Biology Commons^™

A New Laelapine Mite (Acari: Mesostigmata: Laelapidae) Associated With The Spiny Rodent, Scolomys Melanops, In Amazonian Peru, Donald Gettinger, Scott L. Gardner

Scott L. Gardner Publications

Gigantolaelaps scolomys Gettinger and Gardner n. sp., an ectoparasitic mite (Acari: Laelapidae) associated with the rodent Scolomys melanops in Amazonian forests of Peru, is described and illustrated.

Mites of the genus Gigantolaelaps Fonseca are common ectoparasites associated exclusively with rodents of the sigmodontine tribe Oryzomyini (see Gettinger, 1987). They are often abundant in the dorsal pelage and are easily collected by brushing the host at capture. The laelapine populations sampled are female dominant; males and immatures are assumed to live within the nest of the host (Martins-Hatano et al., 2011). A new species was encountered in a small collection of …

First Report Of The Herb Field Mouse, Apodemus Uralensis (Pallas, 1811) From Mongolia, Setev Shar, Nyamsuren Batsaikhan, Dietrich Dolch, Scott Gardner, Ottmar Kullmer, V. S. Lebedev, Davaa Lkhagvasuren, Ulrike Menz, Ravchig Samiya, Michael Stubbe, Нermann Ansorge

Scott L. Gardner Publications

The herb field mouse, Apodemus uralensis (Pallas, 1811) is recorded for the first time in Mongolia, from western part of the Mongolian Altai and the adjacent Mongolian part of the Dzungarian Gobi. In addition, we discovered several additional fi ndings of this species recorded as early as 1976 from different scientific collections. Body and skull measurements are presented along with a molecular genetic analysis of one specimen.

Evolution In Action: Climate Change, Biodiversity Dynamics And Emerging Infectious Disease, Eric P. Hoberg, Daniel R. Brooks

Harold W. Manter Laboratory of Parasitology: Faculty Publications

Climatological variation and ecological perturbation have been pervasive drivers of faunal assembly, structure and diversification for parasites and pathogens through recurrent events of geographical and host colonization at varying spatial and temporal scales of Earth history. Episodic shifts in climate and environmental settings, in conjunction with ecological mechanisms and host switching, are often critical determinants of parasite diversification, a view counter to more than a century of coevolutionary thinking about the nature of complex host–parasite assemblages. Parasites are resource specialists with restricted host ranges, yet shifts onto relatively unrelated hosts are common during phylogenetic diversification of parasite lineages and directly …

Eight Legged Encounters, Eileen A. Hebets

Eileen Hebets Publications

This program was funded in part by a National Science Foundation grant (DRL–1241482 to EAH). Material was developed in collaboration with Marie- Claire Chelini, Jessie Rose Storz, Cody Storz, and Malcolm Rosenthal. Steven Schwartz, Jason Stafstrom, Kathy French, Priscilla Grew, and Judy Diamond were all extremely helpful in grant writing, facilitating the first live event, and/or discussions. Pawl Tisdale (artist) was phenomenal to work with on all aspects of the project!

TABLE OF CONTENTS

CLASSIFICATION & TAXONOMY STATIONS
I. WHAT IS AN ARTHROPOD? page 4 a. The goal of this station is to introduce the audience to some basic information …

Multimodal Sensory Reliance In The Nocturnal Homing Of The Amblypygid Phrynus Pseudoparvulus (Class Arachnida, Order Amblypygi)?, Eileen A. Hebets, Alfonso Aceves-Aparicio, Samuel Aguilar-Argüello, Verner P. Bingman, Ignacio Escalante, Eben J. Gering, David R. Nelson, Jennifer Rivera, José Ángel Sánchez-Ruiz, Laura Segura-Hernández, Virginia Settepani, Daniel D. Wiegmann, Jay A. Stafstrom

