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Get PDFLibrarians play a leading role in promoting openness in scholarly communication, including open access, open data, and public accountability. However, individual researchers remain reluctant to embrace open scholarship or change their communication habits, largely because scholars who practice what we preach are disadvantaged in the current promotion and tenure process. Universities’ present interest in openness initiatives provide an opportunity to advocate for reform. Learn why librarians must push for a promotional system that rewards open scholarship at the institutional level to see genuine progress in research integrity and public access.PublishedN
Aedes albopictus is a competent vector of Zika virus: A meta-analysis
Get PDFMuch work has been done in recent years to determine the vector competence of Aedes albopictus (Skuse) for Zika virus (ZIKV). If competent, Ae. albopictus could become an important vector in the spread of ZIKV to areas which until now have been considered safe from the virus. Despite much speculation about Ae. albopictus' competence for ZIKV, there have been, to date, no quantitative syntheses of Ae. albopictus' competence, nor have the potentially confounding differences between studies been addressed.PublishedYe
Trouble and transformation in higher education: Identifying threshold concepts through faculty narratives about teaching writing
Get PDFThe theory of threshold concepts has given faculty a powerful way to name foundational, but difficult, disciplinary concepts. However, there is no methodological consensus about the best ways to identify them. In this article, we introduce a phenomenographically-derived narrative framework for identifying stages of threshold concept acquisition. We developed this framework through a study of faculty's conceptions of the teaching of writing situated within the normal course of disciplinary education across fields. Because of this focus, our framework has immediate application for anyone who wants to understand faculty members’ thinking about the teaching of writing and help them acquire conceptions that support good pedagogy. More broadly, disciplinary faculty and researchers across higher education can use our narrative framework to identify their own or students’ stages of threshold acquisition in a range of disciplines, and so adjust curricula accordingly.PublishedYe
The Hall Electric Field in Earth's Magnetotail Thin Current Sheet
Get PDFOne of the most important properties of Earth's magnetotail thin current sheet (TCS) is that its current is predominantly contributed by magnetized electrons. The Hall electric field, normal to the TCS and generated by charge separation, is critical to the generation of this electron current as well as a dawn-dusk asymmetry of the magnetotail, such as duskside preference of magnetic reconnection and related structures and phenomena. However, systematic investigation of the Hall electric field has so far been lacking. Utilizing observations of TCS by Magnetospheric Multiscale and Time History of Events and Macroscale Interactions during Substorm spacecraft, we study the properties of this field. Our results, from various, complementary methods, show that the Hall electric field E-z (in the geocentric solar magnetospheric, coordinate system) or E-n (normal to the TCS plane) can be clearly observed to point toward the center of the current sheet. The typical magnitude of this electric field is several tenths of 1 mV/m. Statistics of Magnetospheric Multiscale magnetotail TCS crossings show that the Hall electric field is stronger on the duskside, indicating a stronger Hall effect there, which confirms predictions from global-scale hybrid and particle-in-cell simulations.PublishedYe
Data Infrastructure and Local Stakeholder Engagement with Biodiversity Conservation Research
Get PDFBiodiversity research that informs conservation action is increasingly data intensive. Cutting-edge projects at large institutions use massive aggregated datasets to build dynamic models and conduct novel analyses of natural systems. Most of these research institutions are geographically distant from the highest-priority conservation areas, which are found in South America, Africa, and Southeast Asia. There, data is typically collected by or with the help of local residents hired as field assistants. These field assistants have few meaningful opportunities to participate in biodiversity research and conservation beyond data logging. The literature indicates the data revolution has increased demand for impersonal and integrated large-scale systems that aggregate biodiversity data across sources with minimal friction. In this study, interviews were conducted with six active conservation workers to identify elements of these data systems that create barriers to field assistants’ engagement with the projects they make possible. As both creators and consumers of data, all six relayed frustration with various aspects of their data workflows. Regarding field assistant interaction with digital data systems, they observed that their field assistants engaged only at the initial point of data entry or not at all. Some suggested mobile apps as a good solution for field data collection. However, some also expressed doubt that their local assistants had the necessary knowledge background to navigate digital systems or understand scientific methodologies. These results suggest that trying to mold field assistants to fit existing data infrastructure and adapting purpose-built data systems to nontechnical users are both sub-optimal solutions. A human-mediated capacity building paradigm, which requires embedding people who are both culturally literate and data literate alongside field assistants, is explored as an alternative path to making data meaningful. Improving the accessibility of data this way can empower local communities to share ownership in biodiversity conservation.PublishedYe
Constantly fluctuating in an inconsistent way: comparing the effects of sinusoidal and naturally fluctuating incubation temperatures on embryo development
