Life Sciences Commons^™

Trematodes And Neorickettsia: Diversity Of Digeneans And Their Bacterial Endosymbionts (Neorickettsia) In Mollusk First Intermediate Hosts From Eastern Mongolia, Morgan Gallahue

Honors College Theses

This study focused on the survey of 34 freshwater snail samples collected from NE Mongolia for larval flatworm parasites in the class Trematoda. 32 of the snail samples were infected, and the parasites were identified based on morphology and DNA sequences. Nine of the identified parasite samples were screened for the presence of bacterial endosymbionts in the genus Neorickettsia in the family Anaplasmataceae. All of the samples screened for Neorickettsia were negative for the bacterium. Species of Neorickettsia are known to cause several diseases such as Sennetsu Fever (in humans) and Potomac Horse Fever. There have been relatively few reliable …

The Impact Of Veterans Treatment Courts On The Community, Daniela Mettos, Amanda Leingang

Cornhusker Economics

With the United States’ ongoing presence in the Middle East and the ever-present possibility of future conflict, the commitment to tend to the unique needs of veterans returning from combat is an essential one. The number of veterans suffering from mental health issues, substance abuse disorders, and physical trauma continues to rise. With this comes an increased risk of Intimate Partner Violence (IPV), drug and alcohol abuse, and repeating criminal behavior, all of which increase the likelihood that veterans will find themselves involved in the criminal justice system at some point following their combat service.

Utilizing effective, reliable, and focused …

Data Archive: Using A Coproduction Approach To Map Future Forest Retention Likelihood In The Southeastern United States, Rachel E. Greene, Kristine O. Evans, Michael T. Gray, D. Todd Jones-Farrand, William G. Wathen

CFR Publications

Supporting data for publication titled: Using a Coproduction Approach to Map Future Forest Retention Likelihood in the Southeastern United States;

Journal of Forestry, 2020, 28–43 doi:10.1093/jofore/fvz063

Performance Of 10 Slicing Cucumbers In Southwest Michigan, Ron G. Goldy

Midwest Vegetable Trial Reports

Fruit quality and yield were lower than in previous Southwest Michigan Research and Extension Center slicing cucumber trials. This may primarily be to lower bee activity affecting pollination, fruit set and fruit shape. However, from this trial Bristol, SVCS0927, LS 75-1011, Darlington, and Perfect 10 deserve consideration for further commercial planting in Southwest Michigan.

Evaluation Of Transplant Root Length On Bell Pepper Yield And Quality, Ron G. Goldy

Midwest Vegetable Trial Reports

Allowing bell pepper transplants to develop a taproot system was detrimental to early plant growth. However, it did not have a significant detrimental effect on most fruit yield and quality parameters measured, and by final harvest, plants of all three root length treatments had similar above ground plant weights.

Response Of Cucumber, Yellow Squash, And Zucchini To Six Nitrogen Rates, Ron G. Goldy

Midwest Vegetable Trial Reports

There were few significant differences across the six nitrogen levels for the traits measured for all three crops. No clear trends were observed as nitrogen level was increased from 50 to 175#/acre. Better separation may have been obtained with more replication. Results indicate growers of slicing cucumber, yellow squash, and zucchini should be able to obtain adequate fruit yields using a season total of between 75 and 100#/acre nitrogen.

The Macroevolution Of Diadromous And Non-Diadromous Clupeiformes., Lindsey Dehaan

Honors Theses

Migration is a common life history strategy across the animal tree of life. This behavior is energetically demanding and may trigger strong selection for the evolution of an optimal ecomorphology to lessen energetic costs, yet the ecomorphology of migratory aquatic species remains poorly understood. Previous studies have demonstrated that migratory fishes exhibit predictable phenotypic patterns in body size evolution in response to evolving migration: migratory fishes are larger than non-migratory fishes. Migratory fishes may also have functional traits (e.g. fin shape) associated with locomotion that have experienced similar selective forces and exhibit predictable evolutionary patterns, resulting in migratory lineages sharing …

