Biology Commons^™

Parallel Changes In Genital Morphology Delineate Cryptic Diversification Of Planktonic Nudibranchs, Alvin Alejandrino, Celia K. C. Churchill, Ángel Valdés, Diarmaid Ó. Foighil

Biology

The relative roles of geographical and non-geographical barriers in the genesis of genetic isolation are highly debated in evolutionary biology, yet knowing how speciation occurs is essential to our understanding of biodiversity. In the open ocean, differentiating between the two is particularly difficult, because of the high levels of gene flow found in pelagic communities. Here, we use molecular phylogenetics to test the hypothesis that geography is the primary isolating mechanism in a clade of pelagic nudibranchs, Glaucinae. Our results contradict allopatric expectations: the cosmopolitan Glaucus atlanticus is panmictic, whereas the Indo-Pacific Glaucus marginatus contains two pairs of cryptic species …

Cell-Autonomous Sex Determination Outside Of The Gonad, Jenny C. Link, Arthur P. Arnold, Xuqi Chen, Yuichiro Itoh, Karen Reue

Biology

The classic model of sex determination in mammals states that the sex of the individual is determined by the type of gonad that develops, which in turn determines the gonadal hormonal milieu that creates sex differences outside of the gonads. However, XX and XY cells are intrinsically different because of the cell-autonomous sex-biasing action of X and Y genes. Results: Recent studies of mice, in which sex chromosome complement is independent of gonadal sex, reveal that sex chromosome complement has strong effects contributing to sex differences in phenotypes such as metabolism. Adult mice with two X chromosomes (relative to mice …

A Novel Sodium Channel In The Mammalian Taste System, Melissa N. Fillmore

Biology Posters

Salty taste, one of the five taste qualities recognized in the mammalian peripheral gustatory system is thought to be mediated by an ion channel receptor. The epithelial sodium channel, ENaC, is thought to be the channel for salt taste transduction. ENaC is crucial in regulating salt reabsorption, helps control overall salt and water homeostasis in an organism, and contributes to blood pressure. While ENaC plays an important role in salt taste perception, it is responsible for only part of the total sodium transduction pathway in humans, suggesting that there may be another component in the salt transduction mechanism. We have …

Comparison Between The Effects Of Size And Color In Mate Choice Among Guppies, Makda Gebre

Biology Posters

No abstract provided.

Contact Hypersensitivity To Oxazolone Provokes Vulvar Mechanical Hyperalgesia In Mice, Tijana Martinov, Rose Glenn-Finer, Sarah Burley, Elena Tonc, Evelyn Balsells, Alyssa Ashbaugh, Linnea Swanson, Randy S. Daughters, Devavani Chatterjea

Faculty Publications

The interplay among pain, allergy and dysregulated inflammation promises to yield significant conceptual advances in immunology and chronic pain. Hapten-mediated contact hypersensitivity reactions are used to model skin allergies in rodents but have not been utilized to study associated changes in pain perception in the affected skin. Here we characterized changes in mechanical hyperalgesia in oxazolone-sensitized female mice challenged with single and repeated labiar skin exposure to oxazolone. Female mice were sensitized with topical oxazolone on their flanks and challenged 1-3 times on the labia. We then measured mechanical sensitivity of the vulvar region with an electronic pressure meter and …

Impacts Of Drought On Plant Water Relations And Nitrogen Nutrition In Dryland Perennial Grasses, Albina Khasanove, Jeremy J. James, Rebecca E. Drenovsky

Biology

Extensive worldwide dryland degradation calls for identification of functional traits critical to dryland plant performance and restoration outcomes. Most trait examination has focused on drought tolerance, although most dryland systems are water and nutrient co-limited. We studied how drought impacts both plantwater relations and nitrogen (N) nutrition.
We grew a suite of grasses common to the Intermountain West under both well-watered and drought conditions in the greenhouse. These grasses represented three congener pairs (Agropyron, Elymus, Festuca) differing in their habitat of origin ("wetter" or "drier"). We measured growth, water relations, N resorption efficiency and proficiency and photosynthetic N use efficiency …

Biomass Accumulation And Carbon Sequestration In Four Different Aged Casuarina Equisetifolia Coastal Shelterbelt Plantations In South China, Faming Wang, Xin Xu, Bi Zou, Zhihua Guo, Zhian Li, Weixing Zhu

