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Wolf Predation: Where And How Wolves Kill Beavers, And Confronting The Biases In Scat-Based Diet Studies, Thomas Gable

All NMU Master's Theses

Beavers can be a significant prey item for wolves in boreal systems but how wolves hunt beavers is largely unknown. I inferred how wolves hunt beavers by identifying 22 kill sites using clusters of locations from GPS-collared wolves in Voyageurs National Park, Minnesota. Where wolves killed beavers varied seasonally with the majority (58%) of kills in the spring occurring below dams and on shorelines while the majority (80%) of kills in the fall were near feeding trails and canals. I deduced that the typical hunting strategy has 3 components: 1) waiting near areas of high beaver use until a beaver …

Temporal Foraging Patterns Of Nonnative Frogs (Eleutherodactylus Coqui) In Hawaii, Arthur C. Wallis, Robyn L. Smith, Karen H. Beard

Wildland Resources Faculty Publications

The Puerto Rican Coqui Frog (Eleutherodactylus coqui) is a nocturnal, invasive species that was introduced into Hawaii in the 1980s. Because they reach extremely high densities (up to 90,000 frogs/ha), they have the potential to affect invertebrate prey communities. Previously, researchers used frogs collected only at night to characterize their prey. Because Coquis use retreat sites near the forest floor during the day and understory perch sites at night, frogs collected at night might show different amounts and types of prey than would frogs collected in the morning. We analyzed stomach contents of 435 frogs collected in the morning (0300–0600 …

Where And How Wolves (Canis Lupus) Kill Beavers (Castor Canadensis), Thomas Gable, Steve K. Windels, John G. Bruggink, Austin T. Homkes

Journal Articles

Beavers (Castor canadensis) can be a significant prey item for wolves (Canis lupus) in boreal ecosystems due to their abundance and vulnerability on land. How wolves hunt beavers in these systems is largely unknown, however, because observing predation is challenging. We inferred how wolves hunt beavers by identifying kill sites using clusters of locations from GPS-collared wolves in Voyageurs National Park, Minnesota. We identified 22 sites where wolves from 4 different packs killed beavers. We classified these kill sites into 8 categories based on the beaver-habitat type near which each kill occurred. Seasonal variation existed in …

Simple Soil Quality Tests And Organic Management Practices For Orchards In The Intermountain West, Esther Oline Thomsen

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Spring 1920 to Summer 2023

Soil health is often overlooked as a long-term management strategy as growers face an increasing number of short-term management challenges in the Intermountain West. The costs of inputs are rising and water resources are becoming more limited. Soil with poor health typically requires more amendments and fertlizers to meet crop needs. Soil health tests can help reveal management practices that reduce soil health, as well as those that improve soil health. Practices known to improve soil health are reduced to no tillage, cover crop use- especially legumes, and addition of mulch and other organic materials. Soil health testing is not …

Effect Of Fragmentation And Habitat Type On Coastal Nekton In Mississippi, Thomas Bennett Sevick

Master's Theses

Coastal wetlands are extremely productive ecosystems that support an abundance of organisms at higher tropic levels. Coastal wetlands also act as important buffers from storms and help protect major cornerstones of coastal economies, such as tourism and fisheries. Despite the clear need for the protection of these habitats, anthropogenic use of coastal wetlands has increased in frequency and intensity, resulting in the fragmentation of once continuous habitats. A central challenge to assessing the impact of marsh fragmentation is the lack of quantitative distribution and abundance data from specific habitat types. This is especially true for species that are not commercially …

Possible Past Hybridization Among Desmognathus Ochrophaeus In Canadice Lake: An Ecological Survey Exploring Desmognathine Salamanders And The Competitive Exclusion Hypothesis In The Western Finger Lakes Of New York State, Aisha L. Gadson

Theses

Dusky Salamanders are a varied group of sister taxa found in Northeastern North America. Two species, Desmognathus fuscus and Desmognathus ochrophaeus, have geographically overlapping ranges. In addition, they are very morphologically similar, share many niche requirements, and are found in extremely similar or even the same salamander communities. These shared traits have been posited to arise from the influence of niche conservatism during their species’ evolutions. Also, despite their physical similarities they are historically found not to hybridize on a large scale, nor have ever had a full population merge recorded. Therefore, it appears that the community ecology of these …

