Digital Commons Network^™

Habitat Coupling In A Large Lake System: Delivery Of An Energy Subsidy By An Offshore Planktivore To The Nearshore Zone Of Lake Superior, Jason Stockwell, Daniel Yule, Thomas Hrabik, Michael Sierszen, Edmund Isaac

United States Geological Survey: Staff Publications

1. We hypothesised that the autumn spawning migration of Lake Superior cisco (Coregonus artedi) provides a resource subsidy, in the form of energy-rich cisco eggs, from the offshore pelagic to the nearshore benthic community over winter, when alternate prey production is likely to be low.

2. We tested this hypothesis using fish and macroinvertebrate surveys, fish population demographics, diet and stable isotope analyses, and bioenergetics modelling.

3. The benthic, congeneric lake whitefish (C. clupeaformis) was a clear beneficiary of cisco spawning. Cisco eggs represented 16% of lake whitefish annual consumption in terms of biomass, but 34% of energy (because of …

Invasive Rodent Ecology, Impacts, And Management With An Emphasis On The United States, Gary W. Witmer, William C. Pitt, Gregg Howald

United States Department of Agriculture Wildlife Services: Staff Publications

Many invasive rodent species have become established in the United States and its territories, both on the mainland and on islands. While most were introduced accidently, some were introduced for food or fur. These rodents have caused serious impacts to native flora and fauna, agriculture, and other resources. They have caused the extinction of many species of birds in insular ecosystems. Although many methods are used to control or eradicate introduced rodents, rodenticides and traps are the main tools. Since the early 1990s, agencies have been eradicating rodents from various islands, primarily for conservation purposes. There have been numerous eradication …

Rat Density On Diego Garcia: Implications For Eradication Feasibility, Scott Vogt, Daniel S. Vice, William C. Pitt, Antenor Nestor Guzman, Ernesto J. Necessario, Are R. Berentsen

United States Department of Agriculture Wildlife Services: Staff Publications

Introduced black rats are among the most invasive species to islands worldwide. In addition to agricultural impacts, rats are vectors of disease, cause damage to native flora and fauna, and negatively impact threatened/endangered species. Eradication efforts have met with mixed success. Success or failure of an eradication effort can depend on the population density of the target species, which can influence rodenticide sowing rates. We used snap trapping grids to estimate black rat densities in two different forest types on Diego Garcia: coconut forest and mixed species forest. Individual snap traps baited with fresh coconut were placed every 10 m …

Maintaining Resilience In The Face Of Climate Change, Alejandro E. Camacho, T. Douglas Beard

United States Geological Survey: Staff Publications

Climate change, when combined with more conventional stress from human exploitation, calls into question the capacity of both existing ecological communities and resource management institutions to experience disturbances while substantially retaining their same functions and identities (Zellmer and Gunderson 2009; Ruhl 2011). In other words, the physical and biological effects of climate change raise fundamental challenges to the resilience of natural ecosystems (Gunderson and Holling 2002). Perhaps more importantly, the projected scope of ecological shifts from global climate change-and uncertainty about such changes-significantly stresses the capacity of legal institutions to manage ecosystem change (Camacho 2009). Existing governmental institutions lack the …

Estimating The Total Economic Impact Of Black Bear Peeling In Western Oregon Using Gis And Remi, Jimmy D. Taylor Ii, Anita Morzillo, Aaron M. Anderson

United States Department of Agriculture Wildlife Services: Staff Publications

In parts of the Pacific Northwest, black bears emerge from winter dens with depleted fat reserves and feed on mature conifers by stripping bark and consuming sugar-rich sapwood. Peeling by bears affects commercial conifers through direct loss of the tree or degraded log quality at stand harvest. Bears generally peel trees from 15-30 years old in intensively managed forests until preferred foods such as fruits and berries are available, and a single bear can peel several trees per day. Dying trees have a signature red canopy and are detected in annual aerial forest health surveys; however, trees that scar over …

