Digital Commons Network^™

Effects Of Pinyon Juniper Removal On Greater Sage-Grouse (Centrocercus Urophasianus) Habitat-Use And Vital Rates In Northwestern Utah., C. Sandford, Terry A. Messmer

Wildland Resources Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

Complexation Of N So2 Molecules (N=1,2,3) With Formaldehyde And Thioformaldehyde, L. M. Azofra, Steve Scheiner

Chemistry and Biochemistry Faculty Publications

Ab initio and density functional theory calculations are used to examine complexes formed between H2CO and H2CS with 1, 2, and 3 molecules of SO2. The nature of the interactions is probed by a variety of means, including electrostatic potentials, natural bond orbital, atoms in molecules, energy decomposition, and electron density redistribution maps. The dimers are relatively strongly bound, with interaction energies exceeding 5 kcal/mol. The structures are cyclic, containing both a O/S⋯S chalcogen bond and a CH⋯O H-bond. Addition of a second SO2 molecule leads to a variety of heterotrimer structures, most of which resemble the original dimer, where …

Complexes Containing Co2 And So2. Mixed Dimers, Trimers And Tetramers, L. M. Azofra, Steve Scheiner

Chemistry and Biochemistry Faculty Publications

Mixed dimers, trimers and tetramers composed of SO2 and CO2 molecules are examined by ab initio calculations to identify all minimum energy structures. While AIM formalism leads to the idea of a pair of C···O bonds in the most stable heterodimer, bound by some 2 kcal mol(-1), NBO analysis describes the bonding in terms of charge transfer from O lone pairs of SO2 to the CO π* antibonding orbitals. The second minimum on the surface, just slightly less stable, is described by AIM as containing a single O···O chalcogen bond. The NBO picture is that of two transfers in opposite …

Interaction Between Temozolomide And Water: Preferred Binding Sites, O. E. Kasende, A. Matondo, M. Muzomwe, J. T. Muya, Steve Scheiner

Chemistry and Biochemistry Faculty Publications

Computational methods are used to predict the most favorable site of temozolomide towards attack by a water molecule. The energetics of the various complexes are presented as well as their geometries, including perturbations of each subunit caused by the presence of the other. Molecular electrostatic potential and Natural Bond Orbital (NBO) data are used to understand the interactions which conclude the terminal amide group is the preferred attack site where water can act as simultaneous proton donor and acceptor. Other potential proton acceptor N atoms within the aromatic ring structure represent weaker binding sites. Some of the less strongly bound …

Substituent Effects In The Noncovalent Bonding Of So2 To Molecules Containing A Carbonyl Group. The Dominating Role Of The Chalcogen Bond, L. M. Azofra, Steve Scheiner

Chemistry and Biochemistry Faculty Publications

The SO2 molecule is paired with a number of carbonyl-containing molecules, and the properties of the resulting complexes are calculated by high-level ab initio theory. The global minimum of each pair is held together primarily by a S···O chalcogen bond wherein the lone pairs of the carbonyl O transfer charge to the π* antibonding SO orbital, supplemented by smaller contributions from weak CH···O H-bonds. The binding energies vary between 4.2 and 8.6 kcal/mol, competitive with even some of the stronger noncovalent forces such as H-bonds and halogen bonds. The geometrical arrangement places the carbonyl O atom above the plane of …

An Exploration Of The Ozone Dimer Potential Energy Surface, L. M. Azofra, I. Alkorta, Steve Scheiner

Chemistry and Biochemistry Faculty Publications

The (O3)2 dimer potential energy surface is thoroughly explored at the ab initio CCSD(T) computational level. Five minima are characterized with binding energies between 0.35 and 2.24 kcal/mol. The most stable may be characterized as slipped parallel, with the two O3 monomers situated in parallel planes. Partitioning of the interaction energy points to dispersion and exchange as the prime contributors to the stability, with varying contributions from electrostatic energy, which is repulsive in one case. Atoms in Molecules analysis of the wavefunction presents specific O⋯O bonding interactions, whose number is related to the overall stability of each dimer. All internal …

