Digital Commons Network^™

Arcstone: Calibration Of Lunar Spectral Reflectance, Constantine Lukashin, Trevor Jackson, Michael Cooney, Noah Ryan, Joshua Beverly, Cindy Young, Gugu Rutherford, Warren Davis, Thuan Nguyen, Randy Swanson, Michael Kehoe, Michael Stebbins, Greg Kopp, Tom Stone

The Characterization and Radiometric Calibration for Remote Sensing Annual Meeting (CALCON)

Calibration accuracy, long-term precision, and inter-consistency are key on-orbit performance metrics for Earth observing sensors. The accuracy and consistency of environmental measurements across multiple instruments in low Earth and geostationary orbits are directly connected to the scientific understanding of complex systems, such as Earth’s weather and climate. Recent studies have demonstrated the quantitative impacts of observational accuracy on the quality of science data products and the ability to detect climate change trends for essential climate variables (e.g., Earth’s radiation budget, cloud feedback, and long-term trends in cloud parameters). It is common for instruments to carry on-board references for calibration at …

The Marine Optical Buoy (Moby) And Its Role In Ocean Color Vicarious Calibration, Kenneth Voss, B. Carole Johnson, Mark Yarbrough, Stephanie Flora, Michael Feinholz, Terry Houlihan, Darryl Peters, Sandy Yarbrough, Sean Mundell, Art Gleason

The Characterization and Radiometric Calibration for Remote Sensing Annual Meeting (CALCON)

No abstract provided.

Collaborative Research: Computational Modeling Of How Living Cells Utilize Liquid-Liquid Phase Separation To Organize Chemical Compartments, Jia Zhao

Funded Research Records

No abstract provided.

High Dispersal Ability Is Related To Fast Life-History Strategies, Noelle G. Beckman, James M. Bullock, Roberto Salguero-Gomez

Ecology Center Publications

1. Seed dispersal is an essential, yet often overlooked process in plant ecology and evolution, affecting adaptation capacity, population persistence and invasiveness. A species’ ability to disperse is expected to covary with other life-history traits to form dispersal syndromes. Dispersal might be linked to the rate of life history, fecundity or generation time, depending on the relative selection pressures of bethedging, kin competition or maintaining gene flow. However, the linkage between dispersal and plant life-history strategies remains unknown because it is difficult to observe, quantify and manipulate the influence of dispersal over large spatiotemporal scales.

2. We integrate datasets describing …

Mental Models And Social Media Personas: A Case Of Amateur Palaeontologists, Lisa Lundgren, Kent J. Crippen, Eleanor E. Gardner, Victor J. Perez, Ronny Maik Leder

Instructional Technology and Learning Sciences Faculty Publications

This study explores social palaeontology - an inclusive and collaborative form of science occurring across digital habitats. The purpose was to: 1) examine conceptualisations of amateurs via expressed mental models and 2) use the unified media-user typology (MUT) to explore any relationship between these models and social media persona. Data collection involved a survey, modelling task and interview. Findings reveal that persona was demonstrated in subtle ways, offering limited evidence for a relationship between persona and mental model. Sequential models were most common, but more so for advanced personas. Expertise development was expressed through the number of conventions used during …

Educational Policies Committee Program Proposal, College Of Agriculture And Applied Sciences, June 15, 2018 - Animal Biotechnology, Utah State University

Educational Policies Committee

Utah State University requests approval to offer the following Minor: Animal Biotechnology effective Fall 2018.

Educational Policies Committee Program Proposal, College Of Science, June 15, 2018, Utah State University

Educational Policies Committee

Utah State University requests approval to restructure Biology PhD and Biology-Ecology PhD effective Fall 2018.

Educational Policies Committee Program Proposal, College Of Natural Resources, June 15, 2018, Utah State University

Educational Policies Committee

Utah State University requests approval to offer the following Graduate Certificate: Post-baccalaureate Certificate in Aquatic Ecosystem Restoration effective Fall 2018.

