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Algae-Based Biofilm Productivity And Treatment Of Dairy Wastewater: Effects Of Temperature And Organic Carbon Concentration, Zachary T. Fica

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Spring 1920 to Summer 2023

Production of dairy and associated products is a source of millions of gallons of wastewater every year. Water used in cleaning feeding stalls as well as the liquid component of the animal waste are two of the major volumetric components of this wastewater. This water is nutrient rich, often limiting the viability as a land applied fertilizer. However, these same nutrients could be used as an inexpensive feedstock for the cultivation of algae, which can then be used to produce downstream products including animal feed and aquaculture.

As part of this study, algal biomass was cultivated on dairy wastewater from …

Backyard Poultry Biosecurity, Joshua Dallin, Denton Perkins

All Current Publications

Biosecurity is taking measures to protect animals and humans from harmful biological agents. In commercial poultry production, this generally means total confinement operations with strict rules to maintain flock health such as shower-in and out systems, special clothing, and other measures. In small production or “backyard” poultry operations these measures aren’t always a reality. However, there are steps that should be taken to help promote biosecurity and safety for backyard flocks, and these are discussed in this fact sheet..

Spider Mites In Raspberry, Diane Alston

All Current Publications

This fact sheet describes spider mites in raspberry and includes a description of the mite, plant injury, monitoring, and cultural, biological and chemical control management options.

Utah Master Naturalist Desert Explorations Manual, Mark Larese-Casanova

All Current Publications

The Utah Master Naturalist Desert Explorations Manual provides a comprehensive view of desert ecosystems in Utah, from the geology and climate that create deserts, to the plant and animal communities and their unique adaptations for survival. The Manual explores the human perspective from historic peoples to current management.

Utah Master Naturalist Watershed Investigations Manual, Mark Larese-Casanova

All Current Publications

The Utah Master Naturalist Watershed Investigations Manual provides a comprehensive view of watershed ecosystems in Utah, from high mountain streams to Great Salt Lake, and the plant and animal communities and their unique adaptations for survival. The Manual explores how people interact with watersheds, including water demands in a desert, water quality issues, and current management.

Interactions Between Plant Water-Stress And Neonicotinoid Insecticides On Spider Mite Infestations In Corn, Alice Ruckert

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Spring 1920 to Summer 2023

Spider mites (Acari: Tetranychidae) are an important agricultural pest of many crops and landscape plants. They can reproduce rapidly and quickly develop resistance to many pesticides, making them difficult to manage. Plant water-stress and high temperatures promote spider mite infestations, while spider mite outbreaks can also result from neonicotinoid insecticide applications. Drought is predicted to increase in the Intermountain West due to increases in temperature and reduced frequency of precipitation events in the region, and neonicotinoids are currently one of the most widely used classes of insecticides in field crops. I studied the interactive effect of these two simultaneously occurring …

Effect Of Foliage And Root Carbon Quantity, Quality, And Fluxes On Soil Organic Carbon Stabilization In Montane Aspen And Conifer Stands In Utah, Antra Boča

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Spring 1920 to Summer 2023

Soil organic carbon (SOC) positively affects many soil properties (e.g., fertility and water holding capacity), and the amount of carbon (C) in soil exceeds the amount in the atmosphere by about three times. Forest soils store as much C as is found in trees. Tree species differ in their effect on SOC pools. Quaking aspen forests in the Western US often store more stable SOC in the mineral soil than nearby conifers. During the last decades a decline in aspen cover, often followed by conifer encroachment, has been documented. A shift from aspen to conifer overstories may negatively affect the …

Nitrogen Excretion Of Lactating Dairy Cows Fed An Alfalfa Hay- Or Birdsfoot Trefoil Hay-Based High-Forage Diet, Mohammad Ghelich Khan

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Spring 1920 to Summer 2023

Legumes that contain condensed tannins (CT) may have lower protein degradability than alfalfa. The present study investigated the effects of feeding birdsfoot trefoil (Lotus corniculatus L.) hay on lactation performance and N utilization. Eight multiparous Holstein cows in mid lactation (150 ± 22.3 d-in-milk) were randomly assigned to 1 of 2 rations [alfalfa hay-based TMR (AHT) or birdsfoot trefoil hay-based TMR (BFTT)] in a crossover design with 2 experimental periods. Each experimental period lasted 16 d (14 d of adaptation and 2 d of total collection), and the 2 experimental periods were separated by a 7-d washout period. In the …

On The Identity Of The Adventive Species Of Eufriesea Cockerell In The Usa: Systematics And Potential Distribution Of The Coerulescens Species Group (Hymenoptera, Apidae), Victor H. Gonzalez, Terry Griswold, Marianna Simões

