Digital Commons Network^™

Influence Of Mature Overstory Trees On Adjacent 12-Year Regeneration And The Woody Understory: Aggregated Retention Versus Intact Forest, Miranda T. Curzon, Susan C. Baker, Christel C. Kern, Brian J. Palik, Anthony W. D'Amato

Aspen Bibliography

No abstract provided.

Bachelor Of Science - Psychology-_2017-2018, Nova Southeastern University

Undergraduate Programs Course Catalogs

No abstract provided.

Advances And Environmental Conditions Of Spring Migration Phenology Of American White Pelicans, D. Tommy King, Guiming Wang, Zhiqiang Yang, Justin W. Fischer

United States Department of Agriculture Wildlife Services: Staff Publications

Spring migration phenology of birds has advanced under warming climate. Migration timing of shortdistance migrants is believed to be responsive to environmental changes primarily under exogenous control. However, understanding the ecological causes of the advancement in avian spring migration phenology is still a challenge due to the lack of long-term precise location data. We used 11 years of Global Positioning System relocation data to determine four different migration dates of the annual migration cycle of the American white pelican (Pelecanus erythrorhynchos), a short-distance migrant. We also tested the hypothesis that increases in winter temperature and precipitation on the …

Is It Time For Synthetic Biodiversity Conservation?, Antoinette J. Piaggio, Gernot Segelbacher, Philip J. Seddon, Luke Alphey, Elizabeth L. Bennett, Robert H. Carlson, Robert M. Friedman, Dona Kanavy, Ryan Phelan, Kent H. Redford, Marina Rosales, Lydia Slobodian, Keith Wheeler

United States Department of Agriculture Wildlife Services: Staff Publications

Evidence indicates that, despite some critical successes, current conservation approaches are not slowing the overall rate of biodiversity loss. The field of synthetic biology, which is capable of altering natural genomes with extremely precise editing, might offer the potential to resolve some intractable conservation problems (e.g., invasive species or pathogens). However, it is our opinion that there has been insufficient engagement by the conservation community with practitioners of synthetic biology. We contend that rapid, large-scale engagement of these two communities is urgently needed to avoid unintended and deleterious ecological consequences. To this point we describe case studies where synthetic biology …

Management And Modeling Approaches For Controlling Raccoon Rabies: The Road To Elimination, Stacey A. Elmore, Richard B. Chipman, Dennis Slate, Kathryn P. Huyvaert, Kurt C. Vercauteren, Amy T. Gilbert

United States Department of Agriculture Wildlife Services: Staff Publications

Rabies is an ancient viral disease that significantly impacts human and animal health throughout the world. In the developing parts of the world, dog bites represent the highest risk of rabies infection to people, livestock, and other animals. However, in North America, where several rabies virus variants currently circulate in wildlife, human contact with the raccoon rabies variant leads to the highest per capita population administration of post-exposure prophylaxis (PEP) annually. Previous rabies variant elimination in raccoons (Canada), foxes (Europe), and dogs and coyotes (United States) demonstrates that elimination of the raccoon variant from the eastern US is feasible, given …

Comment On: ‘Blood Does Not Buy Goodwill: Allowing Culling Increases Poaching Of A Large Carnivore’, Kim M. Pepin, Shannon L. Kay, Amy J. Davis

United States Department of Agriculture Wildlife Services: Staff Publications

Chapron & Treves [1] present a framework for examining effects of wolf culling policies on wolf population growth rate. They develop a population growth model that estimates an effect of the amount of time per year legal culling is allowed (‘policy effect’) on wolf population growth rates, separate from an effect of culling. They infer that there is substantial evidence for a negative relationship between the proportion of the year that the culling policy is in effect and the population growth rate because 83% of the posterior distribution for the policy effect parameter was negative. They conclude that when it …

Bird Use Of Grain Fields And Implications For Habitat Management At Airports, Raymond B. Iglay, Bruce N. Buckingham, Thomas W. Seamans, James A. Martin, Bradley F. Blackwell, Jerrold L. Belant, Travis L. Devault

