Density and Occupancy of Mammals Along an Urban to Rural Gradient in Northwest Arkansas

Human development is a rapidly expanding phenomenon impacting wildlife communities globally. As the human footprint expands, natural greenspace and nature reserves become fragmented and isolated. Wildlife species and communities respond to these changes in different ways. Urban exploiters persist in more urban areas and are able to take advantage of anthropogenic subsidies (food, shelter, etc). Urban avoiders, however, are species that may be pushed out of developed areas or occur in lower densities relative to undisturbed areas. Northwest Arkansas is an optimal location to study the impacts of urbanization on wildlife communities, as the current human population is expected to double in the next 20 years and human development is continually encroaching into natural areas. In Chapter I, I evaluated mammalian mesocarnivore density along an urban to rural gradient in the Ozark Ecoregion, Northwest Arkansas, USA. I deployed 287 trail cameras across 12 natural areas ranging from urban parks within the city of Fayetteville to more rural sites in the Ozarks. To estimate density, I used the Random Encounter Model (REM), developed to estimate density of unmarked individuals via trail camera data. I focused my analyses on the five most commonly detected mesocarnivore species: bobcat, coyote, raccoon, red fox, and Virginia opossum. I found that both raccoons and coyotes densities had a positive correlation with anthropogenic noise, indicating an affinity for areas with human activity. Red fox and opossum densities both had a positive correlation with developed open space, representing novel, human-maintained habitat within urban areas such as golf courses, cemeteries, and city parks. Red fox density also had a negative correlation to distance to water, and opossum density had a positive though insignificant trend with distance to water. Bobcat density was not correlated with any variables selected for analysis and may need to be evaluated on a larger spatial scale. My results support past research showing coyote, red fox, opossum and raccoon to be urban exploiters. They also add support for the REM as a reliable method to estimate density based on trail camera data. My density estimates for all five species were comparable to density estimates from the literature that used traditional density estimation techniques and allowed us to evaluate trends in density based on environmental and anthropogenic resources. In Chapter II, I evaluated the density and occupancy probability of the nine-banded armadillo (Dasypus novemcinctus) along an urban to rural gradient. I used a total of 352 camera locations from the 2020-2021 winter season and the 2021-2022 winter season. I found that detection probability increased for the armadillo as temperature increased but decreased as precipitation increased. Occupancy probability had a negative correlation with the angle of the slope, and a positive correlation with elevation. Armadillo density was not influenced by any anthropogenic or environmental variables, but anecdotally was higher at sites with higher levels of human development. Collectively, these results shed insight into how 6 different mammal species respond to human development across an urbanization gradient in a quickly growing part of the country. Understanding impacts of urbanization on wildlife allows managers to predict populations of wildlife and potential conflicts that may arise in response to changes in their natural environments, as well as make well informed management decisions

Density and Occupancy of Mammals Along an Urban to Rural Gradient in Northwest Arkansas

Human development is a rapidly expanding phenomenon impacting wildlife communities globally. As the human footprint expands, natural greenspace and nature reserves become fragmented and isolated. Wildlife species and communities respond to these changes in different ways. Urban exploiters persist in more urban areas and are able to take advantage of anthropogenic subsidies (food, shelter, etc). Urban avoiders, however, are species that may be pushed out of developed areas or occur in lower densities relative to undisturbed areas. Northwest Arkansas is an optimal location to study the impacts of urbanization on wildlife communities, as the current human population is expected to double in the next 20 years and human development is continually encroaching into natural areas. In Chapter I, I evaluated mammalian mesocarnivore density along an urban to rural gradient in the Ozark Ecoregion, Northwest Arkansas, USA. I deployed 287 trail cameras across 12 natural areas ranging from urban parks within the city of Fayetteville to more rural sites in the Ozarks. To estimate density, I used the Random Encounter Model (REM), developed to estimate density of unmarked individuals via trail camera data. I focused my analyses on the five most commonly detected mesocarnivore species: bobcat, coyote, raccoon, red fox, and Virginia opossum. I found that both raccoons and coyotes densities had a positive correlation with anthropogenic noise, indicating an affinity for areas with human activity. Red fox and opossum densities both had a positive correlation with developed open space, representing novel, human-maintained habitat within urban areas such as golf courses, cemeteries, and city parks. Red fox density also had a negative correlation to distance to water, and opossum density had a positive though insignificant trend with distance to water. Bobcat density was not correlated with any variables selected for analysis and may need to be evaluated on a larger spatial scale. My results support past research showing coyote, red fox, opossum and raccoon to be urban exploiters. They also add support for the REM as a reliable method to estimate density based on trail camera data. My density estimates for all five species were comparable to density estimates from the literature that used traditional density estimation techniques and allowed us to evaluate trends in density based on environmental and anthropogenic resources. In Chapter II, I evaluated the density and occupancy probability of the nine-banded armadillo (Dasypus novemcinctus) along an urban to rural gradient. I used a total of 352 camera locations from the 2020-2021 winter season and the 2021-2022 winter season. I found that detection probability increased for the armadillo as temperature increased but decreased as precipitation increased. Occupancy probability had a negative correlation with the angle of the slope, and a positive correlation with elevation. Armadillo density was not influenced by any anthropogenic or environmental variables, but anecdotally was higher at sites with higher levels of human development. Collectively, these results shed insight into how 6 different mammal species respond to human development across an urbanization gradient in a quickly growing part of the country. Understanding impacts of urbanization on wildlife allows managers to predict populations of wildlife and potential conflicts that may arise in response to changes in their natural environments, as well as make well informed management decisions

