scholarly journals Large-scale experimental removal of non-native slider turtles has unexpected consequences on basking behavior for both conspecifics and a native, threatened turtle

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Max R. Lambert ◽  
Jennifer M. McKenzie ◽  
Robyn M. Screen ◽  
Adam G. Clause ◽  
Benjamin J. Johnson ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Interspecific Competition ◽  
Native Species ◽  
Large Scale ◽  
Slider Turtle ◽  
Central United States ◽  
Freshwater Habitats ◽  
Mesocosm Experiments ◽  
In The Wild ◽  
Species Being ◽  
The U.S

AbstractThe red-eared slider turtle (Trachemys scripta elegans; RES) is one of the world’s most invasive species. Native to the central United States, RES are now widely established in freshwater habitats across the globe, largely due to release of unwanted pets. Laboratory and mesocosm experiments suggest that introduced RES are competitively dominant to native turtles, but such competition remains untested in the wild. Here, we experimentally removed introduced RES to test whether they compete for critical basking habitat with native, threatened western pond turtles (Emys marmorata; WPT), a species being considered for listing under the U.S. Endangered Species Act. Following removal, we found that both the remaining RES as well as WPT altered their basking distribution but in a manner inconsistent with strong interspecific competition. However, these findings suggest strong intraspecific competition for basking sites amongst RES and that interspecific competition between WPT and introduced RES likely occurs at higher RES densities. Our works suggests RES influence the behavior of native species in the wild and indicates that RES removal may be most beneficial at high RES densities. This experiment highlights the importance of considering experimental venue when evaluating competition between native and non-native species and should encourage conservation biologists to treat removal efforts as experiments.

scholarly journals Experimental removal of introduced slider turtles offers new insight into competition with a native, threatened turtle

PeerJ ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 7 ◽  
pp. e7444 ◽  
Author(s):  
Max R. Lambert ◽  
Jennifer M. McKenzie ◽  
Robyn M. Screen ◽  
Adam G. Clause ◽  
Benjamin B. Johnson ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Native Species ◽  
Field Experiments ◽  
Slider Turtle ◽  
Species Of Conservation Concern ◽  
Ecological Resources ◽  
Mesocosm Experiments ◽  
In The Wild ◽  
Western Pond Turtle ◽  
Negative Impacts ◽  
Conservation Concern

The red-eared slider turtle (Trachemys scripta elegans; RES) is often considered one of the world’s most invasive species. Results from laboratory and mesocosm experiments suggest that introduced RES outcompete native turtles for key ecological resources, but such experiments can overestimate the strength of competition. We report on the first field experiment with a wild turtle community, involving introduced RES and a declining native species of conservation concern, the western pond turtle (Emys marmorata; WPT). Using a before/after experimental design, we show that after removing most of an introduced RES population, the remaining RES dramatically shifted their spatial basking distribution in a manner consistent with strong intraspecific competition. WPT also altered their spatial basking distribution after the RES removal, but in ways inconsistent with strong interspecific competition. However, we documented reduced levels of WPT basking post-removal, which may reflect a behavioral shift attributable to the lower density of the turtle community. WPT body condition also increased after we removed RES, consistent with either indirect or direct competition between WPT and RES and providing the first evidence that RES can compete with a native turtle in the wild. We conclude that the negative impacts on WPT basking by RES in natural contexts are more limited than suggested by experiments with captive turtles, although wild WPT do appear to compete for food with introduced RES. Our results highlight the importance of manipulative field experiments when studying biological invasions, and the potential value of RES removal as a management strategy for WPT.

scholarly journals Public Health Workforce Burnout in the COVID-19 Response in the U.S.

2021 ◽  
Vol 18 (8) ◽  
pp. 4369
Author(s):  
Kahler W. Stone ◽  
Kristina W. Kintziger ◽  
Meredith A. Jagger ◽  
Jennifer A. Horney
Keyword(s):  
Public Health ◽  
Health Workforce ◽  
Work Experience ◽  
Large Scale ◽  
Health Workers ◽  
Public Health Workforce ◽  
Cross Sectional Survey ◽  
Public Health Response ◽  
Cross Sectional ◽  
The U.S

