Life Sciences Commons^™

Land Systems, Soils And Vegetation Of The Southern Goldfields And Great Western Woodlands Of Western Australia - Volume 1, Peter-Jon A. Waddell, Paul Galloway

Technical Bulletins

This technical bulletin defines and maps the land resources of the southern Goldfields region of Western Australia (WA). The southern Goldfields region, as featured in this bulletin, covers 151,753 km². The western and eastern borders are variable because they align with various cadastral boundaries. The western survey border, which in part follows the WA State Barrier Fence, demarcates cleared agricultural land from the intact, western extent of the Great Western Woodlands. The eastern border abuts the westernmost Nullarbor pastoral lease boundaries, except for the north-easternmost and south-easternmost edges which continue into Crown land. Major towns are Coolgardie, Kalgoorlie …

The Importance Of "When" In Calorie Restriction-Induced Lifespan Extension, Kristin Eckel-Mahan

Faculty, Staff and Student Publications

No abstract provided.

Role Strain And The Mental Health Of College-Educated African American Women, Andrea Alston-Brundage

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

AbstractWomen occupy many roles today, including wife, partner, parent, student, employee, and caregiver. This study addressed the effects of multiple roles on degreed African American women. The specific purpose was to assess the relationships between the marital and parental roles and employment status of college-educated African American women and assess mental health impacts as a result of role strain. The theoretical foundation for the study was Goode's role strain theory. The Working Women’s Role Strain Inventory, Patient Health Questionnaire-9, and General Anxiety Disorder-7 were administered to 82 women participants between the ages of 22 and 61 who were involved in …

Psychological Manipulation And Cluster-B Personality Traits Of Cult Leaders, Jennifer Henderson

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

Cults, thousands of which exist in the United States, present a societal problem due to their ability to rob followers of free will, sever familial ties, and even incite violence, such as the case of the Manson Family. Their leaders' manipulation of followers can be dangerous, resulting in emotional and physical abuse. There is a lack of meaningful literature on how personality traits may affect cult leaders’ abilities to recruit and maintain members. The purpose of this study was to examine how Cluster-B personality traits (narcissism, borderline, antisocial, and histrionic) relate to cult leaders’ abilities to manipulate. The qualitative case …

Clinical Vaccination Education Guideline For The African American Community, Margaret Chinedum Nwoji

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

AbstractVaccination hesitancy is high among African Americans and other people of color. The practice gap addressed in this project was the lack of a culturally sensitive clinical guideline for vaccination education relevant to the African American community. The practice-focused question was answered by developing an evidence-based Clinical Vaccination Education Guideline for the African American Community (CVEGAAC) that was validated by a group of four content experts using the Appraisal of Guidelines, Research, and Evaluation tool. The content experts scored each of the domains above 90%, implying that the CVEGAAC is of high quality and ready for implementation. The end users …

Laboratory Practices And Antimicrobial Resistance In A Florida Hospital, Crispina Marie Sy-Trias

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

Antibiotic resistance is a health threat affecting millions of Americans. Microorganisms develop resistance to antibiotics, rendering them useless for treating infections. The purpose of this quantitative study was to assess the associations between sample processing time and antibiotic resistance and is based on the health belief model. A retrospective specimen tracking activity of data from November 2019 to November 2020 was obtained by random sampling of 246 bacterial cultures. One hundred ninety-six (80%) samples were processed on time, and 50 (20%) were delayed; 167 (68%) samples were determined to have the presence of antimicrobial resistance (AMR), and 79 (32%) with …

Factors Related To The Perceptions Of Academic Honesty Among Campus-Based And Online Undergraduate Students, Robert Defranco

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

Academic dishonesty poses a challenge for the online and campus-based learning environment where technology and assessment at a distance may encourage easy and innovative ways of cheating. The purpose of this quantitative study was to assess campus-based and online students’ attitudes and perceptions toward academic dishonesty. Data were collected via the Student Academic Honesty Survey to measure student perceptions of academic dishonesty to determine the following: (a) whether biological males and females differed in their perceptions of academic dishonesty, (b) the predictive relationships between perceptions of academic dishonesty and locus of control after controlling for type of school, and (c) …

