Matching Items (136)
Description
Self-maintenance behaviors, like preening in birds, can have important effects on fitness in many animals. Birds produce preen oil, which is a mixture of volatile and non-volatile compounds, that is spread through their feathers during grooming and influences feather integrity, waterproofing, and coloration. As urban areas grow and present conditions that may demand increased feather self-maintenance (e.g. due to soiling, pollution, elevated UV exposure due to natural habitat alterations), it is important to examine how preening and preen oil may be affected by this process. I assessed variation in preen oil composition in house finches (Haemorhous mexicanus) as a function of sex, urbanization, and plumage hue, a sexually selected indicator of male quality. Preen oil samples from birds captured at urban and rural sites were analyzed using gas chromatography-mass spectrometry. We detected 18 major peaks, which we tentatively identified as esters, and found that, although there were no sex or urban-rural differences in preen oil constituents, there was a significant interactive effect of sex and urbanization, with rural females and urban males having higher amounts of some components. This suggests that factors that vary with sex or urbanization, such as the timing of seasonal cycles, are affecting preen oil composition. There were no significant relationships between coloration and preen oil composition, suggesting that preen oil composition does not vary with male quality.
ContributorsBrooks, Ellen Elizabeth (Author) / McGraw, Kevin (Thesis director) / Liebig, Juergen (Committee member) / Weaver, Melinda (Committee member) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor) / School of Life Sciences (Contributor)
Created2015-05
Description
This paper explores two areas of study: Colony Collapse Disorder and urban apiculture--the practice of keeping bees in urban areas. Additionally, this paper discusses the ways in which Colony Collapse Disorder has encouraged an increase in urban beekeeping, and the possible role of urban apiculture as a means of combatting the negative effects of Colony Collapse Disorder. The symptoms, history, and possible causes of Colony Collapse Disorder are presented, as well as the important role that honey bees play in human agriculture. Following the discussion of Colony Collapse Disorder is a description of my urban beekeeping apprenticeship at Desert Marigold School where I kept bees, researched various hives, attended a beekeeping workshop in Tucson, and eventually built a hive and established a colony with my mentor. This paper includes a guide to beekeeping basics, as well as a guide to starting a hive based upon the lessons learned during my apprenticeship.
ContributorsRomero, Madelyn Rattan (Author) / Schoon, Michael (Thesis director) / Silcox, Holly (Committee member) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor) / School of Sustainability (Contributor) / School of Geographical Sciences and Urban Planning (Contributor)
Created2015-05
Description
Background: While research has quantified the mortality burden of the 1957 H2N2 influenza pandemic in the United States, little is known about how the virus spread locally in Arizona, an area where the dry climate was promoted as reducing respiratory illness transmission yet tuberculosis prevalence was high.
Methods: Using archival death certificates from 1954 to 1961, this study quantified the age-specific seasonal patterns, excess-mortality rates, and transmissibility patterns of the 1957 pandemic in Maricopa County, Arizona. By applying cyclical Serfling linear regression models to weekly mortality rates, the excess-mortality rates due to respiratory and all-causes were estimated for each age group during the pandemic period. The reproduction number was quantified from weekly data using a simple growth rate method and generation intervals of 3 and 4 days. Local newspaper articles from The Arizona Republic were analyzed from 1957-1958.
Results: Excess-mortality rates varied between waves, age groups, and causes of death, but overall remained low. From October 1959-June 1960, the most severe wave of the pandemic, the absolute excess-mortality rate based on respiratory deaths per 10,000 population was 17.85 in the elderly (≥65 years). All other age groups had extremely low excess-mortality and the typical U-shaped age-pattern was absent. However, relative risk was greatest (3.61) among children and young adolescents (5-14 years) from October 1957-March 1958, based on incidence rates of respiratory deaths. Transmissibility was greatest during the same 1957-1958 period, when the mean reproduction number was 1.08-1.11, assuming 3 or 4 day generation intervals and exponential or fixed distributions.
Conclusions: Maricopa County largely avoided pandemic influenza from 1957-1961. Understanding this historical pandemic and the absence of high excess-mortality rates and transmissibility in Maricopa County may help public health officials prepare for and mitigate future outbreaks of influenza.
Methods: Using archival death certificates from 1954 to 1961, this study quantified the age-specific seasonal patterns, excess-mortality rates, and transmissibility patterns of the 1957 pandemic in Maricopa County, Arizona. By applying cyclical Serfling linear regression models to weekly mortality rates, the excess-mortality rates due to respiratory and all-causes were estimated for each age group during the pandemic period. The reproduction number was quantified from weekly data using a simple growth rate method and generation intervals of 3 and 4 days. Local newspaper articles from The Arizona Republic were analyzed from 1957-1958.
