Ecology of greater sage-grouse populations inhabiting the northwestern Wyoming Basin

Range-wide population declines of greater sage-grouse (Centrocercus urophasianus; sage-grouse) have been largely attributed to habitat loss and fragmentation. However, the specific conservation threats affecting the ecology of sage-grouse populations may diff er by region. Although the status of the Bear Lake Plateau and Valley (BLPV) sagegrouse populations in the Wyoming Basin has been monitored using male lek counts since the 1960s, little was known about their ecology, seasonal movements, and habitat use patterns. From 2010–2012, we radio-marked 153 sage-grouse (59 females and 94 males) with very high frequency necklace-style radio-collars throughout the BLPV study area, which encompassed parts of Bear Lake County, Idaho, and Rich County, Utah. We subsequently monitored the radio-marked sage-grouse to estimate the factors affecting vital rates, seasonal movements, and habitat use. Radio-marked sage-grouse primarily used seasonal habitats in Idaho and Utah, but some individuals used seasonal habitats in Wyoming. The average annual survival rate for the radio-marked sage-grouse was 53% (±3%). Average female nest success (23%; 95% CI = 18–29%) was lower than range-wide estimates. Brood success varied between 2011 and 2012, with higher brood survival observed in 2012. Twenty-four percent of radio-marked sage-grouse were migratory, engaging in seasonal movements ≥10 km. Annual home range estimates using kernel density estimator (101 km2) for radio-marked sage-grouse were within estimates previously reported. However, poor recruitment attributed to low nest and brood survival may be impacting overall population stability. Because the radio-marked sage-grouse used seasonal habitats in 3 states, we recommend that Utah, Idaho, and Wyoming coordinate in the development of a tri-state management plan to better conserve this population

Osteomalacia and vitamin D deficiency in a psychiatric rehabilitation unit: case report and survey.

BACKGROUND: Vitamin D deficiency is common and predisposes to many serious diseases, yet often goes unrecognized. FINDINGS: We describe a case of severe vitamin D deficiency with osteomalacia in a patient resident in a psychiatric hospital for more than 35 years, and discuss causes and complications. We assayed the serum 25-hydroxyvitamin D levels of all patients under our care on one old-age psychiatry rehabilitation unit. Ten of twelve (83%) of patients had vitamin D deficiency, and 92% had suboptimal vitamin D levels. Vitamin D status was strongly predicted by dietary supplementation. Of those not on vitamin D supplements, 100% had vitamin D deficiency, with vitamin D levels significantly below those of historical controls. Age, sex, and duration of admission did not predict vitamin D status in this group. CONCLUSION: We advocate vitamin D screening in all patients admitted to psychogeriatric units, and discuss treatment options given the current problems affecting high-dose vitamin D supply to the United Kingdom.RIGHTS : This article is licensed under the BioMed Central licence at http://www.biomedcentral.com/about/license which is similar to the 'Creative Commons Attribution Licence'. In brief you may : copy, distribute, and display the work; make derivative works; or make commercial use of the work - under the following conditions: the original author must be given credit; for any reuse or distribution, it must be made clear to others what the license terms of this work are

The Initial Stages of Implementing the Western Quail Management Plan

The Western Association of Fish and Wildlife Agencies (WAFWA) established the Western Quail Working Group (WQWG) in July 2009. A memorandum of understanding (MOU) was signed by the western agencies responsible for quail management (Arizona, California, Colorado, Idaho, Kansas, Montana, Nevada, Oklahoma, New Mexico, Oregon, Texas, Utah, and Washington) as ‘‘a cooperative agreement to improve management and implement strategies for conservation of western quail and their habitats.’’ The primary habitat management goals identified by the group are outlined in the Western Quail Management Plan, published by the Wildlife Management Institute in January 2010. Some of the past accomplishments of the WQWG, highlighted at recent WAFWA meetings, include shrub density reductions in New Mexico, riparian habitat restoration in Texas, private landowner habitat improvement cost-share in Kansas, and mesquite removal monitoring in Arizona. Management of western quail and their habitats has traditionally been accomplished on a relatively fine, local scale, so many of the current efforts to implement management practices identified in the plan are undocumented. A need identified by the WQWG is to better engage technical staff to guide outcomes and deliverables outlined in the plan. Additionally, the group is working to update the MOU to include Federal Land Management agencies, to better facilitate land management between state and federal agencies. A technical meeting with state and federal agency staff is scheduled for May 2017 in New Mexico to discuss state progress on implementing the Western Quail Management Plan, and how to increase state interest and efforts towards quail management. The discussions of the technical meeting will be presented at Quail 8