Promoting Healthier Treatment Outcomes In Obese Cancer Patients Taking High Dose Methotrexate, Carly Dell'ova

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

Cancer and obesity rates continue to rise, creating enormous public heath burdens to the individual and at the national and global levels, reducing quality of life, and increasing spending. Moreover, the relationships between cancer and obesity are not well understood. A commonly used chemotherapy for several types of cancer is high dose methotrexate (HDMTX). Along with chemotherapy, especially at high doses, comes toxicity to specific organs and the entire body. However, limited research has been conducted on obese cancer patients as they are often excluded from clinical studies. Practitioners need to better understand how to dose these patients to provide …

Glass Ceiling Encountered By Female Chief Executive Officers As They Advance To C-Level Positions In International Nonprofit Sports Organizations., Eric Edokpaigbe Idehen

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

Women are underrepresented as chief executive officers (CEOs), executive-level officers, board directors, and national sports organization board chairs in 45 countries. Despite social movements, laws, and practices supporting equal employment opportunities and workplace equality, women in top senior-level positions are still lacking. The purpose of this study was to explore the challenges women face in terms of obtaining CEO leadership roles in international nonprofit sports organizations. The study involved exploring limitations eight women faced when aspiring to CEO positions in terms of leadership development, talent management, and policies involving international nonprofit sports organizations. This study employed a qualitative descriptive phenomenological …

Branching And Pedicellariae In Basketstars And Snakestars Database, Richard L. Turner, Brenna O. O'Neill

Ocean Engineering and Marine Sciences Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

Blue Carbon Science, Management And Policy Across A Tropical Urban Landscape, Daniel A. Friess, Yasmine M. Gatt, Tze Kwan Fung, Jahson B. Alemu I, Natasha Bhatia, Rebecca Case, Siew Chin Chua, Danwei Huang, Valerie Kwan, Kiah Eng Lim, Yudhishthra Nathan, Yan Xiang Ow, Daniel Saavedra-Hortua, Taylor M. Sloey, Erik S. Yando, Hassan Ibrahim, Lian Pin Koh, Jun Yu Puah, Serena Lay-Ming Teo, Karenne Tun, Lynn Wei Wong, Siti Maryam Yaakub

Biological Sciences Faculty Publications

The ability of vegetated coastal ecosystems to sequester high rates of “blue” carbon over millennial time scales has attracted the interest of national and international policy makers as a tool for climate change mitigation. Whereas focus on blue carbon conservation has been mostly on threatened rural seascapes, there is scope to consider blue carbon dynamics along highly fragmented and developed urban coastlines. The tropical city state of Singapore is used as a case study of urban blue carbon knowledge generation, how blue carbon changes over time with urban development, and how such knowledge can be integrated into urban planning alongside …

Floral And Genetic Divergence Across Environmental Gradients Is Moderated By Inter-Population Gene Flow In Platanthera Dilatata (Orchidaceae), Lisa E. Wallace, Marlin L. Bowles

Biological Sciences Faculty Publications

Understanding how natural selection acts on intraspecific variation to bring about phenotypic divergence is critical to understanding processes of evolutionary diversification. The orchid family is well known for pollinator-mediated selection of floral phenotypes operating among species and along environmental or geographic gradients. Its effectiveness at small spatial scales is less understood, making the geographic scale at which intraspecific floral variation is examined important to evaluating causes of phenotypic divergence. In this study, we quantified phenotypic variation in the orchid Platanthera dilatata across 26 populations in coastal Southeast Alaska and compared this to edaphic and genetic variation at microsatellite loci. We …

Corals At The Edge Of Environmental Limits: A New Conceptual Framework To Re-Define Marginal And Extreme Coral Communities, Verena Schoepf, Justin H. Baumann, Daniel J. Barshis, Nicola K. Browne, Emma F. Camp, Steeve Comeau, Christopher E. Cornwall, Héctor M. Guzmán, Bernhard Riegl, Riccardo Rodolfo-Metalpa, Brigitte Sommer

