Illegal collecting of wild Venus flytraps (Dionaea muscipula) for the horticultural trade represents a persistent threat to populations of the species across their endemic range in the coastal plain of North and South Carolina (United States). Although wild collecting of Venus flytraps is not a novel threat, there has been very little research on the impacts of collecting on the species' conservation to date or why an illegal trade persists alongside a legal one. We drew on qualitative expert stakeholder elicitation to contextualize the threat of illegal collecting to the long-term conservation of Venus flytraps in relation to other anthropogenic threats.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFLimited throughput is a shortcoming of the Scanning Tunneling Microscope (STM), particularly when used for atomically precise lithography. To address this issue, we have developed an on-chip STM based on Microelectromechanical-Systems (MEMS) technology. The device reported here has one degree of freedom, replacing the Z axis in a conventional STM.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFBackground: Nurse navigation can improve quality of cancer care and reduce racial disparities in care outcomes. Addressing persistent structurally-rooted disparities requires research on strategies that support patients by prompting structural changes to systems of care. We applied a novel conceptualization of social support to an analysis of racial equity-focused navigation and patient-reported outcomes.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFThe use of biochar as a soil amendment in forest ecosystems can be beneficial in the restoration of degraded soils. Forest insects such as the Douglas-fir tussock moth, (McDonnough) (Lepidoptera: Erebidae), may be exposed to biochar when the material is applied. Two experiments were conducted using biochar either (1) applied to the surface of the diet at three rates (0, 5, and 10 mg) or (2) incorporated into synthetic diet at four rates (0, 10, 20, and 40% volume/volume).
View Article and Find Full Text PDFObjectives: To develop a consensus statement to provide advice on designing, implementing and evaluating crowdsourcing challenge contests in public health and medical contexts.
Design: Modified Delphi using three rounds of survey questionnaires and one consensus workshop.
Setting: Uganda for face-to-face consensus activities, global for online survey questionnaires.
Objectives: Antimicrobial resistance (AMR) is a significant threat to global public health. Many medical curricula have limited clinical cases and materials focused on AMR, yet enhanced AMR education and training are needed to support antimicrobial stewardship programmes. We used crowdsourcing methods to develop open-access, learner-centred AMR resources.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFA new species of Etelis is described based on 16 specimens collected from the Red Sea and Western Australia, with confirmed genetic records throughout the Indo-West Pacific. It is similar to and was often misidentified as Etelis carbunculus Cuvier, with both species sharing the diagnostic character of low number of developed gill rakers. Nonetheless, the two species are genetically divergent and differ morphologically in adult body length; proportions of eye, snout, cheek and caudal fin; shape of head, opercular spine and sagittal otolith; and coloration of the tip of the upper caudal fin.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFReintroductions are important components of conservation and recovery programs for rare plant species, but their long-term success rates are poorly understood. Previous reviews of plant reintroductions focused on short-term (e.g.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFThe new species is described from four specimens collected at depths of 115-148 m near Palau and Pohnpei in Micronesia. It differs from the other three species of this genus in life color and in certain morphological characters, such as body depth, snout length, anterior three dorsal-fin spine lengths, caudal-fin length, and other characters. There are also genetic differences from the other four species of (d ≈ 0.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFWhen conservation strategies require new, field-based information, practitioners must find the best ways to rapidly deliver high-quality survey data. To address this challenge, several rapid-assessment approaches have been developed since the early 1990s. These typically involve large areas, take many months to complete, and are not appropriate when conservation-relevant survey data are urgently needed for a specific locale.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFA common cause of tip-sample crashes in a Scanning Tunneling Microscope (STM) operating in constant current mode is the poor performance of its feedback control system. We show that there is a direct link between the Local Barrier Height (LBH) and robustness of the feedback control loop. A method known as the "gap modulation method" was proposed in the early STM studies for estimating the LBH.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFThe number of goatfish species has increased recently, thanks in part to the application of molecular approaches to the taxonomy of a family with conservative morphology and widespread intraspecific color variation. A new subspecies Mulloidichthys flavolineatus flavicaudus Fernandez-Silva & Randall is described from the Red Sea and Arabian Sea, including Socotra and Gulf of Oman. It is characterized by a yellow caudal fin, 25-28 gill rakers, and 37-38 lateral-line scales and it is differentiated from nominal subspecies Mulloidichthys flavolineatus flavolineatus by 1.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFEvolutionary genetic patterns in shallow coastal fishes are documented with dozens of studies, but corresponding surveys of deepwater fishes (>200m) are scarce. Here we investigate the evolutionary history of deepwater snappers (genus Etelis), comprised of three recognized Indo-Pacific species and one Atlantic congener, by constructing a phylogeny of the genus with two mtDNA loci and two nuclear introns. Further, we apply range-wide Indo-Pacific sampling to test for the presence and distribution of a putative cryptic species pair within E.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFThe regal angelfish (Pygoplites diacanthus; family Pomacanthidae) occurs on reefs from the Red Sea to the central Pacific, with an Indian Ocean/Rea Sea color morph distinct from a Pacific Ocean morph. To assess population differentiation and evaluate the possibility of cryptic evolutionary partitions in this monotypic genus, we surveyed mtDNA cytochrome b and two nuclear introns (S7 and RAG2) in 547 individuals from 15 locations. Phylogeographic analyses revealed four mtDNA lineages (d=0.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFReducing the scale of etched nanostructures below the 10 nm range eventually will require an atomic scale understanding of the entire fabrication process being used in order to maintain exquisite control over both feature size and feature density. Here, we demonstrate a method for tracking atomically resolved and controlled structures from initial template definition through final nanostructure metrology, opening up a pathway for top-down atomic control over nanofabrication. Hydrogen depassivation lithography is the first step of the nanoscale fabrication process followed by selective atomic layer deposition of up to 2.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFLepadichthys bilineatus is described as a new species of gobiesocid fish from a single specimen, 23.5 mm in standard length, collected from 1.5 m in a tidepool on the southeastern coast of Oman.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFKoeda et al. (2014) published a review of fishes of the genus Pempheris of the Red Sea. They concluded that there are four species: P.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFPempheris bexillon new species is described from the 129 mm SL holotype and 11 paratypes (119-141 mm SL) from the Comoro Islands. Twelve other specimens have been examined from the Agaléga Islands, Mascarene Islands, and Bassas da India (Madagascar). It is differentiated from other Pempheris by the following combination of characters: a yellow dorsal fin with a black, distal margin along its full length, broadest on anterior rays (pupil-diameter width) and gradually narrowing posteriorly, the last ray with only a black tip; large, deciduous cycloid scales on the flank; dark, oblong spot on the pectoral-fin base; anal fin with a dark margin; segmented anal-fin rays 38-45 (usually >40); lateral-line scales 56-65; and total gill rakers on the first arch 31-35; iris reddish-brown.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFIn this work, we report a detailed analysis of the atomic and electronic structures of transition metal scanning tunneling microscopy tips: Rh, Pd, W, Ir, and Pt pyramidal models, and transition metal (TM) atom tips supported on the W surface, by means of ab initio density-functional theory methods. The d electrons of the apex atoms of the TM tips (Rh, Pd, W, Ir, and Pt tetrahedral structures) show different behaviors near the Fermi level and, especially for the W tip, dz(2) states are shown to be predominant near the Fermi level. The electronic structures of larger pyramidal TM tip structures with a single apex atom are also reported.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFThe grouper Epinephelus geoffioyi (Klunzinger), type locality Red Sea, previously regarded as a synonym of E. chlorostigma (Valenciennes) is recognized as a valid species. It is differentiated from E.
View Article and Find Full Text PDF