The Iowa Homemaker vol.15, no.9

New Wrinkles in Lingerie, page 2 Loads of Style, page 3 Hecs Have a Double Job, page 4 A Little Dignity in Dancing, page 5 Through the White House Gates, page 6 Dutch Treat Your Irish Spread, page 7 Give Plants Artificial Light, page 7 What’s New in Home Economics, page 8 Alumnae Notes, page 10 Making Science, page 11 More Pertinent Reading, page 12 Coming Up in the Movies, page 13 Skirt Lengths Short, page 1

The Glial Regenerative Response to Central Nervous System Injury Is Enabled by Pros-Notch and Pros-NFκB Feedback

Organisms are structurally robust, as cells accommodate changes preserving structural integrity and function. The molecular mechanisms underlying structural robustness and plasticity are poorly understood, but can be investigated by probing how cells respond to injury. Injury to the CNS induces proliferation of enwrapping glia, leading to axonal re-enwrapment and partial functional recovery. This glial regenerative response is found across species, and may reflect a common underlying genetic mechanism. Here, we show that injury to the Drosophila larval CNS induces glial proliferation, and we uncover a gene network controlling this response. It consists of the mutual maintenance between the cell cycle inhibitor Prospero (Pros) and the cell cycle activators Notch and NFκB. Together they maintain glia in the brink of dividing, they enable glial proliferation following injury, and subsequently they exert negative feedback on cell division restoring cell cycle arrest. Pros also promotes glial differentiation, resolving vacuolization, enabling debris clearance and axonal enwrapment. Disruption of this gene network prevents repair and induces tumourigenesis. Using wound area measurements across genotypes and time-lapse recordings we show that when glial proliferation and glial differentiation are abolished, both the size of the glial wound and neuropile vacuolization increase. When glial proliferation and differentiation are enabled, glial wound size decreases and injury-induced apoptosis and vacuolization are prevented. The uncovered gene network promotes regeneration of the glial lesion and neuropile repair. In the unharmed animal, it is most likely a homeostatic mechanism for structural robustness. This gene network may be of relevance to mammalian glia to promote repair upon CNS injury or disease

Convective instability of 3-D fluid-saturated geological fault zones heated from below

We conduct a theoretical analysis to investigate the convective instability of 3-D fluid-saturated geological fault zones when they are heated uniformly from below. In particular, we have derived exact analytical solutions for the critical Rayleigh numbers of different convective flow structures. Using these critical Rayleigh numbers, three interesting convective flow structures have been identified in a geological fault zone system. It has been recognized that the critical Rayleigh numbers of the system have a minimum value only for the fault zone of infinite length, in which the corresponding convective flow structure is a 2-D slender-circle flow. However, if the length of the fault zone is finite, the convective flow in the system must be 3-D. Even if the length of the fault zone is infinite, since the minimum critical Rayleigh number for the 2-D slender-circle flow structure is so close to that for the 3-D convective flow structure, the system may have almost the same chance to pick up the 3-D convective flow structures. Also, because the convection modes are so close for the 3-D convective flow structures, the convective flow may evolve into the 3-D finger-like structures, especially for the case of the fault thickness to height ratio approaching zero. This understanding demonstrates the beautiful aspects of the present analytical solution for the convective instability of 3-D geological fault zones, because the present analytical solution is valid for any value of the ratio of the fault height to thickness. Using the present analytical solution, the conditions, under which different convective flow structures may take place, can be easily determined