Biological Sciences Faculty Publications

The worldwide decline of coral reefs has renewed interest in coral communities at the edge of environmental limits because they have the potential to serve as resilience hotspots and climate change refugia, and can provide insights into how coral reefs might function in future ocean conditions. These coral communities are often referred to as marginal or extreme but few definitions exist and usage of these terms has therefore been inconsistent. This creates significant challenges for categorising these often poorly studied communities and synthesising data across locations. Furthermore, this impedes our understanding of how coral communities can persist at the edge …

Multipatch Stochastic Epidemic Model For The Dynamics Of A Tick-Borne Disease, Milliward Maliyoni, Holly D. Gaff, Keshlan S. Govinder, Faraimunashe Chirove

Biological Sciences Faculty Publications

Spatial heterogeneity and migration of hosts and ticks have an impact on the spread, extinction and persistence of tick-borne diseases. In this paper, we investigate the impact of between-patch migration of white-tailed deer and lone star ticks on the dynamics of a tick-borne disease with regard to disease extinction and persistence using a system of Itô stochastic differential equations model. It is shown that the disease-free equilibrium exists and is unique. The general formula for computing the basic reproduction number for all patches is derived. We show that for patches in isolation, the basic reproduction number is equal to the …

The Coral Bleaching Automated Stress System (Cbass): A Low-Cost, Portable System For Standardized Empirical Assessments Of Coral Thermal Limits, Nicholas R. Evensen, Katherine E. Parker, Thomas A. Oliver, Stephen R. Palumbi, Cheryl A. Logan, James S. Ryan, Courtney N. Klepac, Gabriela Perna, Mark E. Warner, Christian R. Voolstra, Daniel J. Barshis

Biological Sciences Faculty Publications

Ocean warming is increasingly affecting marine ecosystems across the globe. Reef-building corals are particularly affected by warming, with mass bleaching events increasing in frequency and leading to widespread coral mortality. Yet, some corals can resist or recover from bleaching better than others. Such variability in thermal resilience could be critical to reef persistence; however, the scientific community lacks standardized diagnostic approaches to rapidly and comparatively assess coral thermal vulnerability prior to bleaching events. We present the Coral Bleaching Automated Stress System (CBASS) as a low-cost, open-source, field-portable experimental system for rapid empirical assessment of coral thermal thresholds using standardized temperature …

Editorial: New Frontiers In The Application Of Stable Isotopes To Ecological And Ecophysiological Research, Keith A. Hobson, John P. Whiteman, Seth D. Newsome

Biological Sciences Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

Global Phylogenomic Assessment Of Leptoseris And Agaricia Reveals Substantial Undescibed Diversity At Mesophotic Depths, J. C. Gijsbers, N. Englebert, K. E. Prata, M. Pichon, Z. Dinesen, R. Brunner, G. Eyal, F. L. González-Zapata, S. E. Kahng, K. R. W. Latijnhouwers, P. Muir, V. Z. Radice, J. A. Sánchez, M. J. A. Vermeij, O. Hoegh-Guldberg, S. J. Jacobs, P. Bongaerts

Biological Sciences Faculty Publications

Background: Mesophotic coral communities are increasingly gaining attention for the unique biological diversity they host, exemplified by the numerous mesophotic fish species that continue to be discovered. In contrast, many of the photosynthetic scleractinian corals observed at mesophotic depths are assumed to be depth-generalists, with very few species characterised as mesophotic-specialists. This presumed lack of a specialised community remains largely untested, as phylogenetic studies on corals have rarely included mesophotic samples and have long suffered from resolution issues associated with traditional sequence markers.

