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Population Density and Home Range Estimates of Black Rat (Rattus rattus) Populations in Southwestern Puerto Rico
Black rats are among the world’s most invasive rodent species and are responsible for considerable agricultural losses and risks to human health through zoonotic disease. In Puerto Rico, rats may also compete with the primary rabies reservoir (the small Indian mongoose) for baits during oral rabies vaccination (ORV) programs. We evaluated black rat population density and home range size on the Cabo Rojo National Wildlife Refuge, southwestern Puerto Rico. We fitted 10 rats with VHF transmitters and tracked them using radio telemetry for approximately 4 weeks. We entered locations into ArcGIS and obtained minimum convex polygon (MCP) home range estimates. We established two plots of 55 snap traps and performed removal for 5 consecutive days during January and July, to correspond roughly with wet and dry seasons for this region. To calculate abundance, we entered snap trap data using a removal model approach in Program MARK. We calculated the effective trapping area by creating a buffer around the trapping area based on the square root of mean home range estimate. We divided the abundance calculated in MARK by the effective trapping area to calculate the estimated population density. Mean MCP home range estimate was 0.28 ha (SE: 0.05, range: 0.07-0.50 ha). Population density estimates were 114.7 (SE: 201.80) and 19.3 (SE: 6.85) per ha for January and July, respectively. To reduce the potential for rat consumption of ORV baits, wildlife managers should consider conducting ORV activities in Puerto Rico during periods of lower rat abundance or density
Excitations in the quantum paramagnetic phase of the quasi-one-dimensional Ising magnet CoNbO in a transverse field: Geometric frustration and quantum renormalization effects
The quasi-one-dimensional (1D) Ising ferromagnet CoNbO has recently
been driven via applied transverse magnetic fields through a continuous quantum
phase transition from spontaneous magnetic order to a quantum paramagnet, and
dramatic changes were observed in the spin dynamics, characteristic of weakly
perturbed 1D Ising quantum criticality. We report here extensive single-crystal
inelastic neutron scattering measurements of the magnetic excitations
throughout the three-dimensional (3D) Brillouin zone in the quantum
paramagnetic phase just above the critical field to characterize the effects of
the finite interchain couplings. In this phase, we observe that excitations
have a sharp, resolution-limited line shape at low energies and over most of
the dispersion bandwidth, as expected for spin-flip quasiparticles. We map the
full bandwidth along the strongly dispersive chain direction and resolve clear
modulations of the dispersions in the plane normal to the chains,
characteristic of frustrated interchain couplings in an antiferromagnetic
isosceles triangular lattice. The dispersions can be well parametrized using a
linear spin-wave model that includes interchain couplings and further neighbor
exchanges. The observed dispersion bandwidth along the chain direction is
smaller than that predicted by a linear spin-wave model using exchange values
determined at zero field, and this effect is attributed to quantum
renormalization of the dispersion beyond the spin-wave approximation in fields
slightly above the critical field, where quantum fluctuations are still
significant.Comment: 11 pages, 6 figures. Updated references. Minor changes to text and
figure
Antiferromagnetic and Orbital Ordering on a Diamond Lattice Near Quantum Criticality
We present neutron scattering measurements on powder samples of the spinel
FeSc2S4 that reveal a previously unobserved magnetic ordering transition
occurring at 11.8(2)~K. Magnetic ordering occurs subsequent to a subtle
cubic-to-tetragonal structural transition which distorts Fe coordinating sulfur
tetrahedra lifting the orbital degeneracy. The application of 1~GPa hydrostatic
pressure appears to destabilize this N\'eel state, reducing the transition
temperature to 8.6(8)~K and redistributing magnetic spectral weight to higher
energies. The relative magnitudes of ordered
and fluctuating moments show that the
magnetically ordered ground state of FeSc2S4 is drastically renormalized and in
proximity to criticality.Comment: 16 pages, 12 figure
Disorder from order among anisotropic next-nearest-neighbor Ising spin chains in SrHoO
We describe why Ising spin chains with competing interactions in segregate into ordered and disordered ensembles at low temperatures
(). Using elastic neutron scattering, magnetization, and specific heat
measurements, the two distinct spin chains are inferred to have N\'eel
() and double-N\'eel
() ground states respectively. Below
~K, the N\'eel chains develop three dimensional (3D) long
range order (LRO), which arrests further thermal equilibration of the
double-N\'eel chains so they remain in a disordered incommensurate state for
below ~K. distills an important
feature of incommensurate low dimensional magnetism: kinetically trapped
topological defects in a quasidimensional spin system can preclude order
in dimensions.Comment: 10 pages, 10 figure
Kinetic and spectroscopic studies of hemin acquisition in the hemophore HasAp from Pseudomonas aeruginosa
The extreme limitation of free iron has driven various pathogens to acquire iron from the host in the form of heme. Specifically, several Gram negative pathogens secrete a heme binding protein known as HasA to scavenge heme from the extracellular environment and to transfer it to the receptor protein HasR for import into the bacterial cell. Structures of heme-bound and apo-HasA homologues show that the heme iron(III) ligands, His32 and Tyr75, reside on loops extending from the core of the protein and that a significant conformational change must occur at the His32 loop upon heme binding. Here, we investigate the kinetics of heme acquisition by HasA from Pseudomonas aeruginosa (HasAp). The rate of heme acquisition from human met-hemoglobin (met-Hb) closely matched that of heme dissociation which suggests a passive mode of heme uptake from this source. The binding of free hemin is characterized by an initial rapid phase forming an intermediate before further conversion to the final complex. Analysis of this same reaction using an H32A variant lacking the His heme ligand shows only the rapid phase to form a heme-protein complex spectroscopically equivalent to that of the wild type intermediate. Further characterization of these reactions using EPR and resonance Raman spectroscopy of rapid freeze quench samples provided support for a model where heme is initially bound by the Tyr75 to form a high-spin heme-protein complex before slower coordination of the His32 ligand upon closing of the His loop over the heme. The slow rate of this loop closure implies that the induced-fit mechanism of heme uptake in HasAp is not based on a rapid sampling of the H32 loop between open and closed configurations, but rather, that the H32 loop motions are triggered by the formation of the high-spin heme-HasAp intermediate complex
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