Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Status of the Alligator Snapping Turtle (Macrochelys temminckii) in South Alabama with Comments on Its Distribution

Abstract Historic commercial collecting of the alligator snapping turtle (Macrochelys temminckii) appears to have severely reduced populations throughout much of its range. In this study, we analyze 8 seasons of turtle-trapping data from 11 major rivers in southern Alabama and provide the first report on the status of the species in the state. During 1332 trap nights, we captured 93 M. temminckii in 7 rivers in south Alabama. We recorded relatively low overall catch per unit effort (CPUE; 0.062 using paired hoop nets connected by a lead net, 0.081 using single-baited hoop nets) compared with recent studies from other states. By evaluating relative abundances, size distributions, and sex ratios, we document variation in abundance among independent river populations as well as unexpected sex ratios. In particular, the Fowl River population is characterized by unexpectedly high abundance (0.478 CPUE) and may represent historic population conditions prior to commercial trapping. We discuss distribution and abundances, conservation concerns, and the significance of the Fowl River with respect to the recovery of populations throughout the species' range. This study contributes baseline population data to better understand the ecology and conservation of M. temminckii both in Alabama and across its entire range.
Phenotypic and genetic architecture of juvenile morphometry in chinook salmon

Juvenile morphology can affect fitness of salmonids in nature, but the genetic basis for morphometry in salmonids is poorly understood. We mated chinook salmon in a half-sib/full-sib breeding design to determine the genetic and environmental components of morphometric variation. We characterized body size and shape in 20 progeny from each of 95 full-sib families by digitizing 30 landmarks on lateral, dorsal, and ventral images of the body form, and estimated genetic and environmental components of variance for 12 truss elements constructed from the landmarks. We then conducted principal component analyses of the phenotypic, genetic, and environmental covariance matrices for these elements. Most (83%) of the phenotypic variation in morphometry was expressed along axes of allometry, shape change during smoltification, and a three-dimensional body shape contrast (head width versus lateral profile depth). All morphometric traits showed substantial additive genetic variation and were highly correlated genetically as well as phenotypically. Principal components of genetic variation in morphometry resembled the phenotypic principal components. The analyses also detected strong environmental effects on body shape and indicated two distinct morphometric types arising from maternal or environmental sources. The results provide evidence for genetic coordination of body size and shape, which would be expected if these characters are tightly coupled developmentally.
Mitochondrial DNA Differentiation in Western North Atlantic Populations of Haddock (Melanogrammus aeglefinus)

Mitochondrial DNA polymorphism was examined in haddock (Melanogrammus aeglefinus) from five offshore banks in the western North Atlantic. A total of 21 genotypes were observed in an initial survey of 54 haddock with 12 restriction endonucleases. Five enzymes that revealed most of the genetic variation were used in an expanded survey from which we observed 22 genotypes among 133 haddock. Both the 12- and 5-enzyme results showed that haddock from each of the five banks comprised a mixture of divergent genotypes that could each be assigned to one of at least four groups of related genotypes differing by mean estimated divergences of 0.6–0.8%. These divergent genotypes may have arisen in past haddock populations that were more isolated than those of the present. Although genotype frequencies did not differ significantly in most pairwise comparisons of banks, two measures of genetic (dis)similarity were significantly correlated with geographic distance as well as with the presence and relative size of deepwate.
Time‐Energy Budget of the Semipalmated Sandpiper Calidris Pusilla at Barrow, Alaska