Phenotypic And Genotypic Analysis Of A U.S. Native Fine-Leaved Festuca Population Reveals Its Potential Use For Low-Input Urban Landscapes, Jack E. Staub, Matthew D. Robbins, Yingmei Ma, Paul Johnson

CWEL Publications

Continued reduction in limited natural resources worldwide increasingly necessitates the incorporation of low-maintenance and low-input plant materials into urban landscapes. Some fine-leaved Festuca grass species have been used in formal gardens and native urban landscapes because of their inherent tolerance to abiotic stresses, but native, ornamental types (tall and non-spreading with multicolored culms and panicles) are not common in landscapes of the western United States. A native fine-leaved Festuca collection made in Montana (designated FEID 9025897) by the U.S. Natural Resources Conservation Services possesses such ornamental characteristics but has not been evaluated for its horticultural potential. Therefore, a study was …

Recollections Of My Career, My Colleagues, And My Retirement, Henry Reeves

Henry Milton Reeves Collection

Finding Aid for this collection can be found here:

http://nwda.orbiscascade.org/ark:/80444/xv48889/.

Volume 68 Issue 1 (Spring/Summer 2014)

Utah Science

2 Growing Risk for Alzheimer’s Alzheimer’s disease is more than just forgetfulness. It robs people of their abilities to think, remember, reason and control their behavior. A combination of genetic and environmental factors contributes to the disease’s development, but the process may begin decades before symptoms appear. Researchers are working to discover what those factors might be and how people might decrease their risk of developing the disease.

8 Measuring Quality in Baby Steps Each day thousands of children in Utah spend part of their day in the care of someone other than their parents. The quality of daycare affects …

Pcr Based Fetal Sex Determination In Bovine Circulating Maternal Plasma, E. Barkat, M. Labram, L. Rickords

Biology Posters

PCR-based fetal sex determination by use of fetal DNA in maternal plasma in bovine is a novel scientific method that has some cost advantages in the animal production industry. In this study, our objective was to determine fetal sex in pregnant cows and establish the lower boundary at which Y-chromosome specific fetal DNA could be detected in the circulating maternal plasma using Bov97M primers. In this experiment, our results showed that 10 pg was the limit in which the Y-chromosome specific DNA was detectable in the circulating maternal plasma. Future experiments will be conducted to determine the earliest gestational age …

Preventing Parasites: Developing A Deworming Protocol And Screening Animals At The Willow Park Zoo, Sydney Greenfield

Biology Posters

The primary object of this project was to research AZA and American Association of Zoo Veterinarian guidelines, write up a deworming protocol and schedule for the zoo, and finally begin screening collection animals.

Monitoring Of Livestock Grazing Effects On Bureau Of Land Management Land, Kari E. Veblen

Wildland Resources Faculty Publications

Public land management agencies, such as the Bureau of Land Management (BLM), are charged with managing rangelands throughout the Western United States for multiple uses such as livestock grazing and conservation of sensitive species and their habitats. Monitoring of condition and trends of these rangelands, particularly with respect to effects of livestock grazing, provide critical information for effective management of these multi-use landscapes. We therefore investigated the availability of livestock grazing-related quantitative monitoring data and qualitative region-specific Land Health Standards (LHS) data across BLM grazing allotments in the Western United States. We then queried university and federal rangeland science experts …

Strongly Bound Noncovalent (So3)N:H2co Complexes (N = 1, 2), L. M. Azofra, I. Alkorta, Steve Scheiner

Chemistry and Biochemistry Faculty Publications

The potential energy surfaces (PES) for the SO3:H2CO and (SO3)2:H2CO complexes were thoroughly examined at the MP2/aug-cc-pVDZ computational level. Heterodimers and trimers are held together primarily by SO chalcogen bonds, supplemented by weaker CHO and/or OC bonds. The nature of the interactions is probed by a variety of means, including electrostatic potentials, AIM, NBO, energy decomposition, and electron density redistribution maps. The most stable dimer is strongly bound, with an interaction energy exceeding 10 kcal mol(-1). Trimers adopt the geometry of the most stable dimer, with an added SO3 molecule situated so as to interact with both of the original …

