Large-Scale Movement and Migration of Northern Saw-Whet Owls in Eastern North America

2011 ◽  
Vol 123 (3) ◽  
pp. 521-535 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sean R. Beckett ◽  
Glenn A. Proudfoot
Keyword(s):  
North America ◽  
Large Scale ◽  
Eastern North America ◽  
And Migration

Agricultural Innovation and Dispersal in Eastern North America

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kandace D. Hollenbach ◽  
Stephen B. Carmody
Keyword(s):  
North America ◽  
Behavioral Ecology ◽  
Large Scale ◽  
Human Behavioral Ecology ◽  
Archaic Period ◽  
Cultivated Plants ◽  
Plant Domestication ◽  
Eastern North America ◽  
Late Archaic ◽  
Native Peoples

The possibility that native peoples in eastern North America had cultivated plants prior to the introduction of maize was first raised in 1924. Scant evidence was available to support this speculation, however, until the “flotation revolution” of the 1960s and 1970s. As archaeologists involved in large-scale projects began implementing flotation, paleoethnobotanists soon had hundreds of samples and thousands of seeds that demonstrated that indigenous peoples grew a suite of crops, including cucurbit squashes and gourds, sunflower, sumpweed, and chenopod, which displayed signs of domestication. The application of accelerator mass spectrometry (AMS) dating to cucurbit rinds and seeds in the 1980s placed the domestication of these four crops in the Late Archaic period 5000–3800 bp. The presence of wild cucurbits during earlier Archaic periods lent weight to the argument that native peoples in eastern North America domesticated these plants independently of early cultivators in Mesoamerica. Analyses of DNA from chenopods and cucurbits in the 2010s definitively demonstrated that these crops developed from local lineages. With evidence in hand that refuted notions of the diffusion of plant domestication from Mesoamerica, models developed in the 1980s for the transition from foraging to farming in the Eastern Woodlands emphasized the coevolutionary relationship between people and these crop plants. As Archaic-period groups began to occupy river valleys more intensively, in part due to changing climatic patterns during the mid-Holocene that created more stable river systems, their activities created disturbed areas in which these weedy plants thrive. With these useful plants available as more productive stands in closer proximity to base camps, people increasingly used the plants, which in turn responded to people’s selection. Critics noted that these models left little room for intentionality or innovation on the part of early farmers. Models derived from human behavioral ecology explore the circumstances in which foragers choose to start using these small-seeded plants in greater quantities. In contrast to the resource-rich valley settings of the coevolutionary models, human behavioral ecology models posit that foragers would only use these plants, which provide relatively few calories per time spent obtaining them, when existing resources could no longer support growing populations. In these scenarios, Late Archaic peoples cultivated these crops as insurance against shortages in nut supplies. Despite their apparent differences, current iterations of both models recognize humans as agents who actively change their environments, with intentional and unintentional results. Both also are concerned with understanding the social and ecological contexts within which people began cultivating and eventually domesticating plants. The “when” and “where” questions of domestication in eastern North America are relatively well established, although researchers continue to fill significant gaps in geographic data. These primarily include regions where large-scale contract archaeology projects have not been conducted. Researchers are also actively debating the “how” and “why” of domestication, but the cultural ramifications of the transition from foraging to farming have yet to be meaningfully incorporated into the archaeological understanding of the region. The significance of these native crops to the economies of Late Archaic and subsequent Early and Middle Woodland peoples is poorly understood and often woefully underestimated by researchers. The socioeconomic roles of these native crops to past peoples, as well as the possibilities for farmers and cooks to incorporate them into their practices in the early 21st century, are exciting areas for new research.

scholarly journals Geographic Distribution of Cryptic Species of Plasmopara viticola Causing Downy Mildew on Wild and Cultivated Grape in Eastern North America

2014 ◽  
Vol 104 (7) ◽  
pp. 692-701 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mélanie Rouxel ◽  
Pere Mestre ◽  
Anton Baudoin ◽  
Odile Carisse ◽  
Laurent Delière ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
North America ◽  
Cryptic Species ◽  
Downy Mildew ◽  
Geographic Distribution ◽  
Host Species ◽  
Large Scale ◽  
Plasmopara Viticola ◽  
Eastern North America ◽  
Grape Downy Mildew ◽  
Parthenocissus Quinquefolia