Results: Here, we used reduced-representation genome sequencing to conduct a phylogenomic assessment of the two dominant mesophotic …

Territory Inheritance And The Evolution Of Cooperative Breeding In The Acorn Woodpecker, Walter D. Koenig, Joseph Haydock, Hannah L. Dugdale, Eric L. Walters

Biological Sciences Faculty Publications

There are two main hypotheses for why offspring in cooperatively breeding taxa delay dispersal and remain on their natal territory rather than disperse. First, ecological constraints may force offspring to remain on their natal territory until a reproductive opportunity presents itself in an otherwise saturated habitat. Alternatively, delaying dispersal and helping kin may increase an offspring's inclusive fitness. One means by which offspring might enhance their direct fitness by delaying dispersal is by inheriting breeding status on their natal territory. Such territory inheritance regularly occurs in acorn woodpeckers, Melanerpes formicivorus, a species whose social groups consist of a cooperatively …

Variation In Establishment Success For American Mistletoe [Phoradendron Leucarpum (Raf.) Reveal & M.C. Johnst. (Viscaceae)] Appears Most Likely To Predict Its Distribution In Virginia And North Carolina, United States, Nicholas P. Flanders, Christopher P. Randle, Eric L. Walters, Lytton J. Musselman

Biological Sciences Faculty Publications

Dispersal limitation and variation in habitat suitability may determine an association of American mistletoe [Phoradendron leucarpum (Raf.) Reveal & M.C. Johnst. (Viscaceae)] with forested wetlands in Virginia and North Carolina, United States. Here, we first tested the alternative hypothesis that variation in host availability drives this habitat relationship. We used a generalized linear model to show a positive effect of forested wetland habitat on American mistletoe occurrence after accounting for both variation in host availability and differences among regions in host use. We then used seed sowing experiments to quantify how light availability and flood regime determine the viability …

A Multi-Taxon Analysis Of European Red Lists Reveal Major Threats To Biodiversity, Axel Hochkirch, Melanie Bilz, Catarina C. Ferreira, Anja Danielczak, David Allen, Ana Nieto, Carlo Rondinini, Kate Harding, Craig Hilton-Taylor, Caroline M. Pollock, Mary Seddon, Jean-Christophe Vié, Keith N. A. Alexander, Emily Beech, Manuel Biscoito, Yoan Braud, Ian J. Burfield, Filippo Maria Buzzetti, Marta Cálix, Kent E. Carpenter, Ning Labbish Chao, Dragan Chobanov, Maarten J. M. Christenhusz, Bruce B. Collette, Mia T. Comeros-Raynal, Neil Cox, Matthew Craig, Annabelle Cuttelod, William R. T. Darwall, Benoit Dodelin, Nicholas K. Dulvy, Eve Englefield, Michael F. Fay, Nicholas Fettes, Jörg Freyhof, Silvia García, Mariana García Criado, Michael Harvey, Nick Hodgetts, Christina Ieronymidou, Vincent J. Kalkman, Shelagh P. Kell, James Kemp, Sonia Khela, Richard V. Lansdown, Julia M. Lawson, Danna J. Leaman, Joana Magos Brehm, Nigel Maxted, Rebecca M. Miller, Eike Neubert, Baudewijn Odé, David Pollard, Riley Pollom, Rob Pople, Juan José Presa Asensio, Gina M. Ralph, Hassan Rankou, Malin Rivers, Stuart P. M. Roberts, Barry Russell, Alexander Sennikov, Fabien Soldati, Anna Staneva, Emilie Stump, Andy Symes, Dmitry Telnov, Helen Temple, Andrew Terry, Anastasiya Timoshyna, Chris Van Swaay, Henry Väre, Rachel H. L. Walls, Luc Willemse, Brett Wilson, Jemma Window, Emma G. E. Wright, Thomas Zuna-Kratky

Biological Sciences Faculty Publications

Biodiversity loss is a major global challenge and minimizing extinction rates is the goal of several multilateral environmental agreements. Policy decisions require comprehensive, spatially explicit information on species’ distributions and threats. We present an analysis of the conservation status of 14,669 European terrestrial, freshwater and marine species (ca. 10% of the continental fauna and flora), including all vertebrates and selected groups of invertebrates and plants. Our results reveal that 19% of European species are threatened with extinction, with higher extinction risks for plants (27%) and invertebrates (24%) compared to vertebrates (18%). These numbers exceed recent IPBES (Intergovernmental Platform on Biodiversity …

