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Full-Text Articles in Life Sciences

Cross-Modal Perception Of Identity By Sound And Taste In Bottlenose Dolphins, Jason N. Bruck, Sam F. Walmsley, Vincent M. Janik May 2022

Cross-Modal Perception Of Identity By Sound And Taste In Bottlenose Dolphins, Jason N. Bruck, Sam F. Walmsley, Vincent M. Janik

Faculty Publications

While studies have demonstrated concept formation in animals, only humans are known to label concepts to use them in mental simulations or predictions. To investigate whether other animals use labels comparably, we studied cross-modal, individual recognition in bottlenose dolphins (Tursiops truncatus) that use signature whistles as labels for conspecifics in their own communication. First, we tested whether dolphins could use gustatory stimuli and found that they could distinguish between water and urine samples, as well as between urine from familiar and unfamiliar individuals. Then, we paired playbacks of signature whistles of known animals with urine samples from either the same …


Evolutionary Analyses Of Visual Opsin Genes In Frogs And Toads: Diversity, Duplication, And Positive Selection, Ryan K. Schott, Leah Perez, Matthew Kwiatkowski, Vance Imhoff, Jennifer M. Gumm Jan 2022

Evolutionary Analyses Of Visual Opsin Genes In Frogs And Toads: Diversity, Duplication, And Positive Selection, Ryan K. Schott, Leah Perez, Matthew Kwiatkowski, Vance Imhoff, Jennifer M. Gumm

Faculty Publications

Among major vertebrate groups, anurans (frogs and toads) are understudied with regard to their visual systems, and little is known about variation among species that differ in ecology. We sampled North American anurans representing diverse evolutionary and life histories that likely possess visual systems adapted to meet different ecological needs. Using standard molecular techniques, visual opsin genes, which encode the protein component of visual pigments, were obtained from anuran retinas. Additionally, we extracted the visual opsins from publicly available genome and transcriptome assemblies, further increasing the phylogenetic and ecological diversity of our dataset to 33 species in total. We found …


Cetacean Acousticwelfare In Wild And Managed-Care Settings: Gaps And Opportunities, Paige E. Stevens, Heather Hill, Jason N. Bruck Nov 2021

Cetacean Acousticwelfare In Wild And Managed-Care Settings: Gaps And Opportunities, Paige E. Stevens, Heather Hill, Jason N. Bruck

Faculty Publications

Cetaceans are potentially at risk of poor welfare due to the animals’ natural reliance on sound and the persistent nature of anthropogenic noise, especially in the wild. Industrial, commercial, and recreational human activity has expanded across the seas, resulting in a propagation of sound with varying frequency characteristics. In many countries, current regulations are based on the potential to induce hearing loss; however, a more nuanced approach is needed when shaping regulations, due to other non-hearing loss effects including activation of the stress response, acoustic masking, frequency shifts, alterations in behavior, and decreased foraging. Cetaceans in managedcare settings share the …


Identification And Functional Analysis Of Thadh1 And Thadh4 Genes Involved In Tolerance To Waterlogging Stress In Taxodium Hybrid ‘Zhongshanshan 406’, Lei Xuan, Jianfeng Hua, Fan Zhang, Zhiquan Wang, Xiaoxiao Pei, Ying Yang, Yunlong Yin, David Creech Jan 2021

Identification And Functional Analysis Of Thadh1 And Thadh4 Genes Involved In Tolerance To Waterlogging Stress In Taxodium Hybrid ‘Zhongshanshan 406’, Lei Xuan, Jianfeng Hua, Fan Zhang, Zhiquan Wang, Xiaoxiao Pei, Ying Yang, Yunlong Yin, David Creech

Faculty Publications

The Taxodium hybrid ‘Zhongshanshan 406’ (T. hybrid ‘Zhongshanshan 406’) [Taxodium mucronatum Tenore × Taxodium distichum (L.). Rich] has an outstanding advantage in flooding tolerance and thus has been widely used in wetland afforestation in China. Alcohol dehydrogenase genes (ADHs) played key roles in ethanol metabolism to maintain energy supply for plants in low-oxygen conditions. Two ADH genes were isolated and characterized—ThADH1 and ThADH4 (GenBank ID: AWL83216 and AWL83217—basing on the transcriptome data of T. hybrid ‘Zhongshanshan 406’ grown under waterlogging stress. Then the functions of these two genes were investigated through transient expression and overexpression. The results showed that the …


Species Distribution Modeling For Arid Adapted Habitat Specialists In Zion National Park, Sam Driver, Daniel R. Unger, David L. Kulhavy, Chris M. Schalk Dec 2020

Species Distribution Modeling For Arid Adapted Habitat Specialists In Zion National Park, Sam Driver, Daniel R. Unger, David L. Kulhavy, Chris M. Schalk