Riverbank Filtration Potential Of Pharmaceuticals In A Wastewater-Impacted Stream, Paul M. Bradley, Larry B. Barber, Joesph W. Duris, William T. Foreman, Edward T. Furlong, Laura E. Hubbard, Kasey J. Hutchinson, Steffanie H. Keefe, Dana W. Kolpin

United States Geological Survey: Staff Publications

Pharmaceutical contamination of shallow groundwater is a substantial concern in effluent-dominated streams, due to high aqueous mobility, designed bioactivity, and effluent-driven hydraulic gradients. In October and December 2012, effluent contributed approximately 99% and 71%, respectively, to downstream flow in Fourmile Creek, Iowa, USA. Strong hydrologic connectivity was observed between surface-water and shallow-groundwater. Carbamazepine, sulfamethoxazole, and immunologically related compounds were detected in groundwater at greater than 0.02 mg L^-1 at distances up to 6 m from the stream bank. Direct aqueous-injection HPLC-MS/MS revealed 43% and 55% of 110 total pharmaceutical analytes in surface-water samples in October and December, respectively, with 16% …

Development Of Dietary-Based Toxicity Reference Values To Assess The Risk Of Chlorophacinone To Non-Target Raptorial Birds, Barnett A. Rattner, Rebecca S. Lazarus, Sandra L. Schultz, Katherine E. Horak, Benjamin G. Abbo, Steven F. Volker

United States Department of Agriculture Wildlife Services: Staff Publications

Regulatory changes in the use of some second-generation anticoagulant rodenticides in parts of North America may result in expanded use of first-generation anticoagulant rodenticides (FGARs). Recent toxicological studies with captive raptors have demonstrated that these species are considerably more sensitive to the FGAR diphacinone than traditional avian wildlife test species (mallard, bobwhite). We have now examined the toxicity of the FGAR chlorophacinone (CPN) to American kestrels fed rat tissue mechanically amended with CPN, or rat tissue containing biologically-incorporated CPN, for 7 days. Nominal CPN concentrations in these diets were 0.15, 0.75, and 1.5 μg/g food wet weight, and actual CPN …

A Recent Epizootic Of Skunk Rabies And Associated Spillover In Northern Colorado, Usa, Amy Gilbert, Dennis Kohler, Tara Rigg, Justin W. Fischer, Terry Spraker, Karen Fox, Kurt C. Vercauteren

United States Department of Agriculture Wildlife Services: Staff Publications

Rabies is a fatal viral zoonosis that is transmitted by bite contact with saliva of an infected animal. In the U.S., human deaths are rare, but each year over 5,000 rabid animals are reported and over 90% of cases are from wildlife. Multiple species of carnivores and bats are the primary sylvatic reservoirs in the U.S., and several variants circulate independently among these two taxonomic orders. Rabies prevention efforts led by USDA APHIS Wildlife Services using live recombinant vaccine baiting began in 1995 and currently target raccoons and canids, but the territory of the south-central skunk rabies virus variant has …

Humic Substances Interfere With Detection Of Pathogenic Prion Protein, Christen B. Smith, Clarissa J. Booth, Tyler J. Wadzinski, Giuseppe Legname, Rick Chappell, Christopher J. Johnson, Joel A. Pedersen

United States Geological Survey: Staff Publications

Studies examining the persistence of prions (the etiological agent of transmissible spongiform encephalopathies) in soil require accurate quantification of pathogenic prion protein (PrPTSE) extracted from or in the presence of soil particles. Here, we demonstrate that natural organic matter (NOM) in soil impacts PrPTSE detection by immunoblotting. Methods commonly used to extract PrPTSE from soils release substantial amounts of NOM, and NOM inhibited PrPTSE immunoblot signal. The degree of immunoblot interference increased with increasing NOM concentration and decreasing NOM polarity. Humic substances affected immunoblot detection of prion protein from both deer and hamsters. We also establish that after interaction with …

