Life Sciences Commons^™

Prevalence Of Hesperevax Sparsiflora Var. Brevifolia (Short-Leaved Evax) At Ocean Ranch, Humboldt County, California: Exploring The Effects Of Disturbance, Shelby Diquirco, Matthew Estrada, Alana T. Fraley, Alexander D. Smith

Environmental Science & Management Senior Capstones

The prevalence of special-status plants within a landscape can be an indicator of the ecological health of that site, and therefore inform restoration efforts and post-restoration monitoring. Hesperevax sparsiflora var. brevifolia (short-leaved evax) is a special status species found within the Ocean Ranch unit of Humboldt, California. A primary threat to native plant communities are invasive plant species. Coastal dune ecosystems are largely dominated by invasive species, including Ammophila arenaria (European beachgrass). To work towards the eradication of A. arenaria, the California Department of Fish and Wildlife utilized treatment combinations of herbicide and prescribed fire at Ocean Ranch in …

Boron Toxicity Induces Sulfate Transporters At Transcriptional Level In Arabidopsis Thaliana, Ceyhun Kayihan, Emre Aksoy, Su Naz Mutlu

Turkish Journal of Botany

Plants activate glutathione (GSH)-dependent detoxification pathways at biochemical and molecular levels under boron (B) toxicity. Sulfate uptake and transport are necessary for GSH biosynthesis in plants. Therefore, the transcriptional regulation of some sulfate transporters was determined in this study to clarify the importance of these transporters in leaf and root tissues of Arabidopsis thaliana under toxic B conditions. The expression level of SULTR1;3 was dramatically increased in leaf and root tissues under moderate and severe toxic B conditions, suggesting source-to-sink sulfate translocation under B toxicity. Stable expression levels of SULTR2;1, SULTR2;2, and low SULTR3;5 expression might restrict the sulfate movement …

Activated Charcoal Alleviates Fluoride Stress By Restricting Fluoride Uptake And Counteracting Oxidative Damages In The Rice Cultivar Mtu1010, Ankur Singh, Swarnavo Chakraborty, Aryadeep Roychoudhury

Turkish Journal of Botany

This work was aimed to explore the efficacy of activated charcoal (5 mg g^-1 soil) in abating fluoride (25 mg L^-1 NaF) stress in rice seedlings, since the protective role of charcoal is widely reported against other forms of abiotic stress. Application of NaF solution reduced germination rate, dry and fresh weight, and shoot and root length of seedlings. Extensive fluoride accumulation lowered the chlorophyll level along with higher electrolyte leakage and formation of H2 O2 , malondialdehyde, and methylglyoxal. Administration of activated charcoal lowered the extent of oxidative damages by inhibiting the uptake of fluoride ions. Exogenous …

Improvements In The Phylogeny Of Epilobium And Chamaenerion Inferred From Nrdna And Cpdna Data Focusing On Türkiye, Suzan Kundakçi, Serdar Makbul, Mutlu Gültepe, Murat Erdem Güzel, Seda Okur, Kami̇l Coşkunçelebi̇

Turkish Journal of Botany

Epilobium and Chamaenerion included 165 and 8 species over the world, respectively. The members of the genera are distributed particularly in moist habitats from subpolar to tropical regions.This paper aims to provide improvements in the phylogeny of the genera Epilobium and Chamaenerion using Internal Transcribed Spacer (ITS) of nuclear DNA and matK gene sequence data evaluation with maximum parsimony, maximum likelihood, and Bayesian inference criterations. A total of 188 individual accessions belonging to 28 taxa were newly generated and 110 sequences imported from GenBank (NCBI) were analysed. The nrDNA and plastid DNA gene trees supported to treat Epilobium and Chamaenerion …

Histochemical And Surface Microstructural Analyses Of Floral Cuticles Provide Evidence For Differential Behaviors In Scent Volatiles Emission In Two Tuberoses (Agave Amica (Medik.) Theide And Govaerts) Cultivars From Asparagaceae, Raktim Bhattacharya, Adinpunya Mitra