United States Department of Agriculture Wildlife Services: Staff Publications

Airport properties often include agricultural land cover that can attract wildlife species hazardous to aircraft, despite recommendations against row crops near air operations areas. However, few studies have directly quantified bird use of corn, wheat, and soybean fields relative to bird-aircraft collision (strike) hazard levels to support land cover recommendations. Therefore, we compared bird use among corn, wheat and soybean fields and predicted that corn and wheat would attract bird species recognized as hazardous to aviation. We also anticipated that soybeans would pose minimal attraction to such birds. Here, hazard ranking (low to extremely high) reflects the percentage of strikes …

Clinostomum Album N. Sp. And Clinostomum Marginatum (Rudolphi, 1819), Parasites Of The Great Egret Ardea Alba L. From Mississippi, Usa, Thomas G. Rosser, Neely R. Alberson, Ethan T. Woodyard, Fred L. Cunningham, Linda M. Pote, Matt J. Griffin

United States Department of Agriculture Wildlife Services: Staff Publications

Members of the genus Clinostomum Leidy, 1856, colloquially known as yellow grubs, are cosmopolitan parasites of piscivorous birds, freshwater snails, fish and amphibians. In the southeastern United States, piscivorous birds present a continuous challenge for producers of farm-raised catfish. Ciconiiform birds are common hosts of Clinostomum spp. in North America and are endemic on most commercial catfish operations. The great egret Ardea alba L. is an avian predator often found foraging on commercial catfish operations, but to date the trematode fauna of great egrets preying on catfish ponds remains mostly understudied. Thirteen great egrets were captured from commercial catfish ponds …

Rabies Virus Antibodies From Oral Vaccination As A Correlate Of Protection Against Lethal Infection In Wildlife, Susan M. Moore, Amy Gilbert, Ad Vos, Conrad M. Freuling, Christine K. Ellis, Jeannette Kliemt, Thomas Müller

United States Department of Agriculture Wildlife Services: Staff Publications

Both cell-mediated and humoral immune effectors are important in combating rabies infection, although the humoral response receives greater attention regarding rabies prevention. The principle of preventive vaccination has been adopted for strategies of oral rabies vaccination (ORV) of wildlife reservoir populations for decades to control circulation of rabies virus in free-ranging hosts. There remains much debate about the levels of rabies antibodies (and the assays to measure them) that confer resistance to rabies virus. In this paper, data from published literature and our own unpublished animal studies on the induction of rabies binding and neutralizing antibodies following oral immunization of …

Winter And Summer Home Ranges Of American White Pelicans (Pelecanus Erythrorhynchos) Captured At Loafing Sites In The Southeastern United States, D. Tommy King, Justin W. Fischer, Bronson K. Strickland, W. David Walter, Fred L. Cunningham, Guiwang Wang

United States Department of Agriculture Wildlife Services: Staff Publications

Satellite telemetry was used to investigate summer and winter home ranges for resident and migrant American White Pelicans (Pelecanus erythrorhynchos) captured in the southeastern United States between 2002 and 2007. Home range utilization distributions were calculated using 50% and 95% kernel density estimators with the plug-in bandwidth selector. Mean summer home ranges (95%) varied from 177 to 4,710 km² and mean winter home ranges (95%) ranged from 185 to 916 km². Mean 50% and 95% home ranges of adult American White Pelicans during summer tended to be larger than those during winter, whereas mean 50% and …

The Influence Of Geographical Location, Host Maturity And Sex On Intestinal Helminth Communities Of The Double-Crested Cormorant Phalacrocorax Auritus From The Eastern United States, K. L. Sheehan, K. C. Hanson-Dorr, Brian S. Dorr, G. K. Yarrow, R. J. Johnson