All PIRU Publications

In the summer of 2010, two male specimens of the neotropical orchid bee genus Eufriesea Cockerell were collected in the Guadalupe Mountains of western Texas and southeastern New Mexico, USA. We tentatively identified them as E. coerulescens (Lepeletier de Saint Fargeau) because of the uncertainty surrounding the limits of this taxon and hypothesized that they were members of a persistent bee population, rather than long-distance transient vagrants. The goals of this paper are to clarify the identity of these specimens, assess the species limits of E. coerulescens, and to evaluate suitability of habitats in the USA for this adventive …

Transgenerational Patterns Of Communication Orientations And Depression Among Mothers And Adult Children, Timothy Curran, Jennifer A. Samp, Anastacia Janovec

Languages, Philosophy, and Communication Studies Faculty Publications

This study investigated intergenerational transmissions of conversation orientations, conformity orientations, and depressive symptoms among 235 (N = 470) mother–child dyads. The analysis revealed that mothers’ reports of conformity orientation in her family of origin positively predicted her child’s report of conformity orientation and conversation orientation. Moreover, maternal depressive symptoms predicted child reports of family communication climates, which in turn predicted child depressive symptoms. A mediation analysis showed a significant indirect effect from maternal depressive symptoms to child depressive symptoms through child reports of conformity orientation. Implications for transgenerational patterns of family communication climates and depressive symptoms are discussed.

Exploiting Self-Organization In Bioengineered Systems: A Computational Approach, Delin Davis, Anna Doloman, Gregory J. Podgorski, Elizabeth Vargis, Nicholas S. Flann

Biological Engineering Faculty Publications

The productivity of bioengineered cell factories is limited by inefficiencies in nutrient delivery and waste and product removal. Current solution approaches explore changes in the physical configurations of the bioreactors. This work investigates the possibilities of exploiting self-organizing vascular networks to support producer cells within the factory. A computational model simulates de novo vascular development of endothelial-like cells and the resultant network functioning to deliver nutrients and extract product and waste from the cell culture. Microbial factories with vascular networks are evaluated for their scalability, robustness, and productivity compared to the cell factories without a vascular network. Initial studies demonstrate …

A Comparison Of Multiple Testing Adjustment Methods With Block-Correlation Positively-Dependent Tests, John R. Stevens, Abdullah Al Masud, Anvar Suyundikov

Mathematics and Statistics Faculty Publications

In high dimensional data analysis (such as gene expression, spatial epidemiology, or brain imaging studies), we often test thousands or more hypotheses simultaneously. As the number of tests increases, the chance of observing some statistically significant tests is very high even when all null hypotheses are true. Consequently, we could reach incorrect conclusions regarding the hypotheses. Researchers frequently use multiplicity adjustment methods to control type I error rates—primarily the family-wise error rate (FWER) or the false discovery rate (FDR)—while still desiring high statistical power. In practice, such studies may have dependent test statistics (or p-values) as tests can be dependent …

Darcie Christensen Wins Robins Award | College Of Engineering, Usu College Of Engineering

College of Engineering News

College of Engineering undergraduate Darcie Christensen is among the winners of this year's Robins Awards.

Assembly Of Effective Halide Receptors From Components. Comparing Hydrogen, Halogen, Tetrel Bonds, Steve Scheiner

Chemistry and Biochemistry Faculty Publications

Receptors for halide anions are constructed based on the imidazolium unit, and then replacing the H-bonding C-H group firstby halogen-bonding C-I and then by tetrel-bonding C-SnH3 and C-SiF3.Attaching a phenyl ring to any of these species has little effect on its ability to bind a halide, but incorporation of a second imidazolium to the benzene connector, forming a bidentate dicationic receptor, greatly enhances the binding. Addition of electron-withdrawing F atoms to each imidazolium adds a further increment. F- consistently binds more strongly to the various receptor models than does Cl-. Whereas replacement of the H atom on the imidazolium groups …

Landscape-Level Wolf Space Use Is Correlated With Prey Abundance, Ease Of Mobility And The Distribution Of Prey Habitat, Andrew M. Kittle, Morgan Anderson, Tal Avgar, James A. Baker, Glen S. Brown, Jevon Hagens, Ed Iwachewski, Scott Moffatt, Anna Mosser, Brent R. Patterson, Douglas E. B. Reid, Arthur R. Rodgers, Jen Shuter, Garrett M. Street, Ian D. Thompson, Lucas M. Vander Vennen, John M. Fryxell