Results: Excess-mortality rates varied between waves, age groups, and causes of death, but overall remained low. From October 1959-June 1960, the most severe wave of the pandemic, the absolute excess-mortality rate based on respiratory deaths per 10,000 population was 17.85 in the elderly (≥65 years). All other age groups had extremely low excess-mortality and the typical U-shaped age-pattern was absent. However, relative risk was greatest (3.61) among children and young adolescents (5-14 years) from October 1957-March 1958, based on incidence rates of respiratory deaths. Transmissibility was greatest during the same 1957-1958 period, when the mean reproduction number was 1.08-1.11, assuming 3 or 4 day generation intervals and exponential or fixed distributions.
Conclusions: Maricopa County largely avoided pandemic influenza from 1957-1961. Understanding this historical pandemic and the absence of high excess-mortality rates and transmissibility in Maricopa County may help public health officials prepare for and mitigate future outbreaks of influenza.
ContributorsCobos, April J (Author) / Jehn, Megan (Thesis director) / Chowell-Puente, Gerardo (Committee member) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor) / School of Human Evolution and Social Change (Contributor) / School of Life Sciences (Contributor)
Created2015-05
Description
South Mountain is the largest municipal park in the nation. It is a bundled amenity, providing a series of linked services to the surrounding communities. A dataset of 19,209 homes in 155 neighborhoods within three miles of the park was utilized in order to complete a hedonic estimation for two nearby urban villages, Ahwatukee Foothills and South Mountain Village. Measures of access include proximity to the park, trailhead access, and adjacency to the park. Two regressions were estimated, the first including lot characteristics and subdivision fixed effects and the second using the coefficients for each subdivision as the dependent variable. These estimates describe how the location of a house in a subdivision contributes to its conditional mean price. As a result they offer a direct basis for capturing amenities measured at the neighborhood scale on home values. Park proximity, trailhead access and adjacency were found to significantly influence the price of homes at the 5% confidence level in Ahwatukee, but not in South Mountain Village. The results of this study can be applied to issues of environmental justice and park access in determining which areas and attributes of the park are associated with a high premium. Though South Mountain was preserved some time ago, development and future preservation in the City of Phoenix can be informed by such studies.
ContributorsRamakrishna, Saritha Kambhampati (Author) / Abbott, Joshua (Thesis director) / Smith, V. Kerry (Committee member) / Schoon, Michael (Committee member) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor) / School of Sustainability (Contributor) / Economics Program in CLAS (Contributor) / Department of English (Contributor)
Created2015-05
Hiking and Hegemony: Destabilizing the nature/culture and gender binaries through outdoor recreation
Description
This paper explores the contested relationships between nature, culture, and gender. In order to analyze these relationships, we look specifically at outdoor recreation. Furthermore, we employ poststructuralist feminist theory in order to produce three frameworks; the first of which is titled Mother Nature’s Promiscuous Past. Rooted in Old World and colonial values, this framework illustrates the flawed feminization of nature by masculinity, and its subsequent extortion of anything related to femininity — including women and nature itself. This belief barred women from nature, resulting in a lack of access for women to outdoor recreation.
Our second framework, titled The Pleasurable Potential of Outdoor Recreation, cites second-wave feminism as a catalyst for women’s participation in wilderness exploration and outdoor recreation. The work of radical feminists and the women’s liberation movement in 1960s and 1970s empowered women at home, in the workplace, and eventually, in the outdoors; women reclaimed their wilderness, yet they continued to employ Framework One’s feminization of nature. Ecofeminsim brought together nature and women, seeking to bring justice to two groups wronged by the same entity: masculinity. In this context, outdoor recreation is empowering for women.
Despite the potential of Framework Two to reinscribe and better the experiences of women in outdoor recreation, we argue that both Frameworks One and Two perpetuate the gender binary and the nature/culture binary, because they are based upon the notion that women are in fact fundamentally different and separate from men, the notion that nature is an entity separate from culture, or human society, as well as the notion that nature is in fact a feminine entity.
