Utah State University
University of Murcia
Benemérita Universidad Autónoma de Puebla
GALILEO, University System of Georgia
Loyola Marymount University and Loyola Law School
Coastal Carolina University
Evaluating Methods For Pathogen Spillover Detection And Forecasting In Desert Bighorn Sheep (Ovis Canadensis Nelsoni ),
2023
Utah State University
Evaluating Methods For Pathogen Spillover Detection And Forecasting In Desert Bighorn Sheep (Ovis Canadensis Nelsoni ), Grete E. Wilson-Henjum
All Graduate Theses and Dissertations
Managers mitigate the effects of disease on wildlife populations by detecting outbreaks and predicting disease transmission. Bighorn sheep (Ovis canadensis) populations face threat from the introduced pathogen Mycoplasma ovipneumoniae (M. ovipneumoniae). In the eastern Mojave Desert, managers detect pathogen outbreaks in desert bighorn (O. c. nelsoni) through aerial population surveys, which produce irregular and coarse population information. Furthermore, managers model the risk of M. ovipneumoniae transmission amongst desert bighorn populations, however these models assume that desert bighorn space use is unchanging across years. Here, I evaluate methods used by managers to detect disease outbreaks …
Patterns And Sources Of Variation In Heterospecific Pollen Deposition In Flowers Of The Native Blue Cardinal Flower (Lobelia Siphilitica),
2023
East Tennessee State University
Patterns And Sources Of Variation In Heterospecific Pollen Deposition In Flowers Of The Native Blue Cardinal Flower (Lobelia Siphilitica), Allie Drinnon
Undergraduate Honors Theses
Plants species interactions via pollinators are a model system to understand the mechanisms that generate plant diversity in nature. However, most studies have focused on plant-plant interactions via pollinator attraction while ignoring the role of plant-plant interactions via pollen transfer. Heterospecific pollen transfer (henceforth HP) can be common and have negative fitness effects. Negative HP fitness effects may prompt the evolution of adaptive strategies to minimize them. However, the extent of spatial variation in HP load size within and among populations, a tenet for natural selection, remains unexplored. Such knowledge would hence constitute a first step in advancing our understanding …
Fractally Sampling Diversity-Environment Relationships To Understand Plant Assemblage Health Across Spatial Scales,
2023
Utah State University
Fractally Sampling Diversity-Environment Relationships To Understand Plant Assemblage Health Across Spatial Scales, Elizabeth G. Simpson
All Graduate Theses and Dissertations
Humans influence the health of ecosystems and rely on healthy ecosystems to support their livelihoods and well-being. By looking at how the parts of ecosystems interact we can understand and improve ecosystem health. Ecosystem interactions change across spatial scales or different size patches of area. For example, individual organisms interact with each other at small spatial scales, while at large spatial scales, communities of organisms interact with weather conditions. However, many research studies do not look at how ecosystem interactions change across spatial scales. To address this gap in ecological research, I use a fractal sampling design which samples at …
The Effects Of Recent Climate Change On Spring Phenology, With A Special Focus On Patterns Of Bee Foraging,
2023
Utah State University
The Effects Of Recent Climate Change On Spring Phenology, With A Special Focus On Patterns Of Bee Foraging, Michael Stemkovski
All Graduate Theses and Dissertations
The date on which plants flower and on which bees begin to pollinate varies year-to-year depending on differences in weather. This seasonal timing is known as phenology, and it is already clear that climate change has pushed the spring phenology of many species earlier by increasing temperatures. This is particularly clear in flowering plants, but studying how and why the phenology of pollinators is shifting is more difficult. Most flowering plants rely on pollinators such as bees for their reproduction, and most bees rely on flowers for their sustenance, so bee and flower phenology has to overlap for the crucial …
Local And Regional Landscape Characteristics Driving Habitat Selection By Greater Sage-Grouse Along A Fragmented Range Margin,
2023
Utah State University
Local And Regional Landscape Characteristics Driving Habitat Selection By Greater Sage-Grouse Along A Fragmented Range Margin, Aidan T. Beers
All Graduate Theses and Dissertations
In response to ongoing landscape change, wildlife species are likely to respond in varied ways. By studying habitat specialists, we are able to better understand the most likely ways in which the denizens of threatened ecosystems will react to those changes. Among the most threatened ecosystem types in North America are sagebrush ecosystems of the Intermountain West, where one of its most well-known residents, greater sage grouse (hereafter, “sage-grouse), have lost more than 50% of their habitat due to fire, invasive species, climate change, encroachment by coniferous forests and avian predators using it, and human-caused landscape conversion. Sage-grouse rely on …