Wildland Resources Faculty Publications

Predator space use influences ecosystem dynamics, and a fundamental goal assumed for a foraging predator is to maximize encounter rate with prey. This can be achieved by disproportionately utilizing areas of high prey density or, where prey are mobile and therefore spatially unpredictable, utilizing patches of their prey's preferred resources. A third, potentially complementary strategy is to increase mobility by using linear features like roads and/or frozen waterways. Here, we used novel population-level predator utilization distributions (termed "localized density distributions") in a single-predator (Wolf), two-prey (moose and caribou) system to evaluate these space-use hypotheses. The study was conducted in contrasting …

Analysis Of Carbon And Nitrogen Stable Isotope Levels In Side-Blotched Lizards ( Uta Stansburiana ) Fed Varying Diets, Kati Mattinson

Physics Capstone Projects

When attempting to determine the diet of wild animals, a limited number of techniques currently exist. Often, biologists look at the stomach contents or feces of an animal, if they cannot observe what it is eating directly. However, these techniques often cannot be used with reptiles because they may not eat often or may have an empty stomach when the contents of their stomach are examined. Many ecologists have begun to use stable isotopes of carbon and nitrogen to determine what an animal has eaten. Stable isotopes are useful because unlike radioactive isotopes, stable isotopes do not decay and thus …

The Utah Statesman, April 24, 2017, Utah State University

The Utah Statesman

Weekly student newspaper of Utah State University in Logan.

Interacting Effects Of Land Use And Climate On Rodent-Borne Pathogens In Central Kenya, Hillary S. Young, Douglas J. Mccauley, Rodolfo Dirzo, Charles L. Nunn, Michael G. Campana, Bernard Agwanda, Erik R. Otarola-Castillo, Robert M. Pringle, Kari E. Veblen, Daniel J. Salkeld, Kristin Stewardson, Robert Fleisher, Eric F. Lambin, Todd M. Palmer, Kristofer M. Helgen

Wildland Resources Faculty Publications

Understanding the effects of anthropogenic disturbance on zoonotic disease risk is both a critical conservation objective and a public health priority. Here, we evaluate the effects of multiple forms of anthropogenic disturbance across a precipitation gradient on the abundance of pathogen-infected small mammal hosts in a multi-host, multi-pathogen system in central Kenya. Our results suggest that conversion to cropland and wildlife loss alone drive systematic increases in rodent-borne pathogen prevalence, but that pastoral conversion has no such systematic effects. The effects are most likely explained both by changes in total small mammal abundance, and by changes in relative abundance of …

Psychobiology Of Ingestive Behavior Of Herbivores, Juan J. Villalba

Wildland Resources Faculty Publications

This article describes the process of food selection and consumption in herbivores based on smell, taste, and touch.

The Utah Statesman, April 17, 2017, Utah State University

The Utah Statesman

Weekly student newspaper of Utah State University in Logan.

Harvest And Disposal Of Hazardous Algal Blooms, Bethany A. Jensen, Kyle M. Hillman

Student Research Symposium

Utah Lake, a major source of recreation and farmland irrigation in the Provo area, was closed to all use and access in the summer of 2016. There was a toxic blue-green algae (cyanobacteria) outbreak, which resulted in microcystin concentrations over eight times the recreational water threshold limit (20 ug/L threshold and 176 ug/L detection). The ability to harvest and dispose of these toxic algae before contamination of the lake occurs is important to ensure protection of human and animal health and the environment, and more hazardous algae blooms (HABs) are anticipated in the future.

The Central Valley Water Reclamation Facility …

Proposed Dep-Raman Device For Simultaneous Trapping And Identification Of Bacteria, Cynthia Hanson

Student Research Symposium

Typical bacterial identification methods can take several days to complete. In order to reduce analysis time, researchers have used a variety of methods for bacterial identification such as polymerase chain reaction, Raman spectroscopy, fluorescent in situ hybridization, and micro-array testing. Although these methods have successfully decreased bacterial analysis time from days to a matter of hours, they require a pure sample or a way to label bacteria with fluorescent tags, antibiotics, or primers. Pure samples require a number of purification steps that lead to loss of sample, and appropriate fluorescently-marked antibodies increase costs and wasted materials due to the broad …

Understanding Speech In Noise By Children With Autism Spectrum Disorder, Cassie Bovee

Student Research Symposium

Individuals with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) often display a heightened sensitivity to environmental noises. In addition, it is well known that even typically-developing children struggle to understand speech in noisy situations. However, it is unclear how children with ASD perform on speech tasks when background noise is present. A study was conducted to determine whether children with high-functioning ASD perform more poorly than typically-developing children on word recognition in noise. Two groups of children, typically-developing individuals and individuals with high-functioning ASD, aged 6-12 years participated. Word recognition was measured in four types of background noise: speech-shaped noise, babble-modulated speech-shaped noise, …

Be Fruitful And Multiply: Fertility And Tradeoffs In Latter-Day Saints, Amanda Cook, Claire Hanson

Student Research Symposium

In humans, there are evolutionary trade-offs between energy allocated to reproduction and embodied capital (investing in extended development). We see selection toward early and frequent reproduction over embodied capital in the predominantly Latter-Day Saints (LDS) culture of Utah.