The time-activity budget of breeding Calidris pusilla was studied at Barrow Alaska USA, in 1973 by observing several individually marked birds. Feeding incubating and young-attend- ing were the most time-consuming activities: ;70% and 80% of the time was spent feeding by the female during laying period and by both sexes prior to southbound migration respectively. Up to 50%o of the time was spent incubating or attending young during the incubation and the young-attending periods. The time-activity budget was converted into an estimate of energy requirements by using available estimates for energetic cost of activities. Although both environmental conditions and activity patterns changed throughout the season, the daily energetic cost fluctuated between only 159 kJ/d during the prelaying stage and 222 kJ/d during the laying stage for the female and between 155 kJ/d during the prepaying stage and 167 kJ/d during the territorial stage for the male. But because females leave the area about the time of hatching, a female requires less energy from the tundra than a male' on the average. z7.1 x la' and 8.0 x l0s kJ were required during the whole season by female and male respectively. Energy uptake was estimated by: (a) using available data on diet composition the energy content of prey items and their digestibility and (b) combining them with observed feeding rates and estimated capture rates. The resultant energy budget was generally negative for the whole season and indeed female weights declined significantly. We conclude that either energy uptake was underestimated or the birds rely heavily upon resources obtained at wintering grounds and during migration prior to arrival at Barrow. We suggest that females, having an average daily energy requirement 15% higher than males and entering the young-attending stage with an accumulated energy deficit increase their fitness by de- serting to better feeding grounds rather than staying with the young after they hatch. Thus females enhance their own survival to the next season. A preliminary comparison of the time-activity budget of C. pusilla with that of two rather unrelated species revealed a remarkable similarity in the pattern of time allocation.
Plant Regeneration of Zoysiagrass from Embryo-Derived Callus

A 2.4-D concentration of 1.0 mg L −1 resulted in greater callus production than higher concentrations. A 16-h photoperiod of fluorescent light (65 μmol photon m −2 s −1 ) increased callus production over dark conditions. Direct elimination of 2.4-D and dark callus induction resulted in greater regeneration frequency and a higher number of plantlets per callus than gradual elimination and light callus induction. Normal plantlets were transplanted to soil and grown to maturity in the field, where overwinter survival was exhibited
Forest drainage: a threat to benthic biodiversity of boreal headwater streams?

1. Forest drainage, including mainly ditching of waterlogged peatlands in order to increase wood growth, has caused substantial changes in the hydrology and water quality of Finnish streams. However, knowledge on the ecological impact of these changes is poor. This paper studies the potential impact of forest drainage, catchment characteristics and habitat factors on the water quality and benthic macroinvertebrates in headwater streams of the River Isojoki, western Finland. An intensive programme of water sampling was carried out at nine study sites, while zoobenthic samples covered a total of 18 streams. 2. According to multivariate regression models concentrations of aluminium and suspended solids in stream water at nine study sites increased significantly with increasing forest drainage of the catchment area. Further, drainage intensity contributed significantly to the decrease in minimum values of alkalinity. 3. In a Canonical Correspondence Analysis, the variation in macroinvertebrate species distribution and abundance was largely explained by drainage intensity, moss coverage and the concentrations of aluminium and iron in stream water. A significant positive correlation was established between the species richness of benthic macroinvertebrates and the proportional cover of vegetation on the stream bed, whereas a significant negative correlation was found between species richness and sand cover. 4. The results suggest that drainage has significantly contributed to the deterioration of water quality and habitat structure, and impoverishment of benthic communities in the headwater streams of the River Isojoki. In order to protect the ecological integrity of such boreal headwater streams, more effective protection schemes in forestry practices and rehabilitation of the adversely affected streams and their catchment areas are needed. © 1998 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
Morphometric, meristic character and electrophoretic analyses of two Irish populations of twaite shad, Alosa fallax (Lacépède)

Since 1911 a rare lacustrine form of twaite shad, Alosa fallax killarnensis Regan (1916), has been known to occur in the Killarney Lakes. During the summers of 1985 and 1986 a gill netting programme in Lough Leane for brown trout, Salmo trutta L. , yielded 32 shad (1985) and 64 shad (1986) as a by-catch. These fish were deep frozen and compared with a sample of 59 marine twaite shad, taken on rod and line from St Mullin's, Co. Carlow, which had entered the River Barrow to spawn. Morphometric, meristic and electrophoretic character analyses were carried out on the two populations. The three analyses, particularly the isoelectric focusing, confirmed a high degree of genetic similarity. The two major differences found were the dwarfed size of the Killarney shad and the increased numbers of gill rakers carried on the first branchial arch. The merits and demerits of assigning the term subspecies to the Killarney shad are discussed in the light of the available evidence produced.
Florística e estrutura da vegetação arbustivo-arbórea em uma área de cerrado rupestre no parque estadual da Serra de Caldas Novas, Goiás