The Barriers To Movement: The Effects Of Anthropogenic Linear Features On The Space-Use Behaviors Of Mule Deer And Pronghorn In Utah,
2023
Utah State University
The Barriers To Movement: The Effects Of Anthropogenic Linear Features On The Space-Use Behaviors Of Mule Deer And Pronghorn In Utah, Ronan B. Hart
All Graduate Theses and Dissertations
Human development of structures like roads, fences, and other linear features can make it difficult for animals to move around their environment, affecting their ability to find food and avoid danger. Animal movement and the way they use space comes about from their responses to their surroundings and their choices to balance risk and reward. Because of this, we can understand how roads and fences affect wildlife by studying the way they move around their habitats. In this thesis, I focused on two large herbivores, mule deer and pronghorn, and studied how they use the space within Utah, United States …
Regeneration Of Quaking Aspen And Understory Vegetation Change After Fire Risk Reduction Treatment,
2023
Utah State University
Regeneration Of Quaking Aspen And Understory Vegetation Change After Fire Risk Reduction Treatment, Allison M. Trudgeon
All Graduate Theses and Dissertations
Quaking aspen (Populus tremuloides Michx.) is a keystone species that, when coexisting with conifers (i.e., seral aspen), often undergoes stand-replacing disturbances to sustain long term vigor. Historically, mixed-to-high severity fire reduced fuels and regenerated aspen, but such disturbances have become less common in recent decades. This has often led to high fuel loading, and many seral aspen stands are at now risk of an unpredictable, high-severity fire, posing a threat to development in the wildland-urban-interface. The lack of a commercial market for aspen, and the risk of conducting prescribed fire, means there are few alternate management options. This has …
Stress: An Adaptive Problem Common To Plant And Animal Science,
2023
Independent scholar
Stress: An Adaptive Problem Common To Plant And Animal Science, Özlem Yilmaz
Animal Sentience
It is very hard to determine whether plants have “felt states,” but they do have specific states, such as stress, that depend on sensory input from their environment. Plants do not have neurons or brains, but they do have xylem and phloem, as well as many signalling molecules that are dynamically distributed in their bodies, enabling them to produce systemic responses to environmental stimuli. One common topic in plant and animal science that may or may not prove to involve sentience but that does involve the same molecules is stress.
A New Monotypic Genus And Species From China, Langxie Feti Gen. Et Sp. N. (Scorpiones: Buthidae),
2023
Marshall University
A New Monotypic Genus And Species From China, Langxie Feti Gen. Et Sp. N. (Scorpiones: Buthidae), Victoria Tang, Qingquan Jia, Leonhard Liu
Euscorpius
A new monotypic genus, Langxie gen. n., is described from Xizang (Tibet), China. The new genus shares an important morphological character with Afrolychas Kovařík, 2019: absence of external accessory denticles (EADs) along the sixth row of median denticles (MDs) on the pedipalp movable finger. Langxie gen. n. is different from Afrolychas in the following aspects: loss of EAD near the proximally enlarged MD within each row (i. e., loss of all EAD on the movable finger; this also distinguishes the new genus from other related genera in the “(Ananteris + Isometrus)” clade (Štundlová et …
Plants Lack The Functional Neurotransmitters And Signaling Pathways Required For Sentience In Animals,
2023
The University of Idaho
Plants Lack The Functional Neurotransmitters And Signaling Pathways Required For Sentience In Animals, David G. Robinson, Michael R. Blatt, Andreas Draguhn, Lincoln Taiz, Jon Mallatt
Animal Sentience
We cannot agree with Segundo-Ortin and Calvo that plants are sentient organisms. We have critically examined several aspects of their target article, and find their claims are not supported by the published evidence. We address these claims in sections on whether plants have a ‘neurobiology’ analogous to that of animal nervous systems, including neurotransmitters and synaptic receptors that respond to anesthetics; and whether plant signaling resembles neural transmission. For the latter, we especially consider the unique way plants signal their responses to wounding. Although the plant vascular system has been compared to the animal nervous system, animal blood vessels would …
What Can Plant Science Learn From Animal Nervous Systems?,
2023
University of Maryland at College Park
What Can Plant Science Learn From Animal Nervous Systems?, Luiz Pessoa
Animal Sentience
I welcome Segundo-Ortin & Calvo’s (2023) call for a rigorous science of plant behavior and physiology. My commentary addresses three points drawn from the literature on animal brains that could help elucidate the possibility of cognition and sentience in plants: (1) the presumed requirement of a centralized brain; (2) centralization of control versus heterarchical organization; and (3) connecting plant research with research on animal nervous systems.