Development Of A Measure Of Model Fidelity For Mental Health Crisis Resolution Teams, Brynmor Lloyd-Evans, Gary R. Bond, Torleif Ruud, Ada Ivanecka

Dartmouth Scholarship

Crisis Resolution Teams (CRTs) provide short-term intensive home treatment to people experiencing mental health crisis. Trial evidence suggests CRTs can be effective at reducing hospital admissions and increasing satisfaction with acute care. When scaled up to national level however, CRT implementation and outcomes have been variable. We aimed to develop and test a fidelity scale to assess adherence to a model of best practice for CRTs, based on best available evidence.

Integration Of Plant Defense Traits With Biological Control Of Arthropod Pests: Challenges And Opportunities, Julie A. Peterson, Paul J. Ode, Camila Oliveira-Hofman, James D. Harwood

Entomology Faculty Publications

Crop plants exhibit a wide diversity of defensive traits and strategies to protect themselves from damage by herbivorous pests and disease. These defensive traits may be naturally occurring or artificially selected through crop breeding, including introduction via genetic engineering. While these traits can have obvious and direct impacts on herbivorous pests, many have profound effects on higher trophic levels, including the natural enemies of herbivores. Multi-trophic effects of host plant resistance have the potential to influence, both positively and negatively, biological control. Plant defense traits can influence both the numerical and functional responses of natural enemies; these interactions can be …

Integration Of Plant Defense Traits With Biological Control Of Arthropod Pests: Challenges And Opportunities, Julie A. Peterson, Paul J. Ode, Camila Oliveira-Hofman, James D. Harwood

Department of Entomology: Faculty Publications

Crop plants exhibit a wide diversity of defensive traits and strategies to protect themselves from damage by herbivorous pests and disease. These defensive traits may be naturally occurring or artificially selected through crop breeding, including introduction via genetic engineering. While these traits can have obvious and direct impacts on herbivorous pests, many have profound effects on higher trophic levels, including the natural enemies of herbivores. Multi-trophic effects of host plant resistance have the potential to influence, both positively and negatively, biological control. Plant defense traits can influence both the numerical and functional responses of natural enemies; these interactions can be …

Problems Of Multi-Species Organisms: Endosymbionts To Holobionts, David C. Queller, Joan E. Strassmann

Biology Faculty Research

The organism is one of the fundamental concepts of biology and has been at the center of many discussions about biological individuality, yet what exactly it is can be confusing. The definition that we find generally useful is that an organism is a unit in which all the subunits have evolved to be highly cooperative, with very little conflict. We focus on how often organisms evolve from two or more formerly independent organisms. Two canonical transitions of this type—replicators clustered in cells and endosymbiotic organelles within host cells—demonstrate the reality of this kind of evolutionary transition and suggest conditions that …

Different Prey Resources Suggest Little Competition Between Non-Native Frogs And Insectivorous Birds Despite Isotopic Niche Overlap, Robyn L. Smith, Karen H. Beard, Aaron B. Shiels

Wildland Resources Faculty Publications

Non-native amphibians often compete with native amphibians in their introduced range, but their competitive effects on other vertebrates are less well known. The Puerto Rican coqui frog (Eleutherodactylus coqui) has colonized the island of Hawaii, and has been hypothesized to compete with insectivorous birds and bats. To address if the coqui could compete with these vertebrates, we used stable isotope analyses to compare the trophic position and isotopic niche overlap between the coqui, three insectivorous bird species, and the Hawaiian hoary bat. Coquis shared similar trophic position to Hawaii amakihi, Japanese white-eye, and red-billed leiothrix. Coquis were about 3 ‰ …

Student Hopes Class Tumblr Spreads Ecofeminism Awareness, Ohio University College Of Arts & Sciences

All Forum Articles

No abstract provided.

