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Fishes As A Template For Reticulate Evolution: A Case Study Involving Catostomus In The Colorado River Basin Of Western North America, Max Russell Bangs 2016 University of Arkansas, Fayetteville

Fishes As A Template For Reticulate Evolution: A Case Study Involving Catostomus In The Colorado River Basin Of Western North America, Max Russell Bangs

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Hybridization is neither simplistic nor phylogenetically constrained, and post hoc introgression can have profound evolutionary effects. Most studies have focused on tractable model systems, rather than organisms with complicated phylogenetic histories. Finescale Sucker (genus Catostomus) in western North America is recognized as a paradigm of fish hybridization. Yet, its extent of historic and contemporary introgression is largely unstudied, an aspect that impedes the resolution of its phylogeny as a baseline for conservation. To explore reticulation in this group, I assayed variation of 20 Catostomus species across temporal and geographic scales by analyzing hundreds of samples and employing a combination of …


Migration Ecology Of American Woodcock (Scolopax Minor), Joseph Daniel Moore 2016 University of Arkansas, Fayetteville

Migration Ecology Of American Woodcock (Scolopax Minor), Joseph Daniel Moore

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Improving the understanding of American woodcock (Scolopax minor) migration ecology has been identified as a priority information need for woodcock management. Developments in remote tracking technology and analytical techniques present an opportunity to gain insight into woodcock migratory connectivity and migration phenology and to evaluate the degree in which the current two-region (Eastern and Central) basis for woodcock management represents migratory movements. To analyze woodcock migration using band return records, I excluded observations that took place during the migratory period. Using this dataset, 17.9% of records showed crossover between management regions, higher than the < 5% crossover found in studies including non-migratory band returns. During autumn migration, woodcock from the Central Region largely migrated to destinations within the Central Region, whereas woodcock from the Eastern Region migrated to destinations across their wintering range, mixing with individuals from the Central Region. Between 2013 and 2016, I deployed 75 satellite transmitters on woodcock. I tracked the migration paths of 61 woodcock and documented 88 woodcock migrations. Average migration duration was longer during spring migration (53 days) than during autumn migration (31 days) because woodcock made a higher number of close-together migratory stopovers, not because woodcock stayed at individual stopovers longer during spring migration. Woodcock captured in the Central Management Region used 2 primary migrations routes: a Western Route and a Central Route. The Western Route ran north-south, connecting the breeding and wintering grounds of the Central Management Region. The hourglass-shaped Central Route connected an area on the wintering grounds reaching from Texas to Florida, to sites throughout northeastern North America. Woodcock following the Central Route funneled between the Appalachian Mountains and the Mississippi Alluvial Valley in western Tennessee during both autumn and spring migration. A higher than anticipated percentage (36%, n = 12) of marked woodcock captured in Texas and Louisiana and monitored during spring migration migrated to breeding-period sites in the Eastern Management Region, raising questions about the biological basis of managing woodcock as separate populations. The supplementary material includes woodcock capture information (Appendix I), information on individual stopovers (Appendix II), and migration maps for individual woodcock (Appendix III).


Where And How Wolves (Canis Lupus) Kill Beavers (Castor Canadensis), Thomas Gable, Steve K. Windels, John G. Bruggink, Austin T. Homkes 2016 Northern Michigan University

Where And How Wolves (Canis Lupus) Kill Beavers (Castor Canadensis), Thomas Gable, Steve K. Windels, John G. Bruggink, Austin T. Homkes

Journal Articles

Beavers (Castor canadensis) can be a significant prey item for wolves (Canis lupus) in boreal ecosystems due to their abundance and vulnerability on land. How wolves hunt beavers in these systems is largely unknown, however, because observing predation is challenging. We inferred how wolves hunt beavers by identifying kill sites using clusters of locations from GPS-collared wolves in Voyageurs National Park, Minnesota. We identified 22 sites where wolves from 4 different packs killed beavers. We classified these kill sites into 8 categories based on the beaver-habitat type near which each kill occurred. Seasonal variation existed in …


A Pes Study Of Factors Influencing Metal Partitioning In Aquatic Systems: “Design Of Experiment As, Cd, Co, Cr, Cu, Pb, Ni, And Zn”, Eid A. Alkhatib, John Rapaglia, Leon Theim 2016 Sacred Heart University

A Pes Study Of Factors Influencing Metal Partitioning In Aquatic Systems: “Design Of Experiment As, Cd, Co, Cr, Cu, Pb, Ni, And Zn”, Eid A. Alkhatib, John Rapaglia, Leon Theim

