Like most infectious diseases, rabies can attack several species. However, which species are going to be infected and why turns out to be a difficult problem that represents a major gap in our knowledge of how diseases emerge. A paper just published in the journal Science by a team of researchers led by Daniel G. Streicker, a Ph.D. student in the University of Georgia Odum School of Ecology, has begun to close that knowledge gap.
The paper, co-authored by researchers from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the University of Tennessee-Knoxville and Western Michigan University, provides among the first estimates for any infectious disease of how often a disease can be transmitted across species in complex, multi-host communities and the likelihood of disease establishment in a new host species.
“Rabies happens to be an ideal system to answer these questions,” said Streicker. “Rabies occurs across the country, affects many different host species and is known to mutate frequently.” Although cases of rabies in humans are rare in the U.S., bats are the most common source of these infections, according to the CDC.
To determine the rate at which rabies infects multiple species, Streicker and his colleagues used an enormous dataset, unprecedented in its scope, containing hundreds of rabies viruses from 23 North American bat species. They used gene sequencing and tools from population genetics to quantify how many cross-species transmission (CST) events were expected to occur between each pair of species from any infected individual. Their analysis showed that, depending upon the species involved, a single infected bat may infect between 0 and 2 members of a different species; and that, on average, the probability of cross-species transmission occurs only once for every 73 transmissions within the same species.
“What’s really important about this is that molecular sequence data, an increasingly cheap and available resource, can be used to quantify CST,” said Streicker.
Associate professor Sonia Altizer, Streicker’s advisor in the Odum School, agreed. “This is a breakthrough,” said Altizer. “The team defined, for the first time, a framework for quantifying the rates of CST across a network of host species that could be applied to other wildlife pathogens, and they developed novel methods to do it.”
The researchers also looked at what factors allow diseases to move across species, such as foraging behavior, geographic range and genetics.
“There’s a popular idea that because of their potential for rapid evolution, the emergence of these types of viruses is limited more by ecological constraints than by genetic similarity between donor and recipient hosts,” explained Streicker. “We wanted to see if that was the case.”
They found, instead, that rabies viruses are much more likely to jump between closely related bat species than between ones that diverged in the distant past. Overlapping geographic range was also associated with CST, but to a lesser extent.
“CST and viral establishment do not occur at random, but instead are highly constrained by host-associated barriers,” Streicker said. “Contrary to popular belief, rapid evolution of the virus isn’t enough to overcome the genetic differences between hosts.”
Streicker believes that what he and his colleagues have learned about bat rabies will be influential in understanding the ecology, evolution and emergence of many wildlife viruses of public health and conservation importance. “The basic knowledge we’ve gained will be key to developing new intervention strategies for diseases that can jump from wildlife to humans,” he said.
Streicker is continuing his work with rabies and bats, with funding for a three-year study from the National Science Foundation. He and Altizer, in collaboration with investigators at the CDC, University of Michigan and the Peruvian Ministries of Health and Agriculture, will explore how human activities affect the transmission of the rabies virus in vampire bats in Peru and how those changes might feed back into altering the risk of rabies infection for humans, domesticated animals and wildlife.
“This kind of synthetic, interdisciplinary work is precisely what we aim for in the Odum School,” said John Gittleman, Odum School dean. “The success of this research hinges on bringing together the fields of genetics, evolution and disease in a large-scale ecological context. Big problems in ecology will be solved in this way.”
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Showing posts with label uga. Show all posts
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Friday, August 6, 2010
Saturday, December 5, 2009
UGA College of Veterinary Medicine researchers lead team in discovery involving freshwater fish parasite, 'Ich'
Researchers from the University of Georgia College of Veterinary Medicine have made an unexpected dual discovery that could open new avenues for treating Ichthyophthirius multifiliis, or “Ich”, a single-celled protozoan parasite that commonly attacks freshwater fish.
With the aid of whole-genome sequencing, researchers found that Ich harbors two apparently symbiotic intracellular bacteria: Bacteroides, which are usually found free-living, and Rickettsia, which are obligate intracellular bacteria.The two bacteria represent new species.
Five researchers from the college’s department of infectious diseases worked on the project in collaboration with two researchers from the department of microbiology and immunology at Cornell University College of Veterinary Medicine and a researcher from the J. Craig Venter Institute. Their initial intent was to map the genome of Ich; the DNA sequencing was done by JCVI and funded by a grant from the U.S. Department of Agriculture. Their study is published in the December 2009 issue (Issue 23) of Applied and Environmental Microbiology with an image from the study on the cover.
It was the presence of Rickettsia DNA sequences found in the initial genome data that provided scientists with a clue that bacteria might live inside of Ich.Intracellular bacteria have been described in free-living ciliates such as Paramecium, but never in Ich, which is an obligate parasite.
“It was unexpected; it was stunning to find bacteria in Ich.And, it came about due to the genome sequencing,” said Harry W. Dickerson, a co-author who has been studying Ich in the veterinary college for more than 20 years and a member of the UGA Center for Tropical and Emerging Global Diseases, which has a focus on parasitic diseases, primarily of humans. “Ich occurs world-wide and is one of the most common protozoon pathogens of freshwater fish.It is easily recognized by most aquarists, and fish farmers often are confronted with massive epizootic outbreaks to devastating economic effect.”
Ich (which causes “white spot disease”) is a ciliated protozoan parasite that bores into the skin and gills of fish where it feeds, destroying tissue and thereby blocking exchange of oxygen and carbon dioxide, usually leading to death of the host.Each parasite grows on the fish from roughly 40 microns, which cannot be seen by the naked eye, to approximately one millimeter in diameter, which can easily be seen as a white spot. The parasites leave the fish in about 5-6 days (a ciliate with its typical large nucleus is shown in the image). Each cell then divides multiple times to produce up to 1000 more infective organisms.The entire life cycle takes about 6-7 days.With subsequent rounds of infection the number of parasites continues to increase, and each wave of re-infection becomes more deadly than the last.By the second or third re-infection the fish population is usually overwhelmed and fish begin to die.Fish that survive mild infections can develop immunity.
There are currently no drugs or chemicals that kill Ich while it resides in the fish skin or gills; they can only kill Ich when the parasite is in the water, and therefore all current therapies require a cyclical re-treatment program.
The first major outbreak of Ich in North America was recorded at the Chicago World’s Fair in 1893.Ich is a well-known problem for aqua-culturists, aquarium owners, pond owners, hobbyists and retailers of freshwater fish.People and birds can also carry the parasite, unknowingly, from pond to pond.
“Work to sequence the genome of this parasitic protozoan unexpectedly revealed that bacterial DNA sequences were also present,” noted Craig Findly, one of the college’s researchers on the project.“Following up this discovery led to our demonstration that two new species of intracellular bacteria use Ich as their host.We now need to determine if these intracellular bacteria play a role in infection.”
Next, the researchers will try to determine what role the two organisms play in the physiology of Ich and whether Ich remain infective if the bacteria are removed.The scientists hope their finding takes them a step closer to developing better treatments for Ich.
The UGA College of Veterinary Medicine, founded in 1946, is dedicated to training future veterinarians, to conducting research related to animal diseases, and to providing veterinary services for animals and their owners.Research efforts are aimed at enhancing the quality of life for animals and people, improving the productivity of poultry and livestock, and preserving a healthy interface between wildlife and people in the environment they share.The current Teaching Hospital, built in 1979, serves more than 18,000 patients per year in one of the smallest teaching hospitals in the United States.The college is currently working to raise $15 million toward building a new Veterinary Medical Learning Center, which will include a new teaching hospital as well as classrooms and laboratories that will allow for the education of more veterinarians. More veterinarians are needed to promote food safety and protect public health and to provide veterinary services for farm and companion animals owned by a rapidly growing regional population.The college enrolls 102 students each fall out of more than 550 who apply.The goal is to increase enrollment to 150 when the Veterinary Medical Learning Center is built.
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With the aid of whole-genome sequencing, researchers found that Ich harbors two apparently symbiotic intracellular bacteria: Bacteroides, which are usually found free-living, and Rickettsia, which are obligate intracellular bacteria.The two bacteria represent new species.