Frankenbacteriosis Targeting Interactions Between Pathogen And Symbiont To Control Infection In The Tick Vector, Lorena Mazuecos, Pilar Alberdi, Angélica Hernández-Jarguín, Marinela Contreras, Margarita Villar, Alejandro Cabezas-Cruz, Ladislav Simo, Almudena González-García, Sandra Díaz-Sánchez, Girish Neelakanta, Sarah I. Bonnet, Erol Fikrig, José De La Fuente

Biological Sciences Faculty Publications

(Summary) Tick microbiota can be targeted for the control of tick-borne diseases such as human granulocytic anaplasmosis (HGA) caused by model pathogen, Anaplasma phagocytophilum. Frankenbacteriosis is inspired by Frankenstein and defined here as paratransgenesis of tick symbiotic/commensal bacteria to mimic and compete with tick-borne pathogens. Interactions between A. phagocytophilum and symbiotic Sphingomonas identified by metaproteomics analysis in Ixodes scapularis midgut showed competition between both bacteria. Consequently, Sphingomonas was selected for frankenbacteriosis for the control of A. phagocytophilum infection and transmission. The results showed that Franken Sphingomonas producing A. phagocytophilum major surface protein 4 (MSP4) mimic pathogen and reduce infection …

Mechanical Devices For Census And Detection Of Off-Host Larval Ticks (Acari: Ixodidae), Donald B. Thomas, Holly D. Gaff, Brenda Leal-Galvan

Biological Sciences Faculty Publications

Standard off-host tick census techniques are generally inefficient for larval stages. Also, such techniques expose the investigator to environmental hazards including tick bites. Mechanical devices are an option which were tested under field conditions for proof of concept and in side-by-side comparison to the standard techniques. The tick-vac collected more ticks than the legging technique, but with lower frequency of positive detections. It may have utility for sampling small areas, such as weedy corrals suspected of harboring ticks. Different configurations of tick-bots, robotic vehicles with flags, depended on intensive operator control to avoid obstacles, limiting operation to line of sight. …

The Effect Of Larval Competition On Adult Life History Traits And The Immune Response Of Adult Cat Fleas (Ctenocephalides Felis), Piper N. Zellner, Lisa D. Brown

Honors College Theses

In holometabolous insects, conditions during the larval stage can affect the adult stage. For instance, in mosquitoes, reduced larval food and high density can make adults more susceptible to infection. Fleas (Siphonaptera), like mosquitoes, go through complete metamorphosis and have adult stages that exclusively feed on the blood of vertebrates, including humans. However, flea larvae have chewing mandibles and rely on nutrients from dried fecal matter containing vertebrate blood proteins. Their limited mobility and unique nutritional needs confine their development to specific areas, likely leading to frequent larval competition in natural conditions. Yet, the influence of larval density on the …

Are Epicuticular Waxes A Surface Defense Comparable To Trichomes? A Test Using Two Solanum Species And A Specialist Herbivore., Sakshi Watts, Rupesh R. Kariyat

School of Integrative Biological & Chemical Sciences (Formerly Dept. of Biology)

Although plants possess a suite of structural defenses, most studies have focused on trichomes. Trichomes can have both pre- and post-ingestive effects and have been consistently found to reduce herbivory. Along with trichomes, a few studies have focused on epicuticular waxes as an important defense; however, manipulated comparisons examining herbivore growth and development is limited. In this study, using two Solanum species (Solanum glaucescens and Solanum macrocarpon) that vary in both defenses, we tested the hypothesis that variation in defenses will affect herbivore feeding, primarily by restricting feeding commencement. We used electron microscopy together with a series of plant- and …

The Justice Challenge: Honors Endeavors Innovative Pedagogies Through The Grand Challenge Scholars Program, Jonathan Kotinek, Rebecca C. Bott-Knutson, Leigh E. Fine, Joy L. Hart, William Ziegler, Paul Knox, Timothy Nichols, Susan Sumner, Heidi Appel, Mark C. Andersen

School of Integrative Biological & Chemical Sciences (Formerly Dept. of Biology)

Honors practitioners from fourteen colleges and programs across the country at land-grant, public, and minority-serving institutions partner with agricultural experts to secure a United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) Higher Education Challenge grant focused on the themes of food justice, climate justice, and sustainable agriculture. Authors describe the program’s origin, objectives, and curricular outgrowths, highlighting its efficacy for empowering students in areas of systems thinking, career readiness, leadership in the service of addressing social needs, and learning through civic engagement.

