Pacific Union College

Documenting the upper elevation limits of mammal species is important to better understand their nutritional and physiological limits, and to document distributional shifts in response to global warming and human activities. The Bushy-tailed Woodrat (Neotoma cinerea) inhabits a variety of montane habitats, although rarely above the treeline, throughout western North America. In Canada, it has been reported at elevations as high as 2380 m in British Columbia and 2195 m in Alberta. On 12 August 2022, we photographed an individual at an elevation of 3204 m on the South Ridge of Bugaboo Spire in Bugaboo Provincial Park, British Columbia, Canada, providing a new high-elevation record for the province.

Introduction: Sea urchins of the genus Echinometra are ecosystem engineers that burrow into lower intertidal and subtidal rocks, creating shelter for themselves and a variety of marine animals. Objective: To test the hypothesis that motile macroinvertebrates and fishes shelter proportionately more frequently in burrows with Echinometra mathaei, whose spines potentially offer additional protection, than in burrows without E. mathaei. Methods: We studied the motile macroinvertebrates and fishes sheltering in the