Ornithology Commons^™

A Subspecies-Level Database Of Amazonian Bird Distributions, With Inferences On Suture Zones And Conservation, Marco Antonio Rego

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

Amazonia has the largest and most biodiverse tropical forest on the planet. However, the distributions of its species are still poorly understood, even for well-studied vertebrates such as birds. Available distribution maps for Amazonian birds often lack accuracy in delimiting the area where species occur. Existing distributional information for Amazonian birds is often limited to species-level level taxonomy, even though many Amazonian bird subspecies represent biological species. Here, I investigate the geographic distributions of 4,148 bird taxa (species and subspecies) using museum scientific specimens as the primary source of data. To build the data base I use more than 600,000 …

Insights Into The Speciation Process From Genomic And Phenotypic Analysis Of An Avian Hybrid Zone In Amazonia, Glaucia Christina Del-Rio

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

Understanding the outcome of secondary contact is essential to shed light on the mechanisms governing species formation and maintenance. In Amazonia, closely related bird taxa with limited dispersal abilities are often separated by rivers, which presumably act as dispersal barriers. However, at the headwaters, rivers cease to be dispersal barriers, and this generates opportunities for secondary contact. In my dissertation, I studied genomic mechanisms associated with phenotypic differences, mitochondrial DNA structure, and putative reproductive barriers between two hybridizing Amazonian bird species in the genus Rhegmatorhina, a group of antbirds that find their arthropod prey exclusively by following army-ant swarms. …

Breeding Ecology Of Mottled Ducks In Southwestern Louisiana, Elizabeth Sophia Bonczek

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

Mottled ducks are a resident species found in the southern United States that rely on coastal marsh and associated habitat to fulfill the needs of the entirety of their annual cycle. Population monitoring has revealed declines in western Gulf Coast (WGC) mottled ducks since 2008. Mottled duck populations are influenced by survival and recruitment, and changes in these factors may contribute to population declines. The overarching goal of this project was to identify the mechanisms potentially limiting WGC mottled ducks.

I captured adult female mottled ducks during molt on Rockefeller Wildlife Refuge and adjacent lands in southwestern Louisiana from 2017–2019. …

Brood Abundance And Invertebrate Availability In Crop-Dominated Landscapes In The Prairie Pothole Region, Catrina V. Terry

LSU Master's Theses

The Prairie Pothole Region (PPR) is the most important region for ducks in North America, producing over half the ducks on the continent, and it is a priority landscape for wetland and grassland conservation. Agricultural expansion has changed the PPR, and the majority of grasslands and potholes have been converted into row-crops. The loss of nesting habitat has directly caused nest success to decline. Most of the remaining wetlands are surrounded by row-crops, and are considered lower quality because they receive runoff of sediment and chemicals, which may decrease primary forage for young ducklings as well as inhibit wetland vegetation. …

Gain-Of-Function Polymorphisms In Human Inflammasomes: Implications For Cystic Fibrosis, Duane Jeansonne, Samithamby Jeyaseelan

Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

Habitat Use And Morphology Of Birds In "Intact" Amazonia Under Changing Climate, Vitek Jirinec

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

Neotropical forests contain the core of global avian diversity. Of these, the Amazon rainforest is the largest, but ~20% has already been lost to deforestation, inspiring research into the effects of clearing and fragmentation on forest birds. These studies have consistently shown that insectivorous birds that forage on or near the ground are the most sensitive species to forest disturbance. As a preamble to our study, we synthesized bird capture data collected over 40 years within continuous forest far from human disturbance. Remarkably, we found that terrestrial and near-ground insectivores have shown substantial abundance declines even within primary forest. The …

Artificial Intelligence And Covid-19: Deep Learning Approaches For Diagnosis And Treatment, M. B. Jamshidi, A. Lalbakhsh, J. Talla, Z. Peroutka, F. Hadjilooei, P Lalbakhsh, M. Jamshidi, L. La Spada, M. Mirmozafari, M. Dehghani, A. Sabet, Sa. Roshani, So. Roshani, N. Bayat-Makou, B. Mohamadzade, Z. Malek, A. Jamshidi, S. Kiani, H. Hashemi-Dezaki, W. Mohyuddin