Sandhill Crane Roost Selection, Human Disturbance, And Forage Resources, Aaron T. Pearse, Gary L. Krapu, David A. Brandt

United States Geological Survey, Northern Prairie Wildlife Research Center: Publications

Sites used for roosting represent a key habitat requirement for many species of birds because availability and quality of roost sites can influence individual fitness. Birds select roost sites based on numerous factors, requirements, and motivations, and selection of roosts can be dynamic in time and space because of various ecological and environmental influences. For sandhill cranes (Antigone canadensis) at their main spring staging area along the Platte River in south-central Nebraska, USA, past investigations of roosting cranes focuse donphysical channel characteristics related to perceived security as motivating roost distribution.We used 6,310 roost sites selected by 313 sandhill cranes over …

The Association Between Environmental Factors And Scarlet Fever Incidence In Beijing Region: Using Gis And Spatial Regression Models, Gehendra Mahara, Chao Wang, Kun Yang, Sipeng Chen, Jin Guo, Qi Gao, Wei Wang, Quanyi Wang, Xiuhua Guo

Research outputs 2014 to 2021

Background:

Evidence regarding scarlet fever and its relationship with meteorological, including air pollution factors, is not very available. This study aimed to examine the relationship between ambient air pollutants and meteorological factors with scarlet fever occurrence in Beijing, China.

Methods:

A retrospective ecological study was carried out to distinguish the epidemic characteristics of scarlet fever incidence in Beijing districts from 2013 to 2014. Daily incidence and corresponding air pollutant and meteorological data were used to develop the model. Global Moran’s I statistic and Anselin’s local Moran’s I (LISA) were applied to detect the spatial autocorrelation (spatial dependency) and clusters of …

Evaluation Of Search And Rescue Planning Tools On The West Florida Shelf, Benjamin O'Loughlin

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

The Coast Guard conducts over 20,000 search and rescue cases a year with approximately 5% of them occurring within the coastal waters of the West Florida Shelf (WFS). Each search effort is planned using the Coast Guard’s Search and Rescue Optimal Planning System (SAROPS) which uses model inputs to create composite probability distributions based on the results of Monte Carlo projections of thousands of particle trajectories. However, SAROPS is limited by the quality of model inputs and their associated errors. This study utilizes observations from three surface drifter deployments on the WFS to evaluate the effectiveness of available surface current …

Und Today: November 2016, University Of North Dakota

UND Today Archive

No abstract provided.

Obstetric Patients In Intensive Care Unit: Perspective From A Teaching Hospital In Pakistan, Rahat Qureshi, Sheikh Irfan Ahmed, Amir Raza, Ayesha Khurshid, Uzma Chishti

Department of Obstetrics & Gynaecology

Objective: Review of obstetric cases admitted to the intensive care unit.
Design: Ten year retrospective review of individual patients' medical records.
Participants: Records of obstetric patients admitted from 2005-2014.
Setting: Aga Khan University Hospital Karachi.
Main outcome Measures: Diagnosis at the time of admission, associated risk factors, and intervention required aspects of management and rate of mortality.
Findings: A total of 194 obstetric patients were admitted out of which 86.2% of patients had ventilator support. Mortality was not seen to be significantly associated with parity and antenatal/postnatal status. The median age of patients was 34 years, minimum length of stay …

Bioaerosol Deposition On An Air-Conditioning Cooling Coil, Yan Wu, Ailu Chen, Irvan Luhung, Elliott T. Gall, Qingliang Cao, Victor Wei-Chung Chang, William W. Nazaroff

Mechanical and Materials Engineering Faculty Publications and Presentations

This study is concerned with the role of a fin-and-tube heat exchanger in modifying microbial indoor air quality. Specifically, depositional losses of ambient bioaerosols and particles onto dry (not cooled) and wet (cool) coil surfaces were measured for different airspeeds passing through the test coil. Total, bacterial and fungal DNA concentrations in condensate water produced by a wet coil were also quantified by means of fluorescent dsDNA-binding dye and qPCR assays. Results revealed that the deposition of bioaerosols and total particles is substantial on coil surfaces, especially when wet and cool. The average deposition fraction was 0.14 for total DNA, …