The cerrado stricto sensu is the predominant phytophisiognomy of the Cerrado biome, covering large areas of the Brazilian Central Plateau. When the vegetation grows on rocky soils, it is known locally as "cerrado rupestre". Our knowledge of the tree-shrub communities of this Cerrado vegetation subtype is very limited. The aim of this study was to analyze the floristic composition and structure of tree-shrub vegetation in an area of cerrado rupestre located in the Serra de Caldas Novas State Park (PESCAN), Goias, Brazil, and to compare the floristic and structural characteristics with those from other areas of cerrado stricto sensu located in Central Brazil. We sampled all individuals with a diameter > 5 cm at 30 cm above ground level, presented in 10 randomly plots of 20 × 50 m. The floristic richness survey revealed 66 species, distributed in 53 genera and 31 botanical families. The studied vegetation had floristic and structural characteristics similar to those recorded in other areas of cerrado stricto sensu growing on deep soils, however, there were some species typically of cerrado rupestre, such as Schwartzia adamantium (Cambess.) Gir. -Canas and Wunderlichia mirabilis Riedel ex Baker and other less abundant characteristic species for this biome, for instance, Peltogyne confertiflora (Mart. ex Hayne) Benth. , Myrcia canescens O. Berg and Myrcia variabilis DC. The total basal area was relatively high (12.39 m2.ha-1) due to the high density of individuals (1.357 ind.ha-1) as well as the abundance of large individuals of species such as Sclerolobium paniculatum Vogel, Pterodon pubescens (Benth.) Benth. , S. adamantium and P. confertiflora. Hence, the flat soil surface of cerrado rupestre of PESCAN did not limit the growth of wood vegetation, nor conditioned the establishment of a distinguished flora. Nevertheless, the elevated structural importance of few wood species typical and adapted of rock environments guarantee some floristic peculiarity of the community survey.
Single Shot Video Object Detector

Single shot detectors that are potentially faster and simpler than two-stage detectors tend to be more applicable to object detection in videos. Nevertheless, the extension of such object detectors from image to video is not trivial especially when appearance deterioration exists in videos, e.g., motion blur or occlusion. A valid question is how to explore temporal coherence across frames for boosting detection. In this paper, we propose to address the problem by enhancing per-frame features through aggregation of neighboring frames. Specifically, we present Single Shot Video Object Detector (SSVD) — a new architecture that novelly integrates feature aggregation into a one-stage detector for object detection in videos. Technically, SSVD takes Feature Pyramid Network (FPN) as backbone network to produce multi-scale features. Unlike the existing feature aggregation methods, SSVD, on one hand, estimates the motion and aggregates the nearby features along the motion path, and on the other, hallucinates features by directly sampling features from the adjacent frames in a two-stream structure. Extensive experiments are conducted on ImageNet VID dataset, and competitive results are reported when comparing to state-of-the-art approaches. More remarkably, for $448 \times 448$ input, SSVD achieves 79.2% mAP on ImageNet VID, by processing one frame in 85 ms on an Nvidia Titan X Pascal GPU. The code is available at https://github.com/ddjiajun/SSVD.
Study of Fruit Diversity and Selection of Elite Acid Lime (Citrus aurantifolia Swingle) Genotypes in Nepal