Five researchers from the college’s department of infectious diseases worked on the project in collaboration with two researchers from the department of microbiology and immunology at Cornell University College of Veterinary Medicine and a researcher from the J. Craig Venter Institute. Their initial intent was to map the genome of Ich; the DNA sequencing was done by JCVI and funded by a grant from the U.S. Department of Agriculture. Their study is published in the December 2009 issue (Issue 23) of Applied and Environmental Microbiology with an image from the study on the cover.
It was the presence of Rickettsia DNA sequences found in the initial genome data that provided scientists with a clue that bacteria might live inside of Ich.Intracellular bacteria have been described in free-living ciliates such as Paramecium, but never in Ich, which is an obligate parasite.
“It was unexpected; it was stunning to find bacteria in Ich.And, it came about due to the genome sequencing,” said Harry W. Dickerson, a co-author who has been studying Ich in the veterinary college for more than 20 years and a member of the UGA Center for Tropical and Emerging Global Diseases, which has a focus on parasitic diseases, primarily of humans. “Ich occurs world-wide and is one of the most common protozoon pathogens of freshwater fish.It is easily recognized by most aquarists, and fish farmers often are confronted with massive epizootic outbreaks to devastating economic effect.”
Ich (which causes “white spot disease”) is a ciliated protozoan parasite that bores into the skin and gills of fish where it feeds, destroying tissue and thereby blocking exchange of oxygen and carbon dioxide, usually leading to death of the host.Each parasite grows on the fish from roughly 40 microns, which cannot be seen by the naked eye, to approximately one millimeter in diameter, which can easily be seen as a white spot. The parasites leave the fish in about 5-6 days (a ciliate with its typical large nucleus is shown in the image). Each cell then divides multiple times to produce up to 1000 more infective organisms.The entire life cycle takes about 6-7 days.With subsequent rounds of infection the number of parasites continues to increase, and each wave of re-infection becomes more deadly than the last.By the second or third re-infection the fish population is usually overwhelmed and fish begin to die.Fish that survive mild infections can develop immunity.
There are currently no drugs or chemicals that kill Ich while it resides in the fish skin or gills; they can only kill Ich when the parasite is in the water, and therefore all current therapies require a cyclical re-treatment program.
The first major outbreak of Ich in North America was recorded at the Chicago World’s Fair in 1893.Ich is a well-known problem for aqua-culturists, aquarium owners, pond owners, hobbyists and retailers of freshwater fish.People and birds can also carry the parasite, unknowingly, from pond to pond.
“Work to sequence the genome of this parasitic protozoan unexpectedly revealed that bacterial DNA sequences were also present,” noted Craig Findly, one of the college’s researchers on the project.“Following up this discovery led to our demonstration that two new species of intracellular bacteria use Ich as their host.We now need to determine if these intracellular bacteria play a role in infection.”
Next, the researchers will try to determine what role the two organisms play in the physiology of Ich and whether Ich remain infective if the bacteria are removed.The scientists hope their finding takes them a step closer to developing better treatments for Ich.
The UGA College of Veterinary Medicine, founded in 1946, is dedicated to training future veterinarians, to conducting research related to animal diseases, and to providing veterinary services for animals and their owners.Research efforts are aimed at enhancing the quality of life for animals and people, improving the productivity of poultry and livestock, and preserving a healthy interface between wildlife and people in the environment they share.The current Teaching Hospital, built in 1979, serves more than 18,000 patients per year in one of the smallest teaching hospitals in the United States.The college is currently working to raise $15 million toward building a new Veterinary Medical Learning Center, which will include a new teaching hospital as well as classrooms and laboratories that will allow for the education of more veterinarians. More veterinarians are needed to promote food safety and protect public health and to provide veterinary services for farm and companion animals owned by a rapidly growing regional population.The college enrolls 102 students each fall out of more than 550 who apply.The goal is to increase enrollment to 150 when the Veterinary Medical Learning Center is built.
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Friday, August 7, 2009
Male or female? The chicken industry cares
Chickens, like most animals, typically produce equal numbers of males and females. But this natural sex ratio doesn’t always work in the poultry industry’s economic favor. A University of Georgia researcher is working on ways to skew the chicken’s sex ratio to help the industry streamline production and make more money.
Chickens are big business in Georgia, worth $4.9 billion in 2008, or 41 percent of the state’s total agricultural value. The industry is split into two areas: meat production and egg production.
Chickens raised for meat are called broilers. For this part of the industry, the females of this breed are less profitable. On average, male broilers weigh half a pound more than females at market age, and they eat 5 percent less feed.
For the egg-laying breed, females are prized over males, obviously, because males can’t grow up to produce eggs.
Kristen Navara, a poultry scientist with the UGA College of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences, is trying to determine how to control avian sex ratios.
“In nature, it is a necessary strategy to adjust offspring sex in relation to the environment,” she said. “Humans, rodents, birds all skew sex ratios. It is clear females need the ability to adjust offspring for the environment where they will be born or hatched into.”
Navara has recently studied skewed sex ratios in hamsters and humans in relation to day length. She is now looking for the mechanism that can control the ratios in poultry and finches. She’s using hormones, particularly corticosterone, to find that mechanism.
Injecting female birds with a burst of corticosterone just before ovulation produced a sex ratio skewed toward males, or 81 percent.
She believes she can flip the ratio to favor males or females using hormones or aggravates, which stop the secretion of corticosterone.
Sara Beth Pinson, a graduate student in Navara’s lab, is coordinating studies to determine the optimal dose of corticosterone to produce the desired result. They are also testing different durations of the hormone treatment to determine how long-term treatments affect offspring sex. Research results could be available in six months.
Focused on species survival, Navara is also looking at sex ratios in zebra finches. “This is where it started, in an ecological context,” she said. “We are really interested in how a species survives. If we could figure out how to adjust the sex ratio of avian offspring, it could really help in conservation efforts.”
This research “is something the industry has been looking for for years,” said Mike Lacy, head of the CAES poultry science department. “The U.S. poultry and egg industry funded Dr. Navara to do this research because it is something the industry is very interested in.”
It is important to note that no chickens used for food are given hormones. Navara’s research is only using hormones to discover the mechanism. “Broilers are not treated with hormones. The industry does not treat with hormones and never will,” Lacy said.
“So far, the hormone injections seem to work, but what we want to do is find the mechanism the hormone is working through and then produce a non-hormonal treatment for the birds. That is the optimal way to go,” she said.
By April Sorrow
University of Georgia
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Chickens are big business in Georgia, worth $4.9 billion in 2008, or 41 percent of the state’s total agricultural value. The industry is split into two areas: meat production and egg production.
Chickens raised for meat are called broilers. For this part of the industry, the females of this breed are less profitable. On average, male broilers weigh half a pound more than females at market age, and they eat 5 percent less feed.
For the egg-laying breed, females are prized over males, obviously, because males can’t grow up to produce eggs.
Kristen Navara, a poultry scientist with the UGA College of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences, is trying to determine how to control avian sex ratios.
“In nature, it is a necessary strategy to adjust offspring sex in relation to the environment,” she said. “Humans, rodents, birds all skew sex ratios. It is clear females need the ability to adjust offspring for the environment where they will be born or hatched into.”
Navara has recently studied skewed sex ratios in hamsters and humans in relation to day length. She is now looking for the mechanism that can control the ratios in poultry and finches. She’s using hormones, particularly corticosterone, to find that mechanism.
Injecting female birds with a burst of corticosterone just before ovulation produced a sex ratio skewed toward males, or 81 percent.
She believes she can flip the ratio to favor males or females using hormones or aggravates, which stop the secretion of corticosterone.
Sara Beth Pinson, a graduate student in Navara’s lab, is coordinating studies to determine the optimal dose of corticosterone to produce the desired result. They are also testing different durations of the hormone treatment to determine how long-term treatments affect offspring sex. Research results could be available in six months.
Focused on species survival, Navara is also looking at sex ratios in zebra finches. “This is where it started, in an ecological context,” she said. “We are really interested in how a species survives. If we could figure out how to adjust the sex ratio of avian offspring, it could really help in conservation efforts.”
This research “is something the industry has been looking for for years,” said Mike Lacy, head of the CAES poultry science department. “The U.S. poultry and egg industry funded Dr. Navara to do this research because it is something the industry is very interested in.”