Chemistry & Physics Faculty Publications

Mobility and bioavailability of heavy metals are related to their partitioning amongst suspended sediment and water. A Particle Entrainment Simulator (PES) is used to simulate sediment resuspention in natural surface water systems. The simulations were carried out under various conditions of water/suspended solids conditions. Five factors, each at various levels, are tested collectively: the pH of water at two levels (4 and 8), shear stress on bottom sediment at three levels (0.1, 0.3, and 0.5 N/m2 ) salinity of water at two levels (0.01 and 14.0 ppt), organic matter in sediment at three levels (0.50, 1.93, and 3.80%) and temperature …


Ncer Assistance Agreement Annual Progress Report For Grant #83582401 - Assessment Of Stormwater Harvesting Via Manage Aquifer Recharge (Mar) To Develop New Water Supplies In The Arid West: The Salt Lake Valley Example, Ryan Dupont, Joan E. McLean, Richard C. Peralta, Sarah E. Null, Douglas B. Jackson-Smith 2016 Utah State University

Ncer Assistance Agreement Annual Progress Report For Grant #83582401 - Assessment Of Stormwater Harvesting Via Manage Aquifer Recharge (Mar) To Develop New Water Supplies In The Arid West: The Salt Lake Valley Example, Ryan Dupont, Joan E. Mclean, Richard C. Peralta, Sarah E. Null, Douglas B. Jackson-Smith

Civil and Environmental Engineering Faculty Publications

The aims of the original proposed project remain the same, that is, to test the hypothesis that Managed Aquifer Recharge (MAR) for stormwater harvesting is a technically feasible, socially and environmentally acceptable, economically viable, and permittable option for developing new water supplies for arid Western urban ecosystems experiencing increasing population, and climate change pressures on existing water resources. The project is being carried out via three distinct but integrated components that include: 1) Monitoring of existing distributed Managed Aquifer Recharge (MAR) harvesting schemes involving a growing number of demonstration Green Infrastructure (GI) test sites; 2) Integrated stormwater/vadose zone/groundwater/ ecosystem services …


Insect Consciousness: Commitments, Conflicts And Consequences, Colin Klein, Andrew B. Barron 2016 Macquarie University, Australia

Insect Consciousness: Commitments, Conflicts And Consequences, Colin Klein, Andrew B. Barron

Animal Sentience

Our target article, “Insects have the capacity for subjective experience,” has provoked a diverse range of commentaries. In this response we have collated what we see as the major themes of the discussion. It is clear that we differ from some commentators in our commitments to what subjective experience is and what the midbrain is capable of. Here we clarify where we stand on those points and how our view differs from some other influential perspectives. The commentaries have highlighted the most lively areas of disagreement. We revisit here the debates surrounding whether the cortex is essential for any form …


Consciousness And Evolutionary Biology, Yew-Kwang Ng 2016 Nanyang Technological University

Consciousness And Evolutionary Biology, Yew-Kwang Ng

Animal Sentience

Reber’s axiom: “Any organism with flexible cell walls, a sensitivity to its surrounds and the capacity for locomotion will possess the biological foundations of mind and consciousness” does not seem to be supported by things we know and the logic of evolutionary biology. The latter leads to the conclusion that conscious species are flexible in their behavior (rather than in their cell walls), as argued in Ng (1995, 2016). Locomotion may be completely hard-wired and need not involve consciousness. It is hard enough to explain how consciousness could emerge in a sophisticated brain: Isn’t it a harder problem to show …


The Difference Between Conscious And Unconscious Brain Circuits, Ezequiel Morsella, Zaviera Reyes 2016 San Francisco State University

The Difference Between Conscious And Unconscious Brain Circuits, Ezequiel Morsella, Zaviera Reyes

Animal Sentience

Theoretical frameworks in which consciousness is an inherent property of the neuron must account for the contrast between conscious and unconscious processes in the brain and address how neural events can ever be unconscious if consciousness is a property of all neurons. Other approaches have sought answers regarding consciousness by contrasting conscious and unconscious processes and through investigating the complex interactions between the two kinds of processes, as occurs most notably in human voluntary action. In voluntary action, consciousness is associated most, not with motor control or low-level perceptual processing, but with the stage of processing known as action selection.



