Life Sciences Commons^™

Land Reversion And Zoonotic Spillover Risk, John E. Vinson, Nicole L. Gottdenker, Luis Fernando Chaves, Rajreni B. Kaul, Andrew M. Kramer, John M. Drake, Richard J. Hall

Integrative Biology Faculty and Staff Publications

Deforestation alters wildlife communities and modifies human–wildlife interactions, often increasing zoonotic spillover potential. When deforested land reverts to forest, species composition differences between primary and regenerating (secondary) forest could alter spillover risk trajectory. We develop a mathematical model of land-use change, where habitats differ in their relative spillover risk, to understand how land reversion influences spillover risk. We apply this framework to scenarios where spillover risk is higher in deforested land than mature forest, reflecting higher relative abundance of highly competent species and/or increased human–wildlife encounters, and where regenerating forest has either very low or high spillover risk. We find …

The Magnitude, Diversity, And Distribution Of The Economic Costs Of Invasive Terrestrial Invertebrates Worldwide, David Renault, Elena Angulo, Ross N. Cuthbert, Phillip J. Haubrock, César Capinha, Alok Bang, Andrew M. Kramer, Franck Courchamp

Integrative Biology Faculty and Staff Publications

Invasive alien species (IAS) are a major driver of global biodiversity loss, hampering conservation efforts and disrupting ecosystem functions and services. While accumulating evidence documented ecological impacts of IAS across major geographic regions, habitat types and taxonomic groups, appraisals for economic costs remained relatively sparse. This has hindered effective cost-benefit analyses that inform expenditure on management interventions to prevent, control, and eradicate IAS. Terrestrial invertebrates are a particularly pervasive and damaging group of invaders, with many species compromising primary economic sectors such as forestry, agriculture and health. The present study provides synthesised quantifications of economic costs caused by invasive terrestrial …

Biological Invasion Costs Reveal Insufficient Proactive Management Worldwide, Ross N. Cuthbert, Christophe Diagne, Emma J. Hudgins, Anna Turbelin, Danish A. Ahmed, Céline Albert, Thomas W. Bodey, Elizabeta Briski, Franz Essl, Phillip J. Haubrock, Rodolphe E. Gozlan, Natalia Kirichenko, Melina Kourantidou, Andrew M. Kramer, Franck Courchamp

Integrative Biology Faculty and Staff Publications

The global increase in biological invasions is placing growing pressure on the management of ecological and economic systems. However, the effectiveness of current management expenditure is difficult to assess due to a lack of standardised measurement across spatial, taxonomic and temporal scales. Furthermore, there is no quantification of the spending difference between pre-invasion (e.g. prevention) and post-invasion (e.g. control) stages, although preventative measures are considered to be the most cost-effective. Here, we use a comprehensive database of invasive alien species economic costs (InvaCost) to synthesise and model the global management costs of biological invasions, in order to provide a better …

Knowledge Gaps In Economic Costs Of Invasive Alien Fish Worldwide, Phillip J. Haubrock, Camille Bernery, Ross N. Cuthbert, Chunlong Liu, Melina Kourantidou, Boris Leroy, Anna J. Turbelin, Andrew M. Kramer, Laura N.H. Verbrugge, Christophe Diagne, Franck Courchamp, Rodolphe E. Gozlan

Integrative Biology Faculty and Staff Publications

Invasive alien fishes have had pernicious ecological and economic impacts on both aquatic ecosystems and human societies. However, a comprehensive and collective assessment of their monetary costs is still lacking. In this study, we collected and reviewed reported data on the economic impacts of invasive alien fishes using InvaCost, the most comprehensive global database of invasion costs. We analysed how total (i.e. both observed and potential/predicted) and observed (i.e. empirically incurred only) costs of fish invasions are distributed geographically and temporally and assessed which socioeconomic sectors are most affected. Fish invasions have potentially caused the economic loss of at least …

Economic Costs Of Biological Invasions In The United States, Jean E. Fantle-Lepczyk, Phillip J. Haubrock, Andrew M. Kramer, Ross N. Cuthbert, Anna J. Turbelin, Robert Crystal-Ornelas, Christophe Diagne, Franck Courchamp

