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Identifying environmental drivers of shell shape variation in the freshwater gastropod Campeloma decisum (Say, 1817)
No full textCampeloma decisum (family Viviparidae), Pointed Campeloma, is a common and widely distributed freshwater gastropod found in varied habitats across the eastern United States and southeastern Canada. Substantial conchological variation is known to be present in the species, but this variation and what it corresponds to has not been quantified. Our study sought to use geometric morphometric analyses to test which environmental factors may be driving shell shape variation in C. decisum. Campeloma decisum specimens (n = 458) and environmental data were collected from 22 sites in six lakes in central and northern Michigan. Specimens were photographed with apertures orthogonal to the camera lens and 26 landmarks were digitized onto each shell image to estimate shell and aperture shape. A Procrustes superimposition was performed to scale and rotate the shells to focus analyses solely on shape. A linear discriminant analysis of principal components (PCA-LDA) was run to quantify shape variation among the sites and lakes sampled. Correlations were tested for among environmental variables and PCA-LDA axes that defined shell shape. The PCA-LDA assigned 46.6% of snails to their site of origin and 86.9% to their lake of origin. Shell shapes of C. decisum were most strongly correlated with Secchi depth, ammonia concentration, pH, alkalinity, phosphate concentration, magnesium concentration, and percent sand substrate. Higher ammonia and phosphate concentrations often correlated with more elongate shapes (i.e., taller spire). The pH at sites and lakes appeared to be a strong driver of spire decollation with more acidic conditions likely breaking down calcium carbonate in shells. In contrast to a previous study on the often sympatric freshwater gastropod Elimia livescens (Menke, 1830) (family Pleuroceridae), our study did not find lake fetch (driving wave energy) to be major a driver of shell shape in C. decisum. However, to better test this, we recommend collecting additional C. decisum specimens from lakes with longer fetch to expand the dataset and further effects of lake morphometry on shell shape
David Cohen on the power of startup communities
Get PDFDavid Cohen is the CEO and co-founder of Techstars, one of the most influential startup accelerators in the world. In this live episode recorded at the Scaling Montana Summit in Bozeman, Justin sits down with David to discuss Techstar’s mission to help founders succeed and the cultural value of “give first” that defines vibrant startup ecosystems. David shares lessons from Boulder’s entrepreneurial community, the importance of investing in people over ideas, and ethical considerations in tech.
Learn more about Techstars here.https://scholarworks.umt.edu/anewangle_podcasts/1375/thumbnail.jp
Expanding Education Skills: Case Study and Content Creation for Theatre Educators at UM
Get PDFA love of theatre does not spring into the hearts of people from thin air. It is not something given by the universe, but something cultivated through years of going to performances, researching late at night, and the guidance of theatre educators. Despite the influence of Theatre Educators, they are largely overlooked when considering theatre professionals and their training. This lack of oversight is a nation-wide issue, but by focusing on just the University of Montana, there is a chance for greater understanding and change at a local community level. By employing academic research, surveys of UM faculty and students, and interviews of local teachers, myself and research partner Natlie Renk aim to find areas for improvement in the training of theatre educators at UM. Consequently, these areas for improvement will be addressed through the development of course curriculum in the form of two course syllabi: THTR 438 and THTR 439, in order to expand theatre educator training at the university
GLI Weekly, January 21, 2025
Get PDFWelcome back and best of luck with spring semester! -- Winter Welcome Back schedule -- Attention Sophomores: It\u27s time to sign up for your required spring advising appointment -- Campus Event: Branch Out: Welcome Back Open House -- Free Lecture: Medicine Game: How football helped Levi overcome generational trauma and his education empowers him to fight for Native Youth around the country. -- Mark Your Calendars: 106th Foresters Ball -- Have you thought about Irish Studies
Mallory Ottariano on building Youer
Get PDFMallory Ottariano is the founder of Youer, an American-made apparel company headquartered in Missoula that offers bold, functional, and sustainable clothing for active individuals. Mallory shares her journey from experimenting with sewing and design in her Massachusetts hometown to building a thriving business in Montana. She delves into the pivotal moments that shaped her path, including leveraging Etsy to launch her brand, transitioning from solo production to owning a local factory, creating a distinct design ethos, and maintaining creativity and passion in entrepreneurship.
Learn more about Youer here.https://scholarworks.umt.edu/anewangle_podcasts/1377/thumbnail.jp
Documents from the January 8th, 2025 meeting of the University of Montana Staff Senate
Get PDFAgenda and meeting minutes from the January 8th, 2025 meeting of the University of Montana Staff Seante.
Guest: Provost Andrea Lawrence, Vice Provost for Academic Affairs John DeBoer.
Discussion included the idea of having Employee Reviews moved to January.