Eileen Hebets Publications

Like many other nocturnal arthropods, the amblypygid Phrynus pseudoparvulus is capable of homing. The environment through which these predators navigate is a dense and heterogeneous tropical forest understory and the mechanism(s) underlying their putatively complex navigational abilities are presently unknown. This study explores the sensory inputs that might facilitate nocturnal navigation in the amblypygid P. pseudoparvulus. Specifically, we use sensory system manipulations in conjunction with field displacements to examine the potential involvement of multimodal—olfactory and visual—stimuli in P. pseudoparvulus’ homing behavior. In a first experiment, we deprived individuals of their olfactory capacity and displaced them to the opposite side of …

Investigating The Role Of Micrornas In The Response To Nitrogen Deprivation In The Green Alga Chlamydomonas Reinhardtii, Adam Voshall

School of Biological Sciences: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

Microalgae are gaining attention as a potential feedstock for the production of biodiesel, mainly derived from triacylglycerols (TAG). In many algae, TAG synthesis increases dramatically upon certain stresses but this is often accompanied by growth retardation. Rational improvements to strain productivity are limited by the scant knowledge on algal lipid metabolism and gene regulatory mechanisms. In this context, systems-level approaches aimed at understanding and modeling metabolic and regulatory networks may enable hypothesis-driven genetic engineering strategies. The green microalga Chlamydomonas reinhardtii accumulates significant amounts of TAGs under nutrient starvation and provides a genetically tractable model for manipulating biosynthetic pathways. In order …

Zooplankton Density Increases In An Irrigation Reservoir During Drought Conditions, Brett P. Olds, Brian C. Peterson, Keith D. Koupal, Casey W. Schoenebeck, Kerri M. Farnsworth-Hoback, W. Wyatt Hoback

Transactions of the Nebraska Academy of Sciences and Affiliated Societies

Harlan County Reservoir, located in south-central Nebraska, entered a drought in 2003, providing an opportunity to monitor the effects of drought on the zooplankton community in this irrigation reservoir. We sampled the zooplankton community at 15 standardized locations every other week from April through the third week of October from 2003-2011. Total zooplankton densities were higher (131.8 ±13.1 L^-1) in drought reservoir conditions (2003-2006) than under normal conditions (66.6 ±9.0 L^-1) (2007-2011). The zooplankton community was dominated by copepods throughout the study, with adult and immature (nauplii) copepods contributing 86.5% of the total zooplankton, while Daphnia …

De Novo Assembly Of The Common Marmoset Transcriptome From Nextgen Mrna Sequences, Mnirnal D. Maudhoo, Dongren Ren, Julien S. Gradnigo, Robert M. Gibbs, Austin C. Lubker, Etsuko N. Moriyama, Jeffrey A. French, Robert B. Norgen Jr.

School of Biological Sciences: Faculty Publications

Background: Nonhuman primates are important for both biomedical studies and understanding human evolution. Although research in these areas has mostly focused on Old World primates, such as the rhesus macaque, the common marmoset (Callithrix jacchus), a New World primate, offers important advantages in comparison to other primates, such as an accelerated lifespan. To conduct Next Generation expression studies or to study primate evolution, a high quality annotation of the marmoset genome is required. The availability of marmoset transcriptome data from five tissues, including both raw sequences and assembled transcripts, will aid in the annotation of the newly released …

Trait-Based Diversification Shifts Reflect Differential Extinction Among Fossil Taxa, Peter J. Wagner, George F. Estabrook

School of Biological Sciences: Faculty Publications

Evolution provides many cases of apparent shifts in diversification associated with particular anatomical traits. Three general models connect these patterns to anatomical evolution: (i) elevated net extinction of taxa bearing particular traits, (ii) elevated net speciation of taxa bearing particular traits, and (iii) elevated evolvability expanding the range of anatomies available to some species. Traitbased diversification shifts predict elevated hierarchical stratigraphic compatibility (i.e., primitive→derived→highly derived sequences) among pairs of anatomical characters. The three specific models further predict (i) early loss of diversity for taxa retaining primitive conditions (elevated net extinction), (ii) increased diversification among …

Solenopsis Invicta Virus (Sinv-1) Infection And Insecticide Interactions In The Red Imported Fire Ant (Hymenoptera: Formicidae), Danielle M. Tufts, Wayne B. Hunter, Blake Bextine