Simultaneous Delivery Of Crispr/Cas Complexes And Donor Dna Using Cell-Penetrating Peptide-Adaptors, Maria Mugure Mbugua

Master of Science in Chemical Sciences Theses

Clustered Regularly Interspaced Palindromic Repeats (CRISPR)/CRISPR associated protein (Cas) complexes are becoming the preferred technique for genomic editing because of their precision, efficiency and accuracy. Prokaryotes naturally use CRISPR/Cas complexes to detect and eliminate foreign nucleic acids after infections. Cas proteins form complexes with RNA to cause double-stranded breaks (DSBs) in the invader’s sequence. Researchers are trying to use CRISPR complexes to treat many human diseases caused by these mutations. Research using CRISPR/Cas systems in the treatments of many of the genetic diseases has resulted in misfortunes (such as toxicity to the patient or new diseases) because of the method …

Springs Of The Arabian Peninsula: Historical Trends, Current Status And Human Impact In Saudi Arabia, Oman And Jordan, Kamal M. Aljohani

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

This research was conducted to update previous studies of the springs of the Arabian Peninsula (Saudi Arabia, Oman and Jordan). Approach: 76 springs were surveyed in between March and July 2018: 15 Saudi Arabia, 41 Oman and 20 Jordan to ascertain the current status, water quality and zooplankton benthos and fish communities. Investigation of the changes of biota and chemical parameters downstream from the springs source in Saudi Arabia. Results: Mercury exceeded the WHO and USEPA maximum contaminant level (MCL) in 63 of 76 springs, Aluminum exceeded MCL in 8 of 76 springs, and both were the common dissolved heavy …

Individual Based Model To Simulate The Evolution Of Insecticide Resistance, William B. Jamieson

Department of Mathematics: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

Insecticides play a critical role in agricultural productivity. However, insecticides impose selective pressures on insect populations, so the Darwinian principles of natural selection predict that resistance to the insecticide is likely to form in the insect populations. Insecticide resistance, in turn, severely reduces the utility of the insecticides being used. Thus there is a strong economic incentive to reduce the rate of resistance evolution. Moreover, resistance evolution represents an example of evolution under novel selective pressures, so its study contributes to the fundamental understanding of evolutionary theory.

Insecticide resistance often represents a complex interplay of multiple fitness trade-offs for individual …

The Effects Of Eating Unprocessed Foods, Gwen Peters, Meghan Sheridan, Caitlin Clack

Student Work

Some studies have shown that processed foods are “getting safer and the technologies used to produce them are only getting better.” Although this is a good claim, unprocessed foods still provide better social, environmental and economical resources to communities.

Determination Of Optimal Mild Organic Solvents Of Pdnps For Carbon-Carbon Coupling Reactions, Trina Biswas

Honors College Theses

The synthesis of nanoparticles is an increasingly popular field of interest. The application of nanoparticles is especially popular in the field of nanocatalysts. Metal nanoparticles (NPs) are favorable for catalysis because of the large surface area to volume ratio, which allows them to catalyze a variety of reactions using lesser amounts of active material. As the field of nanoparticle research expands, efforts are being made to create more sustainable approaches to the synthesis of these particles. This research sought to translate the benefits of peptide-based synthesis to organic solvents and use less toxic organic solvents for carbon-carbon coupling reactions, like …

The Ethical Implications Of Bioengineering Advancements, Mainstream Media Coverage Of Those Developments, And The Future Of Motherhood, Aliff Abad, Katherine Gregory

Publications and Research

How do the media interpret reproductive interventions that involve genetic testing? When a scientist performed the first known genetic editing on twins, Lulu and Nana, he ignored ethical considerations of CRISPR use. This project provides a content analysis based on a review of popular science and newspaper articles. Our interpretation of these articles suggest that there is a lack of critical understanding of this unethical procedure and a similar attitude towards future genetic developments. While the public is curious about the repercussions of genetic editing, not enough focus is applied to the ethics of conducting such a procedure.