Currents In Fishery Management, Genevieve Depuy

University Honors Theses

This thesis provides an overview of fishery management policy types and attempts to determine best practices for biological sustainability in terms of species preservation and biomass recovery. Key concepts include biological sustainability, regulatory forces, and fishery management and output trends. The research question investigated is: what are the best policy practices for regulating marine fishery health and biological stability? The research process of this paper included a review of prior literature in the field of marine policy and fishery management, as well as the use of United States data from the Pacific and Atlantic coasts to evaluate management strategies. Based …

Sleep As An Evolved Behavior: Ecological Opportunity Costs And Sleep Optimization, Gandhi Yetish

Anthropology ETDs

Sleep problems afflict millions world-over. Treating this has been difficult because there is no consensus definition for “normal” sleep. People can vary in their personal sleep need, but the determinants of variation in sleep duration are largely unknown, as is the criteria to determine how much variation is normal. Given that most diurnal mammals (including primates) appear to sleep from sunset to sunrise, the leading explanation for sleep pathology in the post-industrial world has been that electronics, especially light illuminating devices, substantially reduce sleep duration. This assertion has heretofore only been tested experimentally. This research aims to resolve this issue …

Hybrid Taguchi-Objective Function Optimization Approach For Automatic Cave Bird Detection From Terrestrial Laser Scanning Intensity Image, Mohammed O. Idrees, Biswajeet Pradhan

International Journal of Speleology

This paper proposes an optimized Taguchi-objective function segmentation-based image analysis to detect bird nests in a cave from high resolution terrestrial laser scanning intensity images. First, the Taguchi orthogonal array was used to design 25 experiments with three segmentation parameters: scale, shape, and compactness, each having five variable factor levels. Then, a plateau objective function was computed for each experiment using their respective level combinations. A merger of the factor level combination in the orthogonal array and the computed plateau objective function values was used to generate main effects and interaction plots for signal-to-noise ratios, which provided a measure of …

Volume 2, Chapter 12-17: Terrestrial Insects: Holometabola - Diptera Biology And Habitats, Janice M. Glime

Bryophyte Ecology Subchapters

No abstract provided.

The Eco-Epidemiology Of Pacific Coast Tick Fever In California, Kerry A. Padgett, Denise L. Bonilla, Marina E. Eremeeva, Carol A. Glaser, Robert S. Lane, Charsey Cole Porse, Martin B. Castro, Sharon L. Messenger, Alex Espinosa, Jill Hacker, Anne Kjemtrup, Bonnie Ryan, Jamesina J. Scott, Renjie Hu, Melissa Hardstone Yoshimizu, Gregory A. Dasch, Vicki Kramer

Environmental Health Sciences: Faculty Publications

Rickettsia philipii (type strain “Rickettsia 364D”), the etiologic agent of Pacific Coast tick fever (PCTF), is transmitted to people by the Pacific Coast tick, Dermacentor occidentalis. Following the first confirmed human case of PCTF in 2008, 13 additional human cases have been reported in California, more than half of which were pediatric cases. The most common features of PCTF are the presence of at least one necrotic lesion known as an eschar (100%), fever (85%), and headache (79%); four case-patients required hospitalization and four had multiple eschars. Findings presented here implicate the nymphal or larval stages of D …

Intensive, Regular Sampling And Removal Of Modest Numbers Of Fishes Shows No Measurable Impact On Fish Populations In Three Streams Of North Georgia, Steven L. Powers

Southeastern Fishes Council Proceedings

Recent publications and restrictions on collecting by state fish and game managers indicate a growing concern regarding the impact of field sampling on native fish populations. To evaluate the validity of these concerns, data from five life-history studies conducted in Cherokee County, Georgia were examined to test the hypothesis that regular sampling has a negative impact on fish populations. Number of individuals collected was divided by time collecting to calculate catch per unit effort (CPUE) as an indicator of relative abundance for each species. The collecting sequence (i.e. the number of times a species had previously been sampled) was regressed …

Variability Of Lacustrine Sediment Proxy Responses To Late Holocene Climate Change As Modified By Lake Specific Processes: A Review Of Ecological And Geophysical Processes Across Northern And Eastern Iceland, Mallory Mintz

