Life Sciences Commons^™

Anthropogenic Disturbance Modulates Mammal Community Diversity, Assembly, & Abundance: Emerging Infectious Disease Risk In The Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem, Leticia Andrea Gutiérrez Jiménez

Dissertations

This dissertation examines the role of mammalian biodiversity in maintaining overall ecosystem health in the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem (GYE). The study explores the pathways by which anthropogenic disturbance prevents or promotes the emergence of human infectious diseases. I studied two paramount research questions: Question 1: What are the direct effects of anthropogenic disturbance on rodent community assemblages and the consequent indirect effects on public health? I first surveyed the GYE rodent community and their pathogens by using land use as a measure of anthropogenic disturbance (e.g., human settlements, horseback ranches, pastures, undisturbed). I identified pathogens in rodent blood samples by …

Synthetic Ion Channels: A New Class Of Membrane Disruptor And Efflux Pump Inhibitor For The Recovery Of Antibiotic Potency, Mohit Bharatkumar Patel

Dissertations

Antibiotic resistance has become a world-wide health care crisis. In 2013 there were 50,000 deaths in U.S. and EU, associated with hospital acquired bacterial infections. This problem is exacerbated by the lack of new antibiotics in development. Here, we report that synthetic amphiphiles represent a new class of adjuvants that rescue antibiotic potency against multidrug resistant bacteria. Hydraphiles are amphiphiles, designed and synthesized in Gokel lab, that show many of the same properties as protein ion channels. Hydraphiles were previously shown to have antimicrobial activity against Escherichia coli, Bacillus subtilis and Saccharomyces cerevisiae. Here, we report that hydraphiles recover the …

Endogenous Small Interfering Rna: Insights Into Esirna Biogenesis And Their Precursors, Andrew White Harrington

Dissertations

Rarely in research is the path to an answer straightforward. Initial questions lead to more questions, many times doubling back to allow for greater insight into the original question. For example, discovery of interactions between previously unrelated pathways can lead to breakthroughs with regard to understanding of gene regulation. One such novel interaction and the subsequent discoveries this interaction spurred are discussed herein. Transposons, or “Jumping Genes” are mobile genetic elements found throughout all three major domains of life. Transposons comprise 44% of the human genome and possess the ability to move within the genome. This ability makes them an …

Color-Mediated Foraging By Pollinators: A Comparative Study Of Two Passionflower Butterflies At Lantana Camara, Gyanpriya Maharaj

Dissertations

Colorful floral signaling and resulting insect foraging behaviors have only been extensively examined in hymenopteran pollinators, especially bees, in comparison to flies, beetles, and butterflies regardless of their ecological importance. Therefore, my study provides novel information by focusing on foraging behaviors of adult passionflower butterflies, Heliconius melpomene and Dryas iulia, to the color changing flowers of Lantana camara. My dissertation which is divided into four chapters, aims to explore various aspects of color mediate foraging in passionflower butterflies by combining observations in the wild with controlled field and laboratory experiments. In the first chapter I reviewed flower color development and …

Dna Methylation Signatures Of Chronic Low-Grade Inflammation Are Associated With Complex Diseases, Symen Ligthart, Carola Marzi, Stella Aslibekyan, Michael M. Mendelson, Karen N. Conneely, Toshiko Tanaka, Elena Colicino, Lindsay L. Waite, Roby Joehanes, Weihua Guan, Jennifer A. Brody, Cathy Elks, Riccardo Marioni, Min A. Jhun, Golareh Agha, Jan Bressler, Cavin K. Ward-Caviness, Brian H. Chen, Tianxiao Huan, Kelly Bakulski, Elias L. Salfati, Whi-Empc Investigators, Giovanni Fiorito, Charge Epigenetics Of Coronary Heart Disease, Simone Wahl, Katharina Schramm, Jin Sha, Dena G. Hernandez, Allan C. Just, Jennifer A. Smith, Donna K. Arnett

Epidemiology and Environmental Health Faculty Publications

Background: Chronic low-grade inflammation reflects a subclinical immune response implicated in the pathogenesis of complex diseases. Identifying genetic loci where DNA methylation is associated with chronic low-grade inflammation may reveal novel pathways or therapeutic targets for inflammation.