Nutrient Composition Of Selected Traditional United States Northern Plains Native American Plant Foods, Katherine M. Phillips, Pamela R. Pehrsson, Wanda W. Agnew, Angela J. Scheett, Jennifer R. Follett, Henry C. Lukaski, Kristine Y. Patterson

United States Department of Agriculture-Agricultural Research Service / University of Nebraska-Lincoln: Faculty Publications

Ten wild plants (cattail broad leaf shoots, chokecherries, beaked hazelnuts, lambsquarters, plains prickly pear, prairie turnips, stinging nettles, wild plums, raspberries, and rose hips) from three Native American reservations in North Dakota were analyzed to expand composition information of traditional foraged plants. Proximates, dietary fiber (DF), vitamins, minerals, carotenoids, and folate vitamers were assayed using standard methods and reference materials. Per serving, all were rich in Mn (100–2808 mg). Several provided >10% DRI of Fe (cattail shoots, steamed lambsquarters, and prairie turnips), Ca (steamed lambsquarters, prickly pear, and prairie turnips), Mg (cattail shoots, lambsquarters, prickly pear, and prairie turnips), vitamins …

Comparing Crop Land Net Primary Production Estimates From Inventory, A Satellite-Based Model, And A Process-Based Model In The Midwest Of The United States Zhengpeng, Zhengpeng Li, Shuguang Liu, Zhengxi Tan, Normann B. Bliss, Claudia J. Young, Tristram O. West, Stephen M. Ogle

United States Geological Survey: Staff Publications

Accurately quantifying the spatial and temporal variability of net primary production (NPP) for crop-lands is essential to understand regional cropland carbon dynamics. We compared three NPP estimates for croplands in the Midwestern United States: inventory-based estimates using crop yield data from the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) National Agricultural Statistics Service (NASS); estimates from the satellite-based Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectro radiometer (MODIS) NPP product; and esti-mates from the General Ensemble bio geochemical Modeling System (GEMS) process-based model. The three methods estimated mean NPP in the range of 469–687 g C m⁻²yr⁻¹and total NPP in the range …

Toxicity Of Pb‐Contaminated Soil To Japanese Quail (Coturnix Japonica) And The Use Of The Blood–Dietary Pb Slope In Risk Assessment, W. Nelson Beyer, Yu Chen, Paula Henry, Thomas May, David Mosby, Barnett A. Rattner, Valerie I. Shearn-Bochsler, Daniel Sprague, John Weber

United States Geological Survey: Staff Publications

This study relates tissue concentrations and toxic effects of Pb in Japanese quail (Coturnix japonica) to the dietary exposure of soil‐borne Pb associated with mining and smelting. From 0% to 12% contaminated soil, by weight, was added to 5 experimental diets (0.12 to 382mg Pb/kg, dry wt) and fed to the quail for 6 weeks. Benchmark doses associated with a 50% reduction in delta‐aminolevulinic acid dehydratase activity were 0.62mg Pb/kg in the blood, dry wt, and 27mg Pb/kg in the diet. Benchmark doses associated with a 20% increase in the concentration of erythrocyte protoporphyrin were 2.7mg Pb/kg in …

Surrogate Species Selection For Assessing Potential Adverse Environmental Impacts Of Genetically Engineered Insect-Resistant Plants On Non-Target Organisms, Keri Carstens, Bonifacio Cayabyab, Adinda De Schrijver, Patricia G. Gadaleta, Richard L. Hellmich, Jörg Romeis, Nicholas Storer, Fernando H. Valicente, Michael Wach

United States Department of Agriculture-Agricultural Research Service / University of Nebraska-Lincoln: Faculty Publications

Most regulatory authorities require that developers of genetically engineered insect-resistant (GEIR) crops evaluate the potential for these crops to have adverse impacts on valued non-target organisms (NTOs), i.e., organisms not intended to be controlled by the trait. In many cases, impacts to NTOs are assessed using surrogate species, and it is critical that the data derived from surrogates accurately predict any adverse impacts likely to be observed from the use of the crop in the agricultural context. The key is to select surrogate species that best represent the valued NTOs in the location where the crop is going to be …