Our third framework, Deer Pay No Mind to Your Genitals, engages poststructuralism, asserting that outdoor recreation and activities that occur in nature can serve to destabilize and deconstruct notions of the gender binary. However, we argue that care must be exercised during this process as not to perpetuate the problematic nature/culture binary, a phenomenon that is unproductive in terms of both sustainability and gender liberation. Outdoor recreation has been used by many as a tool to deconstruct numerous societal constraints, including the gender binary; this, however, continues to attribute escapist and isolationist qualities toward nature, and therefore perpetuating the nature/culture divide. Ultimately, we argue outdoor recreation can and should be used as a tool deconstruct the gender binary, however needs to account for the fact that if nature is helping to construct elements of culture, then the two cannot be separate.
Our second framework, titled The Pleasurable Potential of Outdoor Recreation, cites second-wave feminism as a catalyst for women’s participation in wilderness exploration and outdoor recreation. The work of radical feminists and the women’s liberation movement in 1960s and 1970s empowered women at home, in the workplace, and eventually, in the outdoors; women reclaimed their wilderness, yet they continued to employ Framework One’s feminization of nature. Ecofeminsim brought together nature and women, seeking to bring justice to two groups wronged by the same entity: masculinity. In this context, outdoor recreation is empowering for women.
Despite the potential of Framework Two to reinscribe and better the experiences of women in outdoor recreation, we argue that both Frameworks One and Two perpetuate the gender binary and the nature/culture binary, because they are based upon the notion that women are in fact fundamentally different and separate from men, the notion that nature is an entity separate from culture, or human society, as well as the notion that nature is in fact a feminine entity.
Our third framework, Deer Pay No Mind to Your Genitals, engages poststructuralism, asserting that outdoor recreation and activities that occur in nature can serve to destabilize and deconstruct notions of the gender binary. However, we argue that care must be exercised during this process as not to perpetuate the problematic nature/culture binary, a phenomenon that is unproductive in terms of both sustainability and gender liberation. Outdoor recreation has been used by many as a tool to deconstruct numerous societal constraints, including the gender binary; this, however, continues to attribute escapist and isolationist qualities toward nature, and therefore perpetuating the nature/culture divide. Ultimately, we argue outdoor recreation can and should be used as a tool deconstruct the gender binary, however needs to account for the fact that if nature is helping to construct elements of culture, then the two cannot be separate.
ContributorsPolick-Kirkpatrick, Kaelyn (Co-author) / Downing, Haley Marie (Co-author) / Dove-Viebahn, Aviva (Thesis director) / Schoon, Michael (Committee member) / School of Sustainability (Contributor) / School of Social Transformation (Contributor) / Economics Program in CLAS (Contributor) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor)
Created2016-05
Description
Collective decision making in social organism societies involves a large network of communication systems. Studying the processes behind the transmission of information allows for greater understanding of the decision making capabilities of a group. For Temnothorax rugatulus colonies, information is commonly spread in the form of tandem running, a linear recruitment pattern where a leading ant uses a short-ranged pheromone to direct a following ant to a target location (in tandem).The observed phenomenon of reverse tandem running (RTR), where a follower is lead from a target back to the home nest, has not been as extensively studied as forward tandem running and transportation recruitment activities. This study seeks to explain a potential reason for the presence of the RTR behavior; more specifically, the study explores the idea that reverse tandem run followers are being shown a specific route to the home nest by a highly experienced and efficient leading ant. Ten colonies had migrations induced experimentally in order to generate some reverse tandem running activity. Once an RTR has been observed, the follower and leader were studied for behavior and their pathways were analyzed. It was seen that while RTR paths were quite efficient (1.4x a straight line distance), followers did not experience a statistically significant improvement in their pathways between the home and target nests (based on total distance traveled) when compared to similar non-RTR ants. Further, RTR leading ants were no more efficient than other non-RTR ants. It was observed that some followers began recruiting after completion of an RTR, but the number than changed their behavior was not significant. Thus, the results of this experiment cannot conclusively show that RTR followers are utilizing reverse tandem runs to improve their routes between the home and target nests.
ContributorsColling, Blake David (Author) / Pratt, Stephen (Thesis director) / Liebig, Juergen (Committee member) / Sasaki, Takao (Committee member) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor) / School of Life Sciences (Contributor)
Created2014-12
Description
Communication amongst eusocial insect is key to their success. Ants rely on signaling to mediate many different functions within a colony such as policing and nest mate recognition. Camponotus floridanus uses chemosensory signaling in the form of cuticular hydrocarbons to regulate these functions. Each cuticular hydrocarbon profile contains numerous hydrocarbons, however it is yet to be seen if Camponotus floridanus can discriminate between linear hydrocarbons of similar length. Individual specimens were conditioned in three different ways: 5 conditioning with high concentration of sugar water (1;1 ratio), 1 conditioning with high concentration of sugar water, and 5 conditioning with low concentration of sugar water (1;4). Two linear hydrocarbons were use, C23 and C24, with C23 always being the conditioned stimulus. Specimens who were conditioned 5 times with high concentration of sugar water were the only group to show a significant response to the conditioned stimulus with a p-value of .008 and exhibited discrimination behavior 46% of the time. When compared 5 conditioning with high concentration to the other two testing conditioning groups, 1 conditioning with high concentration produced an insignificant p-value of .13 was obtained whereas when comparing it with 5 conditioning low concentration of sugar a significant p-value of .0132 was obtained. This indiciates that Camponotus floridanus are capable of discrimination however must be conditioned with high concentration of sugar water, while number of conditioning is insignificant.