Faculty Publications

COVID-19 outbreak has put the whole world in an unprecedented difficult situation bringing life around the world to a frightening halt and claiming thousands of lives. Due to COVID-19 & x2019;s spread in 212 countries and territories and increasing numbers of infected cases and death tolls mounting to 5,212,172 and 334,915 (as of May 22 2020), it remains a real threat to the public health system. This paper renders a response to combat the virus through Artificial Intelligence (AI). Some Deep Learning (DL) methods have been illustrated to reach this goal, including Generative Adversarial Networks (GANs), Extreme Learning Machine (ELM), …

Evaluation Of Reproductive Phenology And Ecology Of Wild Turkey (Meleagris Gallopavo) Across The Southeastern United States, Landon Robert Schofield

LSU Master's Theses

The primary driver of population growth and sustainability of gallinaceous birds is annual recruitment. Habitat selection by wild turkeys (Meleagris gallopavo spp.) during reproductive activities could influence production at multiple temporal and spatial scales. Vegetation conditions at nest sites that could drive nest success have not been clearly identified, which suggests that other factors may drive reproductive success.

Female wild turkeys maintain dominance hierarchies, which could influence how reproductively active females distribute themselves across the landscape during reproductive periods. Using high-frequency GPS data collected from reproductively active females, I analyzed nesting attempts for Eastern (n = 381), …

Factors Affecting Nest Success Of Colonial Nesting Waterbirds In Southwest Louisiana, Karis A. Ritenour

LSU Master's Theses

As the coastline of Louisiana shifts with global climate change, subsidence, and accelerated sea level rise, important breeding islands for colonial nesting waterbirds are disappearing. In many recent studies flooding has been a leading cause of nest failure for a variety of species, especially those that nest on the ground. I examined the nest success of four species of colonial nesting waterbirds with various nesting strategies on Rabbit Island in southwestern Louisiana during 2017 and2018 by determining nest and fledging success. I monitored 855 nests, including 457 Brown Pelicans nests with an estimated hatch probability of 70%, 270 Forster’s Terns …

Evaluation Of Reproductive Phenology And Ecology Of Eastern Wild Turkey (Meleagris Gallopavo Silvestris) Across The Southeastern United States, Nicholas W. Bakner

LSU Master's Theses

Avian reproduction is known to be a driver of population dynamics across species and systems. Behavioral decisions during incubation such as habitat selection and nest attentiveness are thought to affect nest success. The incubation process is a costly period during which individuals are sedentary and must balance survival with reproductive success and overall fitness. Current understanding of Eastern wild turkey incubation behavior provides a limited view of the incubation period. Using GPS data collected from Eastern wild turkeys (n = 220), I evaluated nest fate as it relates to recess frequency, distance travelled during recess, and habitat selection during …

Failure Of A Heterologous Recombinant Sca5/Ompb Protein-Based Vaccine To Elicit Effective Protective Immunity Against Rickettsia Rickettsii Infections In C3h/Hen Mice, Sean P. Riley, Marissa M. Cardwell, Yvonne G. Chan, Ludovic Pruneau, Fabio Del Piero, Juan J. Martinez

Faculty Publications

Spotted fever group (SFG) rickettsial species are obligate intracellular tick-borne pathogens that are responsible for important human diseases. Previous reports have demonstrated the feasibility of using recombinant surface cell antigen Sca5/OmpB to elicit protective immunity against homologous challenges using murine models of Mediterranean spotted fever and Rocky Mountain spotted fever. In addition, the feasibility of generating cross-protective immunity against related rickettsial species has also been established, but the molecular basis for these phenomena was not explored. Here, we demonstrate that vaccination of C3H/HeN mice with a recombinant OmpB domain derived from Rickettsia conorii induced high titer humoral immune responses that …