Get PDFTemperature is a commonly studied environmental factor influencing embryo development in oviparous ectotherms. Though most studies use constant temperature incubation conditions, researchers are aware of the effects of fluctuating temperatures on development. Daily-repeating sinusoidal fluctuations are now commonly used in studies of developmental plasticity; however, thermal fluctuations in natural nests are highly variable from day to day. Thus, using repeated, uniform fluctuations (e.g. sine waves) may still provide an incomplete picture of how embryos develop in the wild and generate inaccurate predictions of how species will respond to future thermal conditions (e.g. climate change). We used eggs from the brown anole lizard (Anolis sagrei) to test the effects of realistic nest temperature fluctuations vs constant temperatures and sinusoidal fluctuations in the lab. We used temperature data from nests to create 4 incubation treatments: a constant mean temperature, a daily-repeating sine fluctuation, a daily-repeating asymmetrical fluctuation (i.e. mean, hourly nest temperatures), and a treatment that allowed each day’s thermal fluctuation to differ from all other days as in real nests. These 4 treatments were created for both early-season (March-April, relatively cool) and late-season (June-July, relatively warm) nest temperatures (2 by 4 factorial design; season x incubation treatment). We report results for developmental rates, physiology (VO2 and heart rate), embryo survival, as well as morphology, performance, growth, and survival of hatchlings. By comparing the effects of several commonly used experimental thermal regimes with those of natural fluctuations, our study assesses the importance of using ecologically relevant incubation conditions when studying developmental plasticity in the laboratory.N
Contrasting evolution of virulence and replication rate in an emerging bacterial pathogen
Get PDFHost resistance through immune clearance is predicted to favor pathogens that are able to transmit faster and are hence more virulent. Increasing pathogen virulence is, in turn, typically assumed to be mediated by increasing replication rates. However, experiments designed to test how pathogen virulence and replication rates evolve in response to increasing host resistance, as well as the relationship between the two, are rare and lacking for naturally evolving host-pathogen interactions. We inoculated 55 isolates of Mycoplasma gallisepticum, collected over 20 y from outbreak, into house finches (Haemorhous mexicanus) from disease-unexposed populations, which have not evolved protective immunity to M. gallisepticum. We show using 3 different metrics of virulence (body mass loss, symptom severity, and putative mortality rate) that virulence has increased linearly over > 150,000 bacterial generations since outbreak (1994 to 2015). By contrast, while replication rates increased from outbreak to the initial spread of resistance (1994 to 2004), no further increases have occurred subsequently (2007 to 2015). Finally, as a consequence, we found that any potential mediating effect of replication rate on virulence evolution was restricted to the period when host resistance was initially increasing in the population. Taken together, our results show that pathogen virulence and replication rates can evolve independently, particularly after the initial spread of host resistance. We hypothesize that the evolution of pathogen virulence can be driven primarily by processes such as immune manipulation after resistance spreads in host populations.Publishe
Global Nitrous Oxide Emissions From Pasturelands and Rangelands: Magnitude, Spatiotemporal Patterns, and Attribution
Get PDFThe application of manure and mineral nitrogen (N) fertilizer, and livestock excreta deposition are the main drivers of nitrous oxide (N2O) emissions in agricultural systems. However, the magnitude and spatiotemporal variations of N2O emissions due to different management practices (excreta deposition and manure/fertilizer application) from grassland ecosystems remain unclear. In this study, we used the Dynamic Land Ecosystem Model to simulate the spatiotemporal variation in global N2O emissions and their attribution to different sources from both intensively managed (pasturelands) and extensively managed (rangelands) grasslands during 1961-2014. Over the study period, pasturelands and rangelands experienced a significant increase in N2O emissions from 1.74 Tg N2O-N in 1961 to 3.11 Tg N2O-N in 2014 (p < 0.05). Globally, pasturelands and rangelands were responsible for 54% (2.2 Tg N2O-N) of the total agricultural N2O emissions (4.1 Tg N2O-N) in 2006. Natural and anthropogenic sources contributed 26% (0.64 Tg N2O-N/year) and 74% (1.78 Tg N2O-N/year) of the net emissions, respectively. Across different biomes, pasturelands (i.e., C3 and C4) were the single largest contributor to N2O fluxes, accounting for 86% of the net global emissions from grasslands. Among different sources, livestock excreta deposition contributed 54% of the net emissions, followed by manure N (13%) and mineral N (7%) application. Regionally, southern Asia contributed 38% of the total emissions, followed by Europe (29%) and North America (16%). Our modeling study demonstrates that livestock excreta deposition and manure/fertilizer application have dramatically altered the N cycle in pasturelands, with a substantial impact on the climate system.PublishedYe
Constructing a Professional Identity: Connecting College and Career Through ePortfolios
Get PDFIn this paper, we describe the use of ePortfolios at a public, land-grant university and document how
the ePortfolio has been used to develop more authentic learning experiences. We discuss the best
practices for ePortfolios and its varied use as a teaching and learning tool. In addition, we discuss the
challenges of implementing ePortfolios. For these examples, we provide strategies for helping both
undergraduate and graduate students communicate how their academic experiences connect with the
expectations of employers. All of these efforts are directed through an online, outward‐facing
ePortfolio by providing examples of relevant, professional experiences, combined with reflective
writing (i.e., authentic learning). Students who identify the narrative themes running through their
experiences, and use those themes to develop an online presence, are able to reflect, construct, and
articulate a professional identity through the ePortfolio. Students then can answer the critical
question posed by employers, “Tell me about yourself.”PublishedYe