Adaptive Plasticity Of Coloration In Response To Environmental Change,
2023
Murray State University
Adaptive Plasticity Of Coloration In Response To Environmental Change, Karissa Coffield
Scholars Week
When rapid environmental changes occur, different selective forces can create phenotypic trade-offs in which a trait can provide fitness benefits or costs under different environmental conditions. Amphibians are particularly vulnerable to environmental change, and previous research has revealed that some species will plastically respond to variation in temperature and ultra-violet radiation (UVR) by altering their coloration. Divergent selection on coloration may change with elevation and climate induced shifts in temperature because high temperatures are likely to result in lighter color morphs but as elevation increases, UVR exposure increases leading to the prediction that darker color morphs will be more common. …
Questions About Sentience Are Not Scientific But Cultural,
2023
The Technion
Questions About Sentience Are Not Scientific But Cultural, Yoram Gutfreund
Animal Sentience
Abstract: The findings of complex cognitive-like behaviours in plants are surprising and exciting. However, they do not provide a scientific reason for ascribing sentience to plants. The target article, in trying to provide evidence for sentience in plants, exposes the weakness of the science of animal consciousness in general. In this commentary, I try to explain why the scientific method is incapable of resolving the question of which organisms or systems are sentient.
Plants Detect And Adapt, But Do Not Feel,
2023
Wageningen University and Research
Plants Detect And Adapt, But Do Not Feel, Paul C. Struik
Animal Sentience
Plant sentience is a hot topic in scientific and popular media. There are moral reasons to respect both the service of plants to humanity and their natural integrity as creatures playing their own significant role in a complex ecosystem. However, to infer that plants have certain cognitive capacities that are present also in certain human and nonhuman animals calls for scientific rigor beyond mere analogy. The unique capacities of plants identified by Segundo-Ortin & Calvo are not necessarily linked to sentience. Nor is it likely that sentience is an evolutionary trait that is present to some extent in all living …
Adaptive Plasticity Of Coloration In Response To Environmental Change,
2023
Murray State University
Adaptive Plasticity Of Coloration In Response To Environmental Change, Karissa Coffield
Scholars Week
When rapid environmental changes occur, different selective forces can create phenotypic trade-offs in which a trait can provide fitness benefits or costs under different environmental conditions. Amphibians are particularly vulnerable to environmental change, and previous research has revealed that some species will plastically respond to variation in temperature and ultra-violet radiation (UVR) by altering their coloration. Divergent selection on coloration may change with elevation and climate induced shifts in temperature because high temperatures are likely to result in lighter color morphs but as elevation increases, UVR exposure increases leading to the prediction that darker color morphs will be more common. …
Habitat Use And Individual-Based Modeling Of Bald Eagles In Maine Near Current And Potential Wind Energy Facilities,
2023
University of Massachusetts Amherst
Habitat Use And Individual-Based Modeling Of Bald Eagles In Maine Near Current And Potential Wind Energy Facilities, Blake H. Massey
Doctoral Dissertations
Wind energy facilitates have expanded significantly in the United States over the last few decades due to technological advancements, regulatory incentives, and policies aimed at increasing renewable energy production, but poorly sited turbines may have adverse effects on local and migratory birds, bats, and other wildlife and their habitats. In the northeastern United States, Maine has become the leader in wind energy but also has the greatest density of Bald Eagles in the region. As wind energy production continues to be developed across the state and in coastal waters, research is needed to analyze and assess potential risks, including displacement, …