It is important to note that no chickens used for food are given hormones. Navara’s research is only using hormones to discover the mechanism. “Broilers are not treated with hormones. The industry does not treat with hormones and never will,” Lacy said.
“So far, the hormone injections seem to work, but what we want to do is find the mechanism the hormone is working through and then produce a non-hormonal treatment for the birds. That is the optimal way to go,” she said.
By April Sorrow
University of Georgia
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Saturday, June 20, 2009
International group to discuss tracking monarch butterfly populations
An international panel of butterfly experts is landing at the University of Georgia next week to discuss the status of monarch butterfly populations in North America, and find ways to integrate and improve population monitoring programs.
The four-day workshop hopes to merge data from a number of groups monitoring the monarch butterfly in an ongoing effort to track the continent-wide population status of this iconic insect.
The meeting is being organized by Andy Davis, a monarch researcher and Ph.D. candidate in the Warnell School of Forestry and Natural Resources, and Sonia Altizer, who also studies monarchs and is an associate professor in the Odum School of Ecology. The workshop is being funded by the Commission for Environmental Cooperation, which has been spearheading efforts to devise an international conservation plan for the monarch butterfly in part by fostering communication between the governments of the United States, Mexico and Canada.
There are many organizations in North America that collect data on the monarch butterfly, said Davis. The purpose of next week’s meeting, he explained, is to create a plan for integrating existing data, some of which spans the last three decades, into a larger framework. A unified data resource will allow scientists to better track monarch population size and investigate the biology of this fascinating insect, according to Davis.
“The monarch butterfly is one of the best-known insects in the world, and a flagship species for conservation,” he said. “Their spectacular migration in eastern North America—which spans more than 2,000 miles—is in danger, partially because of a loss of winter habitat in Mexico, as well as anthropogenic pressures in breeding areas. While the species itself is globally-distributed, there’s a fear that the monarch butterfly in North America will suffer population declines because of these dual pressures.”
The all-day meetings are scheduled from June 22 through June 25. Meeting space and resources are being provided by the Warnell School of Forestry and Natural Resources and the Odum School of Ecology. About a dozen international butterfly experts are scheduled to attend the meetings, including Eduardo Rendon of WWF Mexico, Tara Crewe of Bird Studies Canada and Karen Oberhauser of the University of Minnesota. Warnell Professor Nate Nibbelink and Odum School postdoctoral student Becky Bartel also are on the panel.
“There have been several international meetings and reports targeted towards monarch conservation, but nothing quite like this before,” said Altizer. “To have all of the experts who collect long-term data on monarch abundance and migration in one room will be a big step forward in helping us predict the future status of monarch populations.”
“Improving access to monitoring data on the monarch will improve how we target research and conservation efforts for this species, and contribute to improving how we access and manage biodiversity data more broadly in North America,” said Thomas Hammond, who is with the Commission for Environmental Cooperation. “Improving access and use of biodiversity data will also assist in advancing our understanding of ecosystem response to stresses such as climate change, and how best to adapt to these stresses.”
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The four-day workshop hopes to merge data from a number of groups monitoring the monarch butterfly in an ongoing effort to track the continent-wide population status of this iconic insect.
The meeting is being organized by Andy Davis, a monarch researcher and Ph.D. candidate in the Warnell School of Forestry and Natural Resources, and Sonia Altizer, who also studies monarchs and is an associate professor in the Odum School of Ecology. The workshop is being funded by the Commission for Environmental Cooperation, which has been spearheading efforts to devise an international conservation plan for the monarch butterfly in part by fostering communication between the governments of the United States, Mexico and Canada.
There are many organizations in North America that collect data on the monarch butterfly, said Davis. The purpose of next week’s meeting, he explained, is to create a plan for integrating existing data, some of which spans the last three decades, into a larger framework. A unified data resource will allow scientists to better track monarch population size and investigate the biology of this fascinating insect, according to Davis.
“The monarch butterfly is one of the best-known insects in the world, and a flagship species for conservation,” he said. “Their spectacular migration in eastern North America—which spans more than 2,000 miles—is in danger, partially because of a loss of winter habitat in Mexico, as well as anthropogenic pressures in breeding areas. While the species itself is globally-distributed, there’s a fear that the monarch butterfly in North America will suffer population declines because of these dual pressures.”
The all-day meetings are scheduled from June 22 through June 25. Meeting space and resources are being provided by the Warnell School of Forestry and Natural Resources and the Odum School of Ecology. About a dozen international butterfly experts are scheduled to attend the meetings, including Eduardo Rendon of WWF Mexico, Tara Crewe of Bird Studies Canada and Karen Oberhauser of the University of Minnesota. Warnell Professor Nate Nibbelink and Odum School postdoctoral student Becky Bartel also are on the panel.
“There have been several international meetings and reports targeted towards monarch conservation, but nothing quite like this before,” said Altizer. “To have all of the experts who collect long-term data on monarch abundance and migration in one room will be a big step forward in helping us predict the future status of monarch populations.”
“Improving access to monitoring data on the monarch will improve how we target research and conservation efforts for this species, and contribute to improving how we access and manage biodiversity data more broadly in North America,” said Thomas Hammond, who is with the Commission for Environmental Cooperation. “Improving access and use of biodiversity data will also assist in advancing our understanding of ecosystem response to stresses such as climate change, and how best to adapt to these stresses.”
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Friday, February 20, 2009
Brown Recluse Spider isn’t Typically a Southerner
Many Georgia doctors have likely diagnosed a patient’s suspect wound as a brown recluse spider bite. There’s just one problem with this: The spider really doesn’t call the Deep South home, says a University of Georgia spider expert.
Over the past six years, only 19 brown recluse spiders have been identified in a study conducted in Georgia for the spider. And most were found in the northwest corner of the state, said Nancy Hinkle, an entomologist with the UGA College of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences. Brown recluse spiders have only been collected 58 times in Georgia.
“Hundreds of entomologists, extension agents from across the state, thousands of pest control inspectors and millions of citizens have been able to find brown recluse spiders in only 31 Georgia counties,” she said.
From 2002 to May of 2008, Hinkle tracked verified brown recluse reports in Georgia. The findings were published in the January issue of the Journal of Medical Entomology.
The spider is brown but has a darker, violin-shaped design where its legs attach. With its legs extended, it's about the size of a quarter. If the brown recluse spiders in the state caused all the reported wounds, she said, they’d be very busy spiders.
Hinkle received thousands of samples from across the state. Rick Vetter from the University of California at Riverside identified the samples. He is the world's expert on the brown recluse spider.
Brown recluse spider bites are very rare in Georgia. Hinkle said there is only one confirmed account of anyone being bitten by one in Georgia. However, 963 reports of bites in 103 counties have been filed at Georgia poison centers in the last five years.
Over-diagnosis is a problem nationwide. Hinkle said South Carolina physicians diagnosed 738 bites in 2004, but only 44 brown recluse spiders have been found in the state’s recorded history. Similarly, Floridians claimed 95 brown recluse bites in 2000, but Florida has recorded brown recluse spiders at only 11 places in more than 100 years.
The study was prompted by Hinkle's arrival from California. "When I first came to Georgia, I heard several people say they knew someone who'd seen or been seriously wounded by a recluse," she said. "I found that odd since the recluse is a Midwesterner, not a Southerner."
The spider’s native range does include North Georgia, but its distribution is limited there.
Hinkle hopes the study will educate Georgia's medical community and reduce the number of erroneous recluse bite cases. A mark on the skin that looks like a spider bite could be something more serious.
She believes many assumed brown recluse bites could be methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus.
MRSA is a type of staph infection resistant to antibiotics like penicillin, amoxicillin and oxacillin. MRSA causes mild skin infections that result in pimples or boils, but it can also cause more serious skin lesions or infect surgical wounds.
Incorrectly diagnosing MRSA as a spider bite, and vice versa, can result in a patient getting the wrong therapy, Hinkle said.
“MRSA infections require a specific set of antibiotics,” she said. “Brown recluse spider bites, on the other hand, cause tissue damage by salivary secretions in their venom and antibiotics have no effect on salivary secretions.”
Other misdiagnosed wounds could be infections, insect bites, diabetes, bed sores, Lyme disease, anthrax or necrotizing bacteria, some of which can be fatal if not treated fast, she said.
