Statistical method for testing the neutral mutation hypothesis by DNA polymorphism.

Evolution of Protein Molecules

It is clear that the above can lead to confusion when scientists of different countries are trying to communicate with each other. Another example is the burrowing rodent called a gopher found throughout the western United States. In the southeastern United States the term gopher refers to a burrowing turtle very similar to the desert tortoise found in the American southwest. One final example; two North American mammals known as the elk and the caribou are known in Europe as the reindeer and the elk. We never sing “Rudolph the Red-nosed elk”! Confused? This was the reason for creating an internationally recognized system of naming organisms. To avoid confusion, living organisms are assigned a scientific name based on Latin or Latinized words. The English sparrow is Passer domesticus or Passer domesticus (italics or underlining these two names is the official written representation of a scientific name). Using a uniform naming system allows scientists from all over the world to recognize exactly which life form a scientist is referring to. The naming process is called the binomial system of nomenclature. Passer is comparable to a surname and is called the genus, while domesticus is the specific or species name (like your given name) of the English sparrow. Now scientists can give all sparrow-like birds the genus Passer but the species name will vary. All similar genera (plural for genus) can be grouped into another, “higher” category (see below). Study the following for a more through understanding of taxonomy. Taxonomy Analogy Kingdom: Animalia Country

Diversity of life

BACKGROUND: Comparing patterns of ter- restrial and marine defaunation helps to place human impacts on marine fauna in context and to navigate toward recovery. De- faunation began in ear- nest tens of thousands of years later in the oceans than it did on land. Al- though defaunation has been less severe in the oceans than on land, our effects on marine animals are increasing in pace and impact. Humans have caused few complete extinctions in the sea, but we are responsible for many ecological, commercial, and local extinctions. Despite our late start, humans have already powerfully changed virtually all major marine ecosystems. ADVANCES: Humans have profoundly de- creased the abundance of both large (e.g., whales) and small (e.g., anchovies) marine fauna. Such declines can generate waves of ecological change that travel both up and down marine food webs and can alter ocean ecosystem functioning. Human harvesters have also been a major force of evolutionary change in the oceans and have reshaped the genetic structure of marine animal popula- tions. Climate change threatens toaccelerate marine defaunation over the next century. The high mobility of many marine animals offers some increased, though limited, ca- pacity for marine species to respond to cli- mate stress, but it also exposes many species to increased risk from other stressors. Be- cause humans are intensely reliant on ocean ecosystems for food and other ecosystem ser- vices, we are deeply affected by all of these forecasted changes. Three lessons emerge when comparing the marine and terrestrial defaunation ex-

/pdf/marine-defaunation-animal-loss-in-the-global-ocean-1ru8fpvwmg.pdf

Marine defaunation: Animal loss in the global ocean

Oceanic Birds of South America

Sexually distinct rhythms of nest attendance were documented for Blue-eyed Shags (Phalacrocorux atriceps) in Antarctica. Males attended the nest from approximately 00:00-l 2:00 and foraged approximately from 12:00-24:O0. Female activity patterns were the opposite. Timing of male courtship occurred around 12:00 during the prelaying and laying-incubation periods, and timing of chick feeding was also sexually distinct. Males fed chicks in the early morning and late evening while females fed chicks in the afternoon. The rhythms were colony-wide and, at least, partially influenced by times of sunrise and sunset. Although specific adaptive pressures influencing these patterns are unknown, intersexual foraging competition is presented as a possible explanation relative to other theories. Field studies have documented diurnal activity rhythms in several species of colonial seabirds by measuring the timing and periodicity of certain behaviors (e.g., Palmgren 1949, Cullen 1954, Muller-Schwarze 1968, Delius 1970, Drent 1970, Burger 1976, Galusha and Amlaner 1978, and Conover and Miller 1980). Few studies, however, have found rhythms within breeding pairs. Additionally, synchronized, colony-wide, daily rhythms for each sex have seldom been reported (Snow 1963; Vestjens 1977; Gaston and Nettleship 1981; van Tets, pers. comm.; T. R. Birkhead, pers. comm.). During our studies at a colony of Blueeyed Shags (Phalacrocorax atriceps), however, the existence of such behavioral rhythms became apparent. Although Murphy (1936) had noted “highly interesting” rhythms in this species, no further research had been conducted. Such rigid activity patterns would be of interest in measuring energy allocation between sexes (Bernstein and Maxson, unpubl. data) and also in answering questions concerning selection pressures on the Blue-eyed Shags and other colonial birds. Accordingly, we quantified timing of basic behavioral rhythms within breeding pairs to determine if the timing differed between sexes, and to determine how widespread individual rhythms were within the colony. STUDY AREA AND METHODS We collected over 3,000 bird-hours of time budget data from 15 January 1979 to 1 April 1979 and from 23 September 1979 to 15 March 1980 at a colony of Blue-eyed Shags on Cormorant Island, 5 km southwest of Palmer Station, Anvers Island, Antarctica (64”46’S, 64”03’W). There were 485 nests on 3 1 December 1978 and 326 on 19 December 1979. Nests (2-10) were observed simultaneously every 30 s, at the tone of a metronome (see Wiens et al. 1970) either from dawn to dusk or for 24 h during periods of continuous daylight. Behaviors were categorized as: present at the nest (preening, resting, guarding chicks, etc.), incubating, brooding chicks, off the nest but gathering nest material (algae) nearby (Bernstein and Maxson 1982), and feeding chicks. Other behaviors that consumed little time, such as courtship or pair-bond maintenance, were considered as present at the nest if the shag was not simultaneously incubating or brooding. Shags were assumed to be foraging when absent from the nest or from the vicinity of the colony. Data were grouped by sex for each of the following stages of the breeding cycle: prelaying, laying-incubation, brooding, and fledging periods. Laying and incubation were combined because incubation began during the interval between the laying of the first and second eggs (Williams and Burger 1979, Shaw 198 1). The brooding period was further divided into three stages determined by size of the largest chick in a nest. Ulna length was the primary criterion (Dunn 1975b), and divisions were based on separations within the typical sigmoid growth curve. The early chick rearing stage was defined by chicks weighing less than 500 g and with ulnas less than 55 mm, the middle chick rearing stage by chicks of 5001,000 g and ulnas of 55-l 20 mm, and the late rearing stage by larger chicks until they fledged. Early chick rearing ended approximately on day 12, the time also given by Dunn (1976) SEXUALLY DISTINCT ACTIVITY PATTERNS IN SHAGS 153