Integrative Biology Faculty and Staff Publications

The United States has thousands of invasive species, representing a sizable, but unknown burden to the national economy. Given the potential economic repercussions of invasive species, quantifying these costs is of paramount importance both for national economies and invasion management. Here, we used a novel global database of invasion costs (InvaCost) to quantify the overall costs of invasive species in the United States across spatiotemporal, taxonomic, and socioeconomic scales. From 1960 to 2020, reported invasion costs totaled $4.52 trillion (USD 2017). Considering only observed, highly reliable costs, this total cost reached $1.22 trillion with an average annual cost of …

Analysing Economic Costs Of Invasive Alien Species With The Invacost R Package, Boris Leroy, Andrew M. Kramer, Anne-Charlotte Vaissière, Melina Kourantidou, Franck Courchamp, Christophe Diagne

Integrative Biology Faculty and Staff Publications

1. The reported costs of invasive alien species from the global database InvaCost are heterogeneous and cover different spatio-temporal scales. A standard procedure for aggregating invasive species cost estimates is necessary to ensure the repeatability and comparativeness of studies.
2. We introduce here the invacost r package, an open-source software designed to query and analyse the InvaCost database. We illustrate this package and its framework with cost data associated with invasive alien invertebrates.
3. First, the invacost package provides updates of this dynamic database directly in the analytical environment R. Second, it helps understand the heterogeneous nature of monetary cost data for invasive …

Analysing Economic Costs Of Invasive Alien Species With The Invacost R Package, Boris Leroy, Andrew M. Kramer, Anne-Charlotte Vaissière, Melina Kourantidou, Franck Courchamp, Christophe Diagne

Integrative Biology Faculty and Staff Publications

1. The reported costs of invasive alien species from the global database InvaCost are heterogenous and cover different spatio-temporal scales. A standard procedure for aggregating invasive species cost estimates is necessary to ensure the repeatability and comparativeness of studies.

2. We introduce here the invacost R package, an open-source software designed to query and analyse the InvaCost database. We illustrate this package and its framework with cost data associated with invasive alien invertebrates.

3. First, the invacost package provides updates of this dynamic database directly in the analytical environment R. Second, it helps understand the heteregoneous nature of monetary cost data for invasive …

What Is The Recorded Economic Cost Of Alien Invasive Fishes Worldwide?, Phillip J. Haubrock, Camille Bernery, Ross N. Cuthbert, Chunlong Liu, Melina Kourantidou, Boris Leroy, Anna J. Turbelin, Andrew M. Kramer, Laura Verbrugge, Christophe Diagne, Franck Courchamp, Rodolphe E. Gozlan

Integrative Biology Faculty and Staff Publications

Invasive alien fishes have caused pernicious ecological impacts on aquatic ecosystems. However, there has not been a global appraisal of associated economic impacts. Here, we compiled reported economic impacts of invasive alien fishes using the most comprehensive global database of invasion costs (InvaCost). We analyze how fish invasion costs are distributed geographically and temporally, as well as which socioeconomic sectors are most impacted. Fish invasions have caused the economic loss of at least US$32.8 billion globally (2017 value), from only 26 reported species (of 128 known invasive alien fish species). North America had the highest costs (> 99%), followed by …

Global Economic Costs Of Aquatic Invasive Alien Species, Ross N. Cuthbert, Zarah Pattison, Nigel G. Taylor, Laura Verbrugge, Christophe Diagne, Danish A. Ahmed, Boris Leroy, Elena Angulo, Elizabeta Briski, César Capinha, Jane A. Catford, Tatenda Dalu, Franz Essl, Rodolphe E. Gozlan, Phillip J. Haubrock, Melina Kourantidou, Andrew M. Kramer, David Renault, Ryan J. Wasserman, Franck Courchamp

Integrative Biology Faculty and Staff Publications

Much research effort has been invested in understanding ecological impacts of invasive alien species (IAS) across ecosystems and taxonomic groups, but empirical studies about economic effects lack synthesis. Using a comprehensive global database, we determine patterns and trends in economic costs of aquatic IAS by examining: (i) the distribution of these costs across taxa, geographic regions and cost types; (ii) the temporal dynamics of global costs; and (iii) knowledge gaps, especially compared to terrestrial IAS. Based on the costs recorded from the existing literature, the global cost of aquatic IAS conservatively summed to US$345 …