While the health impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic on frontline health care workers have been well described, the effects of the COVID-19 response on the U.S. public health workforce, which has been impacted by the prolonged public health response to the pandemic, has not been adequately characterized. A cross-sectional survey of public health professionals was conducted to assess mental and physical health, risk and protective factors for burnout, and short- and long-term career decisions during the pandemic response. The survey was completed online using the Qualtrics survey platform. Descriptive statistics and prevalence ratios (95% confidence intervals) were calculated. Among responses received from 23 August and 11 September 2020, 66.2% of public health workers reported burnout. Those with more work experience (1–4 vs. <1 years: prevalence ratio (PR) = 1.90, 95% confidence interval (CI) = 1.08−3.36; 5–9 vs. <1 years: PR = 1.89, CI = 1.07−3.34) or working in academic settings (vs. practice: PR = 1.31, CI = 1.08–1.58) were most likely to report burnout. As of September 2020, 23.6% fewer respondents planned to remain in the U.S. public health workforce for three or more years compared to their retrospectively reported January 2020 plans. A large-scale public health emergency response places unsustainable burdens on an already underfunded and understaffed public health workforce. Pandemic-related burnout threatens the U.S. public health workforce’s future when many challenges related to the ongoing COVID-19 response remain unaddressed.

scholarly journals Shape My Face: Registering 3D Face Scans by Surface-to-Surface Translation

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mehdi Bahri ◽  
Eimear O’ Sullivan ◽  
Shunwang Gong ◽  
Feng Liu ◽  
Xiaoming Liu ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Large Scale ◽  
Training Time ◽  
3D Face ◽  
In The Wild ◽  
Previous State ◽  
Surface Translation ◽  
Visual Attention Mechanism ◽  
Diverse Data ◽  
Human Faces ◽  
Robust To Noise

AbstractStandard registration algorithms need to be independently applied to each surface to register, following careful pre-processing and hand-tuning. Recently, learning-based approaches have emerged that reduce the registration of new scans to running inference with a previously-trained model. The potential benefits are multifold: inference is typically orders of magnitude faster than solving a new instance of a difficult optimization problem, deep learning models can be made robust to noise and corruption, and the trained model may be re-used for other tasks, e.g. through transfer learning. In this paper, we cast the registration task as a surface-to-surface translation problem, and design a model to reliably capture the latent geometric information directly from raw 3D face scans. We introduce Shape-My-Face (SMF), a powerful encoder-decoder architecture based on an improved point cloud encoder, a novel visual attention mechanism, graph convolutional decoders with skip connections, and a specialized mouth model that we smoothly integrate with the mesh convolutions. Compared to the previous state-of-the-art learning algorithms for non-rigid registration of face scans, SMF only requires the raw data to be rigidly aligned (with scaling) with a pre-defined face template. Additionally, our model provides topologically-sound meshes with minimal supervision, offers faster training time, has orders of magnitude fewer trainable parameters, is more robust to noise, and can generalize to previously unseen datasets. We extensively evaluate the quality of our registrations on diverse data. We demonstrate the robustness and generalizability of our model with in-the-wild face scans across different modalities, sensor types, and resolutions. Finally, we show that, by learning to register scans, SMF produces a hybrid linear and non-linear morphable model. Manipulation of the latent space of SMF allows for shape generation, and morphing applications such as expression transfer in-the-wild. We train SMF on a dataset of human faces comprising 9 large-scale databases on commodity hardware.

scholarly journals Monitoring Exotic Beetles with Inexpensive Attractants: A Case Study

Insects ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 12 (5) ◽  
pp. 462
Author(s):  
Enrico Ruzzier ◽  
Andrea Galli ◽  
Luciano Bani
Keyword(s):  
Native Species ◽  
Large Scale ◽  
Red Wine ◽  
Forest Type ◽  
Popillia Japonica ◽  
Complex Activity ◽  
Local Fauna ◽  
Apple Cider ◽  
Trap Placement

Detecting and monitoring exotic and invasive Coleoptera is a complex activity to implement, and citizen science projects can provide significant contributions to such plans. Bottle traps are successfully used in wildlife surveys and can also be adapted for monitoring alien species; however, a sustainable, large scale trapping plan must take into account the collateral catches of native species and thus minimize its impact on local fauna. In the present paper, we tested the use of bottles baited with standard food products that can be purchased in every supermarket and immediately used (apple cider vinegar, red wine, and 80% ethyl alcohol) in capturing exotic and invasive beetles in the area surrounding Malpensa Airport (Italy). In particular, we reduced the exposition type of the traps in each sampling round to three days in order to minimize native species collecting. We found a significant effect of the environmental covariates (trap placement, temperature, humidity, and forest type) in affecting the efficiency in catching target beetles. Nearly all invasive Nitidulidae and Scarabaeidae known to be present in the area were captured in the traps, with apple cider vinegar usually being the most effective attractant, especially for the invasive Popillia japonica.

