Life Sciences Commons^™

Wfs1 Is Expressed In Dopaminoceptive Regions Of The Amniote Brain And Modulates Levels Of D1-Like Receptors, T. Tekko, T. Lakspere, A. Allikalt, J. End, K. R. Kõlvart, T. Jagomäe, A. Terasmaa, M.-A. Philips, T. Visnapuu, F. Väärtnõu, Scott F. Gilbert, A. Rinken, E. Vasar, K. Lilleväli

Biology Faculty Works

During amniote evolution, the construction of the forebrain has diverged across different lineages, and accompanying the structural changes, functional diversification of the homologous brain regions has occurred. This can be assessed by studying the expression patterns of marker genes that are relevant in particular functional circuits. In all vertebrates, the dopaminergic system is responsible for the behavioral responses to environmental stimuli. Here we show that the brain regions that receive dopaminergic input through dopamine receptor D1 are relatively conserved, but with some important variations between three evolutionarily distant vertebrate lines–house mouse (Mus musculus), domestic chick (Gallus gallus domesticus) / common …

Aberrant Coordination Geometries Discovered In The Most Abundant Metalloproteins, Sen Yao, Robert M. Flight, Eric C. Rouchka, Hunter N. B. Moseley

Molecular and Cellular Biochemistry Faculty Publications

Metalloproteins bind and utilize metal ions for a variety of biological purposes. Due to the ubiquity of metalloprotein involvement throughout these processes across all domains of life, how proteins coordinate metal ions for different biochemical functions is of great relevance to understanding the implementation of these biological processes. Toward these ends, we have improved our methodology for structurally and functionally characterizing metal binding sites in metalloproteins. Our new ligand detection method is statistically much more robust, producing estimated false positive and false negative rates of ∼0.11% and ∼1.2%, respectively. Additional improvements expand both the range of metal ions and their …

The Relationship Between Near Shore Hardbottom Exposure And Benthic Community Composition And Distribution In Palm Beach County, Fl, Kristen A. Cumming

HCNSO Student Theses and Dissertations

Anthropogenic changes to the landscape, storm events and sea level rise are contributing to the erosion of beaches leading to an increase of the sediment load in near shore marine environments. Palm Beach, Florida is host to unique near shore hardbottom habitats. These areas are distinct from the vast expanses of surrounding sediments and play and important role of habitat and shelter for many different species. In this study, remotely sensed images from 2000-2015 were used to look at the movement of sediment and how it contributes to exposure rates of near shore hardbottom habitats in Palm Beach, Florida and …

Beta Oscillatory Changes And Retention Of Motor Skills During Practice In Healthy Subjects And In Patients With Parkinson’S Disease, Aaron B. Nelson, Clara Moisello, Jing Lin, Priya Panday, Serena Ricci, Andrea Canessa, Alessandro Di Rocco, Angelo Quartarone, Giuseppe Frazzitta, Ioannis U. Isaias, Giulio Tononi, Chiara Cirelli, M. Felice Ghilardi

Publications and Research

Recently we found that modulation depth of beta power during movement increases with practice over sensory-motor areas in normal subjects but not in patients with Parkinson’s disease (PD). As such changesmight reflect use-dependentmodifications, we concluded that reduction of beta enhancement in PD represents saturation of cortical plasticity. A few questions remained open: What is the relation between these EEG changes and retention of motor skills? Would a second task exposure restore beta modulation enhancement in PD? Do practice-induced increases of beta modulation occur within each block? We thus recorded EEG in patients with PD and age-matched controls in two consecutive …

Effects Of Temperature And Diet In Stable Fly (Diptera: Muscidae) Development, Melina Florez-Cuadros

Department of Entomology: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

Stable flies are among the most important blood feeding ectoparasites of cattle worldwide. The livestock industry is losing more than $2 billion dollar annually in the United States alone. Moist decaying vegetative material with bacteria supports larval development. Temperature and diet quality are important factors for stable fly development, affecting development rates, adult survival, and size, but how temperature affects adult size and interacts with nutrition is unknown. This study characterizes the relationship of temperature and diet quality in the development of stable flies. Two statistical models were used to analyze the effect of temperature alone (Lysyk, 1998) and temperature-diet …

The Combined Effects Of Reactant Kinetics And Enzyme Stability Explain The Temperature Dependence Of Metabolic Rates, John Delong, J. P. Gibert, Thomas M. Luhring, Gwendolyn C. Bachman, B. Reed, A. Neyer, Kristi Montooth