United States Department of Agriculture Wildlife Services: Staff Publications

Here the intestinal helminth infracommunities of 218 double-crested cormorants (Phalacrocorax auritus) from 11 locations in Alabama, Minnesota, Mississippi and Vermont are documented. Trematode infections were present in 98% of hosts; 65% of cormorants carried cestode infections, 4% were infected with acanthocephalans and 66% had nematode intestinal parasites. Parasite infracommunities of hosts collected on wintering grounds had higher richness and diversity than did birds collected on breeding grounds. Differences in parasite richness and diversity between male and female P. auritus were also detected, but not between immature and mature bird hosts. Parasite intensity did not differ by sex, maturity, …

Strength Testing Of Raccoons And Invasive Wild Pigs For A Species-Specific Bait Station, Nathan P. Snow, Michael J. Lavelle, Joseph M. Halseth, Chad R. Blass, Justin A. Foster, Kurt C. Vercauteren

United States Department of Agriculture Wildlife Services: Staff Publications

With the development of a toxic bait (HOGGONE®) for the control of invasive wild pig (IWP; Sus scrofa) populations in the United States, there is a need to develop a bait station to mitigate potential effects on nontarget species. Our objective was to identify characteristics of a bait station that can successfully exclude raccoons (Procyon lotor)—a ubiquitous and dexterous nontarget species—while facilitating bait consumption by IWPs that exhibit group-feeding behaviors. We evaluated abilities of captive raccoons (n=19) and IWPs (n=41) to open the lids of prototype resistance assessment bait stations (RABS) under various levels of resistance (range=1.1–18.1 …

Ecology And Management Of Red-Winged Blackbirds, George M. Linz, Page E. Klug, Richard A. Dolbeer

United States Department of Agriculture Wildlife Services: Staff Publications

The red-winged blackbird (Agelaius phoeniceus) is one of the most abundant bird species in North America, with an estimated spring breeding population of 150 million individuals that nest in emergent wetland vegetation and upland habitats throughout the continent (Yasukawa and Searcy 1995; Forcey et al. 2015; Rosenberg et al. 2016). During the nonbreeding season, red-winged blackbirds are often found in flocks numbering from a few birds to many thousands, sometimes in association with other blackbird species and European starlings (Sturnus vulgaris). In winter, red-winged blackbirds and these associated species gather in roosts occasionally numbering over 10 …

Influence Of Free Water Availability On A Desert Carnivore And Herbivore, Bryan M. Kluever, Eric M. Gese, Steven J. Dempsey

United States Department of Agriculture Wildlife Services: Staff Publications

Anthropogenic manipulation of finite resources on the landscape to benefit individual species or communities is commonly employed by conservation and management agencies. One such action in arid regions is the construction and maintenance of water developments (i.e., wildlife guzzlers) adding free water on the landscape to buttress local populations, influence animal movements, or affect distributions of certain species of interest. Despite their prevalence, the utility of wildlife guzzlers remains largely untested. We employed a before–after control-impact (BACI) design over a 4-year period on the US Army Dugway Proving Ground, Utah, USA, to determine whether water availability at wildlife guzzlers influenced …

Detection And Persistence Of Environmental Dna From An Invasive, Terrestrial Mammal, Kelly E. Williams, Kathryn P. Huyvaert, Kurt C. Vercauteren, Amy J. Davis, Antoinette J. Piaggio

United States Department of Agriculture Wildlife Services: Staff Publications

Invasive Sus scrofa, a species commonly referred to as wild pig or feral swine, is a destructive invasive species with a rapidly expanding distribution across the United States. We used artificial wallows and small waterers to determine the minimum amount of time needed for pig eDNA to accumulate in the water source to a detectable level. We removed water from the artificial wallows and tested eDNA detection over the course of 2 weeks to understand eDNA persistence. We show that our method is sensitive enough to detect very low quantities of eDNA shed by a terrestrial mammal that has …

2017 Associate's Degree Exit Survey, Southwestern Oklahoma State University

Assessment Center Reports

Exit Surveys produced by the SWOSU Assessment Center.