The putative center of origin of Plasmopara viticola, the causal agent of grape downy mildew, is eastern North America, where it has been described on several members of the family Vitaceae (e.g., Vitis spp., Parthenocissus spp., and Ampelopsis spp.). We have completed the first large-scale sampling of P. viticola isolates across a range of wild and cultivated host species distributed throughout the above region. Sequencing results of four partial genes indicated the presence of a new P. viticola species on Vitis vulpina in Virginia, adding to the four cryptic species of P. viticola recently recorded. The phylogenetic analysis also indicated that the P. viticola species found on Parthenocissus quinquefolia in North America is identical to Plasmopara muralis in Europe. The geographic distribution and host range of five pathogen species was determined through analysis of the internal transcribed spacer polymorphism of 896 isolates of P. viticola. Among three P. viticola species found on cultivated grape, one was restricted to Vitis interspecific hybrids within the northern part of eastern North America. A second species was recovered from V. vinifera and V. labrusca, and was distributed across most of the sampled region. A third species, although less abundant, was distributed across a larger geographical range, including the southern part of eastern North America. P. viticola clade aestivalis predominated (83% of isolates) in vineyards of the European winegrape V. vinifera within the sampled area, indicating that a single pathogen species may represent the primary threat to the European host species within eastern North America.

scholarly journals Predicting the strength of urban-rural clines in a Mendelian polymorphism along a latitudinal gradient

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
James S. Santangelo ◽  
Ken A. Thompson ◽  
Beata Cohan ◽  
Jibran Syed ◽  
Rob W. Ness ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
North America ◽  
White Clover ◽  
Environmental Conditions ◽  
Hydrogen Cyanide ◽  
Large Scale ◽  
Parallel Evolution ◽  
Urban Environments ◽  
Eastern North America ◽  
Scale Models ◽  
Urban Rural

AbstractCities are emerging as models for addressing the fundamental question of whether populations evolve in parallel to similar environments. Here, we examine the environmental factors that drive parallel evolutionary urban-rural clines in a Mendelian trait — the cyanogenic antiherbivore defense of white clover (Trifolium repens). We sampled over 700 urban and rural clover populations across 16 cities along a latitudinal transect in eastern North America. In each population, we quantified the frequency of genotypes that produce hydrogen cyanide (HCN), and in a subset of the cities we estimated the frequency of the alleles at the two genes (CYP79D15 and Li) that epistatically interact to produce HCN. We then tested the hypothesis that winter environmental conditions cause the evolution of clines in HCN by comparing the strength of clines among cities located along a gradient of winter temperatures and frost exposure. Overall, half of the cities exhibited urban-rural clines in the frequency of HCN, whereby urban populations evolved lower HCN frequencies. The weakest clines in HCN occurred in cities with the lowest temperatures but greatest snowfall, supporting the hypothesis that snow buffers plants against winter frost and constrains the formation of clines. By contrast, the strongest clines occurred in the warmest cities where snow and frost are rare, suggesting that alternative selective agents are maintaining clines in warmer cities. Additionally, some clines were driven by evolution at only CYP79D15, consistent with stronger and more consistent selection on this locus than on Li. Together, our results demonstrate that both the agents and targets of selection vary across cities and highlight urban environments as large-scale models for disentangling the causes of parallel evolution in nature.Impact SummaryUnderstanding whether independent populations evolve in the same way (i.e., in parallel) when subject to similar environments remains an important problem in evolutionary biology. Urban environments are a model for addressing the extent of parallel evolution in nature due to their convergent environments (e.g. heat islands, pollution, fragmentation), such that two distant cities are often more similar to one another than either is to nearby nonurban habitats. In this paper, we used white clover (Trifolium repens) as a model to study the drivers of parallel evolution in response to urbanization. We collected >11,000 plants from urban and rural habitats across 16 cities in eastern North America to examine how cities influence the evolution of a Mendelian polymorphism for an antiherbivore defense trait – hydrogen cyanide (HCN). This trait had previously been shown to exhibit adaptive evolution to winter temperature gradients at continental scales. Here we tested the hypothesis that winter environmental conditions cause changes in the frequency of HCN between urban and rural habitats. We found that half of all cities had lower frequency of HCN producing genotypes relative to rural habitats, demonstrating that cities drive parallel losses of HCN in eastern North America. We then used environmental data to understand why cities vary in the extent to which they drive reduction in HCN frequencies. The warmest cities showed the greatest reductions in HCN frequencies in urban habitats, while colder, snowier cities showed little change in HCN between urban and rural habitats. This suggests that snow weakens the strength of natural selection against HCN in cities. However, it additionally suggests alternative ecological or evolutionary mechanisms drive the strong differences in HCN between urban and rural habitats in the warmest cities. Overall, our work highlights urban environments as powerful, large-scale models for disentangling the causes of parallel and non-parallel evolution in nature.