Water Quantity And Quality In The Columbia Basin Trust Region, Janice Brahney

Watershed Sciences Faculty Publications

This report collects the documents generated as part of a two year effort to catalogue the variety of water quality and quantity data that has been collected in the Columbia Basin Trust region of British Columbia. Through the cataloguing effort, a number of important data and knowledge gaps were identified and specific recommendations developed. The available water quantity and climate data was then used in a number of analyses focused on understanding the relationship between changing climate conditions and stream discharges.

One overall finding is that there is a large variety of data collected and held by various different entities. …

Utah Shrubland Management, Thomas A. Monaco, Kari E. Veblen, Justin Williams

Wildland Resources Faculty Publications

This Winter 2014-2015 Newsletter discusses accomplishments over the past year for the Shrubland Management project. We highlight the Ecological Sites and targeted shrubs at the ranch owned by Mr. Rial Berry in Cedar Fort, Utah.

Influence Of Group Size On The Success Of Wolves Hunting Bison, Daniel R. Macnulty, Aimee G. Tallian, Daniel R. Stahler, Douglas W. Smith

Wildland Resources Faculty Publications

An intriguing aspect of social foraging behavior is that large groups are often no better at capturing prey than are small groups, a pattern that has been attributed to diminished cooperation (i.e., free riding) in large groups. Although this suggests the formation of large groups is unrelated to prey capture, little is known about cooperation in large groups that hunt hard-to-catch prey. Here, we used direct observations of Yellowstone wolves (Canis lupus) hunting their most formidable prey, bison (Bison bison), to test the hypothesis that large groups are more cooperative when hunting difficult prey. We quantified the relationship between capture …

Effects Of Climatic Variation And Reproductive Trade-Offs Vary By Measure Of Reproductive Effort In Greater Sage-Grouse, Danny Caudill, Michael R. Guttery, Brent Bibles, Terry A. Messmer, Gretchen Caudill, Erin Leone, David K. Dahlgren, Renee Chi

Wildland Resources Faculty Publications

Research on long-lived iteroparous species has shown that reproductive success may increase with age, until the onset of senescence, and that prior reproductive success may influence current reproductive success. Such complex reproductive dynamics can complicate conservation strategies, especially for harvested species. Further complicating the matter is the fact that most studies of reproductive costs are only able to evaluate a single measure of reproductive effort. We systematically evaluated the effects of climatic variation and reproductive trade-offs on multiple reproductive vital rates for greater sage-grouse (Centrocercus urophasianus; sage-grouse), a relatively long-lived galliforme of conservation concern throughout western North America. Based on …

Ammonia Measurements And Emissions From A California Dairy Using Point And Remote Sensors, K. D. Moore, E. Young, C. Gurell, M. D. Wojcik, R. S. Martin, G. E. Bingham, R. L. Pfeiffer, J. H. Prueger, J. L. Hatfield

Space Dynamics Laboratory Publications

Ammonia (NH3) is an important trace gas species in the atmosphere that can have negative impacts on human, animal, and ecosystem health. Agriculture has been identified as the largest source of NH3, specifically livestock operations. NH3 emissions from a commercial dairy in California were investigated during June 2008. Cattle were held in open-lot pens, except for young calves in hutches with shelters. Solid manure was stored in the open-lot pens. Liquid manure from feed lanes was passed through a solids settling basin and stored in a holding pond. Passive sensors and openpath Fourier transform infrared spectrometers (OP-FTIR) were deployed around …

Sudden Aspen Decline Report For Spruce Beetle Epidemic And Aspen Decline Management Response Eis, Jim Worrall, Suzanne Marchetti, Gerald E. Rehfeldt

Aspen Bibliography

Aspen is an important component of GMUG’s forests. Over 288,000 ha (712,000 acres) of aspendominated forest type (TAA) occur across the GMUG (Table 1). Just over half (55%) of the aspen forest type is outside wilderness and roadless areas.