Tectonic Land Level Changes And Their Contribution To Sea-Level Rise, Humboldt Bay Region, Northern California, Jason Patton, Todd Williams, Jeff Anderson, Tom Leroy

Local Reports and Publications

Land subsidence in and around Humboldt Bay, California contributes to sea-level rise up to 2-3 times greater than anywhere else in California. Sea-level observations and highway level surveys confirm that land is subsiding in Humboldt Bay, in contrast to Crescent City where the land is rising. Rates of sea-level rise are 5.84 mm/yr in South Humboldt Bay (Hookton Slough), 3.76 mm/yr at Fields Landing, 4.61 mm/yr at the North Spit, 2.53 mm/yr at Samoa, and 3.39 mm/yr in Arcata Bay (Mad River Slough). Rates of land subsidence are -3.56 mm/yr in South Humboldt Bay (Hookton Slough), -1.48 mm/yr at Fields …

Humboldt Bay Eelgrass Comprehensive Management Plan, Merkel & Associates, Inc.

Local Reports and Publications

Within Humboldt Bay, eelgrass distribution, abundance and overall health is affected by many factors including climate change (e.g., sea level rise, ocean acidification) and human activities within the bay (e.g., mariculture, dredging, dock and wharf construction, shoreline protection, boating) and watershed (e.g., urbanization and development, agricultural and forestry practices). The Humboldt Bay Eelgrass Comprehensive Management Plan is intended to be an ecosystem based management (EBM) plan.

Uab Magazine - Spring 2017, University Of Alabama At Birmingham

UAB Magazine

No abstract provided.

Regime Shifts And Panarchies In Regional Scale Social-Ecological Water Systems, Barbara Cosens

Articles

In this article we summarize histories of nonlinear, complex interactions among societal, legal, and ecosystem dynamics in six North American water basins, as they respond to changing climate. These case studies were chosen to explore the conditions for emergence of adaptive governance in heavily regulated and developed social-ecological systems nested within a hierarchical governmental system. We summarize resilience assessments conducted in each system to provide a synthesis and reference by the other articles in this special feature. We also present a general framework used to evaluate the interactions between society and ecosystem regimes and the governance regimes chosen to mediate …

The Role Of Law In Adaptive Governance, Barbara Cosens

Articles

The term “governance” encompasses both governmental and nongovernmental participation in collective choice and action. Law dictates the structure, boundaries, rules, and processes within which governmental action takes place, and in doing so becomes one of the focal points for analysis of barriers to adaptation as the effects of climate change are felt. Adaptive governance must therefore contemplate a level of flexibility and evolution in governmental action beyond that currently found in the heavily administrative governments of many democracies. Nevertheless, over time, law itself has proven highly adaptive in western systems of government, evolving to address and even facilitate the emergence …

Forcing Optimality And Brandt's Principle, Domenico Napoletani, Marco Panza, Daniele C. Struppa

Mathematics, Physics, and Computer Science Faculty Books and Book Chapters

We argue that many optimization methods can be viewed as representatives of “forcing”, a methodological approach that attempts to bridge the gap between data and mathematics on the basis of an a priori trust in the power of a mathematical technique, even when detailed, credible models of a phenomenon are lacking or do not justify the use of this technique. In particular, we show that forcing is implied in particle swarms optimization methods, and in modeling image processing problems through optimization. From these considerations, we extrapolate a principle for general data analysis methods, what we call ‘Brandt’s principle’, namely the …

Examination Of Microsystem And Intrapersonal Variables Associated With Academic Achievement In Middle School, Jennifer Porcaro

Wayne State University Dissertations

The purpose of this study was to examine the unique and combined contributions of a variety of contextual variables and intrapersonal variables that influence academic achievement in middle school within a contextual framework. The contextual variables included parent support for learning, teacher support for learning and peer support for learning. Intrapersonal variables included metacognition and behavioral engagement, and student organizational behaviors. Participants were 200 students in sixth, seventh, and eighth grades from a suburban school district in Michigan. The intrapersonal variables were found to explain a significant portion of variance in academic achievement. The main contributor in explaining the variance …