School of Biological Sciences: Faculty Publications

Controlling invasive species is a growing concern; however, pesticides can be detrimental for non-target organisms. The red imported fire ant (Solenopsis invicta Buren; Hymenoptera: Formicidae) has aggressively invaded ~138 million ha in the USA and causes over $6 billion in damage and control efforts annually (Valles 2011). Myriad research studies have been conducted to discover safe biological control agents to manage these invasive pests (Valles et al. 2004; Milks et al. 2008; Oi et al. 2009; Yang et al. 2009; Wang et al. 2010; Callcott et al. 2011; Porter et al. 2011; Tufts et al. 2011). Viruses may be lethal …

The Quarterly Review Of Biology: Population And Community Ecology Of Onto- Genetic Development. Monographs In Population Biology, Volume 51., Chad Brassil

School of Biological Sciences: Faculty Publications

The authors present a derivation, synthesis, and exposition of the consequences of juvenile-adult stage-structured models leading to biomass overcompensation with increasing mortality rates. They compile and elaborate upon their previous work, using the space afforded to provide a thorough explanation and examination of model variants.

They argue the most important stage-structure element to include is, minimally, a model with juveniles and adults. Fundamentally, these elements are linked by maturation of juveniles to adults and the reproduction of adults to produce more juveniles. The major result is that, for the empirically justified set of parameters presented in the book, increasing the …

Temperature Alters Food Web Body-Size Structure, Jean P. Gibert, John P. Delong

School of Biological Sciences: Faculty Publications

The increased temperature associated with climate change may have important effects on body size and predator– prey interactions. The consequences of these effects for food web structure are unclear because the relationships between temperature and aspects of food web structure such as predator–prey body-size relationships are unknown. Here, we use the largest reported dataset for marine predator–prey interactions to assess how temperature affects predator–prey body-size relationships among different habitats ranging from the tropics to the poles. We found that prey size selection depends on predator body size, temperature and the interaction between the two. Our results indicate that (i) predator–prey …

Response Of Beta Diversity To Pulses Of Ordovician-Silurian Mass Extinction, Simon A.F. Darroch, Peter J. Wagner

School of Biological Sciences: Faculty Publications

Ecologists are increasingly using the fossil record of mass extinction to build predictive models for the ongoing biodiversity crisis. During mass extinctions, major depletions in global (i.e., gamma) diversity may reflect decrease in alpha diversity (i.e., local assemblages support fewer taxa), and/or decrease in beta diversity (such that similar pools of taxa are common to a greater number of local areas). Contrasting the effects of extinction on alpha and beta diversity is therefore central to understanding how global richness becomes depleted over these critical events. Here we investigate the spatial effects of mass extinction by examining changes in alpha, beta, …

Across-Year Social Stability Shapes Network Structure In Wintering Migrant Sparrows, Daizaburo Shizuka, Alexis S. Chaine, Jennifer Anderson, Oscar Johnson, Inger Marie Laursen, Bruce E. Lyon

School of Biological Sciences: Faculty Publications

Migratory birds often form flocks on their wintering grounds, but important details of social structure such as the patterns of association between individuals are virtually unknown. We analysed networks of co-membership in short-term flocks for wintering golden-crowned sparrows (Zonotrichia atricapilla) across three years and discovered social complexity unsuspected for migratory songbirds. The population was consistently clustered into distinct social communities within a relatively small area (~ 7 ha). Birds returned to the same community across years, with mortality and recruitment leading to some degree of turnover in membership. These spatiotemporal patterns were explained by the combination of space …

Obligate Male Death And Sexual Cannibalism In Dark Fishing Spiders, Steven Schwartz, William E. Wagner, Eileen A. Hebets

Eileen Hebets Publications

Male dark fishing spiders (Dolomedes tenebrosus Araneae, Pisauridae) always die during their first and only copulation, making all males monogynous. Such obligate male death can be adaptive if it facilitates sexual cannibalism, and if sexual cannibalism results in male reproductive benefits, such as an advantage in sperm competition through reduced female remating. We first conducted an experiment to determine the extent to which D. tenebrosus (1) males are cannibalized by females and (2) females engage in remating, both of which are prerequisites for several adaptive hypotheses of male self-sacrifice. We then conducted an experiment to test the hypothesis that …

