Treesearch

The most important disease affecting hibernating bats in North America is White-nose syndrome (WNS), caused by the psychrophilic fungal dermatophyte Pseudogymnoascus destructans. The identification of dermatophytic fungi, present on the skins of cave-dwelling bat species, is necessary to distinguish between pathogenic (disease-causing) microbes from those that are innocuous. This distinction is an important step for the early detection and identification of microbial pathogens on bat skin prior to the initiation of disease and symptom development, for the discrimination between specific...

We studied the impacts of light availability and soil flooding on biomass accumulation and tissue biomass fractions in Lindera melissifolia (Walt.) Blume, an endangered woody shrub of the southeastern United States. Our experiment was located in a large-scale flooding research facility where plants were established and grown for three years while receiving combinations of 70%, 37%, or 5% of full sunlight with either 0, 45, or 90 days of soil flooding. We hypothesized that biomass accumulation would decrease with decreasing light availability and that soil flooding would further reduce...

The Regional Assessment Report on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services for the Americas produced by the Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES) provides a critical analysis of the state of knowledge regarding the importance, status, and trends of biodiversity and nature’s contributions to people. The assessment analyses the direct and underlying causes for the observed changes in biodiversity and in nature’s contributions to people, and the impact that these changes have on the quality of life of people. The assessment, finally, identifies a...

This publication provides an overview of forest resources in Delaware based on inventories conducted by the U.S. Forest Service, Forest Inventory and Analysis (FIA) program of the Northern Research Station. From 2004–2013, FIA employed an annual inventory with a cycle length of 5 years, measuring data on 20 percent of all sample plots each year in Delaware. Beginning in 2014, FIA is on a 7-year cycle, inventorying 14 percent of all plots annually. For the 2017 inventory, estimates for current variables such as area, volume, and biomass are based on397 plots (140 forested) collected from...

Bats in the eastern United States are facing numerous threats and many species are in decline. Although several species of bats commonly roost in cliffs, researchers know little about use of cliffs for foraging and roosting. Because rock climbing is a rapidly growing sport and may cause disturbance to bats, our objectives were to examine use of cliff habitats by bats and to assess the effects of climbing on their activity. We used radiotelemetry to track small-footed bats Myotis leibii to day roosts, and Anabat SD2 detectors to compare bat activity between climbed and unclimbed areas of...

Understanding actual and potential selection on traits of invasive species requires an assessment of the sources of variation in demographic rates. While some of this variation is assignable to environmental, biotic or historical factors, unexplained demographic variation also may play an important role. Even when sites and populations are chosen as replicates, the residual variation in demographic rates can lead to unexplained divergence of asymptotic and transient population dynamics. This kind of divergence could be important for understanding long- and short- term differences among...

The hemlock woolly adelgid (HWA), Adelges tsugae, is an invasive pest of Tsuga spp. in eastern North America. Scymnus coniferarum is a predaceous beetle that was collected from HWA in the western United States. Limited knowledge of this insect in its native habitat led to studies to evaluate its potential for biological control of HWA. Seasonal abundance was sampled at six sites in Tacoma, WA, twice monthly, for one year on different host trees of potential adelgid prey. Tree species included Pseudotsuga menziesii, Pinus contorta, Pinus monticola, and Tsuga heterophylla. Scymnus coniferarum...

Conventional methods for diagnosing gastrointestinal (GI) diseases have involved analysis of headspace volatile organic compounds (VOCs) present in the breath, urine, or fecal samples of patients. Most previous diagnostic testing methods have utilized purely metabolomictype approaches to analyze VOCs with analytical instruments such as gas chromatography-mass spectroscopy (GC-MS), nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) metabolomics, selected ion flow tubemass spectrometry (SIFT-MS), proton transfer reaction-mass spectrometry (PTR-MS), and field asymmetric ion mobility spectroscopy (FAIMS). These...