Optical Fluorescent Spider Silk Electrospun Nanofibers With Embedded Cerium Oxide Nanoparticles, Ishac Kandas, Nader Shehata, Ibrahim Hassounah, Patrik Sobolciak, Igor Krupa, Randolph V. Lewis

Biology Faculty Publications

The work demonstrates an electrospun nanocomposite of recombinant spider silk protein (rSSp) nanofibers with embedded cerium oxide (ceria) nanoparticles. RSSP (MaSp1) has been produced, extracted from goat milk, and fabricated into nanofibers using an electrospinning process. The resulting electrospun nanofibers have a mean diameter of ∼50  nm. Furthermore, ceria nanoparticles of mean diameterions, associated with formed oxygen vacancies. The formed nanocomposite shows promising mechanical properties such as the Young’s modulus, elasticity (or elongation at break), and toughness. In addition, the electrospun mat becomes fluorescent with 520-nm emission upon exposure to UV light, due to excitation of the optically active ceria …

Comparison Between Tetrel Bonded Complexes Stabilized By Σ And Π Hole Interactions, Wiktor Zierkiewicz, Mariusz Michalczyk, Steve Scheiner

Chemistry and Biochemistry Faculty Publications

The σ-hole tetrel bonds formed by a tetravalent molecule are compared with those involving a π-hole above the tetrel atom in a trivalent bonding situation. The former are modeled by TH4, TH3F, and TH2F2 (T = Si, Ge, Sn) and the latter by TH2=CH2, THF=CH2, and TF2=CH2, all paired with NH3 as Lewis base. The latter π-bonded complexes are considerably more strongly bound, despite the near equivalence of the σ and π-hole intensities. The larger binding energies of the π-dimers are attributed to greater electrostatic attraction and orbital interaction. Each progressive replacement of H by F increases the strength of …

Investigating The Viral Ecology Of Global Bee Communities With High-Throughput Metagenomics, David A. Galbraith, Zachary L. Fuller, Allyson M. Ray, Axel Brockmann, Maryann Frazier, Mary W. Gikungu, J. Francisco Iturralde Martinez, Karen M. Kapheim, Jeffrey T. Kerby, Sarah D. Kocher, Oleksiy Losyev, Elliud Muli, Harland M. Patch, Cristina Rosa, Joyce M. Sakamoto, Scott Stanley, Anthony D. Vaudo, Christina M. Grozinger

Biology Faculty Publications

Bee viral ecology is a fascinating emerging area of research: viruses exert a range of effects on their hosts, exacerbate the impacts of other environmental stressors, and, importantly, are readily shared across multiple bee species in a community. However, our understanding of bee viral communities is limited, as it is primarily derived from studies of North American and European Apis mellifera populations. Here, we examined viruses in populations of A. mellifera and 11 other bee species from 9 countries, across 5 continents and Oceania. We developed a novel pipeline to rapidly, inexpensively, and robustly screen for bee viruses. This pipeline …

Collaborative Research: Rivers And The Carbon Cycle: A Mechanistic Basis For Dissolved Organic Carbon Removal, Michelle Baker

Funded Research Records

No abstract provided.

Electrospun Pva Polymer Embedded With Ceria Nanoparticles As Silicon Solar Cells Rear Surface Coaters For Efficiency Improvement, Effat Samir, Mohamed Salah, Ali Hajjiah, Nader Shehata, Marwa Fathy, Aya Hamed

Biology Faculty Publications

This paper introduces electrospun nanofibers embedded with ceria nanoparticles as silicon solar cells coaters, showing their influence on the solar cells efficiency. Ceria nanoparticles can be synthesized to have formed oxygen vacancies (O-vacancies), which are associated with converting cerium ions from the Ce4+ state ions to the Ce3+ ones. These O-vacancies follow the rule of improving silicon solar cellconductivity through the hopping mechanism. Besides, under violet excitation, the reduced trivalent cerium Ce3+ ions are directly responsible for down-converting the un-absorbed violet or ultra-violet (UV) wavelengths to a resulted green fluorescence emission at ~520 nm. These are absorbed through the silicon …