scholarly journals TrackingNet: A Large-Scale Dataset and Benchmark for Object Tracking in the Wild

2018 ◽  
pp. 310-327 ◽  
Author(s):  
Matthias Müller ◽  
Adel Bibi ◽  
Silvio Giancola ◽  
Salman Alsubaihi ◽  
Bernard Ghanem
Keyword(s):  
Object Tracking ◽  
Large Scale ◽  
Large Scale Dataset ◽  
In The Wild

scholarly journals Persuasion Tactics in the Implementation of Large-Scale EHR Suites in Public Healthcare

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Gunnar Ellingsen ◽  
Bente Christensen ◽  
Morten Hertzum
Keyword(s):  
Large Scale ◽  
Healthcare Services ◽  
Governance Structure ◽  
Public Healthcare ◽  
Technical Literature ◽  
Health Authorities ◽  
To Come ◽  
Regional Health Authorities ◽  
Entrepreneurial Role ◽  
The U.S

Large-scale electronic health record (EHR) suites have the potential to cover a broad range of use needs across various healthcare domains. However, a challenge that must be solved is the distributed governance structure of public healthcare: Regional health authorities regulate hospitals, municipalities are responsible for first-line healthcare services, and general practitioners (GPs) have an independent entrepreneurial role. In such settings, EHR program owners cannot enforce municipalities and GPs to come on board. Thus, we examine what tactics owners of large-scale EHR suite programs apply to persuade municipalities to participate, how strongly these tactics are enforced, and the consequences. Empirically, we focus on the Health Platform program in Central Norway where the goal is to implement the U.S. Epic EHR suite in 2022. Theoretically, the paper is positioned in the socio-technical literature.

scholarly journals The first unified inventory of non-native fishes of the South Caucasian countries, Armenia, Azerbaijan, and Georgia

2021 ◽  
pp. 32
Author(s):  
Tatia Kuljanishvili ◽  
Levan Mumladze ◽  
Bella Japoshvili ◽  
Namig Mustafayev ◽  
Shaig Ibrahimov ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Black Sea ◽  
Fish Species ◽  
Caspian Sea ◽  
Native Species ◽  
Biological Diversity ◽  
Native Fish ◽  
The Black Sea ◽  
The South ◽  
In The Wild ◽  
Native Fishes

The South Caucasus (SC) region is recognized for its high biological diversity and various endemic animal taxa. The area has experienced many fish introductions over the years, but the overall information about non-native fishes in the three SC countries, Armenia, Azerbaijan, and Georgia did not exist. Although these three countries belong to the Kura River drainage, Caspian Sea basin (only the western half of Georgia drains into the Black Sea), the legislative framework for each country regarding introduction of non-native fish species and their treatment is different and poorly developed. The goal of the present study was to make an initial inventory of non-native fish species in the three SC countries, and summarize the existing knowledge as a basis for future risk assessment models and formulation of regional management policies. Here, we present a unified list of 27 non-native species recorded in the wild in Armenia, Azerbaijan, and Georgia. Among these 27 species, eight were translocated from the Black Sea basin to the Caspian Sea basin. Out of these 27 non-native fishes, 15 species have become established (three of them being considered invasive) and six fish species could not survive in the wild.

scholarly journals Preliminary Study of the Influence of Conductivity and Calcium Concentrations on the Density and Species Richness of Native and Invasive Gastropods in Grand Teton National Park, Wyoming

2013 ◽  
Vol 36 ◽  
pp. 46-49
Author(s):  
Michele Larson ◽  
Gary Beauvais
Keyword(s):  
Invasive Species ◽  
Native Species ◽  
Native Community ◽  
Ecological Processes ◽  
Freshwater Gastropods ◽  
Carbon And Nitrogen ◽  
Nitrogen Levels ◽  
Freshwater Habitats ◽  
Primary Producer ◽  
Preliminary Study