Green Roof System Integrated Soil Methods, Jude R. Vallon, Ivan L. Guzman

Publications and Research

Large metropolitan areas like NYC are seeking to integrate sustainability into retrofitting buildings for the development of green infrastructure. Among the many environmental issues of urbanization, the UHI (urban heat island) effect and storm water runoff are of particular interest when it comes building structures. Individual buildings can contribute towards mitigating these effects with implementation of vegetative rooftops, i.e. Green Roofs. Commercial buildings are currently receiving government incentives and new constructions are required to include green roof installations. However, if existing buildings are considering the addition of a green roof on an existing roof, they have to factor in the …

Performance Of 18 Fresh Market And Eight Saladette Tomato Cultivars In Southwest Michigan In 2019, Ron G. Goldy

Midwest Vegetable Trial Reports

It was again a difficult year for growing tomatoes at the Southwest Michigan Research and Extension Center. Rain shortly after field planting induced early bacterial disease infection, leading to defoliation and decreased fruit quality. The best performers in the fresh market trial were Red Snapper, Camaro, Saybrook, Jolene, and Myrtle. It was difficult to get good separation in the saladette trial. No entries rose above the others.

Genetically Modified Organisms In The United States Crop Market, Toluwani V. Ogunbayode

Quest

Economic Analysis

Research in progress for ECON 2302: Principles of Microeconomics

Faculty Mentors: Millie D. Black, Ph.D., and Michael Latham, Ph.D.

The following paper represents research begun by students in Honors Principles of Microeconomics. The honors course introduced students to numerous economic models and methods of analysis. Students were asked to identify an economic issue or controversy related to topics studied in class and to provide a literature review relevant to their topic. Students were also asked to provide an economic analysis, discuss opposing viewpoints, present an economic evaluation of various policy options, and make a recommendation regarding the preferred …

Scorpions Of The Horn Of Africa (Arachnida, Scorpiones). Part Xxii. Two New Species Of Neobuthus From Somaliland (Buthidae), František Kovařík

Euscorpius

New information about taxonomy and distribution of the genus Neobuthus Hirst, 1911 is presented, based on material recently collected in Somaliland. N. awashensis Kovařík & Lowe, 2012 is reported from Somaliland for the first time. Two new species are described, N. haeckeli sp. n. and N. solegladi sp. n. An updated distribution map of the genus Neobuthus is provided.

Radical Botany: Plants And Speculative Fiction [Table Of Contents], Natania Meeker, Antónia Szabari

Literature

No abstract provided.

High-Throughput Nano-Scale Characterization Of Membrane Proteins Using Fluorescence-Detection Size-Exclusion Chromatography, Alex J. Vecchio, Robert M. Stroud

Department of Biochemistry: Faculty Publications

Structural biology has revealed predicting heterologous expression levels, homogeneity, and stability of a protein from its primary structure are exceedingly difficult. Membrane proteins, in particular, present numerous challenges that make obtaining milligram quantities of quality samples problematic. For structural and functional investigation of these molecules, however, this is what is required. Fluorescence size-exclusion chromatography (F-SEC), a technique where a protein of biological interest is fused to green fluorescent protein (GFP) and monitored, circumvents many bottlenecks inherent to membrane protein structural biology. In vivo expression yields, as well as in vitro homogeneity and stability, can be rapidly evaluated utilizing nanogram quantities …

The C-Fern (Ceratopteris Richardii) Genome: Insights Into Plant Genome Evolution With The First Partial Homosporous Fern Genome Assembly, D. Blaine Marchant, Emily B. Sessa, Paul G. Wolf, Kweon Heo, W. Brad Barbazuk, Pamela S. Soltis, Douglas E. Soltis

