Toward an Improved Conceptual Understanding of North American Tree Species Distributions

Species distributions have often been assumed to represent climatic limitations, yet recent evidence has challenged these assumptions and emphasized the potential importance of biotic interactions, dispersal limitation, and disturbance. Despite significant investigation into these factors, an integrated understanding of where and when they may be important is lacking. Here, we review evidence for the factors underlying the historical and contemporary distributions of North American tree species and argue that a cohesive conceptual framework must be informed by an understanding of species ecological and evolutionary history. We further demonstrate that available evidence offers little indication of a significant, independent influence of biotic interactions or dispersal limitation on species distributions. Disturbance may provide important constraints on distributions in limited contexts. Overall, historic and contemporary evidence suggests that species distributions are strongly influenced by climate, yet examples of disequilibrium with climate abound. We propose that differences among life stages and the impacts of human land use may contribute to explain these inconsistencies and are deserving of greater research attention

The Relative Influences of Climate and Competition on Tree Growth along Montane Ecotones in the Rocky Mountains

Distribution shifts of tree species are likely to be highly dependent upon population performance at distribution edges. Understanding the drivers of aspects of performance, such as growth, at distribution edges is thus crucial to accurately predicting responses of tree species to climate change. Here, we use a Bayesian model and sensitivity analysis to partition the effects of climate and crowding, as a metric of competition, on radial growth of three dominant conifer species along montane ecotones in the Rocky Mountains. These ecotones represent upper and lower distribution edges of two species, and span the distribution interior of the third species. Our results indicate a greater influence of climate (i.e., temperature and precipitation) than crowding on radial growth. Competition importance appears to increase towards regions of more favorable growing conditions, and precise responses to crowding and climate vary across species. Overall, our results suggest that climate will likely be the most important determinant of changes in tree growth at distribution edges of these montane conifers in the future

Do Community-Level Models Account for the Effects of Biotic Interactions? A Comparison of Community-Level and Species Distribution Modeling of Rocky Mountain Conifers

Community-level models (CLMs) aim to improve species distribution modeling (SDM) methods by attempting to explicitly incorporate the influences of interacting species. However, the ability of CLMs to appropriately account for biotic interactions is unclear. We applied CLM and SDM methods to predict the distributions of three dominant conifer tree species in the U.S. Rocky Mountains and compared CLM and SDM predictive accuracy as well as the ability of each approach to accurately reproduce species co-occurrence patterns. We specifically evaluated the performance of two statistical algorithms, MARS and CForest, within both CLM and SDM frameworks. Across all species, differences in SDM and CLM predictive accuracy were slight and can be attributed to differences in model structure rather than accounting for the effects of biotic interactions. In addition, CLMs generally over-predicted species cooccurrence, while SDMs under-predicted cooccurrence. Our results demonstrate no real improvement in the ability of CLMs to account for biotic interactions relative to SDMs. We conclude that alternative modeling approaches are needed in order to accurately account for the effects of biotic interactions on species distributions

Progress in Gender Equality within the Realm of Scientific Academia Illustrated by the Career and Life of Neuroscientist Patricia Goldman-Rakic

Gender inequality has been a constant struggle for women throughout history with victories few and far between. The movement for women’s rights emerged with the anti-slavery movement in the mid-1800s; however, it wasn’t until the late 1800s that women were allowed to grace the distinguished and revered lecture halls of higher education, and not until 1920 that women gained the right to formally matriculate and attain degrees. Upon commencement of women into the ranks of academia, the necessity to secure women’s rights for higher education appeared to be satiated. However, gender discrimination continued to plague particular fields of study, specifically the sciences, hindering explosive development and inhibiting potential innovative advancements. Although great progress has been made to increase the ranks of women in academia over the last couple decades, women remain underrepresented in faculty positions within scientific fields of study. The field of Neuroscience, although primarily male dominated, has had a few significant leading women pioneers who have courageously revolutionized the parameters of the science despite the strong opposition of the gender barriers. This paper aims to expose the underlying motives that perpetuate the gender bias in the field of neuroscience and explore the progress that has been made through the exemplary career and life of world-renowned and highly-respected neuroscientist Patricia Goldman-Rakic

Big Tech Is Why I Have (Anti)Trust Issues

(Excerpt) “There is a cost to bigness, even if it’s not passed onto the consumer.” Antitrust laws were once an effective tool to break up companies that had grown too large. However, subsequent rulings have altered their original meaning, and they are no longer useful in regulating large technology companies such as Amazon, Facebook, and Google. This Note will argue that judicial interpretation of antitrust laws should no longer be governed by the consumer welfare standard. Rather, judges should apply a two-part test, focusing on the market power and any anticompetitive business practices of the defendant corporation

USING CLINICAL SUPERVISION TO IMPROVE INTERPROFESSIONAL COLLABORATION

USING CLINICAL SUPERVISION TO IMPROVE INTERPROFESSIONAL COLLABORATION By Melissa Copenhaver Interprofessional collaboration (IPC) is important to the future of the healthcare system in that IPC is part of the solution for promoting better healthcare outcomes (Gilbert, Yan, & Hoffman, 2010; Reeves, Perrier, Goldman, Freeth, & Zwarenstein, 2013). Marshall (2011) notes that “interprofessional collaborative practice promotes team identity, conserves energy by a unity in direction, and invites harmony of efforts” (p. 158). The skills needed to engage in IPC are cultivated through interprofessional education (IPE) (Reeves et al., 2013). Currently, at Northern Michigan University (NMU), there are limited opportunities included in the program curriculums of nursing students and social work students to promote the skills needed to engage in interprofessional education (IPE). The curriculums are designed as academic silos, which does not reflect the expectations for graduates entering the workforce. This project provided opportunities for nursing and social work students to use clinical supervision groups to explore their clinical experiences and expand their skills related to IPC. The students who participated in clinical supervision showed larger increases in the Interprofessional Socialization and Valuing Scale (ISVS) post scores than students not in clinical supervision groups and qualitative results suggested students felt their IPC skills increased. Findings from this project could inform future efforts to implement IPE strategies at NMU and other universities