The Long-Term Significance Of Working As An Undergraduate Teaching Assistant

The use of undergraduate teaching assistants (UTAs) has increased in recent years at a number of institutions, especially in active-learning and high-enrollment introductory courses. Currently, there is research demonstrating their benefit to students, and the short-term impacts of the experience on the UTAs. However, no study to date has investigated the long-term impacts of the UTA experience on the participants themselves, and a number of studies call for such an investigation. This dissertation sought to fill that gap in understanding by utilizing a Grounded Theory approach to investigate the perceptions of participants who had served as an UTA in the biology department at a large research institution in the upper Midwest. All participants worked as an UTA from two to ten years prior to the interview, and had since graduated and gone on to careers, graduate school, or professional programs. This research found strong consensus among participants that the UTA experience is overwhelmingly positive. Long-term personal benefits included improved self-confidence, a sense of personal reward, and a sense of community that resulted from working with faculty members. Professional benefits that persisted included a strong sense of professional development, beneficial experiences that transferred to life after undergraduate studies, the ability to explore potential careers, and the opportunity to experience more than just research. Additionally, participants reported that financial motivation was not a primary motivation. Furthermore, they provided evidence that concerns from the primary literature about overly burdensome responsibilities and conflicts of interest with other students were not a significant issue during their experiences

Americans Support for Renewable Energy is Disconnected from their Understanding of Powerline Infrastructure as a Mechanism to Mitigate Climate Change

As nations are transitioning to renewable energy sources, they will need to expand and upgrade their energy infrastructure, including high-voltage power lines (HVPL). We have conducted the first nation-wide survey in the last thirty years to assess public attitudes toward HVPL in the USA. The study evaluates perceptions, knowledge, and attitudes toward building new transmission lines, as these relate to renewable energy, place attachment, and environmental impacts. Our results show that Americans do not recognize how new HVPL could help reduce greenhouse gas emissions; instead, respondents favor moving from centralized energy (large power stations and HVPL) to decentralized energy (local power supply and small scale solar panels and wind turbines. Our findings are consistent with studies from Europe in that citizens recognize negative human impacts on the natural world and support renewable energy, however, they have a limited understanding of the role of HVPL infrastructure in mitigating climate change

Evaluating behavioral responses of nesting lesser snow geese to unmanned aircraft surveys

Unmanned aircraft systems (UAS) are relatively new technologies gaining popularity among wildlife biologists. As with any new tool in wildlife science, operating protocols must be developed through rigorous protocol testing. Few studies have been conducted that quantify the impacts UAS may have on unhabituated individuals in the wild using standard aerial survey protocols. We evaluated impacts of unmanned surveys by measuring UAS-induced behavioral responses during the nesting phase of lesser snow geese (Anser caerulescens caerulescens) in Wapusk National Park, Manitoba, Canada. We conducted surveys with a fixed-wing Trimble UX5 and monitored behavioral changes via discreet surveillance cameras at 25 nests. Days with UAS surveys resulted in decreased resting and increased nest maintenance, low scanning, high scanning, head-cocking and off-nest behaviors when compared to days without UAS surveys. In the group of birds flown over, head-cocking for overhead vigilance was rarely seen prior to launch or after landing (mean estimates 0.03% and 0.02%, respectively) but increased to 0.56% of the time when the aircraft was flying overhead suggesting that birds were able to detect the aircraft during flight. Neither UAS survey altitude nor launch distance alone in this study was strong predictors of nesting behaviors, although our flight altitudes (≥75 m above ground level) were much higher than previously published behavioral studies. Synthesis and applications: The diversity of UAS models makes generalizations on behavioral impacts difficult, and we caution that researchers should design UAS studies with knowledge that some minimal disturbance is likely to occur. We recommend flight designs take potential behavioral impacts into account by increasing survey altitude where data quality requirements permit. Such flight designs should consider a priori knowledge of focal species’ behavioral characteristics. Research is needed to determine whether any such disturbance is a result of visual or auditory stimuli

Mammal responses to global changes in human activity vary by trophic group and landscape