Manual For Ageing And Sexing Birds Of Bosque Fray Jorge National Park And Northcentral Chile, With Notes On Range And Breeding Seasonality, Peter Pyle, Andrew Engilis, Douglas A. Kelt

Special Publications of the Museum of Natural Science

Bosque Fray Jorge National Park (hereafter "Fray Jorge") comprises 9,959 ha on the coast of Chile’s Region IV (Coquimbo), approximately 400 km north of Santiago and 100 km south of La Serena (30°41’S, 71°40’W) (Fig. 1). It is a Biosphere Reserve and has been protected from grazing and disturbance since 1941 (Squeo et al. 2004). As such, it is a biotic oasis surrounded by agricultural and increasingly disturbed terrain (Bahre 1979). The climate is Mediterranean, with ca. 130 mm of annual precipitation measured since 1989 at an on-site meteorological station, 90% falling in winter (May-Sept). Summers are warm and dry, …

Manual Para Estimar Edad Y Sexo En Aves Del Parque Nacional Bosque Fray Jorge Y Chile Central, Con Notas Sobre Rangos De Distribución Y Estación Reproductiva, Peter Pyle, Andrew Engilis Jr., Douglas A. Kelt

Special Publications of the Museum of Natural Science

El Parque Nacional Fray Jorge (en adelante "Fray Jorge") comprende 9.959 ha. en la costa de la IV Región de Chile (Coquimbo), a unos 400 km al norte de Santiago y a 100 km al sur de La Serena (30 ° 41'S, 71 ° 40'W) (Fig. 1). Se trata de una Reserva de la Biosfera que se ha protegido del pastoreo y las perturbaciones antrópicas desde 1941 (Squeo et al. 2004). Como tal, es un oasis biótico rodeado de áreas agrícolas cada vez más intervenidas por el hombre (Bahre 1979). El clima es mediterráneo, con 130 mm de precipitación anual, …

The Breeding Ecology Of White-Faced Ibis In The Lower Carson River Basin, Nevada, Eric Patrick Kelchlin

LSU Historical Dissertations and Theses

The Great Basin White-faced Ibis (Plegadis chihi) population is recognized as a Species of Management because of its small population size, limited number of traditional breeding sites, and vulnerability to habitat loss. The ability to predict future population trends and develop wetland management strategies is limited because many aspects of their breeding ecology and population dynamics are unknown. 1 examined White-faced Ibis nesting ecology and breeding habitat selection at the Lower Carson River Basin, Nevada, from 1995-1997, and the relationship between the local surface water conditions and trends in the number of breeding pairs from 1970-1997 on a local and …

Behavior Of The Red-Footed Booby (Sulasula) In British Honduras, Jared Verner

LSU Historical Dissertations and Theses

During three months of the breeding season in a colony of 3500 Red-footed Boobies (Sula sula) on 45½-acre Half Moon Caye, fifty miles east of Belize, British Honduras, that species’ little-known breeding activities were investigated. Feeding flights of boobies began leaving the caye before daylight and returned in the evening until after dark. Wind direction and velocity notably affected the mode of the birds’ departure but little affected their direction. Average flight-unit size was 2.41 birds. Contrary to published accounts, the boobies were able to take flight from the ground.

Observations On The White-Faced Ibis, Plegadis Chihi, In Louisiana, Horace William Belknap

LSU Historical Dissertations and Theses

The eight-month study deals with the White-faced Ibis, Plegadis chihi, in southwestern Louisiana. It affirms the absence of the closely related Glossy Ibis, Plegadis falcinellus, as a breeding bird in that area today. Data on feeding habits, social behavior, nesting cycles, and plumage changes in chihi are presented as a step toward clarifying the relationship of these two puzzling forms of ibis; but the full significance of these findings cannot be ascertained until more is known about the habits of falcinellus. The most important conclusions concern plumage changes. It is shown that published descriptions of plumage and molt in chihl …