Large Animal Genetic Engineering Summit 2018 Proceedings, Utah State University

Animal, Dairy, and Veterinary Science Faculty Publications

It is our great pleasure to welcome you to the second Large Animal Genetic Engineering (LAGE) Summit in beautiful Park City, Utah. We hope that you enjoy the meeting and take advantage of your free time to get out and see what Park City has to offer. Our objectives for the summit are twofold: (1) to provide updates on genetic engineering technologies, including genome editing, and their biomedical and agricultural applications in academia and industry; and (2) to engage federal agencies, industry representatives and academic researchers in a policy development forum. We hope that this year’s meeting will build on …

Improved Prediction Of Stream Flow Based On Updating Land Cover Maps With Remotely Sensed Forest Change Detection, Alexander J. Hernandez, Sean P. Healey, Hongsheng Huang, R. Douglas Ramsey

Wildland Resources Faculty Publications

The water balance in a watershed can be disrupted by forest disturbances such as harvests and fires. Techniques to accurately and efficiently map forest cover changes due to disturbance are evolving quickly, and it is of interest to ask how useful maps of different types of disturbances over time can be in the prediction of water yield. We assessed the benefits of using land cover maps produced at annual vs. five-year intervals in the prediction of monthly streamflows across 10 watersheds contained entirely within the US National Forest System. We found that annually updating land cover maps with forest disturbance …

Empirical Correspondence Between Trophic Transfer Efficiency In Freshwater Food Webs And The Slope Of Their Size Spectra, Thomas Mehner, Betty Lischke, Kristin Scharnweber, Katrin Attermeyer, Soren Brothers, Ursula Gaedke, Sabine Hilt, Sandra Brucet

Watershed Sciences Faculty Publications

The density of organisms declines with size, because larger organisms need more energy than smaller ones and energetic losses occur when larger organisms feed on smaller ones. A potential expression of density-size distributions are Normalized Biomass Size Spectra (NBSS), which plot the logarithm of biomass independent of taxonomy within bins of logarithmic organismal size, divided by the bin width. Theoretically, the NBSS slope of multi-trophic communities is exactly 1.0 if the trophic transfer efficiency (TTE, ratio of production rates between adjacent trophic levels) is 10% and the predator-prey mass ratio (PPMR) is fixed at 104 . Here we provide evidence …

Partnering With A Pest: Genomes Of Hemlock Woolly Adelgid Symbionts Reveal Atypical Nutritional Provisioning Patterns In Dual-Obligate Bacteria, Kathryn M. Weglarz, Nathan P. Havill, Gaelen R. Burke, Carol D. Von Dohlen

Biology Faculty Publications

Nutritional bacterial symbionts enhance the diets of sap-feeding insects with amino acids and vitamins missing from their diets. In many lineages, an ancestral senior symbiont is joined by a younger junior symbiont. To date, an emergent pattern is that senior symbionts supply a majority of amino acids, and junior symbionts supply a minority. Similar to other hemipterans, adelgids harbor obligate symbionts, but have higher diversity of bacterial associates, suggesting a history of symbiont turnover. The metabolic roles of dual symbionts in adelgids and their contributions to the consortium are largely unexplored. Here, we investigate the symbionts of Adelges tsugae, …

Motor Affordance For Grasping A Safety Handle, Douglas W. Mcdannald, Manhoud Mansour, Garrett Rydalch, David A.E. Bolton

Kinesiology and Health Science Faculty Publications

Mere observation of objects in our surroundings can potentiate movement, a fact reflected by visually-primed activation of motor cortical networks. This mechanism holds potential value for reactive balance control where recovery actions of the arms or legs must be targeted to a new support base to avoid a fall. The present study was conducted to test if viewing a wall-mounted safety handle – the type of handle commonly used to regain balance – results in activation of motor cortical networks. We hypothesized that the hand area of the primary motor cortex would be facilitated shortly after visual access to a …

Sensitive High-Frequency Hearing In Earless And Partially Eared Harlequin Frogs (Atelopus), Molly C. Womack, Jakob Christensen-Dalsgaard, Luis A. Coloma, Kim L. Hoke