Freshwater gastropods are a diverse taxa that inhabit a wide variety of freshwater habitats (Lydeard et al. 2004, Strong et al. 2008). Freshwater gastropods often form narrow endemic ranges (Strong et al. 2008) with many species restricted to a single drainage or an isolated spring (Brown et al. 2008). In North America, over 60% of freshwater snails are listed as imperiled or presumed extinct (Lysne et al. 2008). The main factors for the reduction in snail biodiversity are habitat loss, water pollution, and the introduction of invasive species (Strong et al. 2008). Invasive species can dramatically alter the native community by reducing biodiversity and changing ecological processes (Alonso and Castro-Diez 2008). The effects of invasive species on aquatic ecosystems are often permanent and lead to reductions in biodiversity due to predation and competition with native species (Alonso and Castro-Diez 2008, Lysne et al. 2008, Strayer 1999). Invasive gastropods impact native ecosystems by altering carbon and nitrogen levels (Hall et al. 2003, Arango et al. 2009), consuming large amounts of primary producer biomass (Hall et al. 2003, Riley et al. 2008, Strayer 2010), and changing native macroinvertebrate community composition (Kerans et al. 2005, Riley et al. 2008, Cross et al. 2010, Brenneis et al. 2011).

scholarly journals Teacher Preparation, Motivation, and Self-Efficacy: A Comparative Study of New Teachers in Japan and the United States

2021 ◽  
Vol 4 (3) ◽  
pp. 368
Author(s):  
Shaoan Zhang ◽  
Andromeda Hightower ◽  
Qingmin Shi
Keyword(s):  
Teacher Preparation ◽  
Self Efficacy ◽  
New Teachers ◽  
Teaching And Learning ◽  
Large Scale ◽  
The United States ◽  
Social Utility ◽  
Future Research ◽  
Utility Value ◽  
The U.S

Using the Teaching and Learning International Survey (TALIS) 2018, this study examines U.S. and Japanese new teachers’ initial teacher preparation (ITP), feelings of preparedness, motivations, and self-efficacy. The analysis of 355 U.S. and 433 Japanese new secondary teachers provided several findings. First, ITP in the U.S. more often included teaching in mixed-ability and multicultural settings, cross-curricular skills, and technology than Japan, and U.S. teachers felt more prepared than Japanese teachers in every category of preparation. Second, Japanese teachers were more likely to declare teaching as their first career choice and reportedly scored significantly higher on motivations to become a teacher of personal utility value, while U.S. new teachers scored higher on social utility value. Third, there were no significant differences in self-efficacy between U.S. and Japanese new teachers. This study contributes to the gap of large-scale, comparative literature between the U.S. and Japanese initial teacher preparation. Implications for practice and directions for future research are discussed.

Competition between the non-native amphipod Caprella mutica and two native species of caprellids Pseudoprotella phasma and Caprella linearis

2009 ◽  
Vol 89 (6) ◽  
pp. 1125-1132 ◽  
Author(s):  
Richard Shucksmith ◽  
Elizabeth J. Cook ◽  
David J. Hughes ◽  
Michael T. Burrows
Keyword(s):  
Interspecific Competition ◽  
Direct Contact ◽  
Native Species ◽  
Low Density ◽  
Artificial Habitat ◽  
Resident Species ◽  
Invasion Dynamics ◽  
Aggressive Interactions ◽  
Resource Space ◽  
Caprella Mutica

Competition plays an important role in invasion dynamics. According to Elton's biodiversity and invasibility hypothesis, non-native species must be competitively superior to the resident species in order to successfully invade. An invader that is ecologically similar to a native species may cause intense interspecific competition as they both require the same resource. Furthermore, an increase in the density of an invading competitor may enhance the intensity of the competitive interaction, however, this may be reduced if the inferior competitor has a refuge that reduces the amount of time it is in direct contact with the superior competitor. In laboratory-based competition experiments between the non-native caprellid Caprella mutica and two ecologically similar native caprellids Caprella linearis and Pseudoprotella phasma, C. mutica successfully displaced both species from homogeneous artificial habitat patches after 48 hours. Patches that contained a refuge reduced the number of C. linearis being displaced but only when C. mutica was at a low density. Potentially aggressive interactions between C. mutica and the native C. linearis may have caused C. linearis to be displaced from the patches and could have caused significantly higher mortality of C. linearis compared to the controls. This is the first study to show that the non-native C. mutica has the ability to displace ecologically similar native species when the resource space is limited and when the density of C. mutica was significantly (10 times) lower than the density of C. linearis.

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