Life Sciences Commons^™

Physiological Characteristics Of Youth Synchronized Skaters, Laura E. Fischer M.Ed., Lynn A. Darby Ph.D., Amy L. Morgan Ph.D., David A. Tobar Ph.D.

International Journal of Exercise Science

International Journal of Exercise Science 9(3): 270-282, 2016. Figure skating is a lifelong sport with participation rates increasing for skaters of all ages. Development within the five disciplines of figure skating (individual skating, synchronized skating, pairs skating, ice dancing, and theater on ice) has led to increased physical demands placed on skaters’ bodies. As a result, focus on sport performance testing, training, and injury prevention specific to figure skating is increasing. The purpose of this study was to use field tests to describe the physical characteristics of synchronized skaters and to determine the relationships between these physiological characteristics and skating …

Evaluation Of The Basis Band Fitness Tracker, Pier-Alexandre Desilets, Matthew T. Mahar

International Journal of Exercise Science

International Journal of Exercise Science 9(3): 258-269, 2016. Self-monitoring is a widely recommended behavioral strategy to promote regular physical activity. Commercially available activity monitors are becoming increasingly popular and provide users with the opportunity to self-monitor physical activity. The purpose of this study was to examine the ability of the Basis Band Fitness Tracker to measure heart rate and movement compared to research-grade activity monitors. Twenty participants (14 females and 6 males) aged 18-23 yrs (mean = 20.0 ± 1.1 yrs) wore a Basis Band, an NL-1000 pedometer, an ANT+ Motorola HRM1G chest strap heart rate monitor, and an …

Body Image Dissatisfaction: Responses Between Male And Female Exercisers And Non-Exercisers, Katie Melching, Matt Green, Eric K. O'Neal, Lee Renfroe

International Journal of Exercise Science

International Journal of Exercise Science 9(3): 249-257, 2016.Body image dissatisfaction (BID) is defined as the difference between actual and desired image. Body image or BID is subject to high levels of societal pressure and discrepancies are frequent between actual and desired image. This study examined BID among male exercisers (ME), female exercisers (FE), male non-exercisers (MNE) and female non-exercisers (FNE). Further, the potential relationship of personal BID on individual’s beliefs regarding what their peers’ perceptions would be was examined. College-aged men (n = 169) and women (n = 246) used the Stunkard scale to self-assess body image. Participants labeled …

Intrinsic Disorder In Transmembrane Proteins: Roles In Signaling And Topology Prediction, Jérôme Bürgi, Bin Xue, Vladimir N Uversky, F Gisou Van Der Goot

Molecular Biosciences Faculty Publications

Intrinsically disordered regions (IDRs) are peculiar stretches of amino acids that lack stable conformations in solution. Intrinsic Disorder containing Proteins (IDP) are defined by the presence of at least one large IDR and have been linked to multiple cellular processes including cell signaling, DNA binding and cancer. Here we used computational analyses and publicly available databases to deepen insight into the prevalence and function of IDRs specifically in transmembrane proteins, which are somewhat neglected in most studies. We found that 50% of transmembrane proteins have at least one IDR of 30 amino acids or more. Interestingly, these domains preferentially localize …

Bioturbation By The Fungus-Gardening Ant, Trachymyrmex Septentrionalis, Walter R. Tschinkel, Jon N. Seal

Biology Faculty Publications and Presentations

Soil invertebrates such as ants are thought to be important manipulators of soils in temperate and tropical ecosystems. The fungus gardening ant, Trachymyrmex septentrionalis, is an important agent of biomantling, that is, of depositing soil excavated from below onto the surface, and has been suggested as an agent of bioturbation (moving soil below ground) as well. The amount of bioturbation by this ant was quantified by planting queenright colonies in sand columns consisting of 5 layers of different colored sand. The amount of each color of sand deposited on the surface was determined from April to November 2015. In November, …

Lingnan Gardeners Newsletter (No. 20) = 嶺南彩園通訊 (第20期), Lingnan Gardeners, Kwan Fong Cultural Research And Development Programme, Lingnan University