School of Biological Sciences: Faculty Publications

A mechanistic understanding of the response of metabolic rate to temperature is essential for understanding thermal ecology and metabolic adaptation. Although the Arrhenius equation has been used to describe the effects of temperature on reaction rates and metabolic traits, it does not adequately describe two aspects of the thermal performance curve (TPC) for metabolic rate—that metabolic rate is a unimodal function of temperature often with maximal values in the biologically relevant temperature range and that activation energies are temperature dependent. We show that the temperature dependence of metabolic rate in ectotherms is well described by an enzyme-assisted Arrhenius (EAAR) model …

Patterns Of Morphological And Molecular Evolution In The Antillean Tree Bat, Ardops Nichollsi (Chiroptera: Phyllostomidae), Roxanne J. Larsen, Peter A. Larsen, Caleb D. Phillips, Hugh H. Genoways, Gary G. Kwiecinski, Scott C. Pedersen, Carleton J. Phillips, Robert J. Baker

University of Nebraska State Museum: Mammalogy Papers

Species endemic to oceanic islands offer unique insights into the mechanisms underlying evolution and have served as model systems for decades. Often these species show phenotypic variation that is correlated with the ecosystems in which they occur and such correlations may be a product of genetic drift, natural selection, and/or environmental factors. We explore the morphologic and genetic variation within Ardops nichollsi, a species of phyllostomid bat endemic to the Lesser Antillean islands. Ardops nichollsi is an ideal taxon to investigate the tempo of evolution in Chiroptera, as it: is a recently derived genus in the family Phyllostomidae; contains …

Psychophysiological Tracking Of A Female Physique Competitor Through Competition Preparation, Brandon Jay Rohrig, Robert W. Pettitt, Cherie Pettitt, Todd Kanzenbach

International Journal of Exercise Science

International Journal of Exercise Science 10(2): 301-311, 2017. Natural physique competitions are based on subjective judgments of how a competitor appears on show day. Prior to competition, there is a prolonged dieting phase referred to as contest preparation. The primary goal is to reduce body fat levels while maintaining skeletal muscle mass. The study tracked the physiological and psychological changes for a 24 year old female preparing for a physique competition. Purpose: The study was conducted to describe the physiological and psychological changes of a female physique competitor who engages in long-term contest preparation. Methods: Diet, body composition, blood work, …

Volume 1, Chapter 4-13: Adaptive Strategies: Speculation On Sporophyte Structure, Janice M. Glime

Bryophyte Ecology Subchapters

No abstract provided.

A Potent Antimalarial Benzoxaborole Targets A Plasmodium Falciparum Cleavage And Polyadenylation Specificity Factor Homologue., Ebere Sonoiki, Caroline L. Ng, Marcus C. S. Lee, Denghui Guo, Yong-Kang Zhang, Yasheen Zhou, M. R. K. Alley, Vida Ahyong, Laura M. Sanz, Maria Jose Lafuente-Monasterio, Chen Dong, Patrick G. Schupp, Jiri Gut, Jenny Legac, Roland A. Cooper, Francisco-Javier Gamo, Joseph Derisi, Yvonne R. Freund, David A. Fidock, Philip J. Rosenthal

Natural Sciences and Mathematics | Faculty Scholarship

Benzoxaboroles are effective against bacterial, fungal and protozoan pathogens. We report potent activity of the benzoxaborole AN3661 against Plasmodium falciparum laboratory-adapted strains (mean IC50 32 nM), Ugandan field isolates (mean ex vivo IC50 64 nM), and murine P. berghei and P. falciparum infections (day 4 ED90 0.34 and 0.57 mg kg-1, respectively). Multiple P. falciparum lines selected in vitro for resistance to AN3661 harboured point mutations in pfcpsf3, which encodes a homologue of mammalian cleavage and polyadenylation specificity factor subunit 3 (CPSF-73 or CPSF3). CRISPR-Cas9-mediated introduction of pfcpsf3 mutations into parental lines recapitulated AN3661 resistance. PfCPSF3 homology models placed these …

Seagrassnet Monitoring In Great Bay, New Hampshire, 2015, Frederick T. Short

PREP Reports & Publications

SeagrassNet is a global monitoring program begun in 2001 and designed to scientifically detect and document seagrass habitat change (Short et al. 2006a, 2014). Monitoring of eelgrass (Zostera marina L.) in the Great Bay Estuary using SeagrassNet was conducted in Portsmouth Harbor between 2001 and 2009 (Short et al. 2006b, Rivers and Short 2007), and in Great Bay starting in 2007 (Short 2009). Results from SeagrassNet 2015, supported by PREP and conducted in Great Bay, are described in this report.