Turkish Journal of Botany

Two popular cultivars of tuberose (Agave amica (Medik.) Theide and Govaerts syn. Polianthes tuberosa L.) from the family Asparagaceae, widely cultivated for floricultural purposes are ,'Calcutta Single' (CS) and 'Calcutta Double' (CD). It was evidenced that CS flowers emit intense scent volatiles as compared to CD flowers, while CD flowers retained higher contents of internal pool of scent volatiles than CS flowers. Such contrasting observations between the flowers of two cultivars suggest the role of possible barriers such as cuticles that prevent the emission of scent volatiles. The cuticular structure of both cultivars was studied using different histochemical approaches, …

The Assessment Of Genetic Diversity And Population Structure Of Endemic Scutellaria Yildirimlii (Lamiaceae) For Conservation Purposes, Merve Yildirim, Gül Ni̇lhan Tuğ, Ahmet Emre Yaprak

Turkish Journal of Botany

Scutellaria yildirimlii is an endangered perennial endemic species from Turkey and belongs to the family Lamiaceae, which has a high number of medicinal and aromatic plants. It is crucial to determine genetic diversity and population structure of this species for its conservation measures; therefore, 111 individuals from five natural populations of S. yildirimlii were investigated by using 15 inter simple sequence repeats (ISSR) primers. The percentage of polymorphic loci (PPL), Nei?s gene diversity (H), and Shannon?s information index (I) at the species and population-level were determined as 93.9%, 0.183, 0.292 and 56.5%, 0.158, 0.242, respectively. The analysis of molecular variance …

Protective Potential Of Mokko Lactone From Cheilocostus Speciosus (J. Koenig) C.D.Specht (Costaceae) Rhizomes Against Fulminant Hepatic Failure, Ahmed Altyar, Ikhlas Sindi, Dina El-Agamy, Wael Elsaed, Ahmed Shehata, Hossam Abdallah, Gamal Mohamed, Abdelsattar Omar, Sabrin Ibrahim

Turkish Journal of Botany

Cheilocostus speciosus (Syn: Costus speciosus) (Crepe or spiral ginger) is one of the species of the family Costaceae that is widely used in various traditional medicines for treating various ailments. Mokko lactone (ML) belongs to the guaianolide family of sesquiterpenes, which has been separated from C. speciosus. It showed noticeable antiinflammation and antioxidative capacities. The current study explored the ML hepatoprotective potential against FHF (fulminant hepatic failure) in mice. FHF was successfully established using intraperitoneal injection of ?-galactosamine (?-GalN, 700 mg/kg)/lipopolysaccharide (LPS, 10 µg/kg) in male Swiss-albino mice. The mice were pretreated with ML (20 or 40 mg/kg, orally) daily …

Fine Root Respiration In Quercus Rubra Is Influenced By Multidimensional Trade-Offs In Root Trait Space, Emma L. Shedd

Dissertations, Master's Theses and Master's Reports

Economic theory is often applied to plant strategies, arguing that trade-offs exist between maximizing quick returns on investment within short lifespans or producing longer-lived tissues with slower returns. While these trade-offs are well-studied aboveground, their influence on belowground traits, including root respiration, remains unclear. Resource heterogeneity and symbioses with mycorrhizal fungi may complicate root trade-off axes beyond those predicted by economics theory alone. Investigating fine root trade-offs in Quercus rubra populations along a latitudinal gradient in the Midwest, USA, we identified two distinct axes of variation in root traits: one related to a potential “fungal symbiosis” trade-off and another representing …

Changes In Poplar Digestibility Due To Overexpression Of Laccase Genes, Fnu Arunima

Dissertations, Master's Theses and Master's Reports

Woody biomass, particularly poplar, is a sought-after feedstock for lignocellulosic biofuels because of its year-round availability and high productivity. Because of cell wall components like lignin, poplar is inherently resistant to enzymatic saccharification. The experiment aims to determine whether the controlled overexpression of laccase genes alters the biomass composition and whether it can create poplar that is more digestible than the wildtype.

