During the Late Pre-Hispanic period, settlements in Northern Highland Ecuador were organized under a number of chiefdoms. While a basic hierarchical political system is described in the ethnohistoric literature, the nature of the interactions between specific settlements has remained unknown. This study utilizes two methods for describing the degree and...
Schistosomiasis afflicts 200 million people and is responsible for 200,000 deaths per year. The infection is caused by a digenean trematode in the genus Schistosoma. The parasite must cycle through both a vertebrate (human) and invertebrate (snail) host to complete the life cycle. My dissertation focuses on the genetic mechanisms...
At a time of rapid global change, a socio-ecological system (SES) approach can provide a framework through which to quantify and communicate the risks and uncertainties of coupled human-natural systems. Islands, and tropical coral reef islands in particular, can be excellent models for SES research since they may be considered...
Sites in need of restoration typically have one or more environmental factors that limit seedling establishment; identifying ecophysiological responses to environmental stressors can be advantageous in growing seedlings able to overcome such constraints on survival. To maximize survival after outplanting, seedlings should be grown in a manner that considers both...
Reexamination of fossilized plant material from the westernmost Pennsylvanian-age wetland flora in North America reveals that material of Pecopteris oregonensis Arnold represents a filicalean fern frond with annulate sporangia and anatomically preserved vascular tissues of the rachis. The frond, which is redescribed as Senftenbergia oregonensis (Arnold) Hillier et Rothwell comb....
Translating research advances to natural systems using experimental laboratory studies is often difficult because of the variability between the natural environment and experimental conditions. Because environmental conditions have a large effect on an organism's physiology, responses to stressors like nutrient limitation, temperature, oxygen deprivation, predation, and parasite/pathogen infection are likely...
Lymphoma (LSA) is one of the most common canine malignancies, and is almost invariably a terminal disease. Epigenetic changes in canine and human lymphomas have been linked to disease progression and poor prognosis, leading to the development of epigenetic-targeted therapies which have shown promise in treating various forms of human...
Resistance of the snail Biomphalaria glabrata to the trematode Schistosoma mansoni is correlated with allelic variation at copper-zinc superoxide dismutase (sod1). We tested whether there is a fitness cost associated with carrying the most resistant allele in three outbred laboratory populations of snails. These three populations were derived from the...
Background:
New strategies to combat the global scourge of schistosomiasis may be revealed by increased understanding of the mechanisms by which the obligate snail host can resist the schistosome parasite. However, few molecular markers linked to resistance have been identified and characterized in snails.
Methodology/Principal Findings:
Here we test six...
Back-calculation of length-at-age from otoliths and spines is a common technique employed in fisheries biology, but few studies have compared the precision of data collected with this method for catfish populations. We compared precision of back-calculated lengths-at-age for an introduced Ictalurus furcatus (Blue Catfish) population among 3 commonly used cross-sectioning...