Evolutionary theory predicts adaptive adjustment in offspring sex ratio by females. Seasonal change in sex ratio is one possibility, tested here in two sister species, the Common sandpiper and the Spotted sandpiper Actitis hypoleucos and A. macularia. In the monogamous Common sandpiper, males are the most competitive sex. In each of 3 years, there was a change from mainly sons in early clutches...

Wheel running was previously shown to influence body mass and torpor in short-day-acclimatized Djungarian hamsters (Phodopus sungorus). To determine whether the exercise-induced effect on body mass depends on the annual phase, hamsters were exposed to the natural change in photoperiod and given access to a running wheel (RW), either before, in the middle of, or at the end of the descending body...

One of the very important issues discussed in the recent two decades is climate change. Temperature is one of the indicative factors of climate change. The present research aimed at studying temporal variation in temperature over Guwahati, Tezpur, Dibrugarh (Mohanbari) and Silchar stations, Assam, India, during the period 1981–2010. Trends in annual and seasonal temperature series were analyzed...

The weather in Eurasia, Australia, and North and South America is largely controlled by the strength and position of extratropical storm tracks. Future climate change will likely affect these storm tracks and the associated transport of energy, momentum, and water vapour. Many recent studies have analyzed how storm tracks will change under climate change, and how these changes are related to at...

Title of Thesis: Changes in Cognitive-Behavioral Constructs Across Treatment Modalities for Seasonal Affective Disorder: Cognitive-Behavioral Therapy, Light Therapy, and Their Combination Kathryn Tierney Lindsey, Master of Science, 2003 Thesis directed by: Kelly J. Rohan, Ph.D. Assistant Professor Department of Medical and Clinical Psychology Changes in cognitive and behavioral factors have bee...

Understanding the rate of evolutionary change and the genetic architecture that facilitates rapid adaptation is a current challenge in evolutionary biology. Comparative studies show that genes with immune function are among the most rapidly evolving genes across a range of taxa. Here, we use immune defence in natural populations of Drosophila melanogaster to understand the rate of evolution in ...

This paper focuses on three case studies in which scientific assessments failed to accurately portray relevant scientific literature. Assessments are a form of “intelligence” in decision processes and thus have well established criteria for evaluation. Specifically, this paper asks two questions in the three case studies: Does the assessment faithfully represent the existing literature? If not,...

Current models for seasonal climate prediction are limited due to poor initialization of the land surface soil moisture states. Passive microwave remote sensing provides quantitative information on soil moisture in a thin near-surface soil layer at large scale. This information can be integrated with a land surface process model through data assimilation to give better prediction of the near su...

Surface vertical deformation includes the Earth's elastic response to mass loading on or near the surface. Continuous Global Positioning System (CGPS) stations record such deformations to estimate seasonal and secular mass changes. We used 41 CGPS stations to construct a time series of coordinate changes, which are decomposed by empirical orthogonal functions (EOFs), in northeastern Tibet. The ...