Activating The Expression Of Human K-Rasg12d Stimulates Oncogenic Transformation In Transgenic Goat Fetal Fibroblast Cells, J. Gong, Zhongde Wang, I. Polejaeva, R. Salgia, C. Kao, T. Chen, L. Chen

Animal, Dairy, and Veterinary Science Faculty Publications

Humane use of preclinical large animal cancer models plays a critical role in understanding cancer biology and developing therapeutic treatments. Among the large animal candidates, goats have great potentials as sustainable sources for large animal cancer model development. Goats are easier to handle and cheaper to raise. The genome of the goats has been sequenced recently. It has been known that goats develop skin, adrenal cortex, breast and other types of cancers. Technically, goats are subject to somatic cell nuclear transfer more efficiently and exhibit better viability through the cloning process. Towards the development of a goat cancer model, we …

The Nsf/Nih Effect: Surveying The Effect Of Data Management Requirements On Faculty, Sponsored Programs, And Institutional Repositories, Cheryl D. Walters, Anne R. Diekema, Andrew Wesolek

Library Faculty & Staff Publications

The scholarly communication landscape is rapidly changing and nowhere is this more evident than in the field of data management. Mandates by major funding agencies, further expanded by executive order and pending legislation in 2013, require many research grant applicants to provide data management plans for preserving and making their research data openly available. However, do faculty researchers have the requisite skill sets and are their institutions providing the necessary infrastructure to comply with these mandates? To answer these questions, three groups were surveyed in 2012: research and teaching faculty, sponsored programs office staff, and institutional repository librarians. Survey results …

Effects Of Exploitation On An Overabundant Species: The Lesser Snow Goose Predicament, David N. Koons

Wildland Resources Faculty Publications

1. Invasive and overabundant species are an increasing threat to biodiversity and ecosystem functioning world-wide. As such, large amounts of money are spent each year on attempts to control them. These efforts can, however, be thwarted if exploitation is compensated demographically or if populations simply become too numerous for management to elicit an effective and rapid functional response.
2. We examined the influence of these mechanisms on cause-specific mortality in lesser snow geese using multistate capture–reencounter methods. The abundance and destructive foraging behaviours of snow geese have created a trophic cascade that reduces (sub-) Arctic plant, insect and avian biodiversity, bestowing them …

Regulation Of Tree Squirrel Populations With Immunocontraception: A Fox Squirrel Example, Sara K. Krause, Douglas A. Kelt, Dirk H. Van Vuren, James P. Gionfriddo

Human–Wildlife Interactions

Tree squirrels (Sciurus spp.) are highly successful immigrants to urban and suburban areas in North America and Europe, causing both economic and ecological damage. Control of such invasive populations is challenging but of increasing importance to local managers. We studied an invasive population of fox squirrels (S. niger) and applied an immunocontraceptive vaccine in an experimental study of demographic control. Here we integrate our data into a simple stage-structured population model to simulate population reduction under 2 treatment levels (60 and 80% of females, respectively) for vaccines lasting from 1 to 5 years. Contraception can be an effective …

Wildlife Damage Management: Prevention, Problem Solving And Conflict Resolution, Travis L. Devault

Human–Wildlife Interactions

No abstract provided.

Survey Of Canada Goose Feces For Presence Of Giardia, Christopher R. Ayers, Christopher S. Deperno, Christopher E. Moorman, Henry H. Stibbs, Angela M. Faust

Human–Wildlife Interactions

As resident Canada goose (Branta canadensis) populations increase throughout North America, so do the health and environmental risks associated with goose feces. Previous studies suggest that goose feces may be a conduit for transmitting Giardia, a protozoan that is parasitic to humans. We surveyed fecal droppings from free-ranging resident Canada geese for Giardia spp. at 9 sites in the Triangle area (Raleigh, Durham, and Chapel Hill) of North Carolina in 2007 and 2008. Samples (n = 234) were tested using the ProSpect® Giardia EZ Microplate Assay, and there were no positives. Our results indicate that risk …