Three sets of transgenic poplar (Populus tremula x alba) samples were evaluated: laccase 18, laccase 27, and STTM. Laccase 18 samples, an target of miRNA397a was overexpressed along with Laccase 27. Short Tandem target Mimic (STTM) technology …

Bioaccumulation Of Polychlorinated Biphenyl Compounds And Mercury In A Mining Impacted Aquatic Ecosystem, Michelle Bollini

Dissertations, Master's Theses and Master's Reports

The Keweenaw area continues to be influenced by the century of copper mining that ended nearly 50 years ago. This project is focused on Torch Lake, an aquatic ecosystem that has been heavily impacted by mining waste disposal. The watershed has been impaired by mine discharge and tailings, smelter and smokestack plumes, and poor waste disposal practices. The lake is listed as a Great Lakes Area of Concern with beneficial use impairments of restrictions on fish consumption and a degraded benthic community. Polychlorinated biphenyl compounds (PCBs) and methylmercury (MeHg) are persistent, bioaccumulative, and toxic substances (PBTs). These contaminants pose threats …

Prediction Of Sumoylation Sites In Proteins From Language Model Representations, Evgenii Sidorov

Dissertations, Master's Theses and Master's Reports

Sumoylation is an essential post-translational modification intimately involved in a diverse range of eukaryotic cellular mechanisms and plays a significant role in DNA repair. Some researchers hypothesize that a high level of SUMOylation events in cancer cells improves cells' chances for survival under stress conditions by regulating tumor-related proteins.

This study belongs to a booming field of harnessing computational power to the domain of life. Prediction of protein structure, its molecular function, and the design of new drugs are just a few examples of the applications within this exciting area of research. By leveraging computational power, researchers can analyze vast …

Impacts Of Introduced Earthworms On Sugar Maple Sap Chemistry And The Discourse Of Invasion Ecology, Shelby Nicole Lane-Clark

Dissertations, Master's Theses and Master's Reports

To delve into further understanding of the relationships between introduced earthworms, forest ecosystems, and the human systems they impact, two approaches were taken. In the first approach, we seek to explore ways we can shift the discourse within and regarding the field of invasion ecology by re-framing how we approach discussion, management, and education regarding introduced species. Language issues surrounding introduced species through the example of earthworms in North America are described and potential solutions are provided, including a repositioned perspective that may facilitate better relationships with the natural world. The goal is to shift the language to be more …

Preliminary Studies On The Effect Of Nanoparticle Seed Treatments On Seed Quality Attributes And Yield In Chickpea, Sushma Mudlupura Kumar, Shiv Yadav, Sangita Yadav, Ravish Choudhary, Sandeep Lal, Chellapilla Bharadwaj, Zakir Hussain, Priya Ranjan Kumar

Turkish Journal of Agriculture and Forestry

Nanotechnology is a novel and emerging approach that can be utilized in the agriculture sector for biotic and abiotic stress management, disease detection, and nutrient absorption. Various metal oxide nanoparticles such as zinc, titanium, silicon oxides were found to have a positive effect on seed quality attributes in various crops. Therefore, a study was carried out on chickpea (Cicer arietinum L.) with the objective to study the effect of nanoparticles on seed quality attributes including germination, seedling growth, vigour and yield. The seeds were dressed and infused with each of nano and bulk forms of zinc oxide, titanium oxide, …

Experimental Design Of Open-Field Temperature And Precipitation Manipulation System To Simulate Summer Extreme Climate Events For Plants And Soils, Gwang Jung Kim, Heejae Jo, Hyeonji Kim, Min Seok Cho, Nam-Jin Noh, Hanna Chang, Hyung-Sub Kim, Yowhan Son

Turkish Journal of Agriculture and Forestry

Extreme climate events are expected to occur very frequently and intensively with climate change, and such extreme events can induce irreversible damage to plants and soils, as well as ecosystems. Accordingly, there is a need to understand the effects of extreme climate events on ecosystems. Here, we designed a temperature and precipitation manipulation system to simulate extreme climate events of heat, drought, and heavy rainfall. We constructed three soil surface temperature manipulation levels (control, 3 °C, and 6 °C increases) and three precipitation manipulation levels (control, drought, and heavy rainfall) with six replicates, and operated these from day of year …