The Genomic Processes Of Biological Invasions: From Invasive Species To Cancer Metastases And Back Again, Fargam Neinavaie, Arig Ibrahim-Hashim, Andrew M. Kramer, Joel S. Brown, Christina L. Richards

Integrative Biology Faculty and Staff Publications

The concept of invasion is useful across a broad range of contexts, spanning from the fine scale landscape of cancer tumors up to the broader landscape of ecosystems. Invasion biology provides extraordinary opportunities for studying the mechanistic basis of contemporary evolution at the molecular level. Although the field of invasion genetics was established in ecology and evolution more than 50 years ago, there is still a limited understanding of how genomic level processes translate into invasive phenotypes across different taxa in response to complex environmental conditions. This is largely because the study of most invasive species is limited by information …

Deep Learning For Supervised Classification Of Temporal Data In Ecology, César Capinha, Ana Ceia-Hasse, Andrew M. Kramer, Christiaan Meijer

Integrative Biology Faculty and Staff Publications

Temporal data is ubiquitous in ecology and ecologists often face the challenge of accurately differentiating these data into predefined classes, such as biological entities or ecological states. The usual approach consists of transforming the time series into user-defined features and then using these features as predictors in conventional statistical or machine learning models. Here we suggest the use of deep learning models as an alternative to this approach. Recent deep learning techniques can perform the classification directly from the time series, eliminating subjective and resource-consuming data transformation steps, and potentially improving classification results. We describe some of the deep learning …

Deep Learning For Supervised Classification Of Temporal Data In Ecology, César Capinha, Ana Ceia-Hasse, Andrew M. Kramer, Christiaan Meijer

Integrative Biology Faculty and Staff Publications

Temporal data is ubiquitous in ecology and ecologists often face the challenge of accurately differentiating these data into predefined classes, such as biological entities or ecological states. The usual approach consists of transforming the time series into user-defined features and then using these features as predictors in conventional statistical or machine learning models. Here we suggest the use of deep learning models as an alternative to this approach. Recent deep learning techniques can perform the classification directly from the time series, eliminating subjective and resource-consuming data transformation steps, and potentially improving classification results. We describe some of the deep learning …

Spatial Spread Of White-Nose Syndrome In North America, 2006-2018, Andrew M. Kramer, Alex Mercier, Sean Maher, Yaw Kumi-Ansu, Sarah Bowden

Integrative Biology Faculty and Staff Publications

White-nose syndrome has caused massive mortality in multiple bat species and spread across much of North America, making it one of the most destructive wildlife diseases on record. This has also resulted in it being one of the most well-documented wildlife disease outbreaks, making it possible to look for changes in the pattern of spatial spread over time. We fit a series of spatial interaction models to the United States county-level observations of the pathogenic fungus, Pseudogymnoascus destructans, that causes white-nose syndrome. Models included the distance between caves, cave abundance, measures of winter length and winter onset, and species …

Deep Learning For Supervised Classification Of Temporal Data In Ecology, César Capinha, Ana Ceia-Hasse, Andrew M. Kramer, Christiaan Meijer

Integrative Biology Faculty and Staff Publications

Temporal data is ubiquitous in ecology and ecologists often face the challenge of accurately differentiating these data into predefined classes, such as biological entities or ecological states. The usual approach consists of transforming the time series into user-defined features and then using these features as predictors in conventional statistical or machine learning models. Here we suggest the use of deep learning models as an alternative to this approach. Recent deep learning techniques can perform the classification directly from the time series, eliminating subjective and resource-consuming data transformation steps, and potentially improving classification results. We describe some of the deep learning …

Phylogeny Of Terrestrial Isopods Based On The Complete Mitochondrial Genomes, Subvert The Monophyly Of Oniscidea, Rui Zhang, Ruru Chen, Jianmei An, Carlos A. Santamaria

Integrative Biology Faculty and Staff Publications

Background: Oniscidea is the only truly terrestrial taxon within the Crustacea, and vital to soil formation. However, the monophyly of suborder Oniscidea has been in dispute since 1995, with different studies disagreeing on whether the coastal Ligiidae are included within the suborder. To clarify the phylogenetic hypothesis of suborder Oniscidea, we sequenced the complete mitochondrial genomes of Ligia exotica (Roux, 1828) and Mongoloniscus sinensis (Dollfus, 1901).

