-diagnostic reagent discovery and vaccine design, and computational methods for antigenic epitope prediction provide crucial means to serve this purpose. Many linear B-cell epitope prediction methods were developed, such as BepiPred, ABCPred, AAP, BCPred, BayesB, BEOracle/BROracle, and BEST, towards this goal. However, effective immunological research demands more robust performance of the prediction method than what the current algorithms could provide. In this work, a new method to predict linear antigenic epitopes is developed; Support Vector Machine has been utilized by combining the Tri-peptide similarity …

Residual Effects Of Compost And Fertilizer Applications On Nutrients In Runoff, John E. Gilley, Bahman Eghball

Department of Agricultural and Biological Systems Engineering: Faculty Publications

The application of compost or fertilizer at rates that exceed crop nutrient requirements can result in phosphorus (P) and nitrogen (N) accumulation in soil. This study was conducted to determine the influence of soil P and N contents on the concentrations and total amounts of P and N transported in runoff. Composted beef cattle feedlot manure or inorganic fertilizer were added from 1992 to 1995 to a Sharpsburg silty clay loam soil at rates sufficient to meet P or N requirements for corn and incorporated following application. After four years of corn production following the last compost application, P concentration, …

Genetic Effective Size Of A Wild Primate Population: Influence Of Current And Historical Demography, Jay F. Storz, Uma Ramakrishnan, Susan C. Alberts

Jay F. Storz Publications

A comprehensive assessment of the determinants of effective population size (N_e) requires estimates of variance in lifetime reproductive success and past changes in census numbers. For natural populations, such information can be best obtained by combining longitudinal data on individual life histories and genetic marker-based inferences of demographic history. Independent estimates of the variance effective size (N_eV, obtained from life-history data) and the inbreeding effective size (N_eI, obtained from genetic data) provide a means of disentangling the effects of current and historical demography. The purpose of this study was to assess …

Documentary Editing, Volume 24, Number 3, September 2002.

Documentary Editing: Journal of the Association for Documentary Editing (1979–2011)

No abstract provided.

Edition And Facsimile Publishing The Correspondence Of Carl Linnaeus On The World Wide Web, Tomas Anfält

Documentary Editing: Journal of the Association for Documentary Editing (1979–2011)

Carl Linnaeus, or Carl von Linne as he was called after his ennoblement in 1762, is Sweden's most famous scientist. Linnaeus is primarily known for having created the nomenclature for plants, published for the first time in Species plantarum in 1753. Born in 1707 in southern Sweden, he studied at the University of Lund and later at Uppsala where he became professor of medicine in 1741. Before his academic appointment, he had a remarkable international career resulting from the introduction of his Systema naturae, published in its first edition in 1735 in Amsterdam. Within less than a decade, most of …

Mycobacterium Smegmatis L-Alanine Dehydrogenase (Ald) Is Required For Proficient Utilization Of Alanine As A Sole Nitrogen Source And Sustained Anaerobic Growth, Zhengyu Feng, Nancy E. Caceres, Gautam Sarath, Raul G. Barletta

School of Veterinary and Biomedical Sciences: Faculty Publications

NAD(H)-dependent L-alanine dehydrogenase (EC 1.4.1.1) (Ald) catalyzes the oxidative deamination of L-alanine and the reductive amination of pyruvate. To assess the physiological role of Ald in Mycobacterium smegmatis, we cloned the ald gene, identified its promoter, determined the protein expression levels, and analyzed the combined effects of nutrient supplementation, oxygen availability, and growth stage on enzyme activity. High Ald activities were observed in cells grown in the presence of L- or D-alanine regardless of the oxygen availability and growth stage. In exponentially growing cells under aerobic conditions, supplementation with alanine resulted in a 25- to 50-fold increase in the …