Earthquakes, volcanoes, and rectified diffusion

Rectified diffusion is a mechanism by which a strain wave can rapidly pump volatiles into a bubble and therefore increase the pressure in a closed system. The dynamic strain of either distant regional tectonic earthquakes or local volcanic tremor can be translated to static strain inside a magma chamber via this process. We formulate a theory appropriate to the conditions of a magma chamber and calculate the increased pressure using realistic physical parameters. For a basaltic system initially at 130 MPa pressure, the excess pressure from rectified diffusion is between 0.4 and 4 MPa for a regional M≥8 earthquake. The pressure from rectified diffusion is often significantly above the static stress caused by deformation for documented cases of triggered eruptions and thus presents a more viable mechanism for triggering. Prolonged tremor can have a similar effect since the total pressure added increases linearly with the duration of the excitation

Oligodendrocytes contribute to motor neuron death in ALS via SOD1 dependent mechanism

Oligodendrocytes have recently been implicated in the pathophysiology of ALS. Here we show that, in vitro, mutant SOD1 mouse oligodendrocytes induce wild-type motor neuron hyperexcitability and death. Moreover, we efficiently derived human oligodendrocytes from a large number of controls, sporadic and familial ALS patients using two different reprogramming methods. All ALS oligodendrocyte lines induced motor neuron death through conditioned medium and in co-culture. Conditioned medium-mediated motor neuron death was associated with decreased lactate production and release, while toxicity in co-culture was lactate independent, demonstrating that motor neuron survival is not only mediated by soluble factors. Remarkably, human SOD1 shRNA treatment resulted in motor neuron rescue in both mouse and human cultures when knockdown was achieved in progenitor cells, while it was ineffective in differentiated oligodendrocytes. Early SOD1 knockdown, in fact, rescued lactate impairment and cell toxicity in all lines tested with exclusion of samples carrying C9orf72 repeat expansions. These did not respond to SOD1 knockdown nor showed lactate release impairment. Our data indicate that SOD1 is directly or indirectly involved in ALS oligodendrocyte pathology and suggest that in this cell type some damage might be irreversible. In addition, we demonstrate that C9ORF72 patients represent an independent patient group that might not respond to the same treatment

Weight management interventions in adults with intellectual disabilities and obesity: a systematic review of the evidence

o evaluate the clinical effectiveness of weight management interventions in adults with intellectual disabilities (ID) and obesity using recommendations from current clinical guidelines for the first line management of obesity in adults. Full papers on lifestyle modification interventions published between 1982 to 2011 were sought by searching the Medline, Embase, PsycINFO and CINAHL databases. Studies were evaluated based on 1) intervention components, 2) methodology, 3) attrition rate 4) reported weight loss and 5) duration of follow up. Twenty two studies met the inclusion criteria. The interventions were classified according to inclusion of the following components: behaviour change alone, behaviour change plus physical activity, dietary advice or physical activity alone, dietary plus physical activity advice and multi-component (all three components). The majority of the studies had the same methodological limitations: no sample size justification, small heterogeneous samples, no information on randomisation methodologies. Eight studies were classified as multi-component interventions, of which one study used a 600 kilocalorie (2510 kilojoule) daily energy deficit diet. Study durations were mostly below the duration recommended in clinical guidelines and varied widely. No study included an exercise program promoting 225–300 minutes or more of moderate intensity physical activity per week but the majority of the studies used the same behaviour change techniques. Three studies reported clinically significant weight loss (≥ 5%) at six months post intervention. Current data indicate weight management interventions in those with ID differ from recommended practice and further studies to examine the effectiveness of multi-component weight management interventions for adults with ID and obesity are justified

LLM3D: a log-linear modeling-based method to predict functional gene regulatory interactions from genome-wide expression data

All cellular processes are regulated by condition-specific and time-dependent interactions between transcription factors and their target genes. While in simple organisms, e.g. bacteria and yeast, a large amount of experimental data is available to support functional transcription regulatory interactions, in mammalian systems reconstruction of gene regulatory networks still heavily depends on the accurate prediction of transcription factor binding sites. Here, we present a new method, log-linear modeling of 3D contingency tables (LLM3D), to predict functional transcription factor binding sites. LLM3D combines gene expression data, gene ontology annotation and computationally predicted transcription factor binding sites in a single statistical analysis, and offers a methodological improvement over existing enrichment-based methods. We show that LLM3D successfully identifies novel transcriptional regulators of the yeast metabolic cycle, and correctly predicts key regulators of mouse embryonic stem cell self-renewal more accurately than existing enrichment-based methods. Moreover, in a clinically relevant in vivo injury model of mammalian neurons, LLM3D identified peroxisome proliferator-activated receptor γ (PPARγ) as a neuron-intrinsic transcriptional regulator of regenerative axon growth. In conclusion, LLM3D provides a significant improvement over existing methods in predicting functional transcription regulatory interactions in the absence of experimental transcription factor binding data