Biology Faculty Publications

Harlequin frogs, genus Atelopus, communicate at high frequencies despite most species lacking a complete tympanic middle ear that facilitates high-frequency hearing in most anurans and other tetrapods. Here, we tested whether Atelopus are better at sensing high-frequency acoustic sound compared with other eared and earless species in the Bufonidae family, determined whether middle ear variation within Atelopus affects hearing sensitivity and tested potential hearing mechanisms in Atelopus. We determined that at high frequencies (2000‚Äì4000‚ÄÖHz), Atelopus are 10‚Äì34‚ÄÖdB more sensitive than other earless bufonids but are relatively insensitive to mid-range frequencies (900‚Äì1500‚ÄÖHz) compared with eared bufonids. Hearing among Atelopus species is …

The Effect Of Warmer Winters On The Demography Of An Outbreak Insect Is Hidden By Intraspecific Competition, Devin W. Goodsman, Guenchik Grosklos, Brian H. Aukema, Caroline Whitehouse, Katherine P. Bleiker, Nate G. Mcdowell, Richard S. Middleton, Chonggang Xu

Mathematics and Statistics Faculty Publications

Warmer climates are predicted to increase bark beetle outbreak frequency, severity, and range. Even in favorable climates, however, outbreaks can decelerate due to resource limitation, which necessitates the inclusion of competition for limited resources in analyses of climatic effects on populations. We evaluated several hypotheses of how climate impacts mountain pine beetle reproduction using an extensive 9‐year dataset, in which nearly 10,000 trees were sampled across a region of approximately 90,000 km², that was recently invaded by the mountain pine beetle in Alberta, Canada. Our analysis supports the hypothesis of a positive effect of warmer winter temperatures on …

Management Implications Of Regionally-Distinct Populations Of The Blue Orchard Bee, Diane G. Alston

Funded Research Records

No abstract provided.

Hydrotreating Of Guaiacol: A Comparative Study Of Red Mud-Supported Nickel And Commercial Ni/Sio2-Al2o3 Catalysts, Hossein Jahromi, Foster Agblevor

Biological Engineering Faculty Publications

Upgrading of bio-oil through catalytic hydrotreating was investigated with guaiacol as a model compound. A nickel supported on red mud (Ni/RM) hydrotreating catalyst was developed and compared to the standard Ni/SiO₂-Al₂O₃ catalysts under similar experimental conditions. The Ni/RM catalyst was characterized by inductively coupled plasma atomic emission spectrometry (ICP-AES), X-ray diffraction analysis (XRD), scanning electron microscopy (SEM), BET specific surface area, and temperature programmed reduction (TPR). The effects of reaction temperature (300, 350, 400 °C) and initial hydrogen pressure (4.83 MPa (700 psi), 5.52 MPa (800 psi), and 6.21 MPa (900 psi)) on products distribution …

New Insights Into The Glycosylation Steps In The Biosynthesis Of Sch47554 And Sch47555, Ozkan Fidan, Riming Yan, Gabrielle Gladstone, Tong Zhou, Du Zhu, Jixun Zhan

Biological Engineering Faculty Publications

Sch47554 and Sch47555 are antifungal compounds from Streptomyces sp. SCC‐2136. The availability of the biosynthetic gene cluster made it possible to track genes that encode biosynthetic enzymes responsible for the structural features of these two angucyclines. Sugar moieties play important roles in the biological activities of many natural products. An investigation into glycosyltransferases (GTs) might potentially help to diversify pharmaceutically significant drugs through combinatorial biosynthesis. Sequence analysis indicates that SchS7 is a putative C‐GT, whereas SchS9 and SchS10 are proposed to be O‐GTs. In this study, the roles of these three GTs in the biosynthesis of Sch47554 and Sch47555 are …

Core: Trajectories Into Early Career Research, David F. Feldon

Funded Research Records

No abstract provided.