Historian Note: The December Meeting for Staff Senate was a gathering of the President\u27s Cabinet and Staff Senate with a cookie exchange and interfacing with each other. Please refer to November 2024 meeting as the preceding meeting of record
Investigating the Role of Ubiquitin-Binding Domain of RIOK3 in Viral Immune Defense
No full textUnderstanding virus-immune system interactions is critical for preventing future outbreaks in both livestock and humans. This study could help develop treatment strategies to reduce the risk of Rift Valley fever virus (RVFV) becoming a widespread public health crisis. My research involves RVFV, a pathogen regulated by the NIH and USDA due to its ability to cause severe diseases leading to economic losses. By studying RVFV, we identified RIOK3 as a key protein in the immune response.
When the body detects a virus, cell surface receptors identify the danger and send alarm signals triggering a chain reaction, activating antiviral proteins like interferons, which alert nearby cells and activate the immune system to fight the infection.
RIOK3 plays a key role in regulating interferon production during viral infections, but its precise mechanism remains unclear. This led to investigating RIOK3’s interaction with ubiquitin, a protein that modifies others to control their behavior. Ubiquitin chains serve different functions depending on their linkage type: K48 linkages signal protein destruction, while K63 linkages promote immune signaling.
We hypothesize that RIOK3 contains a ubiquitin-binding domain (UBD) that specifically binds K63-linkages to activate cellular immune signaling. This interaction may explain how RIOK3 regulates interferon production. The goal is to confirm the identified UBDs and observe the role K63-linkage bound RIOK3 plays in the production of interferon. We produced fragments of RIOK3 containing either the wild-type (WT)-UBD or mutated (QUAD)UBD and incubated these fragments with K63-linkage. Compared to WT, we observed a decrease in the binding affinity of QUAD-UBD to K63 linkage, confirming that the identified UBD recognizes and binds to ubiquitin. This study’s novelty is that we identified a UBD potentially responsible for binding to the ubiquitin linkages attached to other known proteins. Future work will be to observe how the QUAD mutation changes the interferon production
Alumni Perspectives of Outdoor Academic Program Components
Get PDFStudies have documented the value of undergraduate outdoor academic programs (OAPs) (Turner et al., 2022) from the perspective of outdoor industry employers (Maningas & Simpson, 2003; Seaman et al., 2017) but few have explored OAP alumni perspectives (Prince, 2005). This perspective is critical to increasing understanding of OAPs. Therefore, this study aimed to explore alumni perspectives on experiences in OAPs and which components of their degree they perceived to be impactful on their careers.
Methods
The research reported here is part of a larger mixed methods study (Fuesler et al., 2025) that used a Significant Life Experience (SLE) theoretical framework (Daniel, 2003). Daniel et al.’s (2022) SLE survey was modified to be OAP- and career-specific, making this the first known time an SLE framework has been narrowed in scope to be career-specific. OAP alumni from three universities were emailed a Qualtrics survey with questions about learning outcomes and a Likert scale to rank OAP components. The quantitative responses were analyzed for frequency (Privitera, 2020) and the qualitative analysis followed Creswell & Creswell’s (2022) five-step coding process.
Results & Discussion
130 alumni completed the survey, although not all respondents answered each question (e.g., 124 respondents answered the question about employment status). When asked if the knowledge learned in their OAP was transferable to their career, 89% (n=110) of respondents said yes, 9% (n=11) said maybe, and 2% (n=3) said no. Of the 97% (n=120) of employed graduates, 42% (n=50) classified their career in the outdoor field. Participants ranked a pre-determined list of their degree program components according to perceived impact, and results indicate immersion semesters, faculty mentorship, and internships were the most impactful. These findings improve our understanding of the value of these programs and may go on to impact the design of OAPs
Montana Repertory Theatre – Playwriting in Schools Program
Get PDFMontana Repertory Theatre, embedded in the School of Theatre and Dance, a designated center of the University of Montana, and an affiliate of the College of the Arts and Media, led by Associate Professor and Artistic Director Michael Legg, was awarded UGP funding to expand its educational programming to include a Playwriting in Schools residency, targeted toward middle and high school students across the state, and designed with community engagement and recruitment in mind
Expectations in the Preservation of DNA & Bacterial Organisms in Differential Montana Burials
No full textThis doctoral dissertation project, conducted at the University of Montana’s Lubrecht Experimental Forest, delves into the critical question of how burial methods and shifting climatic conditions influence the way DNA breaks down, investigating how differential burials and climate affect the skeletonization process and preservation of DNA in postmortem cadavers, including the effects of bacterial organisms. Specifically taking place in a region lacking in research and where diverse conditions affect the decomposition process greatly, the Rocky Mountains. This is also relative to the lack of research on DNA and microbes found in soil within the forensic context and the effects of natural mummification, which is heavily prevalent in more arid regions. Through examination of degradation rates of DNA in hard tissue, soft tissue, and topsoil composites across three pig cadaver sites over a year, this study builds upon existing research on decomposition scales and Accumulated Degree Days (ADD). The outcomes promise to provide a comprehensive insight into the intricate interplay between decomposition rates, the progression of desiccated tissue, microbe soil spread, and DNA preservation. The objective of this project is to provide a probative DNA and bacterial display value based on the observational display of decomposition prior to the use of destructive extractions. Preliminary results show that oxygen flow may play a role in a slower decomposition rate for remains buried deeper