ContributorsDamari, Ben Aviv (Author) / Liebig, Juergen (Thesis director) / Ghaninia, Majid (Committee member) / Pratt, Stephen (Committee member) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor) / School of Life Sciences (Contributor)
Created2014-05
Description
Cuticular hydrocarbons (CHCs) play a crucial role in social insect recognition systems. In this study we investigated mate choice in the red harvester ant, Pogonomyrmex barbatus. In Phoenix, this species has two lineages, J1 and J2, which look identical, but are genetically isolated. In the genetic caste determination (GCD) system workers and queens are determined by their genotype (i.e., workers develop from interlineage crosses, queens from intralineage crosses). As such, J1 and J2 lineages are dependent on each other in order for colonies to produce both workers and reproductive queens. Given their genetic isolation and interdependence, we hypothesized that the CHCs of alate males and queens are affected by lineage, and that differences in the CHC profile are used for mate recognition. We tested these hypotheses by analyzing the lineage distributions of actively mating pairs (n=65), and compared them with the overall distribution of male and female sexuals (n=180). We additionally analyzed the five most abundant CHC compounds for 20 of the actively mating P. barbatus alate male and queen pairs to determine how variable the two lineages are between each sex. We found that mating pair distributions did not significantly differ from those expected under a random mating system (�2= 1.4349, P= 0.6973), however, CHC profiles did differ between J1 and J2 lineages and sexes for the five most abundant CHC compounds. Our results show that random mating is taking place in this population, however given the differences observed in CHC profiles, mate recognition could be taking place.
ContributorsTula Del Moral Testai, Pedro Rafael (Co-author) / Cash, Elizabeth (Co-author) / Gadau, Juergen (Thesis director) / Liebig, Juergen (Committee member) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor) / School of International Letters and Cultures (Contributor) / School of Life Sciences (Contributor)
Created2014-05
DescriptionA small-scale aquaponic system was created to demonstrate the sustainable properties of the system as well as the effectiveness of raising fish and plants symbiotically.
ContributorsSerna, Desiree Marie (Author) / Schoon, Michael (Thesis director) / Peterson, Greg (Committee member) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor) / School of Life Sciences (Contributor)
Created2014-05
Description
Evolutionary theory predicts that animal behavior is generally governed by decision rules (heuristics) which adhere to ecological rationality: the tendency to make decisions that maximize fitness in most situations the animal encounters. However, the particular heuristics used by ant colonies of the genus Temnothorax and their propensity towards ecological rationality are up for debate. These ants are adept at choosing a nest site, making a collective decision based on complex interactions between the many individual choices made by workers. Colonies will migrate between nests either upon the destruction of their current home or the discovery of a sufficiently superior nest. This study offers a descriptive analysis of the heuristics potentially used in nest-site decision-making. Colonies were offered a choice of nests characterized by the Ebbinghaus Illusion: a perceptual illusion which effectively causes the viewer to perceive a circle as larger when it is surrounded by small circles than when that same circle is surrounded by large circles. Colonies were separated into two conditions: in one, they were given the option to move to a high-quality nest surrounded by poor-quality nests, and in the other they were given the option to move to a high-quality nest surrounded by medium-quality nests. The colonies in the poor condition were found to be more likely to move to the good nest than were colonies in the medium condition at a statistically significant level. That is, they responded to the Ebbinghaus Effect in the way that is normally expected. This result was discussed in terms of its implications for the ecological rationality of the nest-site choice behavior of these ants.
ContributorsTalken, Lucas Warren (Author) / Pratt, Stephen (Thesis director) / Sasaki, Takao (Committee member) / Liebig, Juergen (Committee member) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor) / School of Mathematical and Statistical Sciences (Contributor) / Department of Psychology (Contributor) / Economics Program in CLAS (Contributor)
Created2014-05