The Relation Between Wheat, Soybean, And Hemp Acreage: A Bayesian Time Series Analysis, Joohun Han, John N. Ng'ombe

Agricultural Economics and Agribusiness Faculty Publications and Presentations

The 2018 United States Farm Bill has opened the possibility for farmers to increase their profits through hemp cultivation. The literature suggests hemp has the potential to replace soybeans in soybean–wheat double-cropping because hemp shares key attributes of soybeans as a rotation crop (profitability, potential as an energy crop, and maintenance of soil fertility). Nonetheless, due to a short history of hemp cultivation in the USA, it is difficult to predict a time series relationship between hemp, soybean, and wheat through conventional approaches. In this article, we use Bayesian time series models and data from Statistics Canada and the Alberta …

Comparison Of Corticosterone Concentrations Between Serum And Fecal Samples As A Measure Of Stress In Male Broilers., Kayla Weinacht

Murray State Theses and Dissertations

Stress has long been a topic of interest in the poultry industry due to its potential negative effects on chicken health and production of both eggs and meat. With increased global growth in egg and broiler production, more attention has been paid to the stressors that affect chickens in modern poultry operations, particularly environmental temperature and stocking density. Improving quantitative measurement of stress is always needed in poultry welfare research. In most studies, blood serum is measured for corticosterone, one of the biomarker hormones associated with stress in chickens. Methods of collecting blood serum are by their nature disruptive to …

Liquid Waste Treatment For Sustainable Tapioca Industry: A Comparison Between Biogas And Liquid Sugar, Lilik Sulistyowati, Novi Andareswari, Rifqi Rahmat Hidayatullah, Nurul Amri Komarudin, Yuni Yolanda

ASEAN Journal on Science and Technology for Development

There have been many studies examining the processing of tapioca wastewater. However, most studies have only researched at a laboratory scale without considering whether the treatment is appropriate. The study's purpose is to compare the processing technology of biogas and liquid sugar using technical, environmental, social, and cost-benefit analysis criteria to determine the appropriate technology to be applied. Literature study, observation, and interviews were used to determine the characteristics of each criterion. Cost-benefit analysis is calculated using the R/C Ratio. Furthermore, priority determination is carried out using the Exponential Comparison Method (MPE) using assessments from environmental and industrial experts on …

Scale-Free Behavioral Dynamics Directly Linked With Scale-Free Cortical Dynamics, Sabrina A. Jones, Jacob H. Barfield, V. Kindler Norman, Woodrow L. Shew

Physics Faculty Publications and Presentations

Naturally occurring body movements and collective neural activity both exhibit complex dynamics, often with scale-free, fractal spatiotemporal structure. Scale-free dynamics of both brain and behavior are important because each is associated with functional benefits to the organism. Despite their similarities, scale-free brain activity and scale-free behavior have been studied separately, without a unified explanation. Here, we show that scale-free dynamics of mouse behavior and neurons in the visual cortex are strongly related. Surprisingly, the scale-free neural activity is limited to specific subsets of neurons, and these scale-free subsets exhibit stochastic winner-take-all competition with other neural subsets. This observation is inconsistent …

Financial Strain Of Covid-19 And Its Impact On Willingness-To-Pay For Equine Care, Jada M. Thompson, Michelle Kibler, Jennie L.Z. Ivey

Agricultural Economics and Agribusiness Faculty Publications and Presentations

The novel COVID-19 virus caused a global pandemic disrupting lives, industries, and economies. The result was an impact on prices due to challenges with production and supply chain distribution. This study investigates the financial strain COVID-19 had on equine owners and leasers, what the market for equine care would bear if costs for care increased, and what factors contribute to their willingness to pay (WTP) for increasing cost of equine care. An online survey was distributed for 4 weeks to adult U.S. residents. Respondents reported their involvement in the equine industry, financial response to COVID-19, and responses to …