Mammals Of Kenya’S Protected Areas From 1888 To 2013, Aniko B. Toth, S. Kathleen Lyon, Anna K. Behrensmeyer

School of Biological Sciences: Faculty Publications

Kenya is a world leader in conservation and host to one of the most diverse array of mammals on the planet. As a focus of scientific attention, it is important to be able to assess not only the current state of Kenya’s mammal communities, but also how they have changed over anthropogenic timescales. Comprehensive lists of mammal species from known areas are essential for this goal, and these also provide comparative baselines for assessing changes in mammalian diversity in the future and in the fossil record. Though there is considerable literature available for mammals inhabiting Kenyan protected areas (National Parks …

Tactical Adjustment Of Signaling Leads To Increased Mating Success And Survival, Laura Sullivan-Beckers, Eileen A. Hebets

Eileen Hebets Publications

Most sexually reproducing animals overcome the challenge of searching for and attracting mates by utilizing signals that are broadcast through a spatially and temporally varying environment. A diverse suite of behavioral solutions exist for overcoming such environmental variability, including the adjustment of signaling behavior based upon receiver feedback. Few studies have directly examined the relationship between such tactical signaling adjustments and proxies of male fitness; the few that have, failed to find a relationship. Using the wolf spider, Schizocosa rovneri, we set out to first quantify among-male variation in the form and degree of responsiveness to female feedback. Following …

Plasticity In Female Mate Choosiness: A Result Of Variation In Perceived Predation Risk And The Interaction Of Female Age And Male Density, Ashley N. Atwell

School of Biological Sciences: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

In many species, female mate choices can be a strong source of sexual selection. Females often prefer a certain male phenotype, and this can be due to benefits females gain from mating with preferred males. However, such benefits can sometimes be outweighed by the cost of searching for a preferred male. These costs and benefits often change concomitantly with changes in environmental (e.g., predator abundance and conspecific density) and internal factors (e.g., female age). Thus, female mate choosiness (the degree to which preferences for certain males are expressed) should often be plastic. Plasticity in female mate choosiness may be complicated …

Investigations Into Sensory Ecology And Gene Evolution Of The Pea Aphid (Acyrthosiphon Pisum), Swapna R. Purandare

School of Biological Sciences: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

Organisms use environmental cues to gather information required to perform activities that are essential for their survival and reproduction, such as searching for food, avoiding danger, and finding mates. They respond to the acquired information by changing their behavior or physiology, which may result in increased fitness. Due to the fundamental importance of information in an organism’s life, it is important to understand its acquisition, processing, and the organism’s response to it. In the work presented here, we used the pea aphid (Acyrthosiphon pisum), an insect that produces multiple phenotypes, or morphs, that are genetically identical, but differ …

Fifth Specimen Of The Nine-Banded Armadillo (Dasypus Novemcinctus) From Nebraska, Keith Geluso, Greg D. Wright, Angelina E. Wright

Transactions of the Nebraska Academy of Sciences and Affiliated Societies

The nine-banded armadillo (Dasypus novemcinctus) has moved northward in the Great Plains in the last century, reaching distributional limits in Nebraska for pioneering individuals. Herein, we report on the fifth specimen from Nebraska. A male individual was obtained from Lincoln County representing a new county record for Nebraska and one of the northwestern-most specimens in the United States.

A Century Of Change In Kenya’S Mammal Communities: Increased Richness And Decreased Uniqueness In Six Protected Areas, Aniko B. Toth, S. Kathleen Lyons, Anna K. Behrensmeyer

School of Biological Sciences: Faculty Publications

The potential for large-scale biodiversity losses as a result of climate change and human impact presents major challenges for ecology and conservation science. Governments around the world have established national parks and wildlife reserves to help protect biodiversity, but there are few studies on the long-term consequences of this strategy. We use Kenya as a case study to investigate species richness and other attributes of mammal communities in 6 protected areas over the past century. Museum records from African expeditions that comprehensively sampled mammals from these same areas in the early 1900’s provide a baseline for evaluating changes in species …

