Publications by authors named "Carter Stancil"

Studies on animal energetics often focus on standardized metabolic rates to facilitate comparison across systems. Yet these standardized measurements often do not capture the realistic demographic and environmental variation that is common in natural settings. Rather, individuals included in these studies are often non-reproducing, uninjured, resting adults that have not recently eaten-far from a representative sample.

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Organisms vary in the timing of energy acquisition and use for reproduction. Thus, breeding strategies exist on a continuum, from capital breeding to income breeding. Capital breeders acquire and store energy for breeding before the start of the reproductive season, while income breeders finance reproduction using energy acquired during the reproductive season.

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Article Synopsis
  • Morphological traits can help predict the diet and trophic position of species, particularly in how gut size varies among closely related animals.
  • Crabs with larger stomachs tend to be herbivorous or consume low-quality diets, and external markings on their carapaces correlate with gut size.
  • The study found that these markings can be used as a non-lethal method to estimate dietary strategies in crabs, revealing insights into their evolution and morphological tradeoffs.
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Article Synopsis
  • * Researchers investigated the metabolic rates of squareback marsh crabs in their natural habitat, noting that these rates vary by size, temperature, and female reproductive status.
  • * The study found that these field measurements of metabolic rates are more accurate than standard lab rates, indicating high energy expenditures by crabs, which impacts energy transfer between marshes and forest ecosystems.
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Nonlethal injury is a pervasive stress on individual animals that can affect large portions of a population at any given time. Yet most studies examine snapshots of injury at a single place and time, making the implicit assumption that the impacts of nonlethal injury are constant. We sampled Asian shore crabs Hemigrapsus sanguineus throughout their invasive North American range and from the spring through fall of 2020.

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The COVID-19 pandemic continues to ravage the world, with the United States being highly affected. A vaccine provides the best hope for a permanent solution to controlling the pandemic. However, to be effective, a vaccine must be accepted and used by a large majority of the population.

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