Wonders of Wisconsin: A Study on Insect Macrophotography

This past year I have been honing my skills as an entomologist and as a photographer. My solo exhibition “Wonders of Wisconsin: A Study on Insect Macrophotography” not only presents my personal progress, but also represents an overarching theme of a liberal arts education: connectivity. Everything we see or learn on campus and throughout life is connected. This audience-engaging exhibition has provided a visual for the connections between the fields of science and studio art, the art movements of New Objectivity and Relational Aesthetics, and between human and insect life. The final exhibition opening on May 1st at 5:30pm in the Science Hall Atrium includes two insect display cases, 20 11x14’’ aluminum prints with corresponding postcards, a poster with information regarding all species presented in the display cases, and assorted food items relating to insects and other arthropods (including hand-made chocolate-covered crickets). A blog has been set up for this project, where I have posted some images and talk about my experiences and future plans. At the opening, viewers can take the postcards and discuss how they personally view insects at the provided seating areas. This all provides a context for conversation that can encompass many environmental issues and human-nature interactions

Nesting biology of the bee Caupolicana yarrowi.

20 pages : illustrations (some color), color maps ; 26 cm. Appendix: Use of nectar by the desert bee Caupolicana yarrowi (Colletidae) in cell construction / James H. Cane and Jerome G. Rozen, Jr.The first part of this publication, written by a group of participants in Bee Course 2018, results from the discovery of three nests of Caupolicana yarrowi (Cresson, 1875) at the base of the Chiricahua Mountains in southeastern Arizona. The nests are deep with branching laterals that usually connect to large vertical brood cells by an upward turn before curving downward and attaching to the top of the chambers. This loop of the lateral thus seems to serve as a "sink trap," excluding rainwater from reaching open cells during provisioning. Although mature larvae had not yet developed, an egg of C. yarrowi was discovered floating on the provisions allowing an SEM examination of its chorion, the first such study for any egg of the Diphaglossinae. Larval food for this species at this site came from Solanum elaeagnifolium Cav. (Solanaceae). Nests were parasitized by Triepeolus grandis (Friese, 1917) (Epeolini), which previously was known to attack only Ptiloglossa (Diphaglossinae: Caupolicanini). The subterranean nest cells of the desert bee Caupolicana yarrowi (Colletidae), which are enveloped by a casing of hardened soil that easily separates from the surrounding matrix, are discussed in a separate appendix. Chemical analysis revealed the casing to be rich in reducing sugars, indicating that the mother bee had regurgitated floral nectar onto the rough interior walls of the cell cavity before smoothing and waterproofing them. This novel use of nectar in nest construction is compared with that of other bee species that bring water to a nest site to soften soil for excavation

Effects of burn season on bee and floral community in tallgrass prairies, and the use of museum collections data

Prescribed fires (controlled burns) in tallgrass prairie systems are a common land management technique used across the United States to maintain species diversity. Burns are conducted either in the winter or early spring (dormant season) or in late summer and early fall (growing season). Prairies are rich in diverse bee taxa, including many solitary and social species. It is unknown if dormant season or growing season burns differentially affects the following year’s bee community and their resources. Chapter 1 addresses the question of how fires affect bees in prairie fragments in Illinois. Understanding the effects of the different burn seasons will aid future pollinator- and bee-friendly land management and restoration projects. In 2016 and 2017, bees were collected from seven prairie sites in south-central Illinois using active netting, pan traps, and vane traps. Overall, both burn seasons increased the amount of bare ground compared to unburned areas, but growing season burns contained greater total area of bare ground than dormant season burns. This resulted in an increase in abundance of below-ground nesting bee species after growing season burns. The decrease in nesting material for above-ground nesting bees in the burned treatments resulted in a lower proportional abundance of those species compared to areas that were not burned. However, comparing the dormant and growing seasons of burn, there was no effect on the overall bee community. Amount of semi-natural area in the landscape and the matrix surrounding each prairie fragment may play a larger role in maintaining stable bee communities in highly fragmented habitats. Land managers can burn during both seasons knowing that bee communities will not be adversely affected. Chapter 2 utilizes the museum specimens housed at the Illinois Natural History Survey (INHS), University of Illinois, to address several issues concerning the use of museum collections to detect species distribution shifts and declines. Many changes to species distributions often occur over long time scales, where museum records are the only source of information regarding the historical occurrences of species. Efforts to digitize museum collections aids in identifying areas and species for conservation, but sampling biases and differences in specimen deposition into museum collections by various collectors over time, data entry errors, and misidentification of specimens can limit the accuracy of date collected from museums. This chapter describes the activities of compiling an updated Illinois bee species checklist of 455 species, correcting errors found in the INHS online database, and identifying potential new county and one state records (Diadasia enavata Cresson, 1872) for Illinois from the collections conducted in Chapter 1. Continued support for natural history museums across the country will allow future research on the impacts to ecosystems caused by human and natural influences