Acid lime (Citrus aurantifolia) fruits are cultivated in terai, mid hill and high hill districts of Nepal. It is cross-pollinated crop and has a high variation in fruit characters within the species. Fruit character is the main basis of genotype selection. Study of fruit diversity is of utmost importance to select the elite genotypes for breeding and variety development program. Therefore, total of 620 fruit samples were collected and evaluated in the main production season of the year 2010 and 2011, from 62 bearing trees. Samples were collected from three agro-ecological domains, representing terai, mid hill and high hill areas of eastern Nepal. Elite landraces were selected on the basis of scoring fruit characters. High variation in vitamin C was observed between the terai (57.4 mg) and high hill (72.5 mg) samples. Amount of juice was 36.8% in mid hill and 44.1% in terai samples. Higher percent of juice and total soluble solids (TSS) observed in terai samples but tritable acidity (TA) and vitamin C was low as compare to high hills. There was significantly negative correlation found in fruit weight, fruit diameter, juice percent and seed number, whereas significantly positive correlation was in pulp and vitamin C, with altitude range. Total landraces were separated in five major cluster group. Variation in the level of similarity was observed among the cluster groups. The variability distance of fruit characters was highest in cluster group II (–17.45%) and lowest in cluster group V (58.5%). On the basis of scoring number of fruit characters, total four elite genotypes i.e. LD-49 from mid hills, LD-23 and LT-17 from higher hills and LM-44 from terai were selected for conservation, breeding and variety development purpose.
Primary Vascular Patterns in the Vitaceae

Vitaceous shoots can be classified into five distinct architectural patterns based on a three‐node sequence of tendril and axillary bud presence. The relationship between two of the more commonly occurring patterns and their primary vasculature was examined. Cissus alata was chosen to represent pattern 5 (distichous phyllotaxy and continuous leaf‐opposed tendril/inflorescences) and Vitis riparia to represent pattern 4 (distichous phyllotaxy and a three‐node modular pattern of interrupted leaf‐opposed tendril/inflorescences). Both species show architectural dorsiventrality in that the prophyll of the first‐order axillary bud is ventral and vascular dorsiventrality in that all midvein leaf traces arise from ventral vascular sympodia. Both taxa have an even number of vascular sympodia, with four in C. alata and six in V. riparia. Leaf traces are multilacunar, with seven traces in C. alata and five in V. riparia. The leaf‐opposed tendril/inflorescences have the same vascular architecture as the axillary buds and are derived from the same vascular sympodia, although there is no evidence from this study that the tendrils represent a vertically displaced serial axillary bud. Vascular architecture reflects the underlying three‐node modularity of these shoot patterns in two ways: first, leaf traces in both species most commonly arise three nodes below their point of departure from the stem, and second, the number of internodes the axillary bud traces traverse is dependent on the position of the tendril within the shoot module in V. riparia (pattern 4). Vegetative characters such as shoot architecture and primary vascular pattern should prove useful in phylogenetic analyses of this architecturally unique family.
Phosphate-Solubilizing Bacteria in the Rhizosphere of Some Cultivated Legumes from Meknes Region, Morocco.

Aims: Through the National Botanical Research Institute's phosphate growth medium (NBRIP) and 16S rDNA sequence analysis were used to isolate and identify the bacterial groups that actively solubilized phosphates in vitrofrom rhizosphere soil for three cultvited leguminous in agricultural soils from Meknes region. Study Design: Rhizosphere soil samples for three cultivated legumes in different sites from Meknes region were collected for the study.
Detection of Epstein-Barr virus early replicative phase using monoclonal antibody BZ-1 in oral hairy leukoplakia and other hyperkeratotic oral mucosal lesions: a retrospective study.

The early replicative phase of Epstein-Barr virus (EBV) was detected by immunohistochemistry, in addition to routine histology with hematoxylin eosin staining, in formalin fixed, paraffin-embedded archive specimens of 97 hyperkerato tic lesions including oral hairy leukoplakia (HL) in order to assess whether EBV is specific to HL, or if it occurs in other hyperkeratotic lesions of the oral mucosa. Monoclonal antibody (MAb) BZ-1 directed against the BZLF-1 gene product of EBV was used for immunostaining by the avidin-biotin peroxidase technique. The reaction was visualized with DAB/ H2O2 solution and counterstained with PAS stain to detect any coexisting of hyphae of Candida. Eight lesions were reactive with BZ-1, confirming a diagnosis of HL, although the total number of lesions with koilocytoid features was 33.Seventy percent of the patients with confirmed HL lesions were HIV-seropositive, and 50% of the HL lesions were associated with Candida hyphae. One third of the lesions with koilocytoid features were associated with hyphae of Candida. Only one renal transplant patient had HL, confirmed by a positive BZ-1 reaction, although 60% of the hyperkeratotic lesions showed koilocytoid features in a subgroup of 15 patients with renal transplants.
Field thermal ecology of the eastern short-horned lizard (Phrynosoma douglassi brevirostre) in southern Alberta