Phytochemical Potential And Associated Health Benefits Of Cucurbita Flower, Arya Gargi, Jyoti Singh, Prasad Rasane, Sawinder Kaur, Jaspreet Kaur, Chandra Mohan Mehta, Yogesh Gat, Ravish Choudhary

Turkish Journal of Agriculture and Forestry

Edible flowers are currently gaining popularity as the majority of the edible flower species have a nutritional profile that meets several dietary demands and the consumption of flowers as part of customary cuisine or alternative alchemy is reported in various cultures around the world. Pumpkin flowers are primarily consumed in some Asian and North American countries like India, China, Bangladesh, and Mexico, respectively. The pumpkin plant has served medicinally worldwide by treating wounds, cardiovascular disease, several types of cancers, gastrointestinal diseases, anemia, urinary tract infections and intestinal parasites, however, its flowers among the same line have also been therapeutically used …

Actinidia Deliciosa: A High-Resolution Mass Spectrometric Approach For The Comprehensive Characterization Of Bioactive Compounds, Mayya Razgonova, Alexsander Boyko, Yulia Zinchenko, Nadezhda Tikhonova, Andrey Sabitov, Alexander Mikhailovich Zakharenko, Kirill Golokhvast

Turkish Journal of Agriculture and Forestry

Actinidia deliciosa (A. Chev.) C.F. Liang & A.R& Ferguson, 1984 contains a large number of target analytes, which are biologically active compounds. HPLC-ion trap-MS/MS (tandem mass spectrometry) was used to identify target analytes in extracts of A. deliciosa (varieties Abbot, Alison, Bruno, Hayward, Monti), originating from the Adler's Branch of N.I. Vavilov All-Russian Institute of Plant Genetic Resources. Separately, the pulp of the kiwi fruit and its peel were analyzed for the composition of biologically active substances. The richest in the composition of active substances was indicators of the cultivar Monti. The results of initial studies revealed the presence of …

Production And Oenological Potential Of Riesling Variety Clones 49, 1091 And 1089, Tatjana Jovanovic-Cvetkovic, Rada Grbic, Borut Bosancic, Miljan Cvetkovic

Turkish Journal of Agriculture and Forestry

Clonal selection in viticulture is based on genetic variability with the aim of creating superior plants (clones) that enable more economical production. The Riesling variety, with a long tradition of cultivation, has been the subject of extensive clonal selection and clones 49, 1089 and 1091 were created in France. During the two-year period (2016-2017), the productivity and oenological potential of Riesling clones 49, 1089 and 1091 in the agroclimatic conditions of Bosnia and Herzegovina were conducted. Significant differences between clones were found in the yield per vine (1.34-1.87 kg), ten skins weight (2.17-2.46 g) and mass of ten berries seeds …

Study On The Effect Of Planting Pattern Adjustment On The Growth Of Kiwifruit Inter-Root Microorganisms And Fruit Quality, Haibo Wu, Lianchun Wang, Linan Kang, Chao Liu, Mingwei Li

Turkish Journal of Agriculture and Forestry

As the area planted with kiwifruit continues to expand, monoculture continuous cropping is gradually becoming the main mode of its production. However, current kiwifruit soils suffer from nutrient deficiencies and increased toxicity of their own, which are harmful to their yield and quality. The study proposes a kiwifruit-maize intercrop as a starting point for adjusting the cropping pattern. It was then analysed in terms of basic soil physicochemical properties, sucrose enzyme activity, microbial species, and quantity, respectively, and compared with the kiwifruit intercropping method to verify its effect on inter-root microorganisms and fruit quality. The experimental outcomes demonstrated that the …

Exploring The Microbial Composition Of Moonmilk In Wind Cave National Park, Emma Pellegrino

Honors Program Theses

Moonmilk is a white substance mainly composed of calcium carbonate (CaCO3) that is often found in limestone caves. It is one of many mineral composites, or speleothems, in Wind Cave National Park South Dakota and is thought to be formed by microbial activity. This cave system is a complex, isolated environment that serves as an analog for similar domains beyond the Earth. Each site has varying degrees of human exposure, from public tour routes to caverns only occasionally visited by park rangers, making it an ideal place of study for pristine samples in extreme conditions. Wind Cave also varies in …