Costs Of Female Mating Behavior In The Variable Field Cricket, Gryllus Lineaticeps, Cassandra M. Martin

School of Biological Sciences: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

Female animals may risk predation by associating with males that have conspicuous mate attraction traits. The mate attraction song of male field crickets also attracts lethal parasitoid flies. Female crickets, which do not sing, may risk parasitism when associating with singing males. If parasitism risk is sufficiently high, it may affect the evolution of female mating behaviors. In this dissertation, I explore the interaction between the female variable field cricket, Gryllus lineaticeps, and the parasitoid fly, Ormia ochracea. To begin, I investigated whether female parasitism risk resulted from being near singing males. I found that females can become …

Histopathologic Aspects In Plagioscion Squamosissimus (Heckel, 1940) Induced By Neoechinorhynchus Veropesoi, Metacestodes And Anisakidae Juveniles = Aspectos Histopatólogicos Em Plagioscion Squamosissimus Induzidos Por Neoechinorhynchus Veropesoi, Metacestódeos E Juvenis Da Família Anisakidae, Francisco Tiago De Vasconcelos Melo, Rogério Antonio Ribeiro Rodrigues, Elane Guerreiro Giese, Scott Lyell Gardner, Jeannie Nascimento Dos Santos

Scott L. Gardner Publications

Abstract

Plagioscion squamosissimus (Heckel 1840), a fish endemic to the Amazon Basin and commonly known as the “silver croaker,” plays an important role in the ecology and economy of Pará State, Brazil. Knowledge of host-parasite relationships is important to understanding the role of parasites in the control of natural host populations. This work describes histopathological aspects caused by several common intestinal parasites found during a helminthological survey of fish in northern Brazil. We observed a high prevalence of helminth infection, especially by J₃ nematode juveniles of the family Anisakidae and metacestodes of the family Protocephalidae (both with 100% prevalence). …

Variable Facial Plumage In Juvenile Cliff Swallows: A Potential Offspring Recognition Cue?, Allison E. Johnson, Steven Freedberg

School of Biological Sciences: Faculty Publications

Although the ability to recognize related offspring is essential in the evolution of social behavior, the cues that birds use to identify their own offspring are not fully understood. The Cliff Swallow (Petrochelidon pyrrhonota) is a highly social species that nests in large colonies and exhibits a high incidence of both conspecific brood parasitism and extrapair fertilization, behaviors that can potentially lead to parents investing energy and resources in unrelated offspring, which reduces the parents’ genetic fitness. Because parents continue to feed offspring after they leave the nest, parents also risk investing in unrelated offspring by misidentifying their …

Conflicting Selection In The Course Of Adaptive Diversification: The Interplay Between Mutualism And Intraspecific Competition, Rafael L.G. Raimundo, Jean P. Gibert, David H. Hembry, Paulo R. Guimaraes Jr.

School of Biological Sciences: Faculty Publications

Adaptive speciation can occur when a population undergoes assortative mating and disruptive selection caused by frequency-dependent intraspecific competition. However, other interactions, such as mutualisms based on trait matching, may generate conflicting selective pressures that constrain species diversification. We used individual-based simulations to explore how different types of mutualism affect adaptive diversification. A magic trait was assumed to simultaneously mediate mate choice, intraspecific competition, and mutualisms. In scenarios of intimate, specialized mu- tualisms, individuals interact with one or few individual mutualistic partners, and diversification is constrained only if the mutualism is obligate. In other scenarios, increasing numbers of different partners per …

Individual Phenotypic Variation Reduces Interaction Strengths In A Consumer–Resource System, Jean P. Gibert, Chad Brassil

School of Biological Sciences: Faculty Publications

Natural populations often show variation in traits that can affect the strength of interspecific interactions. Interaction strengths in turn influence the fate of pairwise interacting populations and the stability of food webs. Understanding the mechanisms relating individual phenotypic variation to interaction strengths is thus central to assess how trait variation affects population and community dynamics. We incorporated nonheritable variation in attack rates and handling times into a classical consumer–resource model to investigate how variation may alter interaction strengths, population dynamics, species persistence, and invasiveness. We found that individual variation influences species persistence through its effect on interaction strengths. In many …