Wildlife must adapt to human presence to survive in the Anthropocene, so it is critical to understand species responses to humans in different contexts. We used camera trapping as a lens to view mammal responses to changes in human activity during the COVID-19 pandemic. Across 163 species sampled in 102 projects around the world, changes in the amount and timing of animal activity varied widely. Under higher human activity, mammals were less active in undeveloped areas but unexpectedly more active in developed areas while exhibiting greater nocturnality. Carnivores were most sensitive, showing the strongest decreases in activity and greatest increases in nocturnality. Wildlife managers must consider how habituation and uneven sensitivity across species may cause fundamental differences in human–wildlife interactions along gradients of human influence.Peer reviewe

Feral Horses and Bison at Theodore Roosevelt National Park (North Dakota, United States) Exhibit Shifts in Behaviors during Drone Flights

Drone use has been rapidly increasing in protected areas in North America, and potential impacts on terrestrial megafauna have been largely unstudied. We evaluated behavioral responses to drones on two terrestrial charismatic species, feral horse (Equus caballus) and bison (Bison bison), at Theodore Roosevelt National Park (North Dakota, United States) in 2018. Using a Trimble UX5 fixed-wing drone, we performed two flights at 120 m above ground level (AGL), one for each species, and recorded video footage of their behaviors prior to, during, and after the flight. Video footage was analyzed in periods of 10 s intervals, and the occurrence of a behavior was modeled in relation to the phase of the flights (prior, during, and after). Both species displayed behavioral responses to the presence of the fixed-wing drone. Horses increased feeding (p-value p-value p-value p-value p-value p-value p-value p-value p-value < 0.05). Neither species displayed escape behaviors. Flying at 120 m AGL, the drone might have been perceived as low risk, which could possibly explain the absence of escape behaviors in both species. While we did not test physiological responses, our behavioral observations suggest that drone flights at the altitude we tested did not elicit escape responses, which have been observed in ground surveys or traditional low-level aerial surveys. Our results provide new insights for guidelines about drone use in conservation areas, such as the potential of drones for surveys of feral horses and bison with low levels of disturbance, and we further recommend the development of in situ guidelines in protected areas centered on place-based knowledge, besides existing standardized guidelines

Data from: Evaluating behavioral responses of nesting lesser snow geese to unmanned aircraft surveys

Unmanned aircraft systems (UAS) are relatively new technologies gaining popularity among wildlife biologists. As with any new tool in wildlife science, operating protocols must be developed through rigorous protocol testing. Few studies have been conducted that quantify the impacts UAS may have on unhabituated individuals in the wild using standard aerial survey protocols. We evaluated impacts of unmanned surveys by measuring UAS-induced behavioral responses during the nesting phase of lesser snow geese (Anser caerulescens caerulescens) in Wapusk National Park, Manitoba, Canada. We conducted surveys with a fixed-wing Trimble UX5 and monitored behavioral changes via discreet surveillance cameras at 25 nests. Days with UAS surveys resulted in decreased resting and increased nest maintenance, low scanning, high scanning, head-cocking and off-nest behaviors when compared to days without UAS surveys. In the group of birds flown over, head-cocking for overhead vigilance was rarely seen prior to launch or after landing (mean estimates 0.03% and 0.02%, respectively) but increased to 0.56% of the time when the aircraft was flying overhead suggesting that birds were able to detect the aircraft during flight. Neither UAS survey altitude nor launch distance alone in this study was strong predictors of nesting behaviors, although our flight altitudes (≥75 m above ground level) were much higher than previously published behavioral studies. Synthesis and applications: The diversity of UAS models makes generalizations on behavioral impacts difficult, and we caution that researchers should design UAS studies with knowledge that some minimal disturbance is likely to occur. We recommend flight designs take potential behavioral impacts into account by increasing survey altitude where data quality requirements permit. Such flight designs should consider a priori knowledge of focal species’ behavioral characteristics. Research is needed to determine whether any such disturbance is a result of visual or auditory stimuli

Snow_goose_behaviours

Spreadsheet of proportion time spent on six (6) observed behaviours in lesser snow gees