A Force Of Change: Chris Peterson And The Us Army’S Global Assessment Tool, Paul B. Lester, Peter D. Harms, Mitchel Norman Herian, Walter J. Sowden

P. D. Harms Publications

The US Army launched the Global Assessment Tool (GAT) – a 105-item psychometric instrument taken by approximately one million soldiers annually – in October, 2009 in support of a population-wide resilience development initiative known as the Comprehensive Soldier and Family Fitness (CSF2) program. The lead developer of the GAT was Chris Peterson, and his work on this project – along with that of Nansook Park and Colonel Carl Castro – will likely leave an important and indelible mark on not only the Army, but also the field of military psychology. In this paper, we provide more detail on the history …

Impact Of Whole Grains On The Gut Microbiota: The Next Frontier For Oats?, Devin J. Rose

Department of Nutrition and Health Sciences: Faculty Publications

The gut microbiota plays important roles in proper gut function and can contribute to or help prevent disease. Whole grains, including oats, constitute important sources of nutrients for the gut microbiota and contribute to a healthy gut microbiome. In particular, whole grains provide NSP and resistant starch, unsaturated TAG and complex lipids, and phenolics. The composition of these constituents is unique in oats compared with other whole grains. Therefore, oats may contribute distinctive effects on gut health relative to other grains. Studies designed to determine these effects may uncover new human-health benefits of oat consumption.

Processing Of Oats And The Impact Of Processing Operations On Nutrition And Health Benefits, Eric A. Decker, Devin J. Rose, Derek A. Stewart

Department of Nutrition and Health Sciences: Faculty Publications

Oats are a uniquely nutritious food as they contain an excellent lipid profile and high amounts of soluble fiber. However, an oat kernel is largely non-digestible and thus must be utilised in milled form to reap its nutritional benefits. Milling is made up of numerous steps, the most important being dehulling to expose the digestible groat, heat processing to inactivate enzymes that cause rancidity, and cutting, rolling or grinding to convert the groat into a product that can be used directly in oatmeal or can be used as a food ingredient in products such as bread, ready-to-eat breakfast cereals and …

Effectiveness Of Tailored Lifestyle Interventions, Using Web-Based And Print-Mail, For Reducing Blood Pressure Among Rural Women With Prehypertension: Main Results Of The Wellness For Women: Dashing Towards Health Clinical Trial, Patricia A. Hageman, Carol H. Pullen, Melody Hertzog, Linda S. Boeckner

Department of Nutrition and Health Sciences: Faculty Publications

Background: Lifestyle modification is recommended for management of prehypertension, yet finding effective interventions to reach rural women is a public health challenge. This community-based clinical trial compared the effectiveness of standard advice to two multi-component theory-based tailored interventions, using web-based or print-mailed delivery, in reducing blood pressure among rural women, ages 40–69, with prehypertension.

Methods: 289 women with prehypertension enrolled in the Wellness for Women: DASHing towards Health trial, a 12-month intervention with 12-month follow-up. Women were randomly assigned to groups using a 1:2:2 ratio, comparing standard advice (30-minute counseling session) to two interventions (two 2-hour counseling sessions, …

Dietary Cholesterol Promotes Adipocyte Hypertrophy And Adipose Tissue Inflammation In Visceral, But Not Subcutaneous, Fat In Monkeys, Soonkyu Chung, Helen Cuffe, Stephanie M. Marshall, Allison L. Mcdaniel, Jung-Heun Ha, Kylie Kavanagh, Cynthia Hong, Peter Tontonoz, Ryan E. Temel, John S. Parks

Department of Nutrition and Health Sciences: Faculty Publications

Objective—Excessive caloric intake is associated with obesity and adipose tissue dysfunction. However, the role of dietary cholesterol in this process is unknown. The aim of this study was to determine whether increasing dietary cholesterol intake alters adipose tissue cholesterol content, adipocyte size, and endocrine function in nonhuman primates.