Phrynosoma douglassi brevirostre has a median body temperature (Tb) of 32.9 °C in southeastern Alberta, with a sharply peaked and negatively skewed Tb frequency. The range of the Tb frequency distribution in daylight hours during the active season (activity temperature range) is wide (20.0 °C). The realized thermal niche is approximately 7 °C wide, centred loosely on the median Tb. The populations examined are active over a wide range of ambient temperatures. With regard to substrate temperature and air temperature at 10 cm, the populations examined are intermediate between thermoconformity and thermal independence, but with regard to air temperature at 1 m they display more thermal independence. Habitat use is most varied on sunny days. Tb is not significantly different between situations, indicating that shuttling is an important thermoregulatory strategy. There is a significant difference in median Tb between small lizards and large lizards, but not between either of these size groups and medium-sized .
Moss leaf water content and solar radiation at the moss surface in a mature black spruce forest in central Alaska

In a mature black spruce (Piceamariana (Mill.) B.S.P.) forest near the University of Alaska, Fairbanks, AK, samples of four common moss species, Polytrichumcommune Hedw. , Hylocomiumsplendens (Hedw.) B.S.G. , Pleuroziumschreberi (Brid.) Mitt. , and Sphagnumsubsecundum Nees. were collected at intervals during the 1976 season to determine the diurnal variation in leaf water content and daily water loss as functions of temperature, moisture, radiation, and wind speed. The field measurements were followed by laboratory experiments on intact cores in an open system and on excised shoots in closed cuvettes. In these experiments, water loss rates varied by species and were affected by vapor pressure deficits and wind speed; where vapor pressure deficit is more constant than these other factors, variations in light intensities had less effect on water loss rates. Polytrichumcommune, which translocates water from the soil, avoided moisture stress to a greater extent than the other moss species which were more depende.
Decreasing Time to Baccalaureate Degree in the United States

After increasing in the 1970s and 1980s, time to bachelor ’ s degree has declined since the 1990s. We document this fact using data from three nationally representative surveys. We show that this pattern is occurring across school types and for all student types. Using administrative student records from 10 large universities, we confirm the finding and show that it is robust to alternative sample definitions. We discuss what might explain the decline in time to bachelor ’ s degree by considering trends in student preparation, state funding, student enrollment, study time, and student employment during college.
Why glyphosate is a global herbicide: strengths, weaknesses and prospects

After 25 years of sales, glyphosate (N-(phosphonomethyl)glycine) is the world's biggest selling and fastest growing agrochemical. Glyphosate has many strengths, particularly its systemicity and ability to control perennial weeds, which have facilitated its role as an essential tool in modern agriculture. Surveys of recent scientific and patent literature point to several key areas of current and future interest in glyphosate and its use. Biotechnology topics have been the most popular, but there is still much interest in the molecule per se, particularly in manufacturing processes. The mode of action and physiology of glyphosate are common subjects. More applied aspects concern the development of formulations with new adjuvants, or mixtures with other herbicides, to enhance performance. An increasing number of papers are reporting on its environmental fate and on agronomic techniques designed to improve the efficiency of application and minimise its environmental impact. Lack of weed resistance is a key feature of glyphosate despite its widespread use. However, differential levels of tolerance between species have led to changes in weed succession. There is a need to develop integrated weed management systems in which glyphosate still plays a key role. Glyphosate is an exceedingly effective herbicide and presents a considerable challenge to the development of new herbicides for sustainable cropping systems and situations in which cost-effective and environmentally considerate weed control is required.