Neurophysiological And Behavioral Responses Of Mandarin Lexical Tone Processing, Yan H. Yu, Valerie L. Shafer, Elyse S. Sussman

Publications and Research

Language experience enhances discrimination of speech contrasts at a behavioral- perceptual level, as well as at a pre-attentive level, as indexed by event-related potential (ERP) mismatch negativity (MMN) responses. The enhanced sensitivity could be the result of changes in acoustic resolution and/or long-term memory representations of the relevant information in the auditory cortex. To examine these possibilities, we used a short (ca. 600 ms) vs. long (ca. 2,600 ms) interstimulus interval (ISI) in a passive, oddball discrimination task while obtaining ERPs. These ISI differences were used to test whether cross-linguistic differences in processing Mandarin lexical tone are a function of …

Copyright And The Use Of Images As Biodiversity Data [Forum Paper], Willi Egloff, Donat Agosti, Puneet Kishor, David J. Patterson, Jeremy A. Miller

Concepts in Animal Parasitology

Taxonomy is the discipline responsible for charting the world’s organismic diversity, understanding ancestor/descendant relationships, and organizing all species according to a unified taxonomic classification system. Taxonomists document the attributes (characters) of organisms, with emphasis on those can be used to distinguish species from each other. Character information is compiled in the scientific literature as text, tables, and images. The information is presented according to conventions that vary among taxonomic domains; such conventions facilitate comparison among similar species, even when descriptions are published by different authors.

There is considerable uncertainty within the taxonomic community as to how to re-use images that …

Eelgrass Distribution In The Great Bay Estuary And Piscataqua River For 2016, Seth Barker

PREP Reports & Publications

Eelgrass distribution in Great Bay, Little Bay, and the Piscataqua River Estuary were mapped from aerial photography acquired on August 5, 2016. The total area of eelgrass beds with 10% or greater cover and a polygon area equal to or greater than 100 square meters was 683.42 hectares or 1688.71 acres. Eelgrass polygons were coded for Assessment Zone location and the results reported in Table 1.The largest concentration of eelgrass was found in Great Bay with lesser amounts in the vicinity of Portsmouth Harbor. The total area of eelgrass was nearly identical to that mapped in 2013 though there were …

De Novo [Psi+] Prion Formation Involves Multiple Pathways To Form Infectious Oligomers, Jaya Sharma, Grett T. Wisniewski, Emily Paulson, Joanna O. Obaoye, Stephen J. Merrill, Anita L. Manogaran

Biological Sciences Faculty Research and Publications

Prion and other neurodegenerative diseases are associated with misfolded protein assemblies called amyloid. Research has begun to uncover common mechanisms underlying transmission of amyloids, yet how amyloids form in vivo is still unclear. Here, we take advantage of the yeast prion, [PSI ⁺], to uncover the early steps of amyloid formation in vivo. [PSI ⁺] is the prion form of the Sup35 protein. While [PSI ⁺] formation is quite rare, the prion can be greatly induced by overexpression of the prion domain of the Sup35 protein. This de novo induction of [PSI …

Changes In Anthropometric And Physiological Characteristics Of Male Collegiate Rugby Union Players Throughout A Season, Edward Kyle Smith

Theses and Dissertations

Rugby Union is a physically demanding sport requiring a variety of anthropometric and physiological characteristics to maximize performance. Factors such as muscular power, speed, agility, maximal aerobic power, mobility, and body composition all factor into player performance. PURPOSE: To determine changes in body composition, anthropometric and physiological characteristics of collegiate rugby union players throughout a competitive season. METHODS: Participants included 37 (20.3 ± 1.5 years) men from a collegiate rugby club. Muscular power (vertical jump), speed (10m and 20m sprint), agility (L-drill), mobility (FMS active straight leg raise and shoulder mobility) maximal aerobic power (VO2peak via 20m multi-stage shuttle run …

The Long Shadow Of Senescence: Age Impacts Survival And Territory Defense In Loons, Walter H. Piper, Kristin M. Brunk, Joel A. Flory, Michael W. Meyer

Biology, Chemistry, and Environmental Sciences Faculty Articles and Research

Senescence, increased mortality that occurs among animals of advanced age, impacts behavior and ecology in many avian species. We investigated actuarial, reproductive, and behavioral senescence using capture, marking, and resighting data from a 26-year study of common loons (Gavia immer). Territorial residents of both sexes exhibited high annual survival (0.94) until their mid 20s, at which point survival fell to 0.76 and 0.77 in males and females, respectively. Sexual symmetry in actuarial senescence is somewhat surprising in this species, because males make a substantially greater investment in territory defense and chick-rearing and because males engage in lethal contests for territory …