Stamp Sand Along The Keweenaw Shoreline: Solid And Dissolved Copper & Effects On Biota, Gary Swain

Dissertations, Master's Theses and Master's Reports

Stamps sand refers to the regional colloquialism for the mine-tailing byproducts generated from copper (Cu) ore processing mills located in Michigan’s Keweenaw Peninsula. In the Keweenaw region, copper extracted from basalt ores resulted in a legacy of 100’s of millions of metric tonnes of stamp sand wastes, including 22.7 million metric tonnes at Gay, MI. Trace amounts of Cu persist in stamp sands and when leached have toxic enough concentrations to influence aquatic biota. To better understand stamp sands’ properties, we ran experiments and compiled data about the solid and dissolved phases of Cu. Solid phase concentration of Cu was …

Tropical Plant Physiological Responses To Experimental Warming And Hurricane Disturbance, Robert Tunison

Dissertations, Master's Theses and Master's Reports

Tropical forests exchange more carbon with the atmosphere than any other biome, but their responses to climate change are largely understudied. The work presented in this dissertation uses a tropical understory warming experiment that was hit by a hurricane disturbance to investigate how plant physiology responds to multiple types of climate change pressures. We measured the potential for root respiration, leaf photosynthesis & respiration, and leaf thermotolerance acclimation to experimental warming while recovering from hurricane disturbance. We found there was thermal acclimation via decreased ecosystem root respiration, increased photosynthetic thermal niche breadth, and decreased quantum efficiency for some species at …

Statistical Methods For Gene Selection And Genetic Association Studies, Xuewei Cao

Dissertations, Master's Theses and Master's Reports

This dissertation includes five Chapters. A brief description of each chapter is organized as follows.

In Chapter One, we propose a signed bipartite genotype and phenotype network (GPN) by linking phenotypes and genotypes based on the statistical associations. It provides a new insight to investigate the genetic architecture among multiple correlated phenotypes and explore where phenotypes might be related at a higher level of cellular and organismal organization. We show that multiple phenotypes association studies by considering the proposed network are improved by incorporating the genetic information into the phenotype clustering.

In Chapter Two, we first illustrate the proposed GPN …

Eutrophication On Twin Lakes: Applying A Phosphorus Budget And Shoreline Surveys To Assess Current & Historical Lake Health, Tyler K. Lemahieu

Dissertations, Master's Theses and Master's Reports

The Twin Lakes system, a series of lakes including Lake Gerald and Lake Roland, was historically categorized as oligotrophic but is now mesotrophic having experienced cultural eutrophication. A mass balance phosphorus budget model was constructed for the Twin Lakes system in Houghton, Co. Michigan for the 2022 stratified season. Additional spatial insights were gleaned through a survey of shoreline water quality, which corroborated the model results. The lakes currently experience substantial depletion of hypolimnetic dissolved oxygen during late summer stratification. A budget reveals approximately 22% (6.6 kg) of the current 29.5 kg total phosphorus inputs to Twin Lakes (during the …

Accelerated Forgetting In People With Epilepsy: Pathologic Memory Loss, Its Neural Basis, And Potential Therapies, Sarah Ashley Steimel Phd

Dartmouth College Ph.D Dissertations

While forgetting is vital to human functioning, delineating between normative and disordered forgetting can become incredibly complex. This thesis characterizes a pathologic form of forgetting in epilepsy, identifies a neural basis, and investigates the potential of stimulation as a therapeutic tool. Chapter 2 presents a behavioral characterization of the time course of Accelerated Long-Term Forgetting (ALF) in people with epilepsy (PWE). This chapter shows evidence of ALF on a shorter time scale than previous studies, with a differential impact on recall and recognition. Chapter 3 builds upon the work in Chapter 2 by extending ALF time points and investigating the …

Narrating The Fragmenting Brain: Alzheimer's Disease Neuronarratives, Bonnie Cross

