Public Tolerance of a Suburban Deer Herd: Implications for Control

Suburban deer populations have been increasing in the eastern U.S., resulting in deer-human conflicts that can not always be resolved by a traditional management approach. Professionals responsible for management of deer damage (herd control and extension education) need information on the extent and nature of deer damage in suburban situations. Attitudes of suburban residential property owners about wildlife in general and deer in particular must be identified so that control measures that are socially acceptable as well as biologically feasible can be formulated. People\u27s tolerance of deer damage and their propensity for undertaking on-site preventive measures need to be analyzed. Residents of Islip (Long Island), New York who live in the vicinity of the Seatuck National Wildlife Refuge were surveyed in spring 1985 to determine their experiences with Refuge deer. Damage to ornamental plants totalled $28,000 for the preceding year, but people generally enjoyed having deer in their neighborhood, and tolerated considerable damage. They were more concerned with the potential for transmission of Lyme disease by deer. Residents were generally in agreement with the concept of managing wildlife as a renewable resource, but they generally opposed sport or meat hunting, which might present a potential barrier to herd control. Most residents did not want a herd reduction, but this situation could change if the deer population were to increase substantially or if deer are found to be a key link in transmission of Lyme disease to humans. Implications of these findings are discussed relative to deer herd control and extension education, which might serve as complementary components of a program directed at alleviating deer damage

PUBLIC TOLERANCE OF A SUBURBAN DEER HERD: IMPLICATIONS FOR CONTROL

Suburban deer populations have been increasing in the eastern U.S., resulting in deer-human conflicts that can not always be resolved by a traditional management approach., Professionals responsible for management of deer damage (herd control and extension education) need information on the extent and nature of deer damage in suburban situations. Attitudes of suburban residential property owners about wildlife in general and deer in particular must be identified so that control measures that are socially acceptable as well as biologically feasible can be formulated o People\u27s tolerance of deer damage and their propensity for undertaking on-site preventive measures need to be analyzed. Residents of Islip (Long Island), New York who live in the vicinity of the Seatuck National Wildlife Refuge were surveyed in spring 1985 to determine their experiences with Refuge deer. Damage to ornamental plants totaled $28,000 for the preceding year, but people generally enjoyed having deer in their neighborhood, and tolerated considerable damage. They were more concerned with the potential for transmission of Lyrae disease by deer. Residents were generally in agreement with the concept of managing wildlife as a renewable resource, but they generally opposed sport or meat hunting, which might present a potential barrier to herd control. Most residents did not want a herd reduction, but this situation could change if the deer population were to increase substantially or if deer are found to be a key link in transmission of Lyme disease to humans. Implications of these findings are discussed relative to deer herd control and extension education, which might serve as complementary components of a program directed at alleviating deer damage

Species abundance information improves sequence taxonomy classification accuracy.

Popular naive Bayes taxonomic classifiers for amplicon sequences assume that all species in the reference database are equally likely to be observed. We demonstrate that classification accuracy degrades linearly with the degree to which that assumption is violated, and in practice it is always violated. By incorporating environment-specific taxonomic abundance information, we demonstrate a significant increase in the species-level classification accuracy across common sample types. At the species level, overall average error rates decline from 25% to 14%, which is favourably comparable to the error rates that existing classifiers achieve at the genus level (16%). Our findings indicate that for most practical purposes, the assumption that reference species are equally likely to be observed is untenable. q2-clawback provides a straightforward alternative for samples from common environments

Scale limited fields and the Casimir effect

We revisit the calculation of the Casimir effect from the perspective of scale limited resolutions of quantum fields. We use the continuous wavelet transform to introduce a scale degree of freedom and then restrict it to simulate either an observational or fundamental limitation of resolution. The Casimir force is derived in this setting for a free complex massless scalar field between two infinite plates with both Dirichlet and periodic boundary conditions. The dependence of the force on the choice of wavelet and size of scale cutoff is extensively discussed for several examples of wavelets.Comment: 9 pages, 8 figure

The Inferior Temporal Numeral Area distinguishes numerals from other character categories during passive viewing: A representational similarity analysis