Sexually Distinct Daily Activity Patterns of Blue-Eyed Shags in Antarctica

Sequence-based molecular phylogenetics and phylogeography of the American box turtles (Terrapene spp.) with support from DNA barcoding

We quantified home range size and philopatry in ornate box turtles, Terrapene ornata ornata, with minimum convex polygons (MCP) and 95% Kernel areas (K) calculated from radio telemetry data in Iowa during 1999–2001. We also analyzed philopatry by mark-recapture data during 1994–2000. Ten adult turtles were followed every other day from May to Sep. 2000 and seven of the turtles were followed in 2001. Mean monthly MCP and K home ranges of males and females did not significantly differ. Mean annual MCP and K home ranges for males were significantly larger than those of females. For an individual, monthly MCP home ranges overlapped on average 19.3% between years and K home ranges overlapped an average of 6.0%. There were no significant differences in annual or monthly home range overlap between sexes for K home ranges, but MCP monthly home range overlap was significantly larger for males. Annual MCP home ranges overlapped on average 40.9% between years and K annual home range overlap averaged 6.8%. S...

Home Range and Philopatry in the Ornate Box Turtle, Terrapene ornata ornata, in Iowa

The carapace temperatures of ornate box turtles (Terrapene ornata ornata) were monitored by affixing temperature dataloggers during two winters, 2001–2002 and 2003–2004. The dataloggers recorded temperature every 3 h to the nearest 0.5 C. Date of burrowing in the fall, emergence time in the spring and temperatures 48 h prior to emergence were analyzed along with the entire temperature profile of the turtles during the winter. In 2003–2004 soil temperatures from the surface to 0.75 m depth were also monitored. Most turtles did not experience freezing temperatures during either winter, but two turtles were below freezing for up to 54 consecutive days during winter 2001–2002. During 2001–2002, eight of nine turtles began burrowing within 7 d of each other in the fall, and all nine emerged within 7 d of each other in the spring. During 2003–2004, fall burrowing for 16 turtles occurred within 14–21 d, and emergence happened within 15 d. Overwintering periods varied between 172–201 d, which was interme...

https://bioone.org/journals/The-American-Midland-Naturalist/volume-153/issue-2/0003-0031(2005)153[0370:TEOOOB]2.0.CO;2/Thermal-Environment-of-Overwintering-Ornate-Box-Turtles-Terrapene-ornata-ornata/10.1674/0003-0031(2005)153[0370:TEOOOB]2.0.CO;2.pdf

Thermal Environment of Overwintering Ornate Box Turtles, Terrapene ornata ornata, in Iowa

Time and energy budget estimates have been used to measure parental investment of birds despite the difficulties of comparing the consequences of proximate energy allocation on future reproductive success (Walsberg 1983). These estimates are popular, in part, because they encompass the risks, costs, and benefits of parental investment simultaneously, all of which must be balanced if parents are to achieve maximum lifetime fitness (Trivers 1974, Patterson et al. 1980, Wittenberger 1982). Measuring energy expenditure in the field is usually accomplished by converting the bird’s behavior and thermal relation to the environment to energy expended. Although these techniques have been criticized for their inaccuracy (Weathers and Nagy 1980, Williams and Nagy 1984), with adequate sampling, most error in energy estimates results from the use of somewhat arbitrary conversion factors expressed in multiples of standard metabolic rates. Ettinger and King (1980) have demonstrated that inaccuracies in estimating individual components of a time budget resulted in little variation of daily energy expenditure if no large errors were made in estimation of energetically costly activities or activities that consumed large amounts of time (see also Mugaas and King 198 1). Even so, by using the same conversion factors for all individuals, individual comparisons should be valid even if they do not represent accurate energy expenditures. We here report time and energy budget estimates of individual Blueeyed Shags (Phalacrocorax atriceps brans$ieldensis) in Antarctica. We asked two questions: (1) What are the patterns of time and energy allocation between sexes, and (2) does each sex of these monogamous birds equally allocate time and energy into reproduction?

/pdf/reproductive-energetics-of-blue-eyed-shags-in-antarctica-4d5cp6mrmm.pdf

Neil P. Bernstein

Papers

Sexually Distinct Daily Activity Patterns of Blue-Eyed Shags in Antarctica

Sequence-based molecular phylogenetics and phylogeography of the American box turtles (Terrapene spp.) with support from DNA barcoding

Home Range and Philopatry in the Ornate Box Turtle, Terrapene ornata ornata, in Iowa

Thermal Environment of Overwintering Ornate Box Turtles, Terrapene ornata ornata, in Iowa

Reproductive energetics of blue-eyed shags in antarctica