Potential role of the anterior lateral line in sound localization in toadfish (Opsanus tau)

Author Posting. © The Company of Biologists, 2018. This article is posted here by permission of The Company of Biologists for personal use, not for redistribution. The definitive version was published in Journal of Experimental Biology 221 (2018): jeb180679, doi:10.1242/jeb.180679.Male oyster toadfish (Opsanus tau) acoustically attract females to nesting sites using a boatwhistle call. The rapid speed of sound underwater combined with the close proximity of the otolithic organs makes inner ear interaural time differences an unlikely mechanism to localize sound. To determine the role that the mechanosensory lateral line may play in sound localization, microwire electrodes were bilaterally implanted into the anterior lateral line nerve to record neural responses to vibrational stimuli. Highest spike rates and strongest phase-locking occurred at distances close to the fish and decreased as the stimulus was moved further from the fish. Bilateral anterior lateral line neuromasts displayed differential directional sensitivity to incoming vibrational stimuli, which suggests the potential for the lateral line to be used for sound localization in the near field. The present study also demonstrates that the spatially separated neuromasts of the toadfish may provide sufficient time delays between sensory organs for determining sound localization cues. Multimodal sensory input processing through both the inner ear (far field) and lateral line (near field) may allow for effective sound localization in fish.This study was funded by the National Science Foundation (IOS 1354745 to A.F.M.). C.A.R. was funded through a Rutherford Discovery Fellowship from the Royal Society of New Zealand and a Marine Biological Laboratory fellowship.2019-05-2

Reflections of Colonel Kim Ramos, USAF Ret, Interviewed by Robert Cardinal-Warmuth

Personal/professional reaction – violated, appalled anyone would attack soft (civilian) targets, most don’t realize the Pentagon is an office building dedicated to acquiring and organizing resources, all warfighting and military operations occur from the combatant commands (EUCOM, CENTCOM, PACOM, etc). Sadness for friends who lost loved ones. Surreal experiences as there was NO traffic (D.C. is famous for traffic at all hours of the day, every day) in the D.C. area and no sound of aircraft overhead (it was constant prior to 9/11). Over time, it became sadness/anger for the loss of freedom, safety, and cultural changes

Decoherence suppression via environment preparation

To protect a quantum system from decoherence due to interaction with its environment, we investigate the existence of initial states of the environment allowing for decoherence-free evolution of the system. For models in which a two-state system interacts with a dynamical environment, we prove that such states exist if and only if the interaction and self-evolution Hamiltonians share an eigenstate. If decoherence by state preparation is not possible, we show that initial states minimizing decoherence result from a delicate compromise between the environment and interaction dynamics.Comment: 4 pages, 2 figure

Coherent acoustic vibration of metal nanoshells

Using time-resolved pump-probe spectroscopy we have performed the first investigation of the vibrational modes of gold nanoshells. The fundamental isotropic mode launched by a femtosecond pump pulse manifests itself in a pronounced time-domain modulation of the differential transmission probed at the frequency of nanoshell surface plasmon resonance. The modulation amplitude is significantly stronger and the period is longer than in a gold nanoparticle of the same overall size, in agreement with theoretical calculations. This distinct acoustical signature of nanoshells provides a new and efficient method for identifying these versatile nanostructures and for studying their mechanical and structural properties.Comment: 5 pages, 3 figure

Molecular epidemiology of domestic and sylvatic Trypanosoma cruzi infection in rural northwestern Argentina