Population Ecology Of The Diamondback Terrapin At Their Northern Range Limit,
2023
University of Massachusetts Amherst
Population Ecology Of The Diamondback Terrapin At Their Northern Range Limit, Patricia Levasseur
Doctoral Dissertations
This dissertation research focuses on the population ecology of the northern diamondback terrapin (Malaclemys terrapin terrapin) in Wellfleet Bay, MA. The northern diamondback terrapin is a Massachusetts-threatened turtle species restricted to estuarine environments. With a range from Cape Hatteras, North Carolina to Massachusetts, Cape Cod Bay is the northernmost part of the subspecies range. Mass Audubon’s Wellfleet Bay Wildlife Sanctuary has been using capture-mark-recapture (CMR) methods since 1980 marking over 3,000 individuals; however, low detection rates and variable search effort have resulted in unreliable population estimates not suitable for informing conservation practices within the bay. Low sample sizes, …
Evaluation Of Acoustic Telemetry Array Performance And Fine- Scale And Broad-Scale Spatial Movement Patterns For Coral Reef Species In Culebra, Puerto Rico,
2023
University of Massachusetts Amherst
Evaluation Of Acoustic Telemetry Array Performance And Fine- Scale And Broad-Scale Spatial Movement Patterns For Coral Reef Species In Culebra, Puerto Rico, Roxann Cormier
Masters Theses
Acoustic telemetry is an important tool when studying the spatial ecology of marine animals. First, it is important to identify the challenges of using this tool in shallow tropical marine environments before tracking marine animals. One significant issue that can influence the effectiveness of acoustic telemetry is the efficiency or detectability of acoustic signals by receivers. Understanding factors influencing detection efficiency of acoustic tags is especially important for fine-scale positioning systems (such as the VEMCO positioning system, VPS) that use detections in an overlapping receiver network to calculate geographic positions of tagged fish. I modelled the efficiency of an acoustic …
Discovering Dune: Essays On Frank Herbert’S Epic Saga., Edited By Dominic J. Nardi And N. Trevor Brierly,
2023
Independent Scholar
Discovering Dune: Essays On Frank Herbert’S Epic Saga., Edited By Dominic J. Nardi And N. Trevor Brierly, G. Connor Salter
Mythlore: A Journal of J.R.R. Tolkien, C.S. Lewis, Charles Williams, and Mythopoeic Literature
G. Connor Salter reviews Discovering Dune: Essays on Frank Herbert’s Epic Saga, edited by Dominic J. Nardi and N. Trevor Brierly, considering its new contributions to studies of Frank Herbert's work. Essays included fit into four categories (Politics and Power, History and Religion, Biology and Ecology, and Philosophy, Choice and Ethics) and range from Herbert's use of ecology in Dune to how game theory may help explain certain characters' apparent ability to see the future. Discovering Dune also includes an appendix which contains the only up-to-date bibliography of Herbert's work (primary and secondary sources).
Growing South Dakota (Spring 2023),
2023
South Dakota State University
Growing South Dakota (Spring 2023), College Of Agriculture, Food And Environmental Sciences
Growing South Dakota (Publication of the College of Agriculture, Food and Environmental Sciences)
[Page] 3 Developing Climate-Smart Beef and Bison Commodities
[Page] 5 Joseph Cassady Leads CAFES as New Dean
[Page] 7 Inaugural Class of Klingbeil Scholars
[Page] 9 Jackrabbits to Future Veterinarians
[Page] 11 Protecting South Dakota’s Grasslands
[Page] 13 Growing Youth Programs
[Page] 15 Partnerships for Positive Growth
[Page] 17 Building Highly Effective Boards
[Page] 19 SDSU Extension Podcasts
[Page] 21 Providing Good Food for All
[Page] 23 Improving Seed Varieties
[Page] 25 CAFES Endowed Positions
[Page] 29 Jackrabbits Now and Then