Approach and Results—Age-matched, male African Green monkeys (n=5 per group) were assigned to one of three diets containing 0.002 (Lo), 0.2 (Med) or 0.4 (Hi) mg cholesterol/Kcal. After 10 weeks of diet feeding, animals were euthanized for adipose tissue, liver, and plasma collection. With increasing dietary cholesterol, free cholesterol (FC) content and …

Misunderstanding The Female Athlete Triad: Refuting The Ioc Consensus Statement On Relative Energy Deficiency In Sport (Red-S), Mary Jane De Souza, Nancy I. Williams, Aurelia Nattiv, Elizabeth Joy, Madhusmita Misra, Anne B. Loucks, Gordon Matheson, Marion P. Olmsted, Michelle Barrack, Rebecca J. Mallinson, Jenna C. Gibbs, Marci Goolsby, Jeanne F. Nichols, Barbara Drinkwater, Charlotte (Barney) Sanborn, Rosemary Agostini, Carol L. Otis, Mimi D. Johnson, Anne Zeni Hoch, Julia M. K. Alleyne, L. Tyler Wadsworth, Karsten Koehler, Jaci Vanheest, Paula Harvey, Amanda K. Weiss Kelly, Michael Fredericson, George A. Brooks, Emma O'Donnell, Lisa R. Callahan, Margot Putukian, Lauren Costello, Suzanne Hecht, Mitchell J. Rauh, Jacalyn Mccomb

Department of Nutrition and Health Sciences: Faculty Publications

We are concerned that readers of the IOC paper will be confused and misled by the poorly referenced statements and frank (and sometimes dangerous) errors in the paper. The IOC authors should publish a correction of these and other errors noted. Broadening research of low energy availability in other groups, such as the male athlete, athletes of diverse ethnicities and the disabled athlete may help to advance science and may one day warrant introduction of a specific term for whatever serious clinical sequelae of energy deficiency may be discovered in future research on men.

Research on the “Female Athlete Triad” …

Serum Coenzyme Q10, Α-Tocopherol, Γ-Tocopherol, And C-Reactive Protein Levels And Body Mass Index In Adolescent And Premenopausal Females, Weiwen Chai, Rachel Novotny, Gertraud Maskarinec, Loic Le Marchand, Adrian A. Franke, Robert V. Cooney

Department of Nutrition and Health Sciences: Faculty Publications

Objective

Lipid-soluble antioxidants are associated with a lower incidence for many chronic diseases of aging, possibly by preventing damage from chronic inflammation. In the current study, we compared serum levels of coenzyme Q₁₀ (CoQ₁₀), α-tocopherol, γ-tocopherol, and C-reactive protein (CRP) between adolescent girls and premenopausal women to assess changes from childhood to midlife.

Methods

Baseline serum CoQ₁₀, α-tocopherol, γ-tocopherol, and CRP levels were measured in 207 girls (13-19 years) and 183 premenopausal women (34-47 years) using standard methods and the two age groups were compared by t-test. The influence of age, body mass index (BMI) …

Egg Intake During Carbohydrate Restriction Alters Peripheral Blood Mononuclear Cell Inflammation And Cholesterol Homeostasis In Metabolic Syndrome, Catherine J. Andersen, Ji-Young Lee, Christopher N. Blesso, Timothy P. Carr, Maria Luz Fernandez

Department of Nutrition and Health Sciences: Faculty Publications

Egg yolk contains bioactive components that improve plasma inflammatory markers and HDL profiles in metabolic syndrome (MetS) under carbohydrate restriction. We further sought to determine whether egg yolk intake affects peripheral blood mononuclear cell (PBMC) inflammation and cholesterol homeostasis in MetS, as HDL and its associated lipid transporter ATP-binding cassette transporter A1 (ABCA1) reduce the inflammatory potential of leukocytes through modulation of cellular cholesterol content and distribution. Thirty-seven men and women classified with MetS consumed a moderate carbohydrate-restricted diet (25%–30% of energy) for 12 weeks, in addition to consuming either three whole eggs per day (EGG) or the equivalent amount …