Independent Study Project (ISP) Collection

Consistenly-deposited lake sediments provide some of the highest resolution records of local and global climates in the past, offering the potential to better understand modern climate change in the context of past climate variability. In relating proxies to their respective climate regimes, the environmental cues that the specific proxies reacted to must be isolated from the general noise of possible local influences. In this investigation, biogenic silica (BSi), total organic carbon (TOC), δ13C values, and carbon: nitrogen ratios were analyzed between lakes through northern Iceland, to review possible complicating factors specific to the use of lacustrine proxies in the interpretation …

Prehistoric Pathoecology As Represented By Parasites Of A Mummy From The Peruaçu Valley, Brazil, Karl Reinhard, Adauto Araújo

Karl Reinhard Publications

Paleopathologists have begun exploring the pathoecology of parasitic diseases in relation to diet and environment. We are summarizing the parasitological findings from a mummy in the site of Lapa do Boquete, a Brazilian cave in the state of Minas Gerais. These findings in context of the archaeology of the site provided insights into the pathoecology of disease transmission in cave and rockshelter environments. We are presenting a description of the site followed by the evidence of hookworm, intestinal fluke, and Trypanosoma infection with resulting Chagas disease in the mummy discovered in the cave. These findings are used to reconstruct the …

Neighborhood Characteristics Contribute To Urban Alcohol Availability: Accounting For Race/Ethnicity And Social Disorganization, Aleksandra J. Snowden

Social and Cultural Sciences Faculty Research and Publications

This study examined the role that race/ethnicity and social disorganization play in alcohol availability in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, census block groups. This study estimated negative binomial regression models to examine separately the relationship between neighborhood racial/ethnic composition and social disorganization levels for (1) total, (2) on-premise, and (3) off-premise alcohol outlets. Results of this study suggest that proportion Hispanic was positively associated with total and with off-premise alcohol outlets. Second, proportion African American was negatively associated with on-premise alcohol outlets and positively associated with off-premise alcohol outlets. Proportion Asian was not associated with total, on-premise, or off-premise alcohol outlets. However, the …

Stable Isotopes And Mtdna Reveal Niche Segregation But No Evidence Of Intergradation Along A Habitat Gradient In The Lesser Whitethroat Complex (Sylvia Curruca; Passeriformes; Aves), Stephen C. Votier, Simon Aspinall, Stuart Bearhop, David Bilton, Jason Newton, Per Alström, Paul Leader, Geoff Carey, Robert W. Furnes, Urban Olsson

School of Biological and Marine Sciences

No abstract provided.

Lessons From The Past: Unfolding The Dynamics Among Climate, Balkan Landscapes, And Humans Over The Past Millennium, Charuta J. Kulkarni

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

The primary objective of this doctoral dissertation is to reconstruct the environmental history of the Central Balkans (Serbia) over the past millennium utilizing biological proxies (pollen, spores, and charcoal), geochemical signals through X-ray fluorescence (XRF), statistical analyses, and atomic mass spectrometry (AMS) ¹⁴C chronology. This dissertation establishes the first chronological framework for vegetation-landscape changes in Serbia and discusses the role of humans and climate as underlying processes.

Chapter 1 discusses the background and the nature of the research problem followed by the extensive literature review on the topic of the Holocene climate and paleoecology. The state of Holocene paleoecology …

Viral Zoonoses That Fly With Bats: A Review, Alfonso Calderon, Camilo Guzman, Jorge Salazar-Bravo, Luiz Tadeu Figueiredo, Salim Mattar, German Arrieta

MANTER: Journal of Parasite Biodiversity

Emerging infectious diseases are a growing threat to human health and a great challenge for global medical attention systems. Governmental agencies in tropical regions with abundant zoonotic pathogens should implement an active vigilance/monitoring model in bat reservoir populations because of their species richness, abundance and dispersal capabilities. Chiropterans represent approximately 20% of all mammal species, the second largest order in terms of number of species after rodents. Importantly, bats constitute natural reservoirs for potential infection of humans of several infectious disease agents such as Coronavirus, Filovirus, Lyssavirus, Paramyxovirus, and Flavivirus. Local disease outbreaks caused by new pathogens can …