Resolving The Hard Problem And Calling For A Small Miracle, Arthur S. Reber 2016 University of British Columbia

Resolving The Hard Problem And Calling For A Small Miracle, Arthur S. Reber

Animal Sentience

With the exception of the commentary by Key, the commentaries on Reber have a common feature: the commenters feel, with varying levels of enthusiasm, that there is at least some virtue in the core assumption of the Cellular Basis of Consciousness (CBC) theory that consciousness (or subjectivity or sentience) accompanies the earliest forms of life. The model has two important entailments: (a) it resolves the (in)famous Hard Problem by redirecting the search for the biochemical foundations of sentience away from human consciousness; and (b) it reduces the need for an emergentist miracle to a far simpler scale than is currently …


Unconscious Higher-Order Thoughts (Hots) As Pre-Reflective Self-Awareness?, Rocco J. Gennaro 2016 The University of Southern Indiana

Unconscious Higher-Order Thoughts (Hots) As Pre-Reflective Self-Awareness?, Rocco J. Gennaro

Animal Sentience

Rowlands argues that many nonhuman animals are “persons,” contrary to the prevailing orthodoxy which rests on a mistaken conception of the kind of self-awareness relevant to personhood. He argues that self-awareness bifurcates into two importantly different forms — reflective self-awareness and pre-reflective self-awareness — and that many animals can have the latter, which is sufficient for personhood. I agree that there is good reason to think that many animals can have pre-reflective self-awareness, but I think Rowlands is mistaken about its nature. His account runs the risk of leading to an infinite regress objection, and his notion of pre-reflective self-awareness …


Responding To Modern Flooding: Old English Place-Names As A Repository Of Traditional Ecological Knowledge, Richard L.C. Jones 2016 University of Leicester

Responding To Modern Flooding: Old English Place-Names As A Repository Of Traditional Ecological Knowledge, Richard L.C. Jones

Journal of Ecological Anthropology

Place-names are used to communicate Traditional Ecological Knowledge (TEK) by all indigenous, aboriginal and First Nations people. Here and for the first time, English place-names are examined through a TEK lens. Specifically, place-names formed in Old English—the language of the Anglo-Saxon—and coined between c. 550 and c. 1100 A.D., are explored. This naming horizon provides the basic name stock for the majority of English towns and villages still occupied today. While modern English place-names now simply function as convenient geographical tags Old English toponymy is shown here to exhibit close semantic parallels with many other indigenous place-names around the world. …


Sandhill Crane Roost Selection, Human Disturbance, And Forage Resources, Aaron T. Pearse, Gary L. Krapu, David A. Brandt 2016 Northern Prairie Wildlife Research Center

Sandhill Crane Roost Selection, Human Disturbance, And Forage Resources, Aaron T. Pearse, Gary L. Krapu, David A. Brandt

United States Geological Survey, Northern Prairie Wildlife Research Center: Publications

Sites used for roosting represent a key habitat requirement for many species of birds because availability and quality of roost sites can influence individual fitness. Birds select roost sites based on numerous factors, requirements, and motivations, and selection of roosts can be dynamic in time and space because of various ecological and environmental influences. For sandhill cranes (Antigone canadensis) at their main spring staging area along the Platte River in south-central Nebraska, USA, past investigations of roosting cranes focuse donphysical channel characteristics related to perceived security as motivating roost distribution.We used 6,310 roost sites selected by 313 sandhill cranes over …


The Psychological Concept Of “Person”, Kristin Andrews 2016 York University Animal Sentience

The Psychological Concept Of “Person”, Kristin Andrews

Animal Sentience

Reluctance to overextend personhood seems to drive many of the skeptical responses in the first round of commentaries on Rowlands's target article. Despite Rowlands’s straightforward Response that we already accept some nonhumans as persons, there is still hesitation to accept that other nonhuman animals are persons. Rowlands's argument is sound but the skeptics don’t accept the Lockean notion of person. The metaphysical sense of person is a psychological one, however, and psychological properties grant one moral status according to many ethical theories.


Silica Uptake And Release In Live And Decaying Biomass In A Northern Hardwood Forest, Wim Clymans, Daniel J. Conley, John J. Battles, Patrick J. Frings, Mary Margaret Koppers, Gene E. Likens, Chris E. Johnson 2016 Lund University

Silica Uptake And Release In Live And Decaying Biomass In A Northern Hardwood Forest, Wim Clymans, Daniel J. Conley, John J. Battles, Patrick J. Frings, Mary Margaret Koppers, Gene E. Likens, Chris E. Johnson

Civil and Environmental Engineering - All Scholarship

In terrestrial ecosystems, a large portion (20–80%) of the dissolved Si (DSi) in soil solution has passed through vegetation. While the importance of this “terrestrial Si filter” is generally accepted, few data exist on the pools and fluxes of Si in forest vegetation and the rate of release of Si from decomposing plant tissues. We quantified the pools and fluxes of Si through vegetation and coarse woody debris (CWD) in a northern hardwood forest ecosystem (Watershed 6, W6) at the Hubbard Brook Experimental Forest (HBEF) in New Hampshire, USA. Previous work suggested that the decomposition of CWD may have significantly …


