Overwintering ecology of the Black-and-White Warbler in a Puerto Rican dry forest [abstract]

Abstract only availableI studied the wintering ecology of the Black-and-white Warbler (Mniotilta varia) in a dry forest of Puerto Rico. I analyzed mist netting data collected from 4 January-15 February during 1989-2006. These data will be examined to learn how Black-and-white Warblers select wintering habitat, how site faithful they are, and how habitat heterogeneity affects their choices in selecting or returning to wintering habitats each year. Capture/recapture rates will be examined using chi-square contingency table analyses. Questions to be addressed include: Is there evidence of habitat heterogeneity (i.e., are there habitat hotspots)? Do these areas have higher return rates than others? How much spatial consistency is there in recaptures? These questions will help determine how site faithful Black-and-white Warblers are, both on a local and regional scale. Vegetation data also well be examined to identify habitat attributes associated with high quality (i.e., high use) areas.McNair Scholars Progra

Remote Sensing Insights into Storage Capacities among Plains Village Horticulturalists

Maize was a fundamental component of the diet and economy of Middle Missouri Plains Village groups, sedentary farmers with settlements along the Missouri River during the last millennia. More than a century of study has contributed to our understanding of agricultural production among these peoples, but little effort has been made to consider temporal variation in production. Such an understanding is crucial to examining changes that occurred before and after the arrival of colonists and their trade goods in the seventeenth century. Plains archaeologists have suggested that the storage capacity of Middle Missouri villages increased during the sixteenth through the eighteenth centuries. In fact, the number and size of subterranean storage pits, ubiquitous features within most settlements, are thought to have grown during these centuries, which reflects greater agricultural production. To further examine changes in production and storage capacity during this centuries-long period, I combine information from historical documents, excavations, and geophysical investigations. At Huff Village, a fifteenth-century community, excavations and magnetic gradiometry surveys reveal the size and distribution of storage pits. Their number and average volume suggest the villagers grew immense amounts of food and contributed to widespread intertribal trade. Furthermore, storage pit excavation data from 20 regional sites, dating from the thirteenth to the nineteenth century, indicate pit volumes increased through the seventeenth century. A sharp decrease subsequently occurred during the eighteenth century due to epidemic disease. However, mean pit volumes were significantly larger during the nineteenth century, evidence of the resilience of Mandans, Hidatsas, and Arikaras and the continued significance of maize. In fact, historical documents and remote sensing data suggest the Mandans and Arikaras, successive occupants of an earthlodge village near the American Fur Company’s Fort Clark, traded crucial resources, namely maize, to neighboring Native groups and fur traders during the early to mid-nineteenth century. While traditional colonial narratives describe the period in terms of culture decline and dependency, my study indicates the Mandans and Arikaras acted in their own self-interest and influenced and accommodated colonial fur traders along the Missouri River in the Northern Plains during the nineteenth century

Constructing Community in the Central Arkansas River Valley: Ceramic Compositional Analysis and Collaborative Archaeology

In the Central Arkansas River Valley, archaeological investigations of the protohistoric occupation in the Carden Bottoms locality of Yell County, Arkansas suggest the interaction of groups from three adjoining regions at the site (the Central Mississippi Valley, the Lower Arkansas River Valley, and the Middle Ouachita region). Until now, the analysis of whole ceramic vessels associated with the site (derived from looted contexts) constituted the strongest evidence of this process, but this analysis was based on stylistic cues and macroscopic examination of pastes to discriminate between local and nonlocal wares. This project employed instrumental neutron activation analysis (INAA) as an important crosscheck of these assumptions and found that some wares previously identified as evidence of trade with Caddo communities from the Middle Ouachita region of southwest Arkansas may have been produced locally by Caddo potters residing at the site. Other results from INAA support some exchange relationships with communities farther downstream on the Arkansas River. In combination with findings obtained from large-scale excavations and other research undertaken during the larger Central Arkansas River Valley project, I suggest that the Carden Bottoms community may be an early example of societal coalescence in which several formerly distinct groups came together during times of regional instability precipitated by the De Soto entrada, the dissolution of nucleated chiefdoms in northeast Arkansas, and severe drought associated with the Little Ice Age. Most other examples of coalescence in southeastern North America are known from colonial contexts. These combined results shed new light on the process of social interaction, integration, and the projection of social identity in the Central Arkansas River Valley and have broader implications for research throughout the protohistoric Southeast

Breeding-season biology of the Puerto Rican Bullfinch (Loxigilla portoricensis)

I studied the Puerto Rican Bullfinch (Loxigilla portoricensis), a frugivorous island endemic, in two sites in southwestern Puerto Rico in 2009 and 2010. I modeled nest survival of 37 nests to better understand the effects of several biological factors on daily nest survival. Predation was the most important cause of nest failure. Six models, all including some measure of fruit abundance, received approximately equal support. Constant, linear, and quadratic time trends in nest survival during seasons were all supported in these top six models. Results suggested that Coccoloba microstachya fruit abundance had a significant negative relationship, Bursera simaruba fruit abundance had a weak positive relationship, and Bourreria succulenta fruit abundance had a nearly significant positive relationship with nest survival. I radio-tracked bullfinches and estimated the breeding season home ranges and core areas of 17 adults. Median home range and core area for both sites were 31.4 y 30.0 ha and 13.2 y 15.7 ha, respectively. Home ranges and core areas did not differ in size between males and females or between pre-nesting and nesting periods. These findings increase our understanding of the breeding-season biology of the bullfinch, and will ultimately help inform future studies and conservation efforts of bullfinches and other passerines in southwestern Puerto Rico

Informal Helping Networks and Social Service Changes: A Community Perspective

Interviews with 112 household respondents and 58 social service agency directors in three ethnically and racially distinct Chicago neighborhoods provided a comprehensive assessment of -- household helping relationships in a community context. Reliance on informal helping greatly exceeded use of formal agencies at the household level. Households were twice as likely to give help as receive it in a complex variety of ways, while agencies struggled to add new functional programs in a time of retrenchment. What households gave and got did not overlap with agency programs in any coherent way. Further, household respondents and agency directors disagreed in their perceptions of community needs. Households wanted employment and general city services, while agency officials emphasized human services. In effect, efforts to tie formal and informal helping relationships together at a community scale will have to respect the complexity and reciprocity of informal helping by reformulating how the needy are identified, emphasizing reciprocity versus expertise in helping and expanding what presently count as program needs to include a wider range of services

Paradoxical Behaviour in Social Media Usage

The Privacy Paradox is a recently emerged phenomenon. It looks at a person’s intention to disclose information and the actual disclosure of information. In this research, we look at the extent of the relationship between the social media behaviour of a student and their attitude towards privacy. With these results, we can conclude whether they show paradoxical behaviour. These results are derived from a questionnaire among information technology students (n=126) and analyzed to extract the extent of the relationships between certain variables. The data analysis showed significant relationships between several variables, none of which indicated paradoxical behaviour among the population. However, it did give way to various interesting relationships. The results indicate paradoxical behaviour to a certain extent, specifically with regards to social media use self-disclosure and information and privacy concerns and privacy settings. Additionally, the research indicates that the higher the educational background of the participant, the less likely they are to exhibit paradoxical behaviour