Ecology Center Publications

Ferns are notorious for possessing large genomes and numerous chromosomes. Despite decades of speculation, the processes underlying the expansive genomes of ferns are unclear, largely due to the absence of a sequenced homosporous fern genome. The lack of this crucial resource has not only hindered investigations of evolutionary processes responsible for the unusual genome characteristics of homosporous ferns, but also impeded synthesis of genome evolution across land plants. Here, we used the model fern species Ceratopteris richardii to address the processes (e.g., polyploidy, spread of repeat elements) by which the large genomes and high chromosome numbers typical of homosporous ferns …

Sargassum Infauna Community Structure In The Florida Straits And Gulf Stream, Dayna S. Hunn

HCNSO Student Theses and Dissertations

Community structure of Sargassum-associated organisms was examined from 11 sampling locations in the Florida Straits and Gulf Stream from May—September 2018 using a combination of modified shrimp trawls and dip nets. A total of 5413 organisms were collected from Sargassumhabitat representing 14 species from 10 families. A core group of organisms (Platynereis dumerilii, Litiopa melanostoma, Portunus sayi, Portunus spinimanus, Leander tenuicornis, and Latreutes fucorum) were found throughout the entirety of the geographic range surveyed. This core community was not found to vary significantly with increasing distance to shore (P=0.217) and latitude …

Interleukin-27 Is Essential For Type 1 Diabetes Development And Sjögren Syndrome-Like Inflammation., Ashley E Ciecko, Bardees Foda, Jennifer Y Barr, Sheela Ramanathan, Mark A Atkinson, David V. Serreze, Aron M Geurts, Scott M Lieberman, Yi-Guang Chen

Faculty Research 2019

Human genetic studies implicate interleukin-27 (IL-27) in the pathogenesis of type 1 diabetes (T1D), but the underlying mechanisms remain largely unexplored. To further define the role of IL-27 in T1D, we generated non-obese diabetic (NOD) mice deficient in IL-27 or IL-27Rα. In contrast to wild-type NOD mice, both NOD.Il27^-/- and NOD.Il27ra^-/- strains are completely resistant to T1D. IL-27 from myeloid cells and IL-27 signaling in T cells are critical for T1D development. IL-27 directly alters the balance of regulatory T cells (Tregs) and T helper 1 (Th1) cells in pancreatic islets, which in turn modulates the diabetogenic activity …

Estimating Heritability And Genetic Correlations From Large Health Datasets In The Absence Of Genetic Data., Gengjie Jia, Yu Li, Hanxin Zhang, Ishanu Chattopadhyay, Anders Boeck Jensen, David R Blair, Lea Davis, Peter N Robinson, Torsten Dahlén, Søren Brunak, Mikael Benson, Gustaf Edgren, Nancy J Cox, Xin Gao, Andrey Rzhetsky

Faculty Research 2019

Typically, estimating genetic parameters, such as disease heritability and between-disease genetic correlations, demands large datasets containing all relevant phenotypic measures and detailed knowledge of family relationships or, alternatively, genotypic and phenotypic data for numerous unrelated individuals. Here, we suggest an alternative, efficient estimation approach through the construction of two disease metrics from large health datasets: temporal disease prevalence curves and low-dimensional disease embeddings. We present eleven thousand heritability estimates corresponding to five study types: twins, traditional family studies, health records-based family studies, single nucleotide polymorphisms, and polygenic risk scores. We also compute over six hundred thousand estimates of genetic, environmental …

Two New Species And Two New Combinations In Saphenista Walsingham, 1914 From Western North America (Lepidoptera: Tortricidae), John W. Brown

Insecta Mundi

Saphenista bartellae Brown, new species (TL: Colorado), and S. powelli Brown, new species (TL: California) (Lepidoptera: Tortricidae), are described and illustrated. Two other western North American species, S. latipunctana (Walsingham, 1879), new combination, and S. dilutana (Walsingham, 1879), new combination, are transferred to Saphenista based on morphology of the genitalia.