Monk Parakeets, Michael L. Avery, James R. Lindsay 2016 National Wildlife Research Center

Monk Parakeets, Michael L. Avery, James R. Lindsay

Wildlife Damage Management Technical Series

Since their introduction to the United States in the 1960s, monk parakeets (Myiopsitta monachus) have thrived (Figure 1). Until recently, annual Christmas Bird Count data have shown the population to be increasing exponentially. In the U.S., monk parakeets are an urban and suburban species with few natural predators, diseases or other factors limiting their population growth. They exploit backyard bird feeders and non-native ornamental plants for food. Monk parakeets often construct nests on man-made structures, such as electric utility facilities and cell phone towers. Because the birds build and maintain nests throughout the year, management of parakeet populations …


Resiliency And Collapse: Lake Trout, Sea Lamprey, And Fisheries Management In Lake Superior, Nancy Langston 2016 Michigan Technological University

Resiliency And Collapse: Lake Trout, Sea Lamprey, And Fisheries Management In Lake Superior, Nancy Langston

Michigan Tech Publications, Part 1

No abstract provided.


Classification Of Historical Vegetation In Oregon And Washington, As Recorded By General Land Office Sureyors, John Christy, Edward R. Alverson, Molly P. Dougherty, Susan C. Kolar, Clifford W. Alton, Susan M. Hawes, Gene Hickman, Jennifer A. Hiebler, Eric M. Nielsen 2016 Portland State University

Classification Of Historical Vegetation In Oregon And Washington, As Recorded By General Land Office Sureyors, John Christy, Edward R. Alverson, Molly P. Dougherty, Susan C. Kolar, Clifford W. Alton, Susan M. Hawes, Gene Hickman, Jennifer A. Hiebler, Eric M. Nielsen

Institute for Natural Resources Publications

This classification of historical vegetation map units is based on General Land Office (GLO) surveyors' descriptions of vegetation, independent of modern vegetation classification. Vegetation data in the survey notes include species encountered along the survey lines, distances from section or quarter corners to "witness" or bearing trees, diameters of witness trees, and general descriptions of vegetation along each line. The surveyors were usually consistent in differentiating stands with dissimilar structure or composition, and they routinely segregated forest (“timber”), savanna ("openings"), and woodland ("scattering timber") from prairie. Today, these structural classes are often segregated by percent canopy cover or stand density, …


Mathematical Model Of Swimmer's Itch With Praziquantel Treatment, Kelly R. Buch 2016 Southern Illinois University Edwardsville

Mathematical Model Of Swimmer's Itch With Praziquantel Treatment, Kelly R. Buch

Annual Symposium on Biomathematics and Ecology Education and Research

No abstract provided.


Reproductive Schedule Of The Silver Shiner (Notropis Photogenis) In The Flint River Of Alabama, Kelly Hodgskins, Stephanie Greenleaf, Jonathan Hillman, Bruce Stallsmith 2016 University of Alabama in Huntsville

Reproductive Schedule Of The Silver Shiner (Notropis Photogenis) In The Flint River Of Alabama, Kelly Hodgskins, Stephanie Greenleaf, Jonathan Hillman, Bruce Stallsmith

Southeastern Fishes Council Proceedings

Many river-dwelling species of fish are dependent upon and stimulated by fluctuations in river flow for successful reproduction. This is especially true of pelagophils, a reproductive guild whose eggs and larvae require free drifting on river currents for several days. Notropis photogenis (Silver Shiner) is a rheophilic species with a broad distribution from Ontario to the southeastern United States including northern tributaries to the Tennessee River in Alabama. Little is known of its reproductive biology. The purpose of this study was to describe aspects of reproductive biology such as timing and pattern of ovarian development and oocyte maturation of N. …


Consciousness And The Unity Of Mind, Mark Rowlands 2016 University of Miami

Consciousness And The Unity Of Mind, Mark Rowlands

Animal Sentience

Several types of objection have been raised against the arguments I presented in my target article, “Are animals persons?” Among the objections are the following: (1) the claim that animals are persons is of little significance, (2) my use of the Lockean conception of the person is questionable, (3) whether a creature qualifies as a person is a matter of social construction rather than objective fact, (4) reflective consciousness is more important than I realize, (5) my reliance on implicit self-awareness in the account of personhood is ill-advised, (6) my account entails that too many creatures qualify as persons, and …


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