Almost all brown recluse bites heal without medical intervention, Hinkle said. And in spite of all the horror stories, only 1 percent requires medical attention.
By April Sorrow
University of Georgia
April Sorrow is a news editor with the University of Georgia College of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences.
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Over the past six years, only 19 brown recluse spiders have been identified in a study conducted in Georgia for the spider. And most were found in the northwest corner of the state, said Nancy Hinkle, an entomologist with the UGA College of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences. Brown recluse spiders have only been collected 58 times in Georgia.
“Hundreds of entomologists, extension agents from across the state, thousands of pest control inspectors and millions of citizens have been able to find brown recluse spiders in only 31 Georgia counties,” she said.
From 2002 to May of 2008, Hinkle tracked verified brown recluse reports in Georgia. The findings were published in the January issue of the Journal of Medical Entomology.
The spider is brown but has a darker, violin-shaped design where its legs attach. With its legs extended, it's about the size of a quarter. If the brown recluse spiders in the state caused all the reported wounds, she said, they’d be very busy spiders.
Hinkle received thousands of samples from across the state. Rick Vetter from the University of California at Riverside identified the samples. He is the world's expert on the brown recluse spider.
Brown recluse spider bites are very rare in Georgia. Hinkle said there is only one confirmed account of anyone being bitten by one in Georgia. However, 963 reports of bites in 103 counties have been filed at Georgia poison centers in the last five years.
Over-diagnosis is a problem nationwide. Hinkle said South Carolina physicians diagnosed 738 bites in 2004, but only 44 brown recluse spiders have been found in the state’s recorded history. Similarly, Floridians claimed 95 brown recluse bites in 2000, but Florida has recorded brown recluse spiders at only 11 places in more than 100 years.
The study was prompted by Hinkle's arrival from California. "When I first came to Georgia, I heard several people say they knew someone who'd seen or been seriously wounded by a recluse," she said. "I found that odd since the recluse is a Midwesterner, not a Southerner."
The spider’s native range does include North Georgia, but its distribution is limited there.
Hinkle hopes the study will educate Georgia's medical community and reduce the number of erroneous recluse bite cases. A mark on the skin that looks like a spider bite could be something more serious.
She believes many assumed brown recluse bites could be methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus.
MRSA is a type of staph infection resistant to antibiotics like penicillin, amoxicillin and oxacillin. MRSA causes mild skin infections that result in pimples or boils, but it can also cause more serious skin lesions or infect surgical wounds.
Incorrectly diagnosing MRSA as a spider bite, and vice versa, can result in a patient getting the wrong therapy, Hinkle said.
“MRSA infections require a specific set of antibiotics,” she said. “Brown recluse spider bites, on the other hand, cause tissue damage by salivary secretions in their venom and antibiotics have no effect on salivary secretions.”
Other misdiagnosed wounds could be infections, insect bites, diabetes, bed sores, Lyme disease, anthrax or necrotizing bacteria, some of which can be fatal if not treated fast, she said.
Almost all brown recluse bites heal without medical intervention, Hinkle said. And in spite of all the horror stories, only 1 percent requires medical attention.
By April Sorrow
University of Georgia
April Sorrow is a news editor with the University of Georgia College of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences.
-----
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Friday, February 6, 2009
Researcher at the University of Georgia Helps Unravel Ways Capuchin Monkeys Select Effective Tools
When Tchaikovsky penned The Nutcracker, the last thing he probably had in mind was a capuchin monkey. And yet new research, co-directed by a researcher at the University of Georgia, is changing our view about which nutcracker should be the focus of our attention.
In research just published in the journal Current Biology, Dorothy Fragazy and her colleagues show for the first time that cat-sized wild bearded capuchin monkeys actually choose the most effective stone to crack hard palm nuts, a part of their natural diet.
The research at a site in Brazil is changing how science looks at tool use among primates and is the first report that capuchins don’t just use tools—they pick the right ones for the job.
“One of the important messages of this research is that we can take experiments into the field under limited conditions, and animals will come regularly to a place and, if given tasks to perform, they will participate,” said Fragazy, a psychologist and chair of the Neuroscience and Behavior Program.
Senior author on the paper was Elisabetta Visalberghi of the Institute of Science and Technology of Cognitive Sciences and Technologies (ICST) of the National Research Council in Rome. Other authors include Elsa Addessi, Valentine Truppa and Noemi Spagnoletti, also of ISTC; Eduardo Ottoni and Patricia Izar the University of São Paulo; and Fragazy, whose department at UGA is part of the Franklin College of Arts and Sciences.
The new research builds on earlier studies that, in 2004, reported the first direct scientific evidence of tool use among a population of wild capuchin monkeys. Fragazy and her colleagues first saw evidence of tool use for nut-cracking among Brazilian capuchins in a photo essay in a 2003 issue of BBC Wildlife magazine. That picture led to the discovery of a population of the monkeys that brings incredibly heavy stones to a site with pitted “anvil” areas that indicated long-term use.
The team of researchers was astonished at the capacity for tool-use among wild capuchins, something previously reported in primates only among chimpanzees. (Anecdotal evidence of monkey tool-use had been reported, but proof was sketchy at best.)
The new research shows that these incredibly agile monkeys (they can scale cliffs effortlessly) don’t just use tools: they actually select the right tool for the size palm nut they need to crack.
That decision is based on numerous variables, including the mineral composition of the stone, which affects its susceptibility to fracturing when it hits the hard nut, and its weight. Even when the heavier stone was of smaller volume than the lighter stone, the monkeys chose the heavier stone. And even younger monkeys selected stones very carefully.
However, although the monkeys select stones carefully, proficiency at cracking differs enormously across the group of monkeys.
“We put stones of various sizes and shapes out where the monkeys could use them as nutcrackers,” said Fragazy, “and we found that both size and expertise contribute to proficiency. The monkeys who were older and larger and had been cracking nuts for a long time were better at cracking.”
Even the youngest novice, however, was able to choose the best tool offered, an astonishing fact, considering that scientists didn’t even know these animals used tools until a few years ago.
One of the things that makes this study possible is that the scientists are dealing with a small group of animals—only 15 to 18 in the entire troop and 8 who actually participated in the current set of experiments. That closeness allows the researchers to recognize individuals and give them names.
Mansinho, for example, is the alpha male of the group, while Teimoso (which means “obstinate” or “stubborn” in Portuguese) is a subordinate male.
“One of the most remarkable is Dita, a female who gave birth to her first infant during the course of study on tool choice,” said Fragazy. “We have video of her getting a cracking stone and using it on the day of her baby’s birth.”
The last common ancestor between humans and capuchins was some 35 million years ago, so the discovery of selective tool use in capuchins opens new doors for ongoing research of the group, which is called EthoCebus and has a Web site that explains its work in depth: www.ip.usp.br/ebottoni/EthoCebus/echome.html.
While the work on tool selection is an important component of the study, the scope has broadened greatly since 2003 and continues to expand, said Fragazy. Such areas as kinematics (the science of movement) and the social context of nut-cracking await further study.
The new work is also giving scientists new insights into the differences in experimental work between captive and wild capuchins. Since capuchin monkeys in the wild have a lifespan of around 30 years, the work will happily go on for a long time to come.
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In research just published in the journal Current Biology, Dorothy Fragazy and her colleagues show for the first time that cat-sized wild bearded capuchin monkeys actually choose the most effective stone to crack hard palm nuts, a part of their natural diet.
The research at a site in Brazil is changing how science looks at tool use among primates and is the first report that capuchins don’t just use tools—they pick the right ones for the job.
“One of the important messages of this research is that we can take experiments into the field under limited conditions, and animals will come regularly to a place and, if given tasks to perform, they will participate,” said Fragazy, a psychologist and chair of the Neuroscience and Behavior Program.
Senior author on the paper was Elisabetta Visalberghi of the Institute of Science and Technology of Cognitive Sciences and Technologies (ICST) of the National Research Council in Rome. Other authors include Elsa Addessi, Valentine Truppa and Noemi Spagnoletti, also of ISTC; Eduardo Ottoni and Patricia Izar the University of São Paulo; and Fragazy, whose department at UGA is part of the Franklin College of Arts and Sciences.