Genetic diversity of Trypanosoma cruzi populations and parasite transmission dynamics have been well documented throughout the Americas, but few studies have been conducted in the Gran Chaco ecoregion, one of the most highly endemic areas for Chagas disease, caused by T. cruzi. In this study, we assessed the distribution of T. cruzi lineages (identified by PCR strategies) in Triatoma infestans, domestic dogs, cats, humans and sylvatic mammals from two neighbouring rural areas with different histories of transmission and vector control in northern Argentina. Lineage II predominated amongst the 99 isolates characterised and lineage I amongst the six isolates obtained from sylvatic mammals. T. cruzi lineage IIe predominated in domestic habitats; it was found in 87% of 54 isolates from Tr. infestans, in 82% of 33 isolates from dogs, and in the four cats found infected. Domestic and sylvatic cycles overlapped in the study area in the late 1980s, when intense domestic transmission occurred, and still overlap marginally. The introduction of T. cruzi from sylvatic into domestic habitats is likely to occur very rarely in the current epidemiological context. The household distribution of T. cruzi lineages showed that Tr. infestans, dogs and cats from a given house compound shared the same parasite lineage in most cases. Based on molecular evidence, this result lends further support to the importance of dogs and cats as domestic reservoir hosts of T. cruzi. We believe that in Argentina, this is the first time that lineage IIc has been isolated from naturally infected domestic dogs and Tr. infestans.Fil: Cardinal, Marta Victoria. Universidad de Buenos Aires. Facultad de Ciencias Exactas y Naturales. Departamento de Ecología, Genética y Evolución; Argentina. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Oficina de Coordinación Administrativa Ciudad Universitaria. Instituto de Ecología, Genética y Evolución de Buenos Aires. Universidad de Buenos Aires. Facultad de Ciencias Exactas y Naturales. Instituto de Ecología, Genética y Evolución de Buenos Aires; ArgentinaFil: Lauricella, Marta A.. Dirección Nacional de Instituto de Investigación. Administración Nacional de Laboratorio e Instituto de Salud “Dr. C.G. Malbrán”. Instituto Nacional de Parasitología “Dr. M. Fatala Chabén”; ArgentinaFil: Ceballos, Leonardo A.. Universidad de Buenos Aires. Facultad de Ciencias Exactas y Naturales. Departamento de Ecología, Genética y Evolución; ArgentinaFil: Lanati, Leonardo. Universidad de Buenos Aires. Facultad de Ciencias Exactas y Naturales. Departamento de Ecología, Genética y Evolución; ArgentinaFil: Marcet, Paula Lorena. Universidad de Buenos Aires. Facultad de Ciencias Exactas y Naturales. Departamento de Ecología, Genética y Evolución; Argentina. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Oficina de Coordinación Administrativa Ciudad Universitaria. Instituto de Ecología, Genética y Evolución de Buenos Aires. Universidad de Buenos Aires. Facultad de Ciencias Exactas y Naturales. Instituto de Ecología, Genética y Evolución de Buenos Aires; ArgentinaFil: Levin, Mariano Jorge. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas; Argentina. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Instituto de Investigaciones en Ingeniería Genética y Biología Molecular "Dr. Héctor N. Torres"; ArgentinaFil: Kitron, Uriel D.. Emory University; Estados UnidosFil: Gurtler, Ricardo Esteban. Universidad de Buenos Aires. Facultad de Ciencias Exactas y Naturales. Departamento de Ecología, Genética y Evolución; Argentina. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Oficina de Coordinación Administrativa Ciudad Universitaria. Instituto de Ecología, Genética y Evolución de Buenos Aires. Universidad de Buenos Aires. Facultad de Ciencias Exactas y Naturales. Instituto de Ecología, Genética y Evolución de Buenos Aires; ArgentinaFil: Schijman, Alejandro Gabriel. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Instituto de Investigaciones en Ingeniería Genética y Biología Molecular "Dr. Héctor N. Torres"; Argentin