Lingnan Gardeners Newsletter 嶺南彩園通訊

Great Heat 大暑

The Effects Of Amphetamine Exposure On Neurodevelopment And Behavior In Early Life Stages Of Danio Rerio, Jennifer D. Bullard

Master of Science in Integrative Biology Theses

Amphetamines are frequently prescribed to young children for attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD). Due to the recent rise in ADHD diagnoses and the resulting increase in amphetamine intake in children, we investigated how amphetamine exposure impacts the development of stereotyped behaviors and the neural circuit that governs these behaviors. The zebrafish (Danio rerio) was used as our model organism because of the extensively studied developmental milestones these fish provide. Using escape responses as a behavior model, we exposed embryos to three doses of amphetamine (10 μg/ml, 20 μg/ml, and 30 μg/ml) environmentally during the first 48 hours of …

Molecular Response Of Spartina Alterniflora To The Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill, Mariano Alvarez

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Although the “genome as a blueprint” metaphor has been pervasive in biology, recent advances in molecular biology have revealed a complex network of regulatory machinery that dynamically regulated molecular processes in response to environmental conditions. However, these patterns, as well as the evolutionary processes that underlie them, remain understudied in natural conditions. In 2010, the Deepwater Horizon oil spill released an estimated 4.9 million barrels of oil into the Gulf of Mexico, making landfall on salt marsh habitat dominated by the foundation species Spartina alterniflora. Despite the severe impacts to phenotype and fitness, S. alterniflora proved remarkably resilient in …

Computational Modeling Of Allosteric Stimulation Of Nipah Virus Host Binding Protein, Priyanka Dutta

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Nipah belongs to the family of paramyxoviruses that cause numerous fatal diseases in humans and farm animals. There are no FDA approved drugs for Nipah or any of the paramyxoviruses. Designing antiviral therapies that are more resistant to viral mutations require understanding of molecular details underlying infection. This dissertation focuses on obtaining molecular insights into the very first step of infection by Nipah. Such details, in fact, remain unknown for all paramyxoviruses. Infection begins with the allosteric stimulation of Nipah virus host binding protein by host cell receptors. Understanding molecular details of this stimulation process have been challenging mainly because, …

A Heavy Metal P-Type Atpase Oshma4 Prevents Copper Accumulation In Rice Grain, Xin-Yuan Huang, Fenglin Deng, Naoki Yamaji, Shannon R.M. Pinson, Miho Fujii-Kashino, John Danku, Alex Douglas, Mary Lou Guerinot, David Salt, Jian Feng Ma

Dartmouth Scholarship

Rice is a major source of calories and mineral nutrients for over half the world's human population. However, little is known in rice about the genetic basis of variation in accumulation of copper (Cu), an essential but potentially toxic nutrient. Here we identify OsHMA4 as the likely causal gene of a quantitative trait locus controlling Cu accumulation in rice grain. We provide evidence that OsHMA4 functions to sequester Cu into root vacuoles, limiting Cu accumulation in the grain. The difference in grain Cu accumulation is most likely attributed to a single amino acid substitution that leads to different OsHMA4 transport …

D-Place: A Global Database Of Cultural, Linguistic And Environmental Diversity, Kathryn R. Kirby, Russell D. Gray, Simon J. Greenhill, Fiona M. Jordan, Stephanie Gomes-Ng, Hans-Jörg Bibiko, Damián E. Blasi, Carlos A. Botero, Claire Bowern, Carol R. Ember, Dan Leehr, Bobbi S. Low, Joe Mccarter, William Divale, Michael C. Gavin

Biology Faculty Research

From the foods we eat and the houses we construct, to our religious practices and political organization, to who we can marry and the types of games we teach our children, the diversity of cultural practices in the world is astounding. Yet, our ability to visualize and understand this diversity is limited by the ways it has been documented and shared: on a culture-by-culture basis, in locally-told stories or difficult-to-access repositories. In this paper we introduce D-PLACE, the Database of Places, Language, Culture, and Environment. This expandable and open-access database (accessible at https://d-place.org) brings together a dispersed corpus of …

Cross-Species Mind-Reading, Stevan Harnad

Animal Sentience

We can never be sure anyone else is sentient. But we can be sure enough in the case of other people, nonhuman primates, mammals, birds, fish, lower vertebrates and invertebrates as to make scepticism academic and otiose (not to mention monumentally cruel). The only genuinely uncertain kinds of cases are jellyfish, microbes and plants. The rest is not about whether but what they are feeling.