We hypothesize that encouragement toward reproduction in LDS individuals has tradeoffs with embodied capital compared to non-LDS individuals. We collected data through an anonymous online survey (Qualtrics) distributed to a stratified random sample of LDS and non-LDS college students and recent graduates of Utah State University in Logan, UT (n=45) and Texas A&M in College Station, Texas (n=17) . We include questions …

Smartphone-Based Optode Sensor For Calcium And Magnesium Continuous Detection In Water, Wei Zhang

Student Research Symposium

Water hardness is closely linked to our daily life, which is usually quantified by calcium carbonate in water. Hard water may have moderate health benefit, but it can bring serious problem in industrial areas. In this paper, a rapid-response, reliable and convenient device was developed to measure calcium and magnesium concentration in water sample continuously. It was based on phase extraction equilibria in the specific ion-exchange substance membrane, which contained ionophore (selectively binding to specific ions), chromoionophore (a lipophilic pH indicator), ionic salt (a cation exchanger), polymer (PVC) and plasticizer. The device was connected with Mitos pump and controlled by …

Dietary Supplementation With Tart Cherries For Prevention Of Inflammation-Associated Colorectal Cancer In Mice, Ashli Hunter

Research on Capitol Hill

The cherry fruit is a nutrient-dense food that contains high amounts of anthocyanins. These bioactive food chemicals have anti-oxidant and anti-cancer properties that contribute to changes in cell signaling pathways involved in inflammation, carcinogenesis and angiogenesis. In this project, we aimed to determine whether dietary supplementation with tart cherries, prevents colon tumor development in mice consuming a Western diet compared to a prudent diet. We hypothesized dietary supplementation with freeze-dried whole tart cherries would suppress development of colon tumors in a model of colorectal cancer (CRC) incorporating the typical Western diet. A 2×2 factorial design was employed, whereby mice were …

How The Space Environment Affects Seed Germination And Growth, Alexander Souvall, Gareema Dhiman, Andre Nguyen, Michelle Jung, Astrid Ji, Takuyuki Sakai, Takahiro Shimizu, Yuta Takahashi, Midori Morikawa, Shusuke Okita, Akihiro Nagata, Shaunda Wenger, Toshihiro Kameda, Jr Dennison

Research on Capitol Hill

Understanding observed space environment effects on biological organisms such seeds are important in design of long duration space missions, such as to those planned for Mars, where appropriate storage and growth of food resources is essential. Evaluation of the effects of the real and simulated space environment on seed germination and growth in space is the purpose of this research. Preliminary tests of germination rate and growth of radish seeds in a controlled environment have identified statistically significant differences between control samples and seeds flown for 30 days in low earth orbit on the Bion M-1 launch capsule Russian research …

The Effect Of Behavior And Testosterone Levels On Mating In Garter Snakes, Eleanor Watson

Research on Capitol Hill

In garter snakes, including Thamnophis sirtalis and Thamnophis elegans, successful mating is dependent, in part, on the ability of males to follow scent trails left by females. This project will investigate how scent trailing behavior influences the ability of male snakes to find a female mate of the same species. Behavior studies will be conducted by presenting male snakes with scents of females of the same species, and with scents from females of a different species. We will observe which scent the males follow. Male snakes’ preference will be measured by the number of tongue flicks and seconds spent at …

Biological Engineering Students Showcase Research At Industry Meeting | College Of Engineering, Usu College Of Engineering

College of Engineering News

Biological engineering students from Utah State University helped welcome the world to Utah earlier this month at the Institute of Biological Engineering’s (IBE) annual meeting held in Salt Lake City.

Estimating Utilization Distributions From Fitted Step-Selectionfunctions, Johannes Signer, John Fieberg, Tal Avgar

Wildland Resources Faculty Publications

Habitat-selection analyses are often used to link environmental covariates, measured within some spatial domain of assumed availability, to animal location data that are assumed to be independent. Step-selection functions (SSFs) relax this independence assumption, by using a conditional model that explicitly acknowledges the spatiotemporal dynamics of the availability domain and hence the temporal dependence among successive locations. However, it is not clear how to produce an SSF-based map of the expected utilization distribution. Here, we used SSFs to analyze virtual animal movement data generated at a fine spatiotemporal scale and then rarefied to emulate realistic telemetry data. We then compared …