Browsing Biology Faculty Research, Publications and Presentations by Title
Now showing items 86-105 of 185
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Intraguild interactions and large-scale population patterns
Competitive interactions, including interference and intraguild predation, occur in many aquatic food webs and influence large-scale patterns of abundance, especially in lentic habitats. In a study of small coastal streams ... -
Invasion-mediated shifts in the macrobenthic assemblage of a rocky subtidal ecosystem
We tracked changes in community composition that occurred with state shifts in the rocky subtidal ecosystem in Nova Scotia, Canada, from 1992 to 2008. At the beginning of our study, a dense aggregation of sea urchins was ... -
Invertebrate predation and lotic prey communities: Evaluation of in situ enclosure/exclosure experiments
The influence of the stonefly Kogotus nonus on prey communities was assessed by varying the predator density within small enclosures in a first-order stream in southwestern Alberta. Experimental containers with natural ... -
Jellyfish Support High Energy Intake of Leatherback Sea Turtles (Dermochelys coriacea): Video Evidence from Animal-Borne Cameras
The endangered leatherback turtle is a large, highly migratory marine predator that inexplicably relies upon a diet of low-energy gelatinous zooplankton. The location of these prey may be predictable at large oceanographic ... -
Killer storms: North Atlantic hurricanes and disease outbreaks in sea urchins
An increase in the incidence of disease in various marine organisms over the past few decades has been linked to ocean climate change. In Nova Scotia, Canada, mass mortalities of sea urchins, due to an amoebic disease, ... -
Large-Scale Absence of Sharks on Reefs in the Greater-Caribbean: A Footprint of Human Pressures
Background: In recent decades, large pelagic and coastal shark populations have declined dramatically with increased fishing; however, the status of sharks in other systems such as coral reefs remains largely unassessed ... -
Larval cardiorespiratory ontogeny and allometry in Xenopus laevis
Very little is known about the early development of cardiorespiratory regulatory mechanisms in newly hatched amphibian larvae. We tested whether early cardiovascular responses to hypoxia reflect local flow regulation in ... -
Life-history correlates of extinction risk and recovery potential
Extinction risk is inversely associated with maximum per capita population growth rate (r(max)). However, this parameter is not known for most threatened species, underscoring the value in identifying correlates of r(max) ... -
Linking movement, diving, and habitat to foraging success in a large marine predator
Establishing where and when predators forage is essential to understanding trophic interactions, yet foraging behavior remains poorly understood in large marine carnivores. We investigated the factors leading to foraging ... -
Long-term change in a meso-predator community in response to prolonged and heterogeneous human impact
Sharks and rays' abundance can decline considerably with fishing. Community changes, however, are more complex because of species interactions, and variable vulnerability and exposure to fishing. We evaluated long-term ... -
Maintenance of Positive Diversity-Stability Relations along a Gradient of Environmental Stress
Background: Environmental stress is widely considered to be an important factor in regulating whether changes in diversity will affect the functioning and stability of ecological communities. Methodology/Principal Findings: ... -
Male and female pollination success in a deceptive orchid, a selection study
We carried out phenotypic selection analyses to assess the relative importance of several Horal traits, as well as microhabitat, in determining both male and female pollination success in a nonrewarding orchid (Cypripedium ... -
Mechanisms Influencing the Timing and Success of Reproductive Migration in a Capital Breeding Semelparous Fish Species, the Sockeye Salmon
Two populations of homing sockeye salmon (Oncorhynchus nerka; Adams and Chilko) were intercepted in the marine approaches around the northern and southern ends of Vancouver Island (British Columbia, Canada) en route to ... -
A Meta-Analysis of Community Response Predictability to Anthropogenic Disturbances
Disturbances often lead to changes in average values of community properties; however, disturbances can also affect the predictability of a community's response. We performed a meta-analysis to determine how response ... -
A Meta-Analysis of Probiotic Efficacy for Gastrointestinal Diseases
Background: Meta-analyses on the effects of probiotics on specific gastrointestinal diseases have generally shown positive effects on disease prevention and treatment; however, the relative efficacy of probiotic use for ... -
Metabolism of dietary cetoleic acid (22 : 1n-11) in mink (Mustela vison) and gray seals (Halichoerus grypus) studied using radiolabeled fatty acids
Cetoleic acid (22:1n-11) is a good indicator of diet in marine predators and has proven to be an important fatty acid (FA) when using adipose tissue FA composition to study diet in marine mammals and seabirds. Feeding ... -
Methods for selecting fixed-effect models for heterogeneous codon evolution, with comments on their application to gene and genome data
Background: Models of codon evolution have proven useful for investigating the strength and direction of natural selection. In some cases, a priori biological knowledge has been used successfully to model heterogeneous ...