Influence Of Free Water Availability On A Desert Carnivore And Herbivore, Bryan M. Kluever, Eric M. Gese, Stephen Dempsey

Wildland Resources Faculty Publications

Anthropogenic manipulation of finite resources on the landscape to benefit individual species or communities is commonly employed by conservation and management agencies. One such action in arid regions is the construction and maintenance of water developments (i.e., wildlife guzzlers) adding free water on the landscape to buttress local populations, influence animal movements, or affect distributions of certain species of interest. Despite their prevalence, the utility of wildlife guzzlers remains largely untested. We employed a before–after control-impact (BACI) design over a 4-year period on the US Army Dugway Proving Ground, Utah, USA, to determine whether water availability at wildlife guzzlers influenced …

1905, July - Map Of The Salinas Valley Beet Districts No. 3 - Spreckels Sugar Company

Groundwater Basin Maps

This 1905 map depicts the water distribution system of Spreckles Sugar Company, District No. 3, along with the sugar beet growers in Salinas River Valley, Monterey.

Mitochondrial Function In Heart Failure: The Impact Of Ischemic And Non-Ischemic Etiology, Song-Young Park, Joel D. Trinity, J. R. Gifford, Nikolaos A. Diakos, Lauren Mccreath, Stavros Drakos, Russell S. Richardson

Health and Kinesiology Faculty Publications

Background

Although cardiac mitochondrial dysfunction is associated with heart failure (HF), this is a complex syndrome with two predominant etiologies, ischemic HF (iHF) and non-ischemic HF (niHF), and the exact impact of mitochondrial dysfunction in these two distinct forms of HF is unknown.

Methods and results

To determine the impact of HF etiology on mitochondrial function, respiration was measured in permeabilized cardiac muscle fibers from patients with iHF (n = 17), niHF (n = 18), and healthy donor hearts (HdH). Oxidative phosphorylation capacity (OXPHOS), assessed as state 3 respiration, fell progressively from HdH to niHF, to iHF (Complex I + …

Drivers Of Immune Cost And Implications For Host Protection From Parasites, Amber Jasmine Brace

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Among species, populations, and individuals, there exists a tremendous amount of variation in how hosts respond to, and are thus protected from parasites. Such variation inevitably affects host-parasite dynamics and ultimately how parasites will move through and evolve in communities. A likely factor in the diversity of immune responses seen in nature are the costs associated with activation of the immune system upon exposure to parasites. Costs can manifest in many ways, including changes in resource usage or metabolism, self-damage from inflammatory reactions, lost opportunities (e.g., foraging reproduction), and often as tradeoffs with other physiological processes. However, we do not …

Monitoring And Mitigation Of Elevated Co2 Impacts Using Microalgae, Terry-Rene Wiesner Brown

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Climate change is arguably the greatest environmental and economic challenge of our time. There are considerable documented and projected impacts to both human and natural systems as a result of climate change. These impacts include changes in temperature, sea level, precipitation patterns, and biogeography of ecologically and economically relevant species, including pathogens. One of the main drivers of climate change is elevated levels of atmospheric carbon dioxide (CO₂), a greenhouse gas. Since pre-industrial times, atmospheric CO₂ levels have increased from approximately 280 ppm to over 400 ppm, as a result of fossil fuel combustion, cement production and …

Conservation Genetics And Mark-Recapture Monitoring Of The Rare Pigeon Mountain Salamander (Plethodon Petraeus) Within A Highly Restricted Range, Kate Donlon