Gene-Environment Interaction Of Body Mass Index And Apolipoprotein E Ε4 Allele On Cognitive Decline, Kumar B. Rajan, Kimberly A. Skarupski, Heather E. Rasmussen, Denis A. Evans

Department of Nutrition and Health Sciences: Faculty Publications

Genetic variation alone may not account for common chronic disease susceptibility. Rather, an interaction between genetic and environmental factors may clarify the underlying disease mechanism. Hence, we tested whether BMI modified the genetic association of the Apolipoprotein E (APOE) ε4 allele with cognitive decline. The data came from a longitudinal population-based sample of 4,055 participants interviewed at 3-year intervals from 1993 to 2012. Cognitive function was assessed using a standardized global cognitive score and BMI was assessed at baseline and classified as normal, overweight, and obese. There were 1,374 (34%) participants with the ε4 allele. In normal BMI participants, cognitive …

Safety And Immunogenicity Of Ontario Rabies Vaccine Bait (Onrab) In The First Us Field Trial In Raccoons (Procyon Lotor), Dennis Slate, Richard B. Chipman, Timothy P. Algeo, Samuel A. Mills, Kathleen M. Nelson, Christopher K. Croson, Edward J. Dubovi, Kurt C. Vercauteren, Randall W. Renshaw, Todd Atwood, Shylo Johnson, Charles E. Rupprecht

United States Department of Agriculture Wildlife Services: Staff Publications

In 2011, we conducted a field trial in rural West Virginia, USA to evaluate the safety and immunogenicity of a live, recombinant human adenovirus (AdRG1.3) rabies virus glycoprotein vaccine (Ontario Rabies Vaccine Bait; ONRAB) in wild raccoons (Procyon lotor) and striped skunks (Mephitis mephitis). We selected ONRAB for evaluation because of its effectiveness in raccoon rabies management in Ontario and Quebec, Canada, and significantly higher antibody prevalence rates in raccoons compared with a recombinant vaccinia-rabies glycoprotein (V-RG) vaccine, Raboral V-RGH, in US–Canada border studies. Raccoon rabies was enzootic and oral rabies vaccination (ORV) had never been …

Influence Of Corn Residue Harvest Management On Grain, Stover, And Energy Yields, Keri B. Cantrell, Jeffrey M. Novak, James R. Frederick, Douglas Karlen, Donald W. Watts

United States Department of Agriculture-Agricultural Research Service / University of Nebraska-Lincoln: Faculty Publications

Economic, environmental, and energy independence issues are contributing to rising fossil fuel prices, petroleum supply concerns, and a growing interest in biomass feedstocks as renewable energy sources. Potential feedstocks include perennial grasses, timber, and annual grain crops with our focus being on corn (Zea mays L.) stover. A plot-scale study evaluating stover removal was initiated in 2008 on a South Carolina Coastal Plain Coxville/Rains–Goldsboro– Lynchburg soil association site. In addition to grain and stover yields, carbon balance, greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions and soil quality impact reported elsewhere in this issue, variation in gross energy distribution within various plant fractions …

Fitting Outbreak Models To Data From Many Small Norovirus Outbreaks, Eamon B. O'Dea, Kim M. Pepin, Ben A. Lopman, Claus O. Wilke

United States Department of Agriculture Wildlife Services: Staff Publications

Infectious disease often occurs in small, independent outbreaks in populations with varying characteristics. Each outbreak by itself may provide too little information for accurate estimation of epidemic model parameters. Here we show that using standard stochastic epidemic models for each outbreak and allowing parameters to vary between outbreaks according to a linear predictor leads to a generalized linear model that accurately estimates parameters from many small and diverse outbreaks. By estimating initial growth rates in addition to transmission rates, we are able to characterize variation in numbers of initially susceptible individuals or contact patterns between outbreaks. With simulation, we find …