Student Publications

The Arizona toad (Anaxyrus microscaphus) and Jones’ waxy dogbane (Cycladenia humilis var. jonesii) are habitat specialists with historical ranges in the desert southwest and specifically, Zion National Park (ZION). The machine learning method, MaxEnt, constructed species distribution models (SDMs) in ZION for the two study species at 30 m and 900 m spatial resolutions using climate, topographic, and remotely sensed data. Additionally, 900 m forecasting models were constructed to observe the shifts in suitable habitat for the years 2050 and 2070, based off two representative concentration pathway scenarios. Results indicate promising predictive power for both high …


Move It Or Lose It: Interspecific Variation In Risk Response Of Pond-Breeding Anurans, Philip Matich, Christopher M. Schalk Jan 2019

Move It Or Lose It: Interspecific Variation In Risk Response Of Pond-Breeding Anurans, Philip Matich, Christopher M. Schalk

Faculty Publications

Changes in behavior are often the proximate response of animals to human disturbance, with variability in tolerance levels leading some species to exhibit striking shifts in life history, fitness, and/or survival. Thus, elucidating the effects of disturbance on animal behavior, and how this varies among taxonomically similar species with inherently different behaviors and life histories is of value for management and conservation. We evaluated the risk response of three anuran species—southern leopard frog (Lithobates sphenocephalus), Blanchard’s cricket frog (Acris blanchardi), and green tree frog (Hyla cinerea)—to determine how differences in microhabitat use (arboreal vs …


Surface And Subsurface Tillage Effects On Mine Soil Properties And Vegetative Response, H. Z. Angel, Jeremy Stovall, Hans Michael Williams, Kenneth W. Farrish, Brian P. Oswald, J. L. Young Jan 2018

Surface And Subsurface Tillage Effects On Mine Soil Properties And Vegetative Response, H. Z. Angel, Jeremy Stovall, Hans Michael Williams, Kenneth W. Farrish, Brian P. Oswald, J. L. Young

Faculty Publications

Soil compaction is an important concern for surface mine operations that require heavy equipment for land reclamation. Excessive use of rubber-tired equipment, such as scraper pans, may cause mine soil compaction and hinder the success of revegetation efforts. However, information is limited on management strategies for ameliorating the potential compacting effects of scraper pans, particularly during site preparation for loblolly pine (Pinus taeda L.) plantations. Three forms of tillage and one control were replicated five times on surface mined land in the west Gulf Coastal Plain: no tillage (NT), disking (D), single-ripping + disking (R+D), and cross-ripping + disking …


Food Habits Of Sympatric Pitvipers From The West Gulf Coastal Plain, Usa, Christopher M. Schalk, Toni Trees, Joshua B. Pierce, D. Craig Rudolph Jan 2018

Food Habits Of Sympatric Pitvipers From The West Gulf Coastal Plain, Usa, Christopher M. Schalk, Toni Trees, Joshua B. Pierce, D. Craig Rudolph

Faculty Publications

Widespread species that occupy multiple communities exhibit geographic variation in their natural history due to the ecological context of the local community. An animal’s food habitats are a central component to understanding its natural history and ecological role within its community—information that is critical to understanding resource needs of a species, mechanisms of species coexistence, and energy flow in food webs (Litvaitis 2000; Schalk et al. 2014). This information is also crucial for predicting the response of populations to changes in resource availability and, if necessary, inform mitigation strategies (Holycross and Mackessy 2002)


The Roles Of Inter- And Intra-Sexual Selection In Behavioral Isolation Between Native And Invasive Pupfishes, Cory Becher, Jennifer M. Gumm Jan 2018

The Roles Of Inter- And Intra-Sexual Selection In Behavioral Isolation Between Native And Invasive Pupfishes, Cory Becher, Jennifer M. Gumm

Faculty Publications

Male-male competition and female mate choice may both play important roles in driving and maintaining reproductive isolation between species. When previously allopatric species come into secondary contact with each other due to introductions, they provide an opportunity to evaluate the identity and strength of reproductive isolating mechanisms. If reproductive isolation is not maintained, hybridization may occur. We examined how reproductive isolating mechanisms mediate hybridization between endemic populations of the Red River pupfish Cyprinodon rubrofluviatilis and the recently introduced sheepshead minnow C. variegatus. In lab-based dominance trials, males of both species won the same number of competitions. However, male C. rubrofluviatilis …


Road-Edge Effects On Herpetofauna In A Lowland Amazonian Rainforest, Ross J. Maynard, Nathalie C. Aall, Daniel Saenz, Paul S. Hamilton, Matthew Kwiatkowski Jan 2016

Road-Edge Effects On Herpetofauna In A Lowland Amazonian Rainforest, Ross J. Maynard, Nathalie C. Aall, Daniel Saenz, Paul S. Hamilton, Matthew Kwiatkowski