Results: We performed a meta-analysis of epigenome-wide association studies (EWAS) of serum C-reactive protein (CRP), which is a sensitive marker of low-grade inflammation, in a large European population (n = 8863) and trans-ethnic replication in African Americans (n = 4111). We found differential methylation at 218 CpG sites to be associated with CRP (P < 1.15 × 10^–7) in the discovery panel …

Review Of The Cultivation Program Within The National Alliance For Advanced Biofuels And Bioproducts, Peter J. Lammers, Michael Huesemann, Wiebke Boeing, Daniel B. Anderson, Robert G. Arnold, Xuemei Bai, Manish Bhole, Yalini Brhanavan, Louis Brown, Jola Brown, Judith K. Brown, Stephen Chisholm, C. Meghan Downes, Scott Fulbright, Yufeng Ge, Jonathan E. Holladay, Balachandran Ketheesan, Avinash Khopkar, Ambica Koushik, Paul Laur, Babetta L. Marrone, John B. Mott, Nagamany Nirmalakhandan, Kimberly L. Ogden, Ronald L. Parsons, Juergen Polle, Randy D. Ryan, Tzachi Samocha, Richard T. Sayre, Mark Seger, Thinesh Selvaratnam, Ruixiu Sui, Alex Thomasson, Adrian Unc, Wayne Van Vorrhies, Peter Waller, Yao Yao, José A. Olivares

Publications and Research

The cultivation efforts within the National Alliance for Advanced Biofuels and Bioproducts (NAABB)were developed to provide four major goals for the consortium, which included biomass production for downstream experimentation, development of new assessment tools for cultivation, development of new cultivation reactor technologies, and development of methods for robust cultivation. The NAABB consortium test beds produced over 1500 kg of biomass for downstream processing. The biomass production included a number of model production strains, but also took into production some of the more promising strains found through the prospecting efforts of the consortium. Cultivation efforts at large scale are intensive and …

Department For Agriculture And Food – Northern Beef Futures: Valuing Security Of Supply, Department Of Agriculture And Food Wa

Animal production and livestock published reports

The DAFWA-NBF project is committed to identifying growth and value creation opportunities for the WA Beef industry and have engaged PwC to estimate the value of increased security of supply.

A joint PwC/NBF team have developed a WA beef value chain model to better understand the industry’s potential and establish the potential value associated with changes in the security of supply.

Results indicate that, over a five to twelve year timeframe, the WA Beef industry might have the potential to grow cattle disposals, double revenue to $1.2B and increase profit by $0.5B.

A diversified market which includes Japan and China …

Photoassisted Oxidation Of Sulfides Catalyzed By Artificial Metalloenzymes Using Water As An Oxygen Source, Christian Herrero, Nhung Nguyen-Thi, Fabien Hammerer, Frédéric Banse, Donald Gagne, Nicolas Doucet, Jean-Pierre Mahy, Rémy Ricoux

Advanced Science Research Center

The Mn(TpCPP)-Xln10A artificial metalloenzyme, obtained by non-covalent insertion of Mn(III)-meso-tetrakis(p-carboxyphenyl)porphyrin [Mn(TpCPP), 1-Mn] into xylanase 10A from Streptomyces lividans (Xln10A) as a host protein, was found able to catalyze the selective photo-induced oxidation of organic substrates in the presence of [RuII(bpy)3] 2+ as a photosensitizer and [CoIII(NH3)5Cl]2+ as a sacrificial electron acceptor, using water as oxygen atom source.