Natural History And Diet Of A Population Of Prairie Rattlesnakes (Crotalus Viridis) In Kansas, Colleen Rothe-Groleau

UNO Student Research and Creative Activity Fair

The primary goal of this study was to gather enough data to create a life history table for this population that can be used in future studies on this and similar species, such as timber rattlesnakes. A second goal was to compile diet data for comparison to datasets within the primary literature from populations of C. viridis and other crotalid species throughout the United States and Canada.

Using morphological characteristics, I attempted to determine whether there are methods that are less invasive for determining sex of C. viridis in the field than those currently in use. Snout-vent length (SVL) and …

Landscape Effects On Brown-Headed Cowbird (Molothrus Ater) Abundances In Crp Patches, Chase Wickard

UNO Student Research and Creative Activity Fair

Many grassland bird species have experienced significant population declines and are the focus of conservation efforts. Recovery of these species is slowed, in part, due to nest parasitism by the Brown-headed Cowbird (Molothrus ater). Cowbirds are nest parasites that lay their eggs in the nests of other bird species and rely on the host species parents to raise their offspring. This in turn can reduce the reproductive success of hosts. This study attempts to determine whether landscape variables surrounding CRP patches may be driving cowbird densities.

Genetic Variants Contributing To Frontotemporal Dementia With Parkinsonism, Elizabeth C. Oduwo

UNO Student Research and Creative Activity Fair

Frontotemporal dementia with parkinsonism (FTDP) is a neurodegenerative disease characterized by disturbances in cognition, language, and personality, which also has features of parkinsonism. This disease is associated with multiple genes including two located close together on chromosome 17: MAPT and GRN. Human and medical genetics can be used to identify the genes that contribute to the risk of this disease.

Earlier work in the Chase lab had identified a large Mennonite kindred (MEN-1) where parkinsonism and dementia were found in five members of a nuclear family. These symptoms parallel those seen in FTDP and all of the affected members share …

Design Of An Instrumented Cane For Real-Time Force Feedback, Samantha Sack

UNO Student Research and Creative Activity Fair

Stroke is a major cause of adult disability in the United States, and many affected stroke survivors require the use of an assistive device post-stroke. Even so, the effects of these assistive devices on specific movement outcomes like propulsion in rehabilitation are not well studied. The goal of this study was to develop an instrumented cane capable of recording accurate force data and providing real-time feedback to the user. A standard, single-point cane was instrumented with a force cell that measures force applied to the cane and a motor that vibrates once a threshold value has been applied. The force …

Movement Variability And Sensorimotor Cortical Activation During Forward And Backward Walking, Boman Groff

UNO Student Research and Creative Activity Fair

Previous research has used functional near-infrared spectroscopy (fNIRS) to show that motor areas of the cortex are activated more while walking backward compared to walking forward. It is also known that head movement creates motion artifacts in fNIRS data. The aim of this study was to expand on previous findings by examining cortical activation during forward and backward walking, while also measuring head movement. We hypothesized that greater activation in motor areas while walking backward would be concurrent with increased head movement.

Participants (N=8) performed forward and backward walking on a treadmill. Participants wore motion capture markers on their head …

Differences In Behavioral Responses To Stress In Zebrafish: Exploring Underlying Neural Mechanisms, Jacalyn B. Russ

UNO Student Research and Creative Activity Fair

Two alternative “stress coping styles” are documented across a wide range of taxa: proactive and reactive. While behavior differences can be observed between coping styles, brain regions potentially mediating these differences have not been studied extensively. Understanding differences in how the brain processes information between the coping styles can lead to insights on how these responses might be controlled. To assess the neural mechanisms underlying alternative stress coping styles, I utilized Danio rerio (zebrafish) and the Novel Tank Diving Test (NTDT). I hypothesize (i) that proactive fish will spend less time in the lower portion of the NTDT and spend …

Comparing Consistency Of Stress And Anxiety-Related Behaviors Across Time In Zebrafish (Danio Rerio), Matthew R. Baker, Alex Goodman