The new research builds on earlier studies that, in 2004, reported the first direct scientific evidence of tool use among a population of wild capuchin monkeys. Fragazy and her colleagues first saw evidence of tool use for nut-cracking among Brazilian capuchins in a photo essay in a 2003 issue of BBC Wildlife magazine. That picture led to the discovery of a population of the monkeys that brings incredibly heavy stones to a site with pitted “anvil” areas that indicated long-term use.
The team of researchers was astonished at the capacity for tool-use among wild capuchins, something previously reported in primates only among chimpanzees. (Anecdotal evidence of monkey tool-use had been reported, but proof was sketchy at best.)
The new research shows that these incredibly agile monkeys (they can scale cliffs effortlessly) don’t just use tools: they actually select the right tool for the size palm nut they need to crack.
That decision is based on numerous variables, including the mineral composition of the stone, which affects its susceptibility to fracturing when it hits the hard nut, and its weight. Even when the heavier stone was of smaller volume than the lighter stone, the monkeys chose the heavier stone. And even younger monkeys selected stones very carefully.
However, although the monkeys select stones carefully, proficiency at cracking differs enormously across the group of monkeys.
“We put stones of various sizes and shapes out where the monkeys could use them as nutcrackers,” said Fragazy, “and we found that both size and expertise contribute to proficiency. The monkeys who were older and larger and had been cracking nuts for a long time were better at cracking.”
Even the youngest novice, however, was able to choose the best tool offered, an astonishing fact, considering that scientists didn’t even know these animals used tools until a few years ago.
One of the things that makes this study possible is that the scientists are dealing with a small group of animals—only 15 to 18 in the entire troop and 8 who actually participated in the current set of experiments. That closeness allows the researchers to recognize individuals and give them names.
Mansinho, for example, is the alpha male of the group, while Teimoso (which means “obstinate” or “stubborn” in Portuguese) is a subordinate male.
“One of the most remarkable is Dita, a female who gave birth to her first infant during the course of study on tool choice,” said Fragazy. “We have video of her getting a cracking stone and using it on the day of her baby’s birth.”
The last common ancestor between humans and capuchins was some 35 million years ago, so the discovery of selective tool use in capuchins opens new doors for ongoing research of the group, which is called EthoCebus and has a Web site that explains its work in depth: www.ip.usp.br/ebottoni/EthoCebus/echome.html.
While the work on tool selection is an important component of the study, the scope has broadened greatly since 2003 and continues to expand, said Fragazy. Such areas as kinematics (the science of movement) and the social context of nut-cracking await further study.
The new work is also giving scientists new insights into the differences in experimental work between captive and wild capuchins. Since capuchin monkeys in the wild have a lifespan of around 30 years, the work will happily go on for a long time to come.
-----
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Saturday, January 17, 2009
UGA Study may Give Hope that Ivory-Billed Woodpeckers Still Around
Until credible sightings popped up three years ago, the scientific world was in agreement that ivory-billed woodpeckers had gone the way of the dodo. A new study conducted by University of Georgia researchers reveals that the ivory-billed woodpecker could have persisted if as few as five mated pairs survived the extensive habitat loss during the early 1900’s. A new paper published in the online journal Avian Conservation and Ecology by researchers at the Warnell School of Forestry and Natural Resources adds another angle to the ongoing debate about modern existence of the birds.
Crow-sized and native to America’s ancient southeastern bottomland forests, the ivory-billed woodpecker was thought to have gone extinct following indiscriminate logging in the 1940s until reports began surfacing in the flooded forests of eastern Arkansas in 2004. Crisp photographic or genetic evidence continues to evade eager seekers, however, and controversy has raged about whether there were even enough of the woodpeckers left to keep the species going through the latter part of the 20th century.
“It doesn’t prove that they do exist,” said Warnell Professor Michael Conroy. “It just shows that they could have persisted.”
Conroy is one of several scientists on the team who conducted a population viability analysis, which was funded by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. Also on the team are Warnell post-doctoral students Brady Mattsson and Rua Mordecai, Warnell professors James Peterson and Robert Cooper, and Danish researcher Hans Christensen.
The ivory-billed woodpecker—nicknamed the “Lord God Bird” for its impressive physique and bold black and white plumage—has been the subject of intense debate among bird researchers. James Tanner, the only scientist to have studied this woodpecker intensively, estimated that only 24 breeding pairs remained in the 1930s. Although there have been credible sightings of the birds in Arkansas, Tennessee and the Florida panhandle, undisputed evidence of the woodpeckers has eluded ornithologists since the work of Tanner in the early 1900s. This lack of solid documentation has led many to question whether the ivory-billed woodpecker could still exist.
To find out, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service ordered a multi-state, intensive search effort for the elusive bird and a population viability analysis, which, among other things, assesses the population size and other factors required for the population to persist over specified time frames.
Mattsson, a former doctoral student working with Cooper, took the lead on the modeling project by constructing the population model and conducting the analysis. Based on information gleaned from the literature and unpublished sources on closely-related species of woodpeckers, Mattsson considered plausible ranges of initial population size, reproduction rates and adult survival rates to play games of “what if” with simulated woodpecker populations. What he found was that as few as five breeding pairs of these large woodpeckers could have ensured the persistence of ivory-billed woodpeckers in wooded swamps of the southeastern U.S. to this day.
He said his model is not meant to prove their existence, but “it gives people involved with the research team hope that they’re still out there,” and shows that sufficient levels of reproduction and survival are as important, if not more important, than large numbers of individuals for ensuring persistence of the species.
Cooper said that initially it was thought that the ivory-billed woodpeckers had a very small chance of persisting through modern times, but he believes Mattsson’s analysis shows that the probability is larger than originally suspected.
Conroy is optimistic about implications from their findings for similar species thought to have blinked out of existence.
“I think it gives us hope that remnants of [species] out there that we thought were extinct are still out there,” he said.
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Crow-sized and native to America’s ancient southeastern bottomland forests, the ivory-billed woodpecker was thought to have gone extinct following indiscriminate logging in the 1940s until reports began surfacing in the flooded forests of eastern Arkansas in 2004. Crisp photographic or genetic evidence continues to evade eager seekers, however, and controversy has raged about whether there were even enough of the woodpeckers left to keep the species going through the latter part of the 20th century.
“It doesn’t prove that they do exist,” said Warnell Professor Michael Conroy. “It just shows that they could have persisted.”
Conroy is one of several scientists on the team who conducted a population viability analysis, which was funded by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. Also on the team are Warnell post-doctoral students Brady Mattsson and Rua Mordecai, Warnell professors James Peterson and Robert Cooper, and Danish researcher Hans Christensen.
The ivory-billed woodpecker—nicknamed the “Lord God Bird” for its impressive physique and bold black and white plumage—has been the subject of intense debate among bird researchers. James Tanner, the only scientist to have studied this woodpecker intensively, estimated that only 24 breeding pairs remained in the 1930s. Although there have been credible sightings of the birds in Arkansas, Tennessee and the Florida panhandle, undisputed evidence of the woodpeckers has eluded ornithologists since the work of Tanner in the early 1900s. This lack of solid documentation has led many to question whether the ivory-billed woodpecker could still exist.
To find out, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service ordered a multi-state, intensive search effort for the elusive bird and a population viability analysis, which, among other things, assesses the population size and other factors required for the population to persist over specified time frames.
Mattsson, a former doctoral student working with Cooper, took the lead on the modeling project by constructing the population model and conducting the analysis. Based on information gleaned from the literature and unpublished sources on closely-related species of woodpeckers, Mattsson considered plausible ranges of initial population size, reproduction rates and adult survival rates to play games of “what if” with simulated woodpecker populations. What he found was that as few as five breeding pairs of these large woodpeckers could have ensured the persistence of ivory-billed woodpeckers in wooded swamps of the southeastern U.S. to this day.
He said his model is not meant to prove their existence, but “it gives people involved with the research team hope that they’re still out there,” and shows that sufficient levels of reproduction and survival are as important, if not more important, than large numbers of individuals for ensuring persistence of the species.
Cooper said that initially it was thought that the ivory-billed woodpeckers had a very small chance of persisting through modern times, but he believes Mattsson’s analysis shows that the probability is larger than originally suspected.