Exploring The Physics Of Proteins At Molecular Level By Neutron And X-Ray Scattering, Utsab Raj Shrestha

Wayne State University Dissertations

The protein structures revealed by the crystallographic studies have provided the valuable information over the years regarding their biological functions. However, such snapshots of protein fluctuations averaged over time may not be enough to fully capture the underlying biological phenomena. A deeper understanding of the protein dynamics is crucial for elucidating the structural pathways or the transition mechanism from the initial state to the final state necessary for regulating the physical and chemical processes. Hence, the biological activities and functions are mainly governed by the protein conformational dynamics. However, the direct correlation of a wide range of protein dynamics to …

Real-Time Investigation Of Bulky Lesion Bypass By Y-Family Dna Polymerase, Dpo4, Using Single Molecule Fret, Pramodha Liyanage

Wayne State University Dissertations

DNA is constantly exposed to various DNA damaging agents that are generated by various internal and external sources. Some of this damage may not be able to be repaired by cellular machineries causing DNA replication to be blocked. Once the replication fork is blocked by a DNA adduct, damage tolerance DNA polymerases, mainly Y-family, are able to restore the DNA replication by synthesizing past the DNA adduct. Benzo[a]pyrene (B[a]P) is one of the most studied environmental carcinogens. It is known to make covalent DNA adducts after metabolic activation and the bulkiness of the B[a]P adducts impose a strong barrier to …

Longitudinal Effects Of Adolescent Dating Violence Victimization: Social, Psychological, And Physical Health Consequences In Adulthood, Jennifer Marie Pierce

Wayne State University Dissertations

Romantic relationships are important developmental milestones for adolescents; yet negative experiences within them, including adolescent dating violence victimization (ADV), can contribute to poor health. The present study explores the impact of ADV on psychological and physical health as mediated through physical intimate partner violence victimization, perceived relationship quality, and submissive behavior in romantic relationships in adulthood using a subsample from the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent to Adult Health (Add Health). Participants were assessed across three timepoints (n = 591; 61.1% female). Participants were required to have reported at least one romantic relationship during adolescence, and to have been in …

This Month At Illinois Wesleyan, University Communications

News and Events (Discontinued Series)

No abstract provided.

Ada News Convention Daily - 2017 Day 3, American Dental Association, Publishing Division

ADA News

The ADA News Daily (also called the ADA News Convention Daily) is a special edition of the ADA News published each day during American Dental Association Annual Sessions.

Assimilation And The Impossibility Of Transculturation: Reading Herland As A Captivity Narrative, Rachel-Beth Gagnon

The Graduate Review

Although the structure of Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s novel, Herland, mimics that of a captivity narrative, there has been no scholarship that analyzes how the work fits into this tradition. This paper addresses how the themes of the captivity narrative shift under the weight of Gilman’s scientific and social preoccupations as an early twentieth-century writer, as well as the novel’s position within the genre of utopian fiction. Despite the captivity narrative’s ability to provide ground for cultural and social exchange through the process of transculturation, Gilman’s evolutionary theories and the utopian genre’s anxieties about miscegenation prevent any transmission of culture. …

Occupational Choices Among Arab Americans In The U.S.: An Examination Of The Effects Of Gender, Educational Attainment, Generational Status, Country Of Origin, And Motivation, Saad Rashed Alzeer

Wayne State University Dissertations

Migrating to the United States of American holds both great promises and challenges for prospective immigrants. This is true for Arab Americans who migrated to the United States in increasing numbers over the last several decades. One of the most important, yet simultaneously under-examined areas of research interest is that of Arab Americans’ occupational choices and occupational motivations. Occupational choices and motivations are correlated to social status, income earning potential, familial stability, and even health outcomes. This is true for the U.S. population as a whole and even more so for immigrant groups such as Arab Americans.

The present study …