UNO Student Research and Creative Activity Fair

Animals are frequently faced with stressors in their environment that they must overcome to survive and reproduce. Across vertebrates, two distinct stress coping styles or ‘personalities’ have been observed known as proactive (bold) and reactive (shy). Animal personalities may be advantageous by limiting individual variation and balancing different trade-offs in unpredictable environments. When identifying animal personalities, behavioral phenotypes must be consistent and repeatable across contexts and time. Here we use selectively bred lines of shy and bold zebrafish, previously shown to have consistent divergent fear- and anxiety-related behaviors across contexts, to test the repeatability and consistency of these behaviors across …

Quantifying Static And Dynamic Stability Using Mobile Sensors, Mason Schleu

UNO Student Research and Creative Activity Fair

Balance disorders impact millions of people causing substantial impact on quality of life due to psychological and physical hardships associated with poor balance. However, a clinically relevant, low cost, self-service system in detecting such disorders does not exist. Previous research has shown the built in accelerometer and gyroscope sensors of a smart phone to be valid tools in detecting standing balance performance using traditional linear analysis, however, such a system has yet to be proven useful in detecting dynamic postural variability. Indeed, more quantitative methods than are typically used in clinical settings are necessary for early detection of poor postural …

Microflora In The Cheek Pouches Of Ord's Kangaroo Rat (Dipodomys Ordii) From The Nebraska Sandhills, Devin M. Christensen

UNO Student Research and Creative Activity Fair

The microflora living within the Ord’s kangaroo rat (Dipodymis ordii) cheek pouches has never been extensively studied before. Kangaroo rats use their cheek pouches to transport seeds and grasses in their mouths that they later store. It is predicted that the cheek pouches harbor fungal and bacterial growth that could be either helpful or harmful to the kangaroo rat and its environment. 8 kangaroo rats were humanely captured using Sherman live traps in the Nebraska Sandhills; their cheek pouches were swabbed, and the microorganisms obtained were grown on agar plates and in liquid media until an adequate amount …

An Investigation Into The Correlation Between Step Width Variability And Balance Deficits In Patients With Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease, Jordan Freeman

UNO Student Research and Creative Activity Fair

Patients with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) experience a higher incidence of falls. Further, gait variability has been shown to be a useful predictor of future falls. It is unknown if balance measures and gait variability are related. Our purpose was to investigate if step width (SW) variability is related to balance deficits in patients with COPD. We hypothesized that functional balance tests will closely correlate to the step width variability as compared to subjective balance questionnaires. Nine subjects with COPD and six controls performed a series of balance measures: sensory organization test (SOT), motor control test (MCT), Fullerton advanced …

The Effect Of Bilateral Vestibular Stimulation On Locomotor Adaptation, Allison Hoover

UNO Student Research and Creative Activity Fair

Locomotor adaptation requires input from vision, somatosensory and vestibular systems. The contribution of the vestibular system is important for maintaining postural control during gait specifically orientation of the head on the trunk and acceleration (linear and angular) feedback. Disrupting this system causes instabilities during locomotion. However, it is not clear, how much the vestibular system contributes to gait adaptation. Eighteen healthy adults adapted to a split-belt treadmill task with or without additional vestibular perturbation using bilateral mastoid vibration. The symmetry index for step length and step time, as well as the change in standard deviation in stride time for both …

Functional Genetics Of Mind-Meld In Drosophila Melanogaster, Candi R. Senior-Remsa

UNO Student Research and Creative Activity Fair

Immunohistochemistry (IHC) is a useful research tool used to localize specific antigens in tissue sections with labeled antibodies based on antigen-antibody interactions. To obtain a clearer understanding of the cellular and subcellular localization of the Mind-Meld (MMD) protein during the developing Drosophila melanogaster embryo double indirect immunofluorescence was used to colocalize MMD with other proteins found in the fruit fly. An affinity-purified antibody raised in rabbit identifying all MMD isoforms was used with the fluorophore-labeled secondary antibody Alexa Fluor 594 specific to rabbit IgG. Well-characterized murine monoclonal antibodies with known subcellular localization and function in Drosophila: Fascicilin II (FASII), Short …

Assessment Of Olfactory-Based Social Recognition: Designing A Paradigm For Marmosets, Stephanie Womack

UNO Student Research and Creative Activity Fair

Navigation of the social world depends largely on one’s responsiveness to social stimuli and information from a wide range of senses can be used to discriminate between individuals. Mammals use several sensory modes to communicate and respond to their surroundings, but olfaction is the dominant sense across most species. Chemosignals provide a wealth of information including sex, age, reproductive status, and individual identity. Currently, assessment of olfaction is largely limited to the habituation-dishabituation paradigm or the two-choice discrimination task used primarily in rodents. These paradigms are limited by their reliance on inherent reward of interaction with stimuli without providing additional …