Comparison Of The Wing Polyphenic Response Of Pea Aphids (Acyrthosiphon Pisum) To Crowding And Predator Cues, Swapna R. Purandare, Brigitte Tenhumberg, Jennifer A. Brisson

School of Biological Sciences: Faculty Publications

1. Pea aphids (Acyrthosiphon pisum Harris; Hemiptera: Aphididae) exhibit transgenerational wing polyphenism, in which unwinged females produce genetically identical winged offspring in response to environmental cues such as overcrowding and predation risk that indicate poor habitat quality.

2. Laboratory experiments were carried out to explore the intensity of the wing polyphenic response of pea aphids exposed to cues from ladybird predators and crowding, and their response was compared to pea aphids that were not exposed to any cues (control).

3. The study used cues from two different ladybird species: Coccinella septempunctata L. (Coleoptera: Coccinellidae) and Hippodamia convergens Guérin-Méneville (Coleoptera: …

Immunity Of The Saccharomyces Cerevisiae Ssy5 Mrna To Nonsense-Mediated Mrna Decay, Jesseeca Obenoskey, Dakota R. Lane, Audrey L. Atkin, Bessie W. Kebaara

School of Biological Sciences: Faculty Publications

The nonsense-mediated mRNA decay (NMD) pathway is a specialized pathway that triggers the rapid degradation of select mRNAs. Initially, identified as a pathway that degrades mRNAs with premature termination codons, NMD is now recognized as a pathway that also regulates some natural mRNAs. Since natural mRNAs do not typically contain premature termination codons, these mRNAs contain features that target them to NMD. In Saccharomyces cerevisiae mRNAs with a typically long 3’UTRs are usually degraded by NMD, however in some conditions a constitutively expressed SSY5 mRNA with multiple NMD targeting signals including an atypically long 3’-UTR is an exception. We investigated …

Role Of An Archaeal Pita Transporter In The Copper And Arsenic Resistance Of Metallosphaera Sedula, An Extreme Thermoacidophile, Samuel Mccarthy, Chenbing Al, Garrett Wheaton, Rahul Tevatla, Valerie Eckrich, Robert Kelly, Paul H. Blum

School of Biological Sciences: Faculty Publications

Thermoacidophilic archaea, such as Metallosphaera sedula, are lithoautotrophs that occupy metal-rich environments. In previous studies, an M. sedula mutant lacking the primary copper efflux transporter, CopA, became copper sensitive. In contrast, the basis for supranormal copper resistance remained unclear in the spontaneous M. sedula mutant, CuR1. Here, transcriptomic

analysis of copper-shocked cultures indicated that CuR1 had a unique regulatory response to metal challenge corresponding to the upregulation of 55 genes. Genome resequencing identified 17 confirmed mutations unique to CuR1 that were likely to change gene function. Of these, 12 mapped to genes with annotated function associated with transcription, metabolism, …

Identification And Codon Reading Properties Of 5-Cyanomethyl Uridine, A New Modified Nucleoside Found In The Anticodon Wobble Position Of Mutant Haloarchaeal Isoleucine Trnas, Debabrata Mandal, Caroline Köhrer, Dan Su, Ramesh Babu, Clement T.Y. Chan, Yuchen Liu, Dieter Söll, Paul H. Blum, Masayasu Kuwahara, Peter C. Dedon, Uttam L. Rajbhandary

School of Biological Sciences: Faculty Publications

Most archaea and bacteria use a modified C in the anticodon wobble position of isoleucine tRNA to base pair with A but not with G of the mRNA. This allows the tRNA to read the isoleucine codon AUA without also reading the methionine codon AUG. To understand why a modified C, and not U or modified U, is used to base pair with A, we mutated the C34 in the anticodon of Haloarcula marismortui isoleucine tRNA (tRNA₂^Ile) to U, expressed the mutant tRNA in Haloferax volcanii, and purified and analyzed the tRNA. Ribosome binding experiments show that …