Master of Science in Integrative Biology Theses

Globally, amphibian species are experiencing declines at an alarming rate largely due to habitat loss, disease and climate change. Species with limited ranges are at an elevated risk of a significant decline in population numbers and extinction because of the inability to avoid and recover from these impacts. Long-term management plans are critical for conservation of species with small ranges; however, the knowledge required to develop effective plans is absent from the literature for many species. One such species is the Pigeon Mountain Salamander. The distribution of the Pigeon Mountain Salamander, Plethodon petraeus, is restricted to roughly 17 kilometers …

My Orgasms Cannot Be Traded Off Against Others’ Agony, Stevan Harnad

Animal Sentience

Only I can calculate my own welfare as net pleasure minus pain. No one else can do that calculation for me – nor for a population, and especially not averaging across some individuals’ pleasure and other individuals’ pain. Pain and pleasure are incommensurable and only pain matters morally. To maximize welfare is to minimize pain.

In Praise Of Fishes: Précis Of What A Fish Knows (Balcombe 2016), Jonathan Balcombe

Animal Sentience

Our relationship to fishes in the modern era is deeply problematic. We kill and consume more of them than any other group of vertebrates. At the same time, advances in our knowledge of fishes and their capabilities are gaining speed. Fish species diversity exceeds that of all other vertebrates combined, with a wide range of sensory adaptations, some of them (e.g., geomagnetism, water pressure and movement detection, and communication via electricity) alien to our own sensory experience. The evidence for pain in fishes (despite persistent detractors) is strongly supported by anatomical, physiological and behavioral studies. It is likely that fishes …

Sentience As Moral Consideration And Disvalue In Nature, Daniel Dorado

Animal Sentience

In recent work Ng assumes that it is good to engage in activities aimed at promoting ecosystem conservation. The only way Ng can derive this from the axiology he assumes (the view that wellbeing is the only intrinsically valuable or disvaluable thing) would be to assume that ecosystem conservation would benefit the individuals involved. This can be so as long as value prevails over disvalue in the target environments. Ng seems to assume this is indeed the case, but he does not explain why, and it is a claim that goes against the conclusions he has argued for previously (Ng …

Inalienable Rights And Pluralism In Animal Advocacy, Beril Sözmen

Animal Sentience

I comment on two of Ng’s suggestions. There is a lack of support for his suggestion that some experiments on individual animals will be useful for future success, so they should be permitted. I also question his recommendation that animal advocacy should focus on farmed animals first and wild animals later. The lack of solid support for why this would be a more effective strategy leads me to suggest a more pluralistic support of a variety of types of advocacy.

Effect Of Bacteria Isolates In Powdery Mildew Control In Flowering Dogwoods (Cornus Florida L.), Margaret T. Mmbaga, Frank A. Mrema, Lucas Mackasmiel, Emily Rotich

Agricultural and Environmental Sciences Faculty Research

Five bacterial isolates collected from dogwood leaves were evaluated for powdery mildew control in shadehouse and greenhouse environments by using foliar sprays and/or root drenching. Two isolates displayed superior bioactivity and suppressed powdery mildew similar to conventional fungicide thiophanate methyl (Cleary’s 3336F®). The two bacteria disrupted powdery mildew spore germination and ruptured spore membranes causing spore lyses. Bacterial filtrates without bacterial cells were also effective in suppressing powdery mildew and disrupting spore germination and suggested the involvement of secondary metabolites. The two biocontrol agents (BCAs) colonized roots endophytically and promoted plant growth.

Effects Of Neonicotinoid Pesticide Exposure On Human Health: A Systematic Review., Andria M Cimino, Abee L Boyles, Kristina A Thayer, Melissa J. Perry

Environmental and Occupational Health Faculty Publications

BACKGROUND: Numerous studies have identified detectable levels of neonicotinoids (neonics) in the environment, adverse effects of neonics in many species including mammals, and pathways through which human exposure to neonics could occur, yet little is known about the human health effects of neonic exposure.

OBJECTIVE: This systematic review sought to identify human population studies on the health effects of neonics.