Faculty Publications

The impact of roads on the flora and fauna of Neotropical rainforest is perhaps the single biggest driver of habitat modification and population declines in these ecosystems. We investigated the road-edge effect of a low-use dirt road on amphibian and reptile abundance, diversity, and composition within adjacent lowland Amazonian rainforest at San José de Payamino, Ecuador. The road has been closed to vehicle traffic since its construction in 2010. Thus, effects from vehicle mortality, vehicle-related pollution, and road noise were not confounding factors. Herpetofauna were surveyed using both visual encounter surveys and drift fences with pitfall and funnel traps at …


The Relationship Of Female Physical Attractiveness To Body Fatness, Guanlin Wang, Kurosh Djafarian, Chima A. Egedigwe, Asmaa El Hamdouchi, Robert Ojiambo, Harris Ramuth, Sandra Johanna Wallner-Liebmann, Sonja Lackner, Adama Diouf, Justina Sauciuvenaite, Catherine Hambly, Lobke M. Vaanholt, Mark D. Faries, John R. Speakman Jan 2015

The Relationship Of Female Physical Attractiveness To Body Fatness, Guanlin Wang, Kurosh Djafarian, Chima A. Egedigwe, Asmaa El Hamdouchi, Robert Ojiambo, Harris Ramuth, Sandra Johanna Wallner-Liebmann, Sonja Lackner, Adama Diouf, Justina Sauciuvenaite, Catherine Hambly, Lobke M. Vaanholt, Mark D. Faries, John R. Speakman

Faculty Publications

Aspects of the female body may be attractive because they signal evolutionary fitness. Greater body fatness might reflect greater potential to survive famines, but individuals carrying larger fat stores may have poor health and lower fertility in non-famine conditions. A mathematical statistical model using epidemiological data linking fatness to fitness traits, predicted a peaked relationship between fatness and attractiveness (maximum at body mass index (BMI) = 22.8 to 24.8 depending on ethnicity and assumptions). Participants from three Caucasian populations (Austria, Lithuania and the UK), three Asian populations (China, Iran and Mauritius) and four African populations (Kenya, Morocco, Nigeria and Senegal) …


Differential Jumping Performance In Newly Metamorphosed Blanchard's Cricket Frogs, Acris Blanchardi (Anura: Hylidae), From Fish- And Invertebrate-Dominated Ponds, Taylor L. Hall, Daniel Saenz, Matthew Kwiatkowski Jan 2013

Differential Jumping Performance In Newly Metamorphosed Blanchard's Cricket Frogs, Acris Blanchardi (Anura: Hylidae), From Fish- And Invertebrate-Dominated Ponds, Taylor L. Hall, Daniel Saenz, Matthew Kwiatkowski

Faculty Publications

Organisms that adopt phenotypically plastic anti-predator strategies during larval stages may incur fitness costs later in development. These costs are typically difficult to define in many species. The difficulty of identifying ecological trade-offs may result from experimental comparisons that do not adequately mirror naturally occurring predator-prey relatioships. To examine this, we captured 61 newly metamorphosed Acris blanchardi from ponds dominated either by fish or invertebrate predators. These predators are known to induce alternate phenotypic anti-predator responses at the larval stage. We use jumping performance as a measure of post-metamorphic fitness, and compared the morphological traits and jumping ability of frogs …


A Current Bibliographic Resource For The Red-Cockaded Woodpecker, Federal Wildlife Service Apr 2011

A Current Bibliographic Resource For The Red-Cockaded Woodpecker, Federal Wildlife Service

Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.


Red-Cockaded Woodpeckers And Hurricanes, Zoe Hoyle Oct 2008

Red-Cockaded Woodpeckers And Hurricanes, Zoe Hoyle

Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.


Invasion Of Exotic Earthworms Into Ecosystems Inhabited By Native Earthworms, P. F. Hendrix, G. H. Baker, M. A. Callaham Jr., G. A. Damoff, C. Fragoso, G. Gonzalez, S. W. James, S. L. Lachnicht, T. Winsome, X. Zou Jan 2006

Invasion Of Exotic Earthworms Into Ecosystems Inhabited By Native Earthworms, P. F. Hendrix, G. H. Baker, M. A. Callaham Jr., G. A. Damoff, C. Fragoso, G. Gonzalez, S. W. James, S. L. Lachnicht, T. Winsome, X. Zou

Faculty Publications

The most conspicuous biological invasions in terrestrial ecosystems have been by exotic plants, insects and vertebrates. Invasions by exotic earthworms, although not as well studied, may be increasing with global commerce in agriculture, waste management and bioremediation. A number of cases has documented where invasive earthworms have caused significant changes in soil profiles, nutrient and organic matter dynamics, other soil organisms or plant communities. Most of these cases are in areas that have been disturbed (e.g., agricultural systems) or were previously devoid of earthworms (e.g., north of Pleistocene glacial margins). It is not clear that such effects are common in …