Thopeutica Petertaylori, A New Tiger Beetle Species (Coleoptera: Cicindelidae) From Mindanao, Philippines, Milton Norman D. Medina, Analyn A. Cabras, Jürgen Wiesner

Insecta Mundi

Thopeutica (Thopeutica) petertaylori Medina, Cabras and Wiesner (Coleoptera: Cicindelidae), new species, is described from the Cagan river, New Bataan, Mindanao. It is characterized by the metallic ground colour of the elytra, prominent middle tooth in the labrum, and bottle-shaped aedeagus with apical hook.

Ephemeroptera (Insecta) In Cuba, Carlos Naranjo L., Janice G. Peters, Pedro López Del Castillo

Insecta Mundi

Systematic, faunistic and ecological aspects of the six families and 34 species and subspecies in the order Ephemeroptera currently recorded from Cuba are reviewed based primarily on a reference collection located at the Universidad de Oriente (Santiago de Cuba), collections at the Institute of Ecology and Systematics (Havana) and historic literature. A key to nymphs is included with photographs of significant features of many species. An annotated list of species is presented with comments on type localities, species ecology and distribution. The morpho- ecological types of the nymphs are updated according to current taxonomic changes, and indicator species of organic …

Notes On The Natural History Of Plesioclytus Morrisi Wappes And Skelley, 2015 And Plesioclytus Relictus Giesbert, 1993 (Coleoptera: Cerambycidae), Kyle E. Schnepp

Insecta Mundi

The host plant and life history observations of Plesioclytus morrisi Wappes and Skelley and Plesioclytus relictus Giesbert (Coleoptera: Cerambycidae: Plesioclytini) are described for the first time. The host for both species is shown to be Polygonum polygamum Vent. (Polygonaceae). Observations also indicate that plants chosen for oviposition occur in open sand areas of scrub habitat.

Lepidoptera Pests Of Sapodilla (Manilkara Zapota (L.) Van Royen) In South Florida, With Some Comments On Life History And Natural Control, Jose I. Martinez, Jonathan H. Crane, Jeff Wasielewski, Jacqueline Y. Miller, Daniel Carrillo

Insecta Mundi

Sapodilla (Manilkara zapota (L.) van Royen) is originally from the Neotropics, and has become one of the most important tropical crops in the last few decades. The major producers include India, Mexico, Sri Lanka, the Philippines, Venezuela and Guatemala. It is also a minor crop in the United States, specifically South Florida. In 2015, it was reported that Florida growers suffered a loss of up to 80% of their production due to lepidopteran pests. We surveyed two sapodilla orchards weekly in South Florida for about six months. We collected 1,070 lepidopteran individuals (i.e., larvae, pupae and adults) belonging to seven …

Genus Olivensa Lane, 1965 In French Guiana, And Description Of A New Species (Coleoptera: Cerambycidae: Lamiinae), Pierre-Henri Dalens, Frédéric Robin

Insecta Mundi

Olivensa sonzognii Dalens and Robin, sp. nov. (Coleoptera: Cerambycidae: Lamiinae) is described from French Guiana and compared to other local species. A new key for the genus Olivensa Lane, 1965 is proposed.

Alzheimer's And Amyloid Beta: Amyloidogenicity And Tauopathy Via Dyshomeostatic Interactions Of Amyloid Beta, Jordan Tillinghast

Senior Honors Theses

This paper reviews functions of Amyloid-β (Aβ) in healthy individuals compared to the consequences of aberrant Aβ in Alzheimer’s disease (AD). As extraneuronal Aβ accumulation and plaque formation are characteristics of AD, it is reasonable to infer a pivotal role for Aβ in AD pathogenesis. Establishing progress of the disease as well as the mechanism of neurodegeneration from AD have proven difficult (Selkoe, 1994). This thesis provides evidence suggesting the pathogenesis of AD is due to dysfunctional neuronal processes involving Aβ’s synaptic malfunction, abnormal interaction with tau, and disruption of neuronal homeostasis. Significant evidence demonstrates that AD symptoms are partially …