A region in the posterior inferior temporal gyrus (pITG) is thought to be specialized for processing Arabic numerals, but fMRI studies that compared passive viewing of numerals to other character types (e.g., letters and novel characters) have not found evidence of numeral preference in the pITG. However, recent studies showed that the engagement of the pITG is modulated by attention and task contexts, suggesting that passive viewing paradigms may be ill-suited for examining numeral specialization in the pITG. It is possible, however, that even if the strengths of responses to different category types are similar, the distributed response patterns (i.e., neural representations) in a candidate numeral-preferring pITG region ( pITG-numerals ) may reveal categorical distinctions, even during passive viewing. Using representational similarity analyses with three datasets that share the same task paradigm and stimulus sets (total N = 88), we tested whether the neural representations of digits, letters, and novel characters in pITG-numerals were organized according to visual form and/or conceptual categories (e.g., familiar versus novel, numbers versus others). Small-scale frequentist and Bayesian meta-analyses of our dataset-specific findings revealed that the organization of neural representations in pITG-numerals is unlikely to be described by differences in abstract shape, but can be described by a categorical digits versus letters distinction, or even a digits versus others distinction (suggesting greater numeral sensitivity). Evidence of greater numeral sensitivity during passive viewing suggest that pITG-numerals is likely part of a neural pathway that has been developed for automatic processing of objects with potential numerical relevance. Given that numerals and letters do not differ categorically in terms of shape, categorical distinction in pITG-numerals during passive viewing must reflect ontogenetic differentiation of symbol set representations based on repeated usage of numbers and letters in differing task contexts

Modeling postglacial vegetation dynamics of temperate forests on the Olympic Peninsula (WA, USA) with special regard to snowpack

Past and future forest composition and distribution in temperate mountain ranges is strongly influenced by temperature and snowpack. We used LANDCLIM, a spatially explicit, dynamic vegetation model, to simulate forest dynamics for the last 16,000 years and compared the simulation results to pollen and macrofossil records at five sites on the Olympic Peninsula (Washington, USA). To address the hydrological effects of climate-driven variations in snowpack on simulated forest dynamics, we added a simple snow accumulation-and-melt module to the vegetation model and compared simulations with and without the module. LANDCLIM produced realistic present-day species composition with respect to elevation and precipitation gradients. Over the last 16,000 years, simulations driven by transient climate data from an atmosphere-ocean general circulation model (AOGCM) and by a chironomid-based temperature reconstruction captured Late-glacial to Late Holocene transitions in forest communities. Overall, the reconstruction-driven vegetation simulations matched observed vegetation changes better than the AOGCM-driven simulations. This study also indicates that forest composition is very sensitive to snowpack-mediated changes in soil moisture. Simulations without the snow module showed a strong effect of snowpack on key bioclimatic variables and species composition at higher elevations. A projected upward shift of the snow line and a decrease in snowpack might lead to drastic changes in mountain forests composition and even a shift to dry meadows due to insufficient moisture availability in shallow alpine soils

Aldehydes and ketones in pyrolysis oil: analytical determination and their role in the aging process

Aldehydes and ketones are known to play a role in the aging process of pyrolysis oil and generally, aldehydes are known for their high reactivity. In order to discern in pyrolysis oil the total aldehyde concentration from that of the ketones, a procedure for the quantification of aldehydes by $^{1}$H-NMR was developed. Its capability is demonstrated with a hardwood pyrolysis oil at different stages of the aging process. It was treated by the Accelerated Aging Test at 80 °C for durations of up to 48 h. The aldehyde concentration was complemented by the total concentration of carbonyls, quantified by carbonyl titration. The measurements show, that the examined hardwood pyrolysis oil contained 0.31–0.40 mmol g$^{-1}$ aldehydes and 4.36–4.45 mmol g$^{-1}$ ketones. During the first 24 h, the aldehyde concentration declined by 23–39% and the ketone concentration by 9%. The rate of decline of aldehyde concentration slows down within 24 h but is still measureable. In contrast, the total carbonyl content does not change significantly after an initial decline within the first 4 h. Changes for vinylic, acetalic, phenolic and hydroxyl protons and for protons in the α-position to hydroxy, ether, acetalic and ester groups were detected, by $^{1}$H-NMR. In the context of characterizing pyrolysis oil and monitoring the aging process, $^{1}$H-NMR is a reliable tool to assess the total concentration of aldehydes. It confirms the reactivity of aldehydes and ketones and indicates their contribution to the instability of pyrolysis oil

Species abundance information improves sequence taxonomy classification accuracy

Popular naive Bayes taxonomic classifiers for amplicon sequences assume that all species in the reference database are equally likely to be observed. We demonstrate that classification accuracy degrades linearly with the degree to which that assumption is violated, and in practice it is always violated. By incorporating environment-specific taxonomic abundance information, we demonstrate a significant increase in the species-level classification accuracy across common sample types. At the species level, overall average error rates decline from 25% to 14%, which is favourably comparable to the error rates that existing classifiers achieve at the genus level (16%). Our findings indicate that for most practical purposes, the assumption that reference species are equally likely to be observed is untenable. q2-clawback provides a straightforward alternative for samples from common environments.QIIME 2 development was primarily funded by NSF Awards 1565100 to J.G.C. and 1565057 to R.K. This work was supported by an NHMRC project grant APP1085372, awarded to G.A.H., J.G.C., and R.K