Biological Sciences Faculty Scholarship

Thousands of kilometers of shelterbelt plantations of Casuarina equisetifolia have been planted to protect the southeast coastline of China. These plantations also play an important role in the regional carbon (C) cycling. In this study, we examined plant biomass increment and C accumulation in four different aged C. equisetifolia plantations in sandy beaches in South China. The C accumulated in the C. equisetifolia plant biomass increased markedly with stand age. The annual rate of C accumulation in the C. equisetifolia plant biomass during 0-3, 3-6, 6-13 and 13-18 years stage was 2.9, 8.2, 4.2 and 1.0 Mg C ha(-1) yr(-1), …

Bird Husbandry Procedures At Willow Park Zoo, Jennica Blasi

Biology Posters

No abstract provided.

One Fish, Two Fish, Orange Fish, Blue Fish Environmental Manipulation And Supernormal Stimuli Effects In Mate Preference In Guppies (Poecilia Reticulata), Erin Brennan, Cynthia Curtis, Meghan Kershner, Sophia Ochoa, Micah Parrish

Biology Posters

No abstract provided.

Comparison Of Column Chromatography Techniques For The Purification Of Influenza A/Nws/33 (H1n1) Virus, Jorgen Peter Madsen

Biology Posters

No abstract provided.

Kids, Zoo Animals, And Education, Michelle Shook

Biology Posters

No abstract provided.

The Effects Of Music On Subjects With Alzheimer And Dementia Disease In Cache Valley, Landon Frost

Biology Posters

No abstract provided.

Teaching The Teachers: Creating Learning Modules For Presentations At The Willow Park Zoo, Erica Littledike

Biology Posters

No abstract provided.

Effects Of Glutamine Synthetase On Indigoidine Production In Escherichia Coli, David Gage, Fuchao Xu, Dayu Yu, Jixun Zhan

Biology Posters

No abstract provided.

Temperature Effects On Cutaneous Healing In Rough-Skinned Newts (Taricha Granulosa), Sydney Greenfield, Geoff Smith, Lori Neuman-Lee, Susannah French

Biology Posters

No abstract provided.

Synthetic Piriform Spider Silk Protein Production, Jordan Ballam, Cole Peterson

Biology Posters

No abstract provided.

Using Nectar Guides To Increase Bee Sample Size, Carmelle L. Calvin, Joseph S. Wilson

Biology Posters

No abstract provided.

Village Weavers, Ploceus Cucullatus: It Takes A Village To Weave A Nest, Eliza Browning

Biology Posters

No abstract provided.

Phylogenetic Placement Of The Genus Tricholosporum By Dna Sequencing, Katelyn Heaton

Biology Posters

No abstract provided.

Proud Parents -Promoting Breeding In A Pair Of African Grey Crowned Cranes, Jessica Harmison, Troy Cooper

Biology Posters

No abstract provided.

Determination Of Female Mate Selection In Guppies Based On Male Color Versus Length, Lauren Mcmillan, Sydney Olson, Kim Rawlins, Jacob Stewart, Ariel Tayson

Biology Posters

No abstract provided.

Interactive Signage At The Willow Park Zoo, Haley Duston

Biology Posters

No abstract provided.

Urban Noise As A Stressor In Uta Stansburiana, Marilize Van Der Walt, Geoff D. Smith, Lori Neuman-Lee, Susannah S. French

Biology Posters

No abstract provided.

Function Of Dorsal Fins In Bamboo Shark During Steady Swimming, Anabela Maia, Cheryl Wilga

Faculty Research & Creative Activity

To gain insight into the function of the dorsal fins in white-spotted bamboo sharks (Orectolobiformes: Hemiscyillidae) during steady swimming, data on three-dimensional kinematics and electromyographic recordings were collected. Bamboo sharks were induced to swim at 0.5 and 0.75 body lengths per second in a laminar flow tank. Displacement, lag and angles were analyzed from high-speed video images. Onset, offset, duration, duty cycle and asynchrony index were calculated from three muscle implants on each side of each dorsal fin. The dorsal fins were displaced more laterally than the undulating body. In addition, the dorsal tips had larger lateral displacement than the …

The Spatial Distribution Of The Japanese Beetle, Popillia Japonica, In Soybean Fields, Stacey A. Sara, Emily B. Mccallen, Paul V. Switzer