Conroy is optimistic about implications from their findings for similar species thought to have blinked out of existence.
“I think it gives us hope that remnants of [species] out there that we thought were extinct are still out there,” he said.
-----
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Tuesday, January 6, 2009
New Fish Species Discovered in GA River by UGA
While surveying fishes in Georgia's Flint River, Byron and Mary Freeman noticed that a certain darter fish had a striking orange color in its fins--much different than the Blackbanded darter that is prominent in the southwest Georgia River. The University of Georgia researchers had indeed come across a new species: the Halloween darter or Percina crypta.
"The Halloween darter is a great example of 'cryptic biodiversity' -- species that have gone unrecognized because they look a lot like other species that are known," explained Mary, an ecologist with the U.S. Geological Survey and the UGA Odum School of Ecology. "Ichthyologists have documented many new fish species in the southeastern U.S., showing that despite nearly 100 years of scientific study of fishes in this region, there are still surprises."
The newly discovered Halloween darter is less than five inches long and upon analysis, was found to have a host of differences from the Blackbanded darter. The fish is common to only a few areas of the Chattahoochee and Flint River systems because it requires habitats with swift water currents over rocky areas--shoals. Findings were reported in a recent issue of prominent zoological journal Zootaxa.
According to Mary, there are far fewer shoals today because of the rise of dams on rivers and streams, as well as the removal of rock shoals to improve rivers for navigation. The discovery of the Halloween darter has definite implications for conservation strategies.
"Keeping track of the status of the Halloween darter, along with other species that require shoal habitats in the Chattahoochee and Flint Rivers, will provide information on how shoals as ecological systems are responding to changes in land use, water management and climate," said Mary.
In addition to the Freemans, the research team included Noel Burkhead of the U.S. Geological Survey and Carrie Straight, a Ph.D. student at the UGA Odum School of Ecology.
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"The Halloween darter is a great example of 'cryptic biodiversity' -- species that have gone unrecognized because they look a lot like other species that are known," explained Mary, an ecologist with the U.S. Geological Survey and the UGA Odum School of Ecology. "Ichthyologists have documented many new fish species in the southeastern U.S., showing that despite nearly 100 years of scientific study of fishes in this region, there are still surprises."
The newly discovered Halloween darter is less than five inches long and upon analysis, was found to have a host of differences from the Blackbanded darter. The fish is common to only a few areas of the Chattahoochee and Flint River systems because it requires habitats with swift water currents over rocky areas--shoals. Findings were reported in a recent issue of prominent zoological journal Zootaxa.
According to Mary, there are far fewer shoals today because of the rise of dams on rivers and streams, as well as the removal of rock shoals to improve rivers for navigation. The discovery of the Halloween darter has definite implications for conservation strategies.
"Keeping track of the status of the Halloween darter, along with other species that require shoal habitats in the Chattahoochee and Flint Rivers, will provide information on how shoals as ecological systems are responding to changes in land use, water management and climate," said Mary.
In addition to the Freemans, the research team included Noel Burkhead of the U.S. Geological Survey and Carrie Straight, a Ph.D. student at the UGA Odum School of Ecology.
-----
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Friday, October 17, 2008
UGA Study Reveals Ecosystem-Level Consequences of Frog Extinctions
In some parts of the tropics, frogs are the most abundant land vertebrates. This peculiar-looking casque-headed tree frog is one of the estimated hundreds of species of tropical frogs.Photo by Scott Connelly/UGA
Streams that once sang with the croaks, chirps and ribbits of dozens of frog species have gone silent. They’re victims of a fungus that’s decimating amphibian populations worldwide.
Such catastrophic declines have been documented for more than a decade, but until recently scientists knew little about how the loss of frogs alters the larger ecosystem. A University of Georgia study that is the first to comprehensively examine an ecosystem before and after an amphibian population decline has found that tadpoles play a key role keeping the algae at the base of the food chain productive.
“Many things that live in the stream depend on algae as a base food resource,” said lead author Scott Connelly, a doctoral student who will graduate in December from the UGA Odum School of Ecology. “And we found that the system was more productive when the tadpoles were there.”
The results, which appear in the early online edition of the journal Ecosystems, demonstrate how the grazing activities of tadpoles help keep a stream healthy. The researchers found that while the amount of algae in the stream was more than 250 percent greater after the amphibian population decline, the algae were less productive at turning sunlight and nutrients into food for other members of the ecosystem. Without tadpoles swimming along the streambed and stirring up the bottom, the amount of sediment in the stream increased by nearly 150 percent, blocking out sunlight that algae need to grow.
The study is part of a larger effort known as the Tropical Amphibian Declines in Streams (TADS) project, which also involves researchers from Southern Illinois University, Drexel University and the University of Alabama. The project is now in its third round of funding by the National Science Foundation and was initiated by Catherine Pringle (UGA Odum School of Ecology) and Karen Lips (Southern Illinois University) in 2000 through a Small Grant for Exploratory Research (SGER) from the NSF. Connelly and Pringle are monitoring in-stream effects of the population decline on algae, while other team members are studying how the loss of frogs impacts other organisms and the transfer of energy between streams and the terrestrial communities that surround them. Preliminary data show that the number of snakes that feed on frogs, for example, has plummeted after the population decline.
“We were there before, during and after the extinction event and were able to look at the ecosystem and measure how it changed,” said Pringle, Distinguished Research Professor in the Odum School and study co-author. “Very rarely have scientists been able to do that with respect to any organism.”
The chytrid fungus responsible for declines has steadily marched southeast across Costa Rica and through much of Panama like a storm front, killing up to 90 percent of frogs in afflicted streams. In 2003, the team set up research sites on two streams in the pristine and lush highlands of Panama. One study site had already suffered a catastrophic amphibian decline, while the other had a healthy population but, based on its location, was directly in the path of the fungal disease.
In the first stage of their research, Connelly and Pringle assessed ecosystem changes that occur when tadpoles are experimentally excluded from small areas of both the healthy stream and the frogless stream. They found that the absence of the tadpoles resulted in more sediment and less productive algae.
In late 2004, frogs in the formerly healthy stream began dying. The team reassessed the stream and found that impact of the frog die-off was even greater than they had predicted in their exclusion studies. “We predicted the direction of the change,” Pringle said, “but underestimated its magnitude.”
The UGA research team is continuing to monitor the health of the streams to get valuable, long-term data. So far the stream has not rebounded. “It’s still sad going back,” Connelly said, to which Pringle added: “Once the frogs die, it’s like an incredible silence descends over the whole area. It’s eerie.”
To date, scientists have not found a way to stop the spread of the fungus in the wild. Broadly applying a fungicide to an entire watershed, Connelly said, would kill beneficial fungi that are necessary for a healthy ecosystem.
But scientists can cure individual frogs in captivity by simply swabbing them with a fungicide. Connelly has worked to protect frogs through Amphibian Ark, a global effort supported by zoos, botanical gardens, aquariums and research institutions that aims to ensure the survival of amphibians by collecting and breeding them. The Atlanta Botanical Garden is one of the key breeding sites.
“The one speck of hope is that if we’re able to collect some of these rare animals, we can cure them,” Connelly said. “As long as we have the money to keep a breeding program going, in the future it might be possible to reintroduce them into the wild.”
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Wednesday, September 3, 2008
UGA Vet Students to Host 2nd Annual 5K Run for World Rabies Day September 20
The University of Georgia College of Veterinary Medicine’s Student Chapter of the American Veterinary Medical Association is hosting a 5K run on Saturday, Sept. 20, in support of World Rabies Day. The course winds throughout the UGA campus, with the starting and finish lines at Stegeman Coliseum. Proceeds from the race will benefit the Alliance for Rabies Control, an international organization dedicated to the prevention of human rabies and eradication of rabies in dogs worldwide.
“Rabies impacts human as well as animal health and welfare,” said event organizer Zack Yasin. “It is completely preventable through vaccination, yet at least 55,000 people—mostly in underdeveloped countries—die annually. Our hope is to raise more awareness locally to support worldwide education efforts and help eradicate this deadly disease.”