Morbidity And Mortality In Reptiles Presented To A Wildlife Care Facility In Central Illinois, Anne E. Rivas, Matthew C. Allender, Mark Mitchell, Julia K. Whittington

Human–Wildlife Interactions

We examined morbidity and mortality of 200 reptiles, representing 13 different species that were presented to the University of Illinois Wildlife Medical Clinic (WMC) from 2003 to 2010. Snapping turtles (Chelydra serpentine; n = 46), box turtles (Terrapene sp.; n = 43), painted turtles (Chrysemys picta; n = 37), and red-eared slider turtles (Trachemys scripta elegans; n = 33) were the most frequently seen species. Turtles were significantly more likely to be presented to the WMC following collision with a motor vehicle (n = 73) than any other reason, including idiopathic trauma (i.e., …

Oil And Gas Impacts On Wyoming’S Sagegrouse: Summarizing The Past And Predicting The Foreseeable Future, Dave H. Applegate, Nick L. Owens

Human–Wildlife Interactions

Historical impacts from oil and gas development to greater sage-grouse (Centrocercus urophasianus) habitat are well-documented in some areas of Wyoming, in particular within natural gas development fields, such as the Powder River Basin and JonahPinedale. The drilling techniques and pad densities in these fields have been extrapolated to estimate future oil and gas impacts in the U. S. Fish and Wildlife Service (2010) warranted-but-precluded listing determination for the sage-grouse under the Endangered Species Act. Further, assumptions regarding the scale of oil and gas development are incorporated within various resource management plan amendments by the Bureau of Land Management …

Wildlife Strikes With U.S. Military Rotary-Wing Aircraft Deployed In Foreign Countries, Brian E. Washburn, Paul J. Cisar, Travis L. Devault

Human–Wildlife Interactions

During recent decades, rotary-wing aircraft (helicopters) within the U.S. Department of Defense (e.g., U.S Army and U.S. Air Force) have been deployed overseas to conduct a variety of noncombat and combat missions. Our objective was to conduct a comprehensive analysis of wildlife (birds, bats, insects) strikes with U.S. Army and U.S. Air Force rotarywing aircraft during overseas deployments. We acquired all available wildlife strike information involving U.S. Army and U.S. Air Force military rotary-wing aircraft engaged in flight operations associated with U.S. military bases around the world during 1990 to 2011. Wildlife strikes with military rotary-wing aircraft occurred in >31 …

Evaluation Of Foliar Sprays To Reduce Crop Damage By Canada Geese, Charles D. Dieter, Cody S. Warner, Curiong Ren

Human–Wildlife Interactions

South Dakota Department of Game, Fish and Parks annually spends >$500,000 managing crop damage caused by grazing Canada geese (Branta canadensis). Foliar applications of a chemical feeding deterrent could provide an effective alternative to the methods currently being used to reduce damage. In 2011 and 2012, we evaluated Rejex-It Migrate Turfguard®, Bird Shield®, Avian Control®, and Avipel® as grazing deterrents. We used a ground sprayer to apply the treatments every 7 days to plots in soybean fields in Day County, South Dakota. We monitored activity in the plots using time-lapse photography. We began treating the plots after geese …

Shots In The Dark: The Presence Of Absence In Imaginative Literature (Iw), Gene Washington

English Faculty Publications

Western metaphysics and IW can be described as a search for "first" presences, not absences. With the exception of philosophers like Martin Heidegger, Jean-Paul Sartre, and Aristotle, writers like Lord Rochester (John Wilmot), Jonathan Swift and Philip Larkin, no one, to my knowledge, has taken absence as a "first" and consequently as also a "last." This essay is a modest attempt to open the door, if only a crack, for investigations into the metaphysics and meaning of absence as a means of creating, and understanding an interesting IW—from the perspective of the presence of absence as "first" and as "last."