Faculty Research & Creative Activity

The Japanese beetle, Popillia japonica Newman (Coleoptera: Scarabaeidae), is a serious pest of many agricultural and horticultural plants. Relatively little research has investigated the distributions of Japanese beetles in agricultural fields, and this lack of information makes pest management more difficult. In the present study, the spatial distribution of Japanese beetles in soybean fields was examined. Specifically, how the distribution and abundance of beetles was affected by distance from an edge, edge direction, and edge type was examined. An edge effect for density was discovered; beetle numbers decreased significantly with increasing distance from the field edge. The east and south …

Assessing Multiple Endpoints Of Atrazine Ingestion On Gravid Northern Watersnakes (Nerodia Sipedon) And Their Offspring, Lorin A. Neuman-Lee, Karen F. Gaines, Kyle A. Baumgartner, Jayme R. Voorhees, James M. Novak, Stephen J. Mullin

Faculty Research & Creative Activity

Ecotoxicological studies that focus on a single endpoint might not accurately and completely represent the true ecological effects of a contaminant. Exposure to atrazine, a widely used herbicide, disrupts endocrine function and sexual development in amphibians, but studies involving live-bearing reptiles are lacking. This study tracks several effects of atrazine ingestion from female Northern Watersnakes (Nerodia sipedon) to their offspring exposed in utero. Twenty-five gravid N. sipedon were fed fish dosed with one of the four levels of atrazine (0, 2, 20, or 200 ppb) twice weekly for the entirety of their gestation period. Endpoints for the mothers included blood …

Community And Ecosystem Effects Of Buffelgrass (Pennisetum Ciliare) And Nitrogen Deposition In The Sonoran Desert, Kelly G. Lyons, B. G. Maldonado-Leal, G. Owen

Biology Faculty Research

Buffelgrass is a non-indigenous, invasive, C₄ grass that was introduced throughout much of southern Texas, the Southwestern United States, and northern and central Mexico to improve degraded rangelands. The successful introduction and spread of buffelgrass follows a trajectory similar to that of other invasive C₄ grasses in arid and semiarid ecosystems. In the Plains of Sonora of the Sonoran Desert (Mexico) buffelgrass is favored by widespread removal of native vegetation and seeding, but, why, following initial introduction, the species persists remains unclear. In this study, we addressed two concerns associated with buffelgrass invasion in the Plains of Sonora. …

A Macrophysiological Analysis Of Energetic Constraints On Geographic Range Size In Mammals, Salvatore J. Agosta, Joseph Bernado, Gerardo Ceballos, Michael A. Steele

Biology Publications

Physiological processes are essential for understanding the distribution and abundance of organisms, and recently, with widespread attention to climate change, physiology has been ushered back to the forefront of ecological thinking. We present a macrophysiological analysis of the energetics of geographic range size using combined data on body size, basal metabolic rate (BMR), phylogeny and range properties for 574 species of mammals. We propose three mechanisms by which interspecific variation in BMR should relate positively to geographic range size: (i) Thermal Plasticity Hypothesis, (ii) Activity Levels/Dispersal Hypothesis, and (iii) Energy Constraint Hypothesis. Although each mechanism predicts a positive correlation between …

Characterization And Generation Of Male Courtship Song In Cotesia Congregata (Hymenoptera: Braconidae), Justin P. Bredlau, Yasha J. Mohajer, Timothy M. Cameron, Karen M. Hester, Michael L. Fine

Biology Publications

Background

Male parasitic wasps attract females with a courtship song produced by rapid wing fanning. Songs have been described for several parasitic wasp species; however, beyond association with wing fanning, the mechanism of sound generation has not been examined. We characterized the male courtship song of Cotesia congregata (Hymenoptera: Braconidae) and investigated the biomechanics of sound production.

Methods and Principal Findings

Courtship songs were recorded using high-speed videography (2,000 fps) and audio recordings. The song consists of a long duration amplitude-modulated “buzz” followed by a series of pulsatile higher amplitude “boings,” each decaying into a terminal buzz followed by a …

Beneath The Surface Overview, Elizabeth Sikkema

Biological Sciences

As a Wildlife Biology major at Cal Poly, I was able to express my passion for the ocean and beaches in planning and co-designing a beach and dive clean up Earth Day celebration as my senior project. This event took place at Avila Beach on April 21st and was hosted by the Central Coast Aquarium. It was open to the public in attempts to promote outreach and awareness of coastal conservation, allowing volunteers to participate in the clean-ups and visit the Aquarium. The event was a success, involving over 100 volunteers, collecting and recycling 150 pounds of trash and also …