Results: Like most metazoan, the complete mitogenomes of two species with circular double strands. The structure and characters of mitogenomes of these two species are analyzed. The constructed phylogenetic analyses show that Oniscidea is …

First Genome Sequence Of The Gunnison’S Prairie Dog (Cynomys Gunnisoni), A Keystone Species And Player In The Transmission Of Sylvatic Plague, Mirian T. N. Tsuchiya, Rebecca B. Dikow, Loren Cassin-Sackett

Integrative Biology Faculty and Staff Publications

Prairie dogs (genus Cynomys) are a charismatic symbol of the American West. Their large social aggregations and complex vocalizations have been the subject of scientific and popular interest for decades. A large body of literature has documented their role as keystone species of western North America’s grasslands: They generate habitat for other vertebrates, increase nutrient availability for plants, and act as a food source for mammalian, squamate, and avian predators. An additional keystone role lies in their extreme susceptibility to sylvatic plague (caused by Yersinia pestis), which results in periodic population extinctions, thereby generating spatiotemporal heterogeneity in both …

Molecular Tools For Coral Reef Restoration: Beyond Biomarker Discovery, John Everett Parkinson, Andrew C. Baker, Iliana B. Baums, Sarah W. Davies, Andréa G. Grottoli, Sheila A. Kitchen, Mikhail V. Matz, Margaret W. Miller, Andrew A. Shantz, Carly D. Kenkel

Integrative Biology Faculty and Staff Publications

As coral reefs continue to decline due to climate change and other stressors, scientists have proposed adopting genomic tools, such as biomarkers, to aid in the conservation and restoration of these threatened ecosystems. Biomarkers are easily measured indicators of biological processes that can be used to predict or diagnose health, resilience, and other key performance metrics. The ultimate goal of developing biomarkers is to determine the conservation value and utility of a given coral colony, including the host animal, its algal symbionts, and their microbial partners. However, this goal remains distant because most efforts have not yet moved beyond the …

Diversity And Abundance Of Dragonflies And Damselflies In Tampa Bay, Florida, Meredith A. Krause, Thomas Koster, Bryan N. Macneill, Daniel J. Zydek, Nicholas T. Ogburn, Jonathan Sharpin, Robert Shell, Marc J. Lajeunesse

Integrative Biology Faculty and Staff Publications

Little is known about the community of dragonflies and damselflies in Tampa Bay, Florida, USA. To address this gap, we conducted 2 longitudinal surveys of adult odonates in a natural floodplain of the Hillsborough River in 2013 and 2017. Along with abundance and species diversity, we also measured intraspecific variation in body size, sexual dimorphism, wing-cell asymmetry, and water mite ectoparasitism. Our first weekly survey from Oct 2013 to Oct 2014 sampled 327 adults (230 female, 97 male) from 8 dragonfly species, with the eastern pondhawk (Erythemis simplicicollis Say; Odonata: Libellulidae) representing 79% of captures, followed by the second …

Transmission Of West Nile And Five Other Temperate Mosquito-Borne Viruses Peaks At Temperatures Between 23°C And 26°C, Marta S. Shocket, Anna B. Verwillow, Mailo G. Numazu, Hani Slamani, Jeremy M. Cohen, Fadoua El Moustaid, Jason Rohr, Leah R. Johnson, Erin A. Mordecai

Integrative Biology Faculty and Staff Publications

The temperature-dependence of many important mosquito-borne diseases has never been quantified. These relationships are critical for understanding current distributions and predicting future shifts from climate change. We used trait-based models to characterize temperature-dependent transmission of 10 vector–pathogen pairs of mosquitoes (Culex pipiens, Cx. quinquefascsiatus, Cx. tarsalis, and others) and viruses (West Nile, Eastern and Western Equine Encephalitis, St. Louis Encephalitis, Sindbis, and Rift Valley Fever viruses), most with substantial transmission in temperate regions. Transmission is optimized at intermediate temperatures (23–26°C) and often has wider thermal breadths (due to cooler lower thermal limits) compared to pathogens with …

Comparison Of Dna Methylation In Vibrio Vulnificus Cells Grown In Human Serum With Those Grown In Seawater, James W. Conrad, Valerie J. Harwood

Integrative Biology Faculty and Staff Publications

The chromosomal methylation statuses of the highly virulent Vibrio vulnificus strain CMCP6 grown in human serum and in seawater are compared here. Growth in seawater resulted in ∼4 times as much methylation as that in human serum, primarily N⁴-methylcytosines.

A Ctenophore (Comb Jelly) Employs Vortex Rebound Dynamics And Outperforms Other Gelatinous Swimmers, Brad J. Gemmell, Sean P. Colin, John H. Costello, Kelly R. Sutherland

Integrative Biology Faculty and Staff Publications

Gelatinous zooplankton exhibit a wide range of propulsive swimming modes. One of the most energetically efficient is the rowing behaviour exhibited by many species of schyphomedusae, which employ vortex interactions to achieve this result. Ctenophores (comb jellies) typically use a slow swimming, cilia-based mode of propulsion. However, species within the genus Ocyropsis have developed an additional propulsive strategy of rowing the lobes, which are normally used for feeding, in order to rapidly escape from predators. In this study, we used high-speed digital particle image velocimetry to examine the kinematics and fluid dynamics of this rarely studied propulsive mechanism. This mechanism …

Through The Eyes Of Faculty: Using Personas As A Tool For Learner-Centered Professional Development, Patricia Zagallo, Jill Mccourt, Robert Idsardi, Michelle K. Smith, Mark Urban-Lurain, Tessa C. Andrews, Kevin Haudek, Jennifer K. Knight, John Merrill, Ross Nehm, Luanna B. Prevost, Paula P. Lemons

Integrative Biology Faculty and Staff Publications

College science instructors need continuous professional development (PD) to meet the call to evidence-based practice. New PD efforts need to focus on the nuanced blend of factors that influence instructors’ teaching practices. We used persona methodology to describe the diversity among instructors who were participating in a long-term PD initiative. Persona methodology originates from ethnography. It takes data from product users and compiles those data in the form of fictional characters. Personas facilitate user-centered design. We identified four personas among our participants: Emma the Expert views herself as the subject-matter expert in the classroom and values her hard-earned excellence in …

Multiscale Model Of Regional Population Decline In Little Brown Bats Due To White-Nose Syndrome, Andrew M. Kramer, Claire S. Teitelbaum, Ashton Griffin, John M. Drake

Integrative Biology Faculty and Staff Publications

1. The introduced fungal pathogen Pseudogymnoascus destructans is causing decline of several species of bats in North America, with some even at risk of extinction or extirpation. The severity of the epidemic of white-nose syndrome caused by P. destructans has prompted investigation of the transmission and virulence of infection at multiple scales, but linking these scales is necessary to quantify the mechanisms of transmission and assess population-scale declines.
2. We built a model connecting within-hibernaculum disease dynamics of little brown bats to regional-scale dispersal, reproduction, and disease spread, including multiple plausible mechanisms of transmission.
3. We parameterized the model using the approach of …

The Caricomp Network Of Caribbean Marine Laboratories (1985–2007): History, Key Findings, And Lessons Learned, Jorge Cortes, Hazel A. Oxenford, Brigitta I. Van Tussenbroek, Eric Jordan-Dahlgren, Aldo Croquer, Carolina Bastidas, John C. Ogden

Integrative Biology Faculty and Staff Publications

Caribbean Coastal Marine Productivity (CARICOMP) was a basin-wide cooperative, international network of marine laboratories established in 1985. Recognizing major trends of change in coastal ecosystems and the importance of the linkages among them, our goal was to monitor synoptically with standardized methods the physical environment and to document trends in measures of the structure and functioning of coral reefs, seagrasses and mangroves. Between 1985 and 1993, the CARICOMP Steering Committee established a data management center and wrote a methods manual. Marine laboratories joined the program by appointing a Site Director and signing an agreement specifying the cost sharing and responsibilities …

Multiscale Model Of Regional Population Decline In Little Brown Bats Due To White-Nose Syndrome, Andrew M. Kramer, Claire S. Teitelbaum, Ashton Griffin, John M. Drake

Integrative Biology Faculty and Staff Publications

1. The introduced fungal pathogen Pseudogymnoascus destructans is causing decline of several species of bats in North America, with some even at risk of extinction or extirpation. The severity of the epidemic of white-nose syndrome caused by P. destructans has prompted investigation of the transmission and virulence of infection at multiple scales, but linking these scales is necessary to quantify the mechanisms of transmission and assess population-scale declines.
2. We built a model connecting within-hibernaculum disease dynamics of little brown bats to regional-scale dispersal, reproduction, and disease spread, including multiple plausible mechanisms of transmission.
3. We parameterized the model using the approach of …

4dee—What's Next? Designing Instruction And Assessing Student Learning, Luanna Prevost, Amanda E. Sorensen, Jennifer H. Doherty, Diane Ebert-May, Bob Pohlad

Integrative Biology Faculty and Staff Publications

No abstract provided.

Relationships Between Microbial Indicators And Pathogens In Recreational Water Settings, Asja Korajkic, Brian R. Mcminn, Valerie J. Harwood

Integrative Biology Faculty and Staff Publications

Fecal pollution of recreational waters can cause scenic blight and pose a threat to public health, resulting in beach advisories and closures. Fecal indicator bacteria (total and fecal coliforms, Escherichia coli, and enterococci), and alternative indicators of fecal pollution (Clostridium perfringens and bacteriophages) are routinely used in the assessment of sanitary quality of recreational waters. However, fecal indicator bacteria (FIB), and alternative indicators are found in the gastrointestinal tract of humans, and many other animals and therefore are considered general indicators of fecal pollution. As such, there is room for improvement in terms of their use for informing risk assessment …

Estimating The Elimination Feasibility In The 'End Game' Of Control Efforts For Parasites Subjected To Regular Mass Drug Administration: Methods And Their Application To Schistosomiasis, Arathi Arakala, Christopher M. Hoover, John M. Marshall, Susanne H. Sokolow, Guilio A. De Leo, Jason R. Rohr, Justin V. Remais, Manoj Gambhir

Integrative Biology Faculty and Staff Publications

Progress towards controlling and eliminating parasitic worms, including schistosomiasis, onchocerciasis, and lymphatic filariasis, is advancing rapidly as national governments, multinational NGOs, and pharmaceutical companies launch collaborative chemotherapeutic control campaigns. Critical questions remain regarding the potential for achieving elimination of these infections, and analytical methods can help to quickly estimate progress towards—and the probability of achieving—elimination over specific timeframes. Here, we propose the effective reproduction number, R_eff, as a proxy of elimination potential for sexually reproducing worms that are subject to poor mating success at very low abundance (positive density dependence, or Allee effects). R_eff is the …

Salty Fertile Lakes: How Salinization And Eutrophication Alter The Structure Of Freshwater Communities, Lovisa Lind, Matthew S. Schuler, William D. Hintz, Aaron B. Stoler, Devin K. Jones, Brian M. Mattes, Rick A. Relyea

Integrative Biology Faculty and Staff Publications

The quality of freshwater ecosystems is decreasing worldwide because of anthropogenic activities. For example, nutrient over‐enrichment associated with agricultural, urban, and industrial development has led to an acceleration of primary production, or eutrophication. Additionally, in northern areas, deicing salts that are an evolutionary novel stressor to freshwater ecosystems have caused chloride levels of many freshwaters to exceed thresholds established for environmental protection. Even if excess nutrients and road deicing salts often contaminate freshwaters at the same time, the combined effects of eutrophication and salinization on freshwater communities are unknown. Thus by using outdoor mesocosms, we investigated the potentially interactive effects …

Evolutionary History Of Plant Hosts And Fungal Symbionts Predicts The Strength Of Mycorrhizal Mutualism, Jason D. Hoeksema, James D. Bever, Sounak Chakraborty, V. Bala Chaudhary, Monique Gardes, Catherine A. Gehring, Miranda M. Hart, Elizabeth A. Housworth, Wittaya Kaonongbua, Marc J. Lajeunesse

Integrative Biology Faculty and Staff Publications

Most plants engage in symbioses with mycorrhizal fungi in soils and net consequences for plants vary widely from mutualism to parasitism. However, we lack a synthetic understanding of the evolutionary and ecological forces driving such variation for this or any other nutritional symbiosis. We used meta-analysis across 646 combinations of plants and fungi to show that evolutionary history explains substantially more variation in plant responses to mycorrhizal fungi than the ecological factors included in this study, such as nutrient fertilization and additional microbes. Evolutionary history also has a different influence on outcomes of ectomycorrhizal versus arbuscular mycorrhizal symbioses; the former …