Lanthanide-Doped Ceria Nanoparticles As Backside Coaters To Improve Silicon Solar Cell Efficiency, Ali Hajjiah, Effat Samir, Nader Shehata, Mohamed Salah

Biology Faculty Publications

This paper introduces lanthanide-doped ceria nanoparticles as silicon solar cell back-side coaters, showing their influence on the solar cell efficiency. Ceria nanoparticles can be synthesized to have formed oxygen vacancies (O-vacancies), which are associated with converting cerium ions from the Ce⁴⁺ state ions to the Ce³⁺ ones. These O-vacancies follow the rule of improving silicon solar cell conductivity through a hopping mechanism. Besides, under near-ultra violet (near-UV) excitation, the reduced trivalent cerium Ce³⁺ ions are directly responsible for down converting the un-absorbed UV wavelengths to a resultant green photo-luminescence emission at ~520 nm, which is absorbed through …

The Truncated Bell: An Enigmatic But Pervasive Elevational Diversity Pattern In Middle American Ants, John T. Longino, Michael G. Branstetter

All PIRU Publications

Studies on elevation gradients in Panama and Costa Rica have shown that leaf-litter ants exhibit a mid-elevation peak in diversity. This diversity pattern has been observed in other groups and regions, but uncertainty remains as to just how pervasive it is and what might explain it. Here we examine the robustness of the mid-elevation peak in ant diversity across the entire Middle American corridor, from Veracruz, Mexico, to Costa Rica. We sampled 56 sites distributed throughout Middle America. All were in closed-canopy evergreen wet forest, spanning 11° latitude, from near sea level to 2600 m elevation. Ants were extracted from …

High Interspecific Variation In Nutrient Excretion Within A Guild Of Closely Related Caddisfly Species, Jared A. Balik, Brad W. Taylor, Susan E. Washko, Scott A. Wissinger

Watershed Sciences Faculty Publications

Understanding the amount of variation in functional traits between closely related species within guilds is critical for understanding links between community composition and ecosystem processes. Nutrient excretion is an important link between animals and their environments, and aquatic invertebrate communities can supply a considerable proportion of ecosystem nutrient demand via excretion. We quantified nitrogen (N) and phosphorus (P) excretion rates of 10 species of larval caddisflies that inhabit high‐elevation ponds and wetlands to determine the magnitude of variation in nutrient excretion within this guild. We found considerable interspecific variation in biomass‐specific excretion of nitrogen (eightfold differences), phosphorus (sevenfold differences), and …

On The Relationship Between Phylogenetic Diversity And Trait Diversity, Caroline M. Tucker, T. Jonathan Davies, Marc W. Cadotte, William D. Pearse

Biology Faculty Publications

Niche differences are key to understanding the distribution and structure of biodiversity. To examine niche differences, we must first characterize how species occupy niche space, and two approaches are commonly used in the ecological literature. The first uses species traits to estimate multivariate trait space (so‐called functional trait diversity, FD); the second quantifies the amount of time or evolutionary history captured by a group of species (phylogenetic diversity, PD). It is often—but controversially—assumed that these putative measures of niche space are at a minimum correlated and perhaps redundant, since more evolutionary time allows for greater accumulation of trait changes. This …

Behavioral And Spatial Responses Of Captive Coyotes To Human Activity, Jeffrey T. Schultz, Julie K. Young

Wildland Resources Faculty Publications

Human interactions can alter an animal’s behavior and utilization of its surroundings, and how this impacts the welfare of some captive wild animals is of growing concern. Structural enrichment shelters offer weather protection, reprieve space from other animals or humans, or resting space. Perimeter or open space may be important during periods of activity, such as foraging or play. This study addressed the effects of human activity on coyote behavioral budgeting and enclosure utilization. We predicted that human activity would affect coyote behavior and spatial utilization of enclosure space. Specifically, we hypothesized that human activity would prompt vigilant and other …

The Indestructible Insect: Velvet Ants From Across The United States Avoid Predation By Representatives From All Major Tetrapod Clades, Brian G. Gall, Kari L. Spivey, Trevor L. Chapman, Robert J. Delph, Edmund D. Brodie Jr., Joseph S. Wilson

Biology Faculty Publications

Velvet ants are a group of parasitic wasps that are well known for a suite of defensive adaptations including bright coloration and a formidable sting. While these adaptations are presumed to function in antipredator defense, observations between potential predators and this group are lacking. We conducted a series of experiments to determine the risk of velvet ants to a host of potential predators including amphibians, reptiles, birds, and small mammals. Velvet ants from across the United States were tested with predator’s representative of the velvet ants native range. All interactions between lizards, free-ranging birds, and a mole resulted in the …