Large-Scale Antecedent Conditions Associated with the 12–14 March 1993 Cyclone (“Superstorm '93”) over Eastern North America

1996 ◽  
Vol 124 (9) ◽  
pp. 1865-1891 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lance F. Bosart ◽  
Gregory J. Hakim ◽  
Kevin R. Tyle ◽  
Mary A. Bedrick ◽  
W. Edward Bracken ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
North America ◽  
Large Scale ◽  
Eastern North America ◽  
Antecedent Conditions

The Archaeology of Villages in Eastern North America

2018 ◽  
Keyword(s):  
North America ◽  
Large Scale ◽  
Eastern North America ◽  
Data Sets ◽  
Historical Evidence ◽  
Social Transformations ◽  
Physical Attributes ◽  
Village Communities ◽  
Ritual Systems ◽  
Rich Data

The emergence of village-communities profoundly transformed social organization in every part of the world where such societies developed. Contributors to The Archaeology of Villages in Eastern North America employ archaeological and historical evidence to explore the development of villages among eastern North American indigenous societies of the deep and recent past. Rich data sets from archaeology and contemporary social theory are employed to document the physical attributes of villages, the structural organization and aggregation of such entities, what it means to be a villager, cosmological and ritual systems, and how villages were entangled with one another in regional networks. The result is a volume which highlights the similarities and differences in the historical trajectories of village formation and development in eastern North America, as well as the larger processes by which villages have the power to affect large-scale social transformations.

Site Amplification Functions for Central and Eastern North America – Part I: Simulation Data Set Development

2019 ◽  
Vol 35 (2) ◽  
pp. 787-814 ◽  
Author(s):  
Joseph Harmon ◽  
Youssef M. A. Hashash ◽  
Jonathan P. Stewart ◽  
Ellen M. Rathje ◽  
Kenneth W. Campbell ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
North America ◽  
Large Scale ◽  
Site Response ◽  
Model Development ◽  
Companion Paper ◽  
Site Amplification ◽  
Eastern North America ◽  
Data Sets ◽  
Data Set ◽  
Using Data

This paper presents the development of large-scale simulation-based data sets used to inform new site amplification models for Central and Eastern North America (CENA). Linear elastic, equivalent linear, and nonlinear one-dimensional site response simulations of site conditions in CENA are employed. An analysis tree is introduced to capture the range of expected CENA geologic conditions. Independent variables include the following: (1) representative and random shear wave velocity ( VS) profiles using data from the literature; (2) randomized, nonlinear shear modulus reduction and damping vs. shear strain curves with constraint on soil shear strength; and (3) outcrop ground motions representative of the VS = 3,000 m/s CENA reference rock condition. The resulting database of 1,747,278 simulations is conditioned on several parameters relevant to site amplification, which facilitates model development that is the subject of a companion paper. The database is openly available for use by other researchers.

Tectonic inheritance at multiple scales during more than two complete Wilson cycles recorded in eastern North America

2018 ◽  
Vol 470 (1) ◽  
pp. 337-352 ◽  
Author(s):  
William A. Thomas
Keyword(s):  
North America ◽  
Large Scale ◽  
Multiple Scales ◽  
Eastern North America ◽  
Transform Faults ◽  
Tectonic Inheritance ◽  
Fault Systems ◽  
Basement Faults ◽  
Iapetus Ocean ◽  
Rifted Margin

AbstractEastern North America holds clear records of two Wilson cycles and hints of two earlier cycles, through which tectonic inheritance is evident at multiple scales. Large-scale transform offsets of rifted margins indicate inheritance through multiple cycles; transform-parallel intracratonic fault systems suggest a transform-parallel fabric in the lithosphere. Rift segments of the continental margins did not inherit the locations of earlier rifts; synrift intracratonic fault systems follow earlier contractional fabrics of supercontinent assembly. Large-scale curves of the Appalachian–Ouachita orogenic belt (closing of the Iapetus Ocean) mimic the shape of the Iapetan rifted margin of Laurentia. Basins along the Iapetan rifted margin reflect inheritance from transform faults in the greater magnitudes of early post-rift thermal subsidence and later synorogenic tectonic loading and flexural subsidence. Older synrift basement faults buttressed the frontal ramps of Appalachian–Ouachita thin-skinned thrust faults. Basement fault blocks and associated synrift stratigraphic variations in the weak layers that host the regional décollement localized transverse alignments of lateral ramps, as well as tectonic thickening of a mud-dominated graben-fill succession in a ductile duplex (mushwad). The many examples of tectonic inheritance attest to the linkages between processes of successive opening and closing of oceans, as well as the break-up and assembly of supercontinents, through successive Wilson cycles.

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