A Landscape-Based Approach For Delineating Hotspots Of Wildlife-Vehicle Collisions, Nathan P. Snow, David M. Williams, William F. Porter

United States Department of Agriculture Wildlife Services: Staff Publications

Imposing human perceptions about the scales of ecological processes can produce unreliable scientific inferences in wildlife research and possibly misinform mitigation strategies. An example of this disconnect occurs in studies of wildlife-vehicle collisions (WVCs). Subjective procedures are often used to delineate hotspots of WVCs, resulting in hotspots that are not spatially independent. We developed a new approach that identifies independent hotspots using attributes of the landscape to inform delineations instead of subjective measures. First, we generated a candidate set of grouping scenarios using unique combinations of kernel-density estimation parameterization (i.e., bandwidth and isopleth values). Next, we associated the groups of …

West Nile Virus Isolated From A Virginia Opossum (Didelphis Virginiana) In Northwestern Missouri, Usa, 2012, Angela Bosco-Lauth, Jessica R. Harmon, R. Ryan Jash, Sonja Weiss, Stanley Langevin, Harry M. Savage, Marvin S. Godsey Jr., Kristen Burkhalter, J. Jeffrey Root, Thomas Gidlewski, William L. Nicholson, Aaron C. Brault, Nicholas Komar

United States Department of Agriculture Wildlife Services: Staff Publications

We describe the isolation of West Nile virus (WNV; Flaviviridae, Flavivirus) from blood of a Virginia opossum (Didelphis virginiana) collected in northwestern Missouri, USA in August 2012. Sequencing determined that the virus was related to lineage 1a WNV02 strains. We discuss the role of wildlife in WNV disease epidemiology.

An Agent-Based Movement Model To Assess The Impact Of Landscape Fragmentation On Disease Transmission, Jeff A. Tracey, Sarah N. Bevins, Sue Vandewoude, Kevin R. Crooks

United States Department of Agriculture Wildlife Services: Staff Publications

Landscape changes can result in habitat fragmentation and reduced landscape connectivity, limiting the ability of animals to move across space and altering infectious disease dynamics in wildlife. In this study, we develop and implement an agent-based model to assess the impacts of animal movement behavior and landscape structure on disease dynamics. We model a susceptible/infective disease state system applicable to the transmission of feline immunodeficiency virus in bobcats in the urbanized landscape of coastal southern California. Our agent-based model incorporates animal movement behavior, pathogen prevalence, transmission probability, and habitat fragmentation to evaluate how these variables influence disease spread in urbanizing …

From Passive Receptacles To Active Contenders: Ovulation And Intrasexual Competition In Human Females, Andres E. Munoz 14

Honor Scholar Theses

Recent evidence has suggested that ovulation in humans might be accompanied by subtle cues. Furthermore, several studies have suggested that women engage in intrasexual competition, or competition with members of the same sex, with the aim of obtaining high quality mates. This competition involves the use of complex strategies including self-promotion and rival derogation. The link between ovulation and intrasexual competition remains largely underexplored, although a few studies have suggested that intrasexual competition might become intensified during ovulation. This paper explores the relationship between ovulatory cue detection and intrasexual competition and outlines two research proposals for future analysis of this …

Assessing The Viability Of Converting Indiana's Energy Framework To Renewable Sources By 2050, Lincoln Barlow 14

Honor Scholar Theses

Conflicting views exist with regard to the feasibility of transitioning the world from a dependence on fossil fuel energy production to a completely renewable, emission-free energy climate. Findings show that the potential for Indiana to match its current energy production solely utilizing renewable energy capabilities existing on the Indiana landscape is available using a calculated combination of available resources from available analytical data. The annual required energy production, phased in gradually through the year 2050 and excluding the transportation sector, would consist of ~61% onshore wind energy (443,900 GWh), ~1% offshore wind energy (8,129 GWh), ~1% hydroelectric power (6,833 GWh), …