Early nesting biology of the bee Caupolicana yarrowi (Cresson) (Colletidae, Diphaglossinae) and its cleptoparasite Triepeolus grandis (Friese) (Apidae, Nomadinae) /

no. 393

The Rise and Fall of ASASSN-18pg:Following a TDE from Early to Late Times

We present nearly 500 days of observations of the tidal disruption event ASASSN-18pg, spanning from 54 days before peak light to 441 days after peak light. Our dataset includes X-ray, UV, and optical photometry, optical spectroscopy, radio observations, and the first published spectropolarimetric observations of a TDE. ASASSN-18pg was discovered on 2018 July 11 by the All-Sky Automated Survey for Supernovae (ASAS-SN) at a distance of $d=78.6$ Mpc, and with a peak UV magnitude of $m\simeq14$ it is both one of the nearest and brightest TDEs discovered to-date. The photometric data allow us to track both the rise to peak and the long-term evolution of the TDE. ASASSN-18pg peaked at a luminosity of $L\simeq2.2\times10^{44}$ erg s$^{-1}$, and its late-time evolution is shallower than a flux $\propto t^{-5/3}$ power-law model, similar to what has been seen in other TDEs. ASASSN-18pg exhibited Balmer lines and spectroscopic features consistent with Bowen fluorescence prior to peak which remained detectable for roughly 225 days after peak. Analysis of the two-component H$\alpha$ profile indicates that, if they are the result of reprocessing of emission from the accretion disk, the different spectroscopic lines may be coming from regions between $\sim10$ and $\sim60$ light-days from the black hole. No X-ray emission is detected from the TDE and there is no evidence of a jet or strong outflow detected in the radio. Our spectropolarimetric observations give no strong evidence for significant asphericity in the emission region, with the emission region having an axis ratio of at least $\sim0.65$.Comment: 22 pages, 11 figures, 5 tables. Submitted to ApJ. A machine-readable table containing the host-subtracted photometry presented in this manuscript is included as an ancillary fil

Projected Long-Chain n-3 Fatty Acid Intake Post-Replacement of Vegetables Oils with Stearidonic Acid-Modified Varieties: Results from a National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey 2003-2008 Analysis

Eicosapentaenoic acid (EPA) and docosahexaenoic acid (DHA) intake is well below the amount recommended by the 2015-2020 Dietary Guidelines for Americans (0.25 g/day), supporting the need for alternative dietary sources. Stearidonic acid (SDA)-enriched soybeans were bioengineered to endogenously synthesize SDA, which can be readily metabolized to EPA in humans; thus, incorporating the derived SDA-enriched soybean oil into the food supply is a potential strategy to increase EPA. We performed a dietary modeling exercise using National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey 2003-2008 repeat 24-h dietary recall data (n = 24,621) to estimate the potential contribution of SDA-enriched oils to total long-chain n-3 fatty acid intake (defined as EPA + DHA + EPA-equivalents) following two hypothetical scenarios: (1) replacement of regular soybean oil with SDA soybean oil and (2) replacement of four common vegetable oils (corn, canola, cottonseed, and soybean) with respective SDA-modified varieties. Estimated median daily intakes increased from 0.11 to 0.16 g/day post-replacement of regular soybean oil with SDA-modified soybean oil, and to 0.21 g/day post-replacement of four oils with SDA-modified oil; the corresponding mean intakes were 0.17, 0.27, and 0.44 g/day, respectively. The percent of the population who met the 0.25 g/day recommendation increased from at least 10% to at least 30% and 40% in scenarios 1 and 2, respectively. Additional strategies are needed to ensure the majority of the US population achieve EPA and DHA recommendations, and should be assessed using methods designed to estimate the distribution of usual intake of these episodically consumed nutrients.Global Organization for EPA and DHA Omega-3s (GOED); Haas Avocado Board; National Institutes of Health; UpToDate; Seafood Nutrition Partnership; DSM; Gates Foundation; Acasti Pharma; Astra Zeneca; Boston Heart Diagnostics; Nutrition Impact; Omada Health and Elysium Health; Pollock Communications; California Walnut Commission12 month embargo; published online: 7 December 2018This item from the UA Faculty Publications collection is made available by the University of Arizona with support from the University of Arizona Libraries. If you have questions, please contact us at [email protected]