Notes on Some Ohio Lizards

Author Institution: Dayton Museum of Natural History, Dayton, Ohi

Arthropod Faunas of Monocultures and Polycultures in Reseeded Rangelands

Sap-feeding and predaceous arthropod faunas of forage bunchgrasses in reseeded rangeland vegetation were examined. Four major species of sap feeders were found; the major predators were spiders. Grass monoculture had very high densities of sap feeders compared with grass biculture, shrub-grass, tree-grass, and native areas; this was reflective of the large contribution from the mirids Irbisia brachycera Uhler and Conostethus americanus (Knight). They were present during the leaf stages of crested wheatgrass when it had its lowest carbohydrate root reserves. Homoptera and predator densities were not significantly related to the pattern of vegetation. The lowest number of sap-feeder species occurred in the grass monoculture, and sap-feeder faunas in this plot were dissimilar to those of all other plots. One-season dispersal experiments did not support the hypothesis that grass density caused the differences between arthropod faunas in different vegetation, whereas big sagebrush, common in reseeded pastures, repelled I. brachycera during short-term dispersal. The data indicate that reseeding to monocultures may result in high densities of Miridae during the leaf stages compared with moderate densities of Homoptera during the flower and seed stages in bicultures. The implications for pest management are discusse

Spider Community Organization : Seasonal Variation and the Role of Vegetation Architecture

The relationship between vegetation architecture and spider community attributes were examined in a big sage community. Spiders were separated into guilds using similarities of species\u27 hunting behavior. Shrub architecture was experimentally manipulated in the field by either clippings 50% of the shrub\u27s foliage to decrease foliage density or tying together a shrub\u27s branches to increase foliage density. Shrub perturbations resulted in changes in the number of spider species, spider guilds and guild importance values. The number on spider species and guilds in the tied shrubs were significantly higher than those in the clipped or control shrubs sampled. Spider species diversity and the number of species and guilds were positively correlated with indicators of shrub volume and shrub foliage diversity. This suggests that structurally more complex tier shrubs can support a higher number of spider species and species diversity. Temporal patterns of the number of spider species, and species diversity showed midsummer peaks in both 1974 and 1975. Evenness remained relatively constant through both seasons. The data suggest that architectural properties of habitat may be an important determinant of the distribution and species diversity of predatory invertebrates

BENEFICIAL KINETIC ADAPTATIONS AFTER ENDURANCE TRAINING

Endurance training produces adaptations in running kinetics, although it does not produce changes in kinematics. We performed a prospective study of 23 runners who joined established marathon training teams. Each was tested in their first month of training and again two weeks prior to their marathon. The approximate time between tests was three months. Four peak ground reaction forces were reduced significantly after the training: lateral (15.4%), acceleration (7.10%), vertical (2.1%) and the normalized resultant (2.1%). Kinetic variables associated with iliotibial band injuries and anterior knee pain also had significant reductions. Peak hip adduction moments were reduced by 6.0%, peak patellofemoral contact force was reduced by 7.6%

Bosonic behavior of entangled fermions

Two bound, entangled fermions form a composite boson, which can be treated as an elementary boson as long as the Pauli principle does not affect the behavior of many such composite bosons. The departure of ideal bosonic behavior is quantified by the normalization ratio of multi-composite-boson states. We derive the two-fermion-states that extremize the normalization ratio for a fixed single-fermion purity P, and establish general tight bounds for this indicator. For very small purities, P<1/N^2, the upper and lower bounds converge, which allows to quantify accurately the departure from perfectly bosonic behavior, for any state of many composite bosons.Comment: 9 pages, 5 figures, accepted by PR