Electronic Theses and Dissertations, 2020-2023

This dissertation examines the representation of Alzheimer's Disease (AD) neuronarratives (NN), works that centralize the brain or consciousness in the plot, in multiple modalities to support that argument that neuronarratives should be expanded into a transmedia genre. These modalities include neurogames, neurocomics, and neuromemoirs. These three modalities were analyzed to determine how selfhood and social networks are represented by characters or authors with Alzheimer's Disease. As AD is often viewed as the loss of selfhood and is associated with isolation, these works combat these stigmas and complicate representations of the disease. The use of images was also examined in neurogames …

Masks, Misinformation, And Making Do: Appalachian Health-Care Workers And The Covid-19 Pandemic, Wendy Welch

Ohio University Press Open Access Books

The firsthand pandemic experiences of rural health-care providers—who were already burdened when COVID-19 hit—raise questions about the future of public health and health-care delivery.

This volume comprises the COVID-19 pandemic experiences of Appalachian health-care workers, including frontline providers, administrators, and educators. The combined narrative reveals how governmental and corporate policies exacerbated the region’s injustices, stymied response efforts, and increased the death toll.

Beginning with an overview of the SARS-CoV-2 virus and its impact on the body, the essays in the book’s first section provide background material and contextualize the subsequent explosion of telemedicine, the pandemic’s impact on medical education, and …

Testing Evolutionary Conservation Of Sex Determination In Lepidoptera Using Crispr/Cas9 Gene Editing, Sophia Schroeder

Honors Theses

The mechanism of sex determination in Lepidoptera is largely unexplored, and limited to knowledge of only a few genes. Adult Lepidoptera have obvious sexually dimorphic qualities, such as their genitalia. However, significant sex determination genes are not imperative for the adult developmental stage. Knockouts of some sex determination genes (doublesex isoforms) are shown to be lethal in the embryonic and larval stages of development in several animals. However, it is unclear whether this is due to their respective impact on sex determination and sexual dimorphism, or the existence of another function, such as pleiotropy, within a particular gene. Moreover, …

Biomechanics Of Mantis Prey Capture, Danielle S. Taylor

Honors Theses

Mantis species have a variety of different morphologies, so do the extreme forms of mantis limbs trade prey catching capability for camouflage? We hypothesize that some extreme forms of mantis limbs that are associated with cryptic species may be associated with a tradeoff of the capability of those limbs. Previous research has developed 2D morphologies of several hundred species of mantises. We are creating a 3D morphology by using micro dissection, micro CT imaging to construct our 3D biomechanical model. We found the attachment points of the ligaments and muscles from a Tenodera forearm and have constructed a 2D biomechanical …

Trends In Cyanotoxin Production Potential In China Lake: An Edna Analysis Of Microcystis And Dolichospermum And The Environmental Drivers Of Cyanotoxin Production, Gennifer M. Rubin

Honors Theses

Episodes of cyano-harmful algal blooms (cyano-HABs) are hypothesized to be exacerbated by the effects of climate change. However, the dynamics of the interactions between elements of climate change and toxigenic cyanobacteria proliferation are not well defined. China Lake is the drinking water source for 7 municipalities in the Kennebec County and is one of many lakes in central Maine that has been subjected to high levels of cyano-HABs and microcystin toxin contamination in recent years. Monitoring the toxicity of these blooms in relation to various aspects of climate change may lead to identification of the major drivers of microcystin production …

Does Tssh Deletion In Paraburkholderia Bonniea Affect Its Symbiosis With Dictyostellum Discoideum?, Anna Chen

Honors Theses

Paraburkholderia are amoeba resistant, gram negative bacteria that form facultative symbiotic relationships with D. discoideum, a soil dwelling amoeba host. Three species of Paraburkholderia, P. agricolaris, P. hayleyella, and P. bonniea are able to persistently infect nonnative, or symbiont free, D. discoideum. These three species share a type III secretion system (T3SS) and type VI secretion system (T6SS) that is absent in other close relatives We hypothesized that the ability to persistently infect D. discoideum may be partially attributed to the T3SS and T6SS shared across the three species of Paraburkholderia.

The goal was to test the phenotypic effect of …