Registration begins at 7:30 a.m. the day of the race, with the shotgun start beginning at 9 a.m. Awards for top male and female overall winners will be given, as well as for masters and the top three male and female runners in each age group. Registration cost is $20 the day of the race. The cost for pre-registration by Sept. 17 is $15. Each participant receives a t-shirt, complementary bananas, bagels and water. Leashed dogs with current rabies tags are welcome to join owners in the race.
For more information and to pre-register for the race, visit www.vet.uga.edu/SCAVMA.
by Tracy Giese
University of Georgia
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“Rabies impacts human as well as animal health and welfare,” said event organizer Zack Yasin. “It is completely preventable through vaccination, yet at least 55,000 people—mostly in underdeveloped countries—die annually. Our hope is to raise more awareness locally to support worldwide education efforts and help eradicate this deadly disease.”
Registration begins at 7:30 a.m. the day of the race, with the shotgun start beginning at 9 a.m. Awards for top male and female overall winners will be given, as well as for masters and the top three male and female runners in each age group. Registration cost is $20 the day of the race. The cost for pre-registration by Sept. 17 is $15. Each participant receives a t-shirt, complementary bananas, bagels and water. Leashed dogs with current rabies tags are welcome to join owners in the race.
For more information and to pre-register for the race, visit www.vet.uga.edu/SCAVMA.
by Tracy Giese
University of Georgia
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Friday, July 18, 2008
Interns Study 'Rare' Specimen
AAG Note: This story caught our attention. What a great way to spend the summer!
Four student interns with the Georgia Museum of Natural History are reconstructing the skeletal remains of a pygmy sperm whale as part of an upper level anthropology internship.
The skeleton of the small whale species was originally discovered in 1987,....
By David White
University of Georgia
Red and Black
July 17, 2008
Read the story.
Four student interns with the Georgia Museum of Natural History are reconstructing the skeletal remains of a pygmy sperm whale as part of an upper level anthropology internship.
The skeleton of the small whale species was originally discovered in 1987,....
By David White
University of Georgia
Red and Black
July 17, 2008
Read the story.
Saturday, June 7, 2008
UGA Given $4.1 Million to Study Disappearing Bees
Almost half the bee colonies in the United States died last winter. Many were the result of a disorder that causes the colony to literally collapse. Using a $4.1 million grant from the U.S. Department of Agriculture, scientists at the University of Georgia hope to find solutions to the problem that is killing bees in 36 states.
“Our long-term goal is to restore large and diverse populations of managed bee pollinators across the U.S. to sustain natural and agricultural plant communities,” said Keith Delaplane, an entomologist with the UGA College of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences. Delaplane will direct the four-year Coordinated Agriculture Project (CAP) that is part of a National Research Initiative funded through the USDA Cooperative State Research, Education and Extension Service.
A multidisciplinary team of researchers and extension specialists representing 17 states will be working on the project. The 19-member team will include specialists in epidemiology, virology, pathology, ecology, toxicology, bee biology, apiculture and integrated pest management.
The team will study colony collapse disorder. First identified in November 2006, CCD expresses itself in bee colonies where foragers have abandoned the nest. This leaves behind large quantities of untended young bees and honey.
Normally, weakened colonies are robbed clean by neighboring bees. When a colony is decimated by CCD the untended honey may remain untouched.
Scientists believe a combination of factors contribute to the phenomenon including pesticide exposure, environmental and nutritional stresses, new or reemerging pathogens and a new virus that targets the bees' immune systems.
“At this point it’s more forensic science than experimental science,” Delaplane said. “We have a set of symptoms but we don’t understand cause and effect.”
Initial research will focus on determining which of the factors are contributing causes of CCD, either individually or in combination.
“We are trying to look at CCD from every angle, address it with research and deliver the knowledge to clientele groups who need answers,” he said. “Expectations are high.”
After research is complete, the research team hopes to have some practical answers for beekeepers and growers of crops that rely on bees for pollination. Plans include developing best management practice guides, breeding strains of bees with genetic resistance to parasites and pathogens, improving the regulatory framework for better protection against pathogens, pests and parasites and creating Web-based distribution of science-based information on bee health and CCD. They are also laying the groundwork for a bee stock registry.
Honeybees pollinate about a third of the nation’s food supply and add $15 billion annually to U.S. crops. They pollinate 130 different fruits, vegetables and nuts including almonds, apples, avocados, blackberries, blueberries, broccoli, carrots, cherries, cucumbers, onions, peaches and soybeans.
Although they are an essential part of crop production, the impact of the honeybee pollination on human beings is not a matter of life or death, Delaplane said.
“More human calories are supplied by wind-pollinated cereals like wheat and rice,” he said. “However, when economies improve we see an increase in the consumption of meat and dairy products and bee-pollinated fruits like melons and berries.”
A comparative example is the difference in U.S. diets and those in countries like Sudan, he said. “That difference is largely explained by bee-pollinated crops,” he said.
While there are other bee pollinators, honeybees are the most prolific and easiest to manage for the large scale pollination the agriculture industry requires. In California, the almond crop alone needs 1.3 million bee colonies, about half of all honey bees in the country.
The number of managed bee colonies has dropped from five million in the 1940s to half that number today. To meet demand, commercial beekeepers truck bees to provide pollination services.
In addition to UGA, the institutions participating in the grant project are Connecticut Agricultural Experiment Station, Cornell University, Illinois Natural History Survey, North Carolina State University, Kentucky State University, Michigan State University, Penn State University, Purdue University, University of California-Riverside, University of Maine, University of Massachusetts, University of Minnesota, University of Nebraska, University of Tennessee, USDA ARS Weslaco, Texas and Washington State University.
by April Sorrow
University of Georgia
April Sorrow is a news editor with the University of Georgia College of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences.
“Our long-term goal is to restore large and diverse populations of managed bee pollinators across the U.S. to sustain natural and agricultural plant communities,” said Keith Delaplane, an entomologist with the UGA College of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences. Delaplane will direct the four-year Coordinated Agriculture Project (CAP) that is part of a National Research Initiative funded through the USDA Cooperative State Research, Education and Extension Service.
A multidisciplinary team of researchers and extension specialists representing 17 states will be working on the project. The 19-member team will include specialists in epidemiology, virology, pathology, ecology, toxicology, bee biology, apiculture and integrated pest management.
The team will study colony collapse disorder. First identified in November 2006, CCD expresses itself in bee colonies where foragers have abandoned the nest. This leaves behind large quantities of untended young bees and honey.
Normally, weakened colonies are robbed clean by neighboring bees. When a colony is decimated by CCD the untended honey may remain untouched.
Scientists believe a combination of factors contribute to the phenomenon including pesticide exposure, environmental and nutritional stresses, new or reemerging pathogens and a new virus that targets the bees' immune systems.
“At this point it’s more forensic science than experimental science,” Delaplane said. “We have a set of symptoms but we don’t understand cause and effect.”
Initial research will focus on determining which of the factors are contributing causes of CCD, either individually or in combination.
“We are trying to look at CCD from every angle, address it with research and deliver the knowledge to clientele groups who need answers,” he said. “Expectations are high.”
After research is complete, the research team hopes to have some practical answers for beekeepers and growers of crops that rely on bees for pollination. Plans include developing best management practice guides, breeding strains of bees with genetic resistance to parasites and pathogens, improving the regulatory framework for better protection against pathogens, pests and parasites and creating Web-based distribution of science-based information on bee health and CCD. They are also laying the groundwork for a bee stock registry.
Honeybees pollinate about a third of the nation’s food supply and add $15 billion annually to U.S. crops. They pollinate 130 different fruits, vegetables and nuts including almonds, apples, avocados, blackberries, blueberries, broccoli, carrots, cherries, cucumbers, onions, peaches and soybeans.
Although they are an essential part of crop production, the impact of the honeybee pollination on human beings is not a matter of life or death, Delaplane said.
“More human calories are supplied by wind-pollinated cereals like wheat and rice,” he said. “However, when economies improve we see an increase in the consumption of meat and dairy products and bee-pollinated fruits like melons and berries.”
A comparative example is the difference in U.S. diets and those in countries like Sudan, he said. “That difference is largely explained by bee-pollinated crops,” he said.
While there are other bee pollinators, honeybees are the most prolific and easiest to manage for the large scale pollination the agriculture industry requires. In California, the almond crop alone needs 1.3 million bee colonies, about half of all honey bees in the country.