METHODS: Studies published in English between 2005 and 2015 were searched using PubMed, Scopus, and Web of Science databases. No restrictions were placed on the type of health outcome assessed. Risk of bias was assessed using guidance developed by the …

The Growth Response Of Two Diatom Species To Atmospheric Dust From The Last Glacial Maximum, Tim M. Conway, Linn J. Hoffmann, Eike Breitbarth, Robert F. Strzepek, Eric W. Wolff

Marine Science Faculty Publications

Relief of iron (Fe) limitation in the surface Southern Ocean has been suggested as one driver of the regular glacial-interglacial cycles in atmospheric carbon dioxide (CO2). The proposed cause is enhanced deposition of Fe-bearing atmospheric dust to the oceans during glacial intervals, with consequent effects on export production and the carbon cycle. However, understanding the role of enhanced atmospheric Fe supply in biogeochemical cycles is limited by knowledge of the fluxes and 'bioavailability' of atmospheric Fe during glacial intervals. Here, we assess the effect of Fe fertilization by dust, dry-extracted from the Last Glacial Maximum portion of the EPICA Dome …

Neddylation Promotes Stress Granule Assembly, Aravinth Kumar Jayabalan, Anthony Sanchez, Ra Young Park, Sang Pil Yoon, Gum-Yong Kang, Je-Hyun Baek, Paul Anderson, Younghoon Kee, Takbum Ohn

Molecular Biosciences Faculty Publications

Stress granules (SGs) harbour translationally stalled messenger ibonucleoproteins and play important roles in regulating gene expression and cell fate. Here we show that neddylation promotes SG assembly in response to arsenite-induced oxidative stress. Inhibition or depletion of key components of the neddylation machinery concomitantly inhibits stress-induced polysome disassembly and SG assembly. Affinity purification and subsequent mass-spectrometric analysis of Nedd8-conjugated proteins from translationally stalled ribosomal fractions identified ribosomal proteins, translation factors and RNA-binding proteins (RBPs), including SRSF3, a previously known SG regulator. We show that SRSF3 is selectively neddylated at Lys85 in response to arsenite. A non-neddylatable SRSF3 (K85R) mutant do …

Habitat Patch Size Alters The Importance Of Dispersal For Species Diversity In An Experimental Freshwater Community, Matthew Schuler, Jonathan M. Chase

Department of Biology Faculty Scholarship and Creative Works

Increased dispersal of individuals among discrete habitat patches should increase the average number of species present in each local habitat patch. However, experimental studies have found variable effects of dispersal on local species richness. Priority effects, predators, and habitat heterogeneity have been proposed as mechanisms that limit the effect of dispersal on species richness. However, the size of a habitat patch could affect how dispersal regulates the number of species able to persist. We investigated whether habitat size interacted with dispersal rate to affect the number of species present in local habitats. We hypothesized that increased dispersal rates would positively …

Biofouling Management In The Pacific Northwest And Predation On Native Versus Non-Native Ascidians, Erin Suzanne Kincaid

Dissertations and Theses

Marine non-native species threaten economic and environmental health, making it crucial to understand factors that make them successful. Research on these species, therefore, allows for greater preparedness and informed management of biological invasions and increases understanding of elements structuring biological communities. Among the marine non-native species, and particularly the fouling community, non-native ascidians are a taxon of particular concern because they can crowd out native benthic species and smother mariculture products. This thesis addresses management for ascidians and other fouling organisms and includes research on the invasiveness of this taxon in addition to the invasibility of recipient fouling communities. On …

Smokejumper Obituary: Lord Jr., Joseph M. (Missoula 1956), National Smokejumper Association

Smokejumper Obituaries

No abstract provided.

Changing Attitudes Towards Animals In The Wild And Speciesism, Oscar Horta

Animal Sentience

I argue that despite Ng’s claim that we should postpone the defense of those animals that live in the wild, we do have reasons to start spreading concern for them now. We can do it by (i) changing public attitude by heightening awareness of speciesism, by which we will also challenge animal exploitation; and (ii) by disseminating information about the situation of animals in the wild.