Synthesis Of Rhamnosylated Arginine Glycopeptides And Determination Of The Glycosidic Linkage In Bacterial Elongation Factor P, Siyao Wang, Leo Corcilius, Phillip B. Sharp, Andrei Rajkovic, Michael Ibba, Benjamin L. Parker, Richard J. Payne

Biology, Chemistry, and Environmental Sciences Faculty Articles and Research

A new class of N-linked protein glycosylation – arginine rhamnosylation – has recently been discovered as a critical modification for the function of bacterial elongation factor P (EF-P). Herein, we describe the synthesis of suitably protected α- and β-rhamnosylated arginine amino acid “cassettes” that can be directly installed into rhamnosylated peptides. Preparation of a proteolytic fragment of Pseudomonas aeruginosa EF-P bearing both α- and β-rhamnosylated arginine enabled the unequivocal determination of the native glycosidic linkage to be α through 2D NMR and nano-UHPLC-tandem mass spectrometry studies.

Behavioral Effects Of Envrionmental Enrichment Devices Of Tursiops Truncatus, Stephanie Maiorano

Honors Projects

Many studies on environmental enrichment devices have been conducted throughout the years on both terrestrial and marine animals in captivity. However, little is known on the effect that submergible enrichment devices have on cetaceans in captivity. This study examines two male Atlantic bottlenose dolphins (Tursiops truncatus), Kaiko’o and Nalu, at Sea Life Park, Hawai’i and their interaction with the Magic Box: a device consisting of a submergible vegetable crate weighed down with a weight, flipped upside down with fish underneath. A total of 7 trials were conducted, with data collection on their surfacing behavior before and after the …

Time-Series Analysis Of Embodied Interaction: Movement Variability And Complexity Matching As Dyadic Properties, Leonardo Zapata-Fonseca, Dobromir Dotov, Ruben Fossion, Tom Froese

Journal Articles

There is a growing consensus that a fuller understanding of social cognition depends on more systematic studies of real-time social interaction. Such studies require methods that can deal with the complex dynamics taking place at multiple interdependent temporal and spatial scales, spanning sub-personal, personal, and dyadic levels of analysis. We demonstrate the value of adopting an extended multi-scale approach by re-analyzing movement time-series generated in a study of embodied dyadic interaction in a minimal virtual reality environment (a perceptual crossing experiment). Reduced movement variability revealed an interdependence between social awareness and social coordination that cannot be accounted for by either …

Siddhartha Mukherjee. The Gene. An Intimate History. New York: Scribner, 2016. 593 Pp. $32.00 Cloth (Isbn 978-1-4767-3350-0), Aldemaro Romero Jr.

Publications and Research

Heredity has always been, in one form or another, at the center of biological

research. There is little doubt that the first scientific experimentation took place

about fifteen thousand years ago, when humans started breeding plants and

animals in order to domesticate them. Today the science of genetics seems to

advance at such a pace that even the experts have trouble keeping up with all the

developments. Now we are witnessing the expansion of our understanding of this

realm of science to levels unimaginable just a few decades ago.

Genomic Description And Annotation Of A New Colivirus; Kb1, Maggie Caswell

Honors Projects

KB1 is a bacteriophage with relatively few established characteristics. However, it is thought to be similar to the novel environmental isolate bacteriophage, JK5. The aim of this study was to describe and annotate the genome of this new colivirus, relative to the genome of JK5. This comparison confirms the hypothesis that these are similar, but distinct viruses, and provides a foundation for the further understanding of both of these novel environmental isolates.

Uric Acid Levels In Relation To Progression Of Multiple Sclerosis, Alexander A. Gosch, Mary F. Davis, Joshua C. Denny

Library/Life Sciences Undergraduate Poster Competition 2017

Multiple sclerosis (MS) is a neurodegenerative disease caused by demyelination in the central nervous system. In previous studies, serum uric acid (UA) levels have been implied as a useful biomarker in understanding MS disease progression and development. The majority of previous studies have found MS patients have a lower UA level than healthy controls, however some studies have found higher UA levels with MS patients. Previous studies have compared UA levels between subtypes of MS, but have not produced conclusive data. To better understand the correlation between UA levels and MS patients, we compared UA levels between our set of …

Animals Aren’T Persons, But Is It Time For A Neologism?, Helen Steward

Animal Sentience

Mark Rowlands argues that at least some animals are persons, based on the idea that (i) many animals have a property he calls “pre-reflective awareness,” (ii) the capacity for pre-reflective awareness is sufficient to satisfy the traditional Lockean definition of personhood, and (iii) satisfaction of the traditional Lockean definition of personhood is sufficient for being a person. I agree with (i) and can see that there is a persuasive case for (ii), but I think the case against (iii) blocks the conclusion that animals are persons. I suggest that we may need instead to coin a neologism in order to …

Historical Biogeography, Spatial Distribution, And Within-Host Interactions Of Avian Haemosporidian Parasites (Apicomplexa, Haemosporida), Leticia De Souza Soares

Dissertations

This dissertation addresses several aspects of the biogeography and evolution of avian malarial parasites (Haemosporida: Plasmodium and Haemoproteus), and the interactions of these pathogens with their hosts and other avian blood parasites. In Chapter 1, I investigate change in haemosporidian assemblages on the West Indies over millennial time scales, taking advantage of the historical isolation of islands by postglacial rising sea levels. I found that, the prevalence of parasite lineages is highly dynamic over periods from decades to thousands of years. Turnover of lineages requires more time than variation in lineage prevalence, suggesting that competitive exclusion of parasite lineages, likely …

Oregon Wine Board Meeting Minutes December 9, 2016, Oregon Wine Board

Oregon Wine Board Documents

These meeting minutes list individuals in attendance at the December 9, 2016 Oregon Wine Board (OWB) meeting, held at the OSU Foundation Portland Center in Portland, Oregon. The Board went into Executive Session prior to calling the meeting to order. The finance, research, and marketing committees, and the Oregon Wine Standing Committee on Research (OWSCR), all provided reports. As part of the research committee's report, the Board discussed a research project proposal from AFRI (the Agriculture and Food Research Initiative, administered by the United States Department of Agriculture). The Board also discussed nominations for the 2017 industry awards and elected …

Phthalate Plasticizers Covalently Linked To Pvc Via Copper-Free Or Copper Catalyzed Axide-Alkyne Cycloadditions, Aruna Earla, Li Longbo, Philip Costanzo, Rebecca Braslau

Chemistry and Biochemistry

Plasticization of PVC was carried out by covalently linking phthalate derivatives via copper-free (thermal) or copper catalyzed azide-alkyne cycloadditions. Di(2-ethylhexyl) phthalate derivatives (DEHP-ether and DEHP-ester) were synthesized and appended to PVC at two different densities. The glass transition temperatures of the modified PVC decreased with increasing content of plasticizer. PVC-DEHP-ether gave lower glass transition temperatures than PVC-DEHP-ester, reflecting the enhanced flexibility of the ether versus ester linker.

Effect Of Arginine On Oligomerization And Stability Of N-Acetylglutamate Synthase., N Haskins, A Mumo, P H Brown, Mendel Tuchman, Hiroki Morizono, L Caldovic

Genomics and Precision Medicine Faculty Publications

N-acetylglutamate synthase (NAGS; E.C.2.3.1.1) catalyzes the formation of N-acetylglutamate (NAG) from acetyl coenzyme A and glutamate. In microorganisms and plants, NAG is the first intermediate of the L-arginine biosynthesis; in animals, NAG is an allosteric activator of carbamylphosphate synthetase I and III. In some bacteria bifunctional N-acetylglutamate synthase-kinase (NAGS-K) catalyzes the first two steps of L-arginine biosynthesis. L-arginine inhibits NAGS in bacteria, fungi, and plants and activates NAGS in mammals. L-arginine increased thermal stability of the NAGS-K from Maricaulis maris (MmNAGS-K) while it destabilized the NAGS-K from Xanthomonas campestris (XcNAGS-K). Analytical gel chromatography and ultracentrifugation indicated tetrameric structure of the …

Microtubule Actin Cross-Linking Factor 1, A Novel Target In Glioblastoma, Najlaa Afghani, Toral Mehta, Jialiang Wang, Nan Tang, Omar Skalli, Quincy A. Quick

Biology Faculty Research

Genetic heterogeneity is recognized as a major contributing factor of glioblastoma resistance to clinical treatment modalities and consequently low overall survival rates. This genetic diversity results in variations in protein expression, both intratumorally and between individual glioblastoma patients. In this regard, the spectraplakin protein, microtubule actin cross-linking factor 1 (MACF1), was examined in glioblastoma. An expression analysis of MACF1 in various types of brain tumor tissue revealed that MACF1 was predominately present in grade III-IV astroctyomas and grade IV glioblastoma, but not in normal brain tissue, normal human astrocytes and lower grade brain tumors. Subsequent genetic inhibition experiments showed that …

The Study Of The Functions And Regulation Of Mammalian Cap1 (Cyclase-Associated Protein 1), Haitao Zhang

Student Theses and Dissertations

CAP is a conserved actin-binding protein with versatile roles in promoting actin dynamics across species. Mammalian CAPs had been understudied compared to the first identified yeast homologues; their cellular functions remained to be better established. Moreover, CAP function regulation remained a completely uncharted area. Recent studies also implicated CAP in the invasiveness of human cancers. However, some of the evidence was not convincing and further studies were needed. The present study established and identified new cellular functions for mammalian CAP1, identified a regulatory mechanism as phosphorylation at the S307/S309 tandem site along with the cell signals controlling both phosphorylation and …

An Evaluation Of The Seagrass Habitat In North Biscayne Bay, Florida, In Relation To A Changing Environment And Urbanization In The Port Of Miami Harbor Basin 2005-2011, Sara M. Jarossy

HCNSO Student Theses and Dissertations

Seagrass habitats in South Florida are exceptionally valuable. They play an important ecological role in the coastal environment by stabilizing sediment, providing habitat for other species and supporting a whole food web. The availability of light and nutrients in aquatic ecosystems are the driving factors behind seagrass distribution. Water quality has been known to influence the abundance, distribution and composition of seagrass beds. South Florida has extensive diverse coastal communities. Throughout its human development dramatic changes have occurred in its natural ecosystems. In South Florida, many examples of seagrass habitat loss are documented, with a variety of contributing factors. The …

A Review Of Present And Alternative Lionfish Controls In The Western Atlantic, Adam Rittermann

HCNSO Student Capstones

Lionfish (Pterois volitans and Pterois miles) are the first recorded invasive piscivore in the Caribbean and have become a threat to native species. As generalist consumers, lionfish have a broad diet and reduce prey and competitor abundance and juvenile recruitment. To confront this problem, this paper serves to review all of the current and alternative future controls available to manage lionfish populations in the Western Atlantic and determine where focus is lacking. Derby and cull efforts are the only management efforts in place and are not effective in their current state as these local events have short-term benefits, …

Using Gis To Predict Cetacean Strandings Related To Harmful Algal Blooms, Jessica L. Boyd

HCNSO Student Capstones

Exposure to harmful algal bloom (HAB) toxins, such as Karenia brevis, has been linked to cetacean strandings and mortalities. Biological and environmental data from a bottlenose dolphin (Tursiops truncatus) Unusual Mortality Event (UME) in 2004 are compared to those from pilot whale (Globicephala macrorhynchus) mass stranding events in 2013-2014 in western Florida. Geographical Information Systems (GIS) maps have been created by overlaying stranding locations and select K. brevis presence data in order to identify common spatial and temporal trends. Preliminary results indicate that elevated K. brevis levels (>10,000 cells/L) in Sarasota Bay during January-February and November may …

Patchiness Of Ciliate Communities Sampled At Varying Spatial Scales Along The New England Shelf, Jean-David Grattepanche, George B. Mcmanus, Laura A. Katz

Biological Sciences: Faculty Publications

Although protists (microbial eukaryotes) provide an important link between bacteria and Metazoa in food webs, we do not yet have a clear understanding of the spatial scales on which protist diversity varies. Here, we use a combination of DNA fingerprinting (denaturant gradient gel electrophoresis or DGGE) and high-throughput sequencing (HTS) to assess the ciliate community in the class Spirotrichea at varying scales of 1–3 km sampled in three locations separated by at least 25 km—offshore, midshelf and inshore—along the New England shelf. Analyses of both abundant community (DGGE) and the total community (HTS) members reveal that: 1) ciliate communities are …

Erratum To: Neonatal Hyperbilirubinemia In Infants With G6pd C.563c>T Variant, Bushra Moiz, Amna Nasir, Sarosh Ahmed Khan, Saleema Amin Kherani, Maqbool Qadir

Department of Pathology and Laboratory Medicine

No abstract provided.

The Effect Of Wee1 On Mitosis In The Spb Mutant, David Leroy

Honors Theses

The speedbump mutant has been identified as an early arrest mutant, becoming apparent as soon as 80% epiboly (8.5 hours of development). This mutant has a mutation in wee1, which is a protein regulating entry into mitosis ensuring the completion of DNA replication before mitosis. The lack of this protein in speedbump allows for early entry into mitosis resulting in damage to the chromosome. Here, we investigate two questions: if mitosis in the speedbump mutant phenotype is more frequent than wild-type phenotype, and, if so, is there a phase in which the mutant phenotype favors. We used phosphorylated histone H3 …

Novel And Lost Forests In The Upper Midwestern United States, From New Estimates Of Settlement-Era Composition, Stem Density, And Biomass, Simon J. Goring, David J. Mladenoff, Charles V. Cogbill, Sydne Record, Christopher J. Paciorek, Stephen T. Jackson, Michael C. Dietze, Andria Dawson, Jaclyn Hatala Matthes, Jason S. Mclachlan, John W. Williams

Dartmouth Scholarship

EuroAmerican land-use and its legacies have transformed forest structure and composition across the United States (US). More accurate reconstructions of historical states are critical to understanding the processes governing past, current, and future forest dynamics. Here we present new gridded (8x8km) reconstructions of pre-settlement (1800s) forest composition and structure from the upper Midwestern US (Minnesota, Wisconsin, and most of Michigan), using 19th Century Public Land Survey System (PLSS), with estimates of relative composition, above-ground biomass, stem density, and basal area for 28 tree types. This mapping is more robust than past efforts, using spatially varying correction factors to accommodate sampling …

Predictive Modeling Of Black Spruce (Picea Mariana (Mill.) B.S.P.) Wood Density Using Stand Structure Variables Derived From Airborne Lidar Data In Boreal Forests Of Ontario, Bharat Pokharel, Art Groot, Douglas G. Pitt, Murray Woods, Jeffery P. Dech

Agricultural and Environmental Sciences Faculty Research

Our objective was to model the average wood density in black spruce trees in representative stands across a boreal forest landscape based on relationships with predictor variables extracted from airborne light detection and ranging (LiDAR) point cloud data. Increment core samples were collected from dominant or co-dominant black spruce trees in a network of 400 m2 plots distributed among forest stands representing the full range of species composition and stand development across a 1,231,707 ha forest management unit in northeastern Ontario, Canada. Wood quality data were generated from optical microscopy, image analysis, X-ray densitometry and diffractometry as employed in SilviScan™. …

Population Demographics And Sexual Reproduction Potential Of The Pillar Coral, Dendrogyra Cylindrus, On The Florida Reef Tract, Lystina Kabay

HCNSO Student Theses and Dissertations

The pillar coral, Dendrogyra cylindrus, has been commonly described as widely distributed, but rare throughout its geographical range in the Caribbean. Having recently been listed as Threatened under the US Endangered Species Act, an understanding of population status is needed to promote species conservation and population recovery. Previous to this study the status of the pillar coral population in the state waters of Florida, U.S.A, was relatively unknown primarily due to few colonies being recorded and no comprehensive summary of population abundance, distribution or health being completed. Along with various environmental and anthropogenic factors affecting the pillar coral population …