The number of managed bee colonies has dropped from five million in the 1940s to half that number today. To meet demand, commercial beekeepers truck bees to provide pollination services.
In addition to UGA, the institutions participating in the grant project are Connecticut Agricultural Experiment Station, Cornell University, Illinois Natural History Survey, North Carolina State University, Kentucky State University, Michigan State University, Penn State University, Purdue University, University of California-Riverside, University of Maine, University of Massachusetts, University of Minnesota, University of Nebraska, University of Tennessee, USDA ARS Weslaco, Texas and Washington State University.
by April Sorrow
University of Georgia
April Sorrow is a news editor with the University of Georgia College of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences.
Saturday, May 31, 2008
UGA Workshop Helps Counties Handle Animals During Disasters
After Hurricane Katrina, Don Hamilton and other University of Georgia employees took care of 3,000 abandoned animals for 10 days at a shelter in Mississippi. The experience sparked them to develop a workshop to help keep Georgia animals and citizens safer during disasters.
They’re now taking the “Handling Animals during Disasters” planning workshop to counties around Georgia.
“If you don’t have a place to shelter animals in disaster, people aren’t going to evacuate,” said Hamilton, homeland security coordinator for the UGA College of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences.
Georgia requires that each of its 159 counties have a local emergency operations plan. This plan contains a section on agriculture and natural resources, which includes handling companion animals. This is also required through the national Pet Evacuation Transportation Standards Act.
“After evacuation and disaster, there’s a tremendous problem with abandoned animals – dogs, cats, birds and livestock,” said Jeff Doles, director of Peach County’s Emergency Management Agency. “Before you can re-inhabit an area or allow citizens to return, you have to control the animal population. Now the encouragement is to take your animals with you so they don’t have to take care of themselves.”
Through the workshop, UGA experts helped Peach County research and develop its plan and guided various county players through mock disaster situations.
“They did a lot of groundwork where the rubber hits the road,” Doles said. “I can’t tell you how much help they were to us. We’re a small county. It would be virtually impossible for us to accomplish a plan of the magnitude we’ve got using our local resources.”
In February, Dole, UGA Cooperative Extension coordinator Frank Funderburk and others from the Fort Valley area tested their on-paper plan for handling animals in a disaster situation.
The two mock disasters “taught us to adapt,” said Doles, who is also the county’s fire chief. “We had some problems that we identified in our exercises, but we had a lot of strengths. I think it’s some of best training done in a while.”
The Georgia Department of Agriculture was a key player in the effort. UGA’s Fanning Institute helped facilitate it.
The county’s board of commissioners has since added the animal plan to the local emergency plan, which the city and county use to respond to and recover from any manmade or natural disaster.
As part of the plan, Doles is the first person county officials will call if there is a disaster. The third person on that list is Funderburk, who keeps a copy of the plan close by, ready to grab in case a tornado hits a veterinarian’s office or a hurricane sends evacuees up I-75, pets in hand, looking for shelter.
“I hope we don’t ever have to use it, but at least we’ve got a plan,” he said.
Hamilton is now helping emergency management officials in Brooks and Houston counties develop their own plans. These counties were chosen because of their proximity to Georgia’s interstates, their willingness to participate and their local resources.
The workshops are funded by a Department of Homeland Security grant through the Georgia Emergency Management Agency on behalf of the Association County Commissioners of Georgia.
By Stephanie Schupska
University of Georgia
Stephanie Schupska is a news editor with the University of Georgia College of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences.
They’re now taking the “Handling Animals during Disasters” planning workshop to counties around Georgia.
“If you don’t have a place to shelter animals in disaster, people aren’t going to evacuate,” said Hamilton, homeland security coordinator for the UGA College of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences.
Georgia requires that each of its 159 counties have a local emergency operations plan. This plan contains a section on agriculture and natural resources, which includes handling companion animals. This is also required through the national Pet Evacuation Transportation Standards Act.
“After evacuation and disaster, there’s a tremendous problem with abandoned animals – dogs, cats, birds and livestock,” said Jeff Doles, director of Peach County’s Emergency Management Agency. “Before you can re-inhabit an area or allow citizens to return, you have to control the animal population. Now the encouragement is to take your animals with you so they don’t have to take care of themselves.”
Through the workshop, UGA experts helped Peach County research and develop its plan and guided various county players through mock disaster situations.
“They did a lot of groundwork where the rubber hits the road,” Doles said. “I can’t tell you how much help they were to us. We’re a small county. It would be virtually impossible for us to accomplish a plan of the magnitude we’ve got using our local resources.”
In February, Dole, UGA Cooperative Extension coordinator Frank Funderburk and others from the Fort Valley area tested their on-paper plan for handling animals in a disaster situation.
The two mock disasters “taught us to adapt,” said Doles, who is also the county’s fire chief. “We had some problems that we identified in our exercises, but we had a lot of strengths. I think it’s some of best training done in a while.”
The Georgia Department of Agriculture was a key player in the effort. UGA’s Fanning Institute helped facilitate it.
The county’s board of commissioners has since added the animal plan to the local emergency plan, which the city and county use to respond to and recover from any manmade or natural disaster.
As part of the plan, Doles is the first person county officials will call if there is a disaster. The third person on that list is Funderburk, who keeps a copy of the plan close by, ready to grab in case a tornado hits a veterinarian’s office or a hurricane sends evacuees up I-75, pets in hand, looking for shelter.
“I hope we don’t ever have to use it, but at least we’ve got a plan,” he said.
Hamilton is now helping emergency management officials in Brooks and Houston counties develop their own plans. These counties were chosen because of their proximity to Georgia’s interstates, their willingness to participate and their local resources.
The workshops are funded by a Department of Homeland Security grant through the Georgia Emergency Management Agency on behalf of the Association County Commissioners of Georgia.
By Stephanie Schupska
University of Georgia
Stephanie Schupska is a news editor with the University of Georgia College of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences.
Tuesday, January 22, 2008
UGA College of Veterinary Medicine sets annual Open House for April 4
The University of Georgia’s College of Veterinary Medicine will hold its annual Open House on Friday, April 4 from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. A parade of dog breeds, rodeo and farrier demonstrations, and veterinary hospital tours are just some of the activities available at the event sponsored by UGA’s veterinary students.
This annual event will focus on veterinary medicine as an exciting, rewarding career, and will demonstrate the variety of career options available to veterinary medicine graduates.
“This is a wonderful opportunity for young people to see firsthand the role of today’s veterinarian,” said Dr. Lari Cowgill, faculty advisor for Open House. “Veterinary medicine entails so much more than the care of cats, dogs, horses and cows. What we learn from animal health has a significant impact on public health issues.”
Other activities will include horseshoeing, hatching quail eggs, face painting, a dog dancing demonstration, and question and answer sessions with current veterinary students. Children also may assist while veterinary students repair their favorite stuffed playmates in the Teddy Bear Surgery area.
“Last year we had a record turnout, and we anticipate the same response this year,” said Denise Brinson, vice president of the class of 2010 and co-organizer of the event. “Parents and teachers look forward to this each year, and the kids always have a great time interacting with the animals and the veterinary students.”
In addition, tours of the small and large animal hospitals will be available all day, with scientific exhibits showcasing every kind of animal from dogs to horses to exotics. Students will sell snack and lunch items, refreshments and UGA merchandise.
Admission is free and open to the public. Parking will be available at the softball complex on Milledge Avenue with shuttles running to the college throughout the day. Maps also will be available to ease navigation through the exhibits.
The University of Georgia College of Veterinary Medicine, founded in 1946, is dedicated to training future veterinarians, providing services to animal owners and veterinarians, and conducting investigations to improve the health of animals as well as people. The college benefits pets and their owners, food-producing animals and wildlife by offering the highest quality hospital and diagnostic laboratory services. Equipped with the most technologically advanced facilities located on a university campus, the college is dedicated to safeguarding public health by studying emerging infectious diseases that affect both animal and human health. The college enrolls 96 students each fall out of more than 500 who apply. It has more than 130 faculty members.For more information and scheduling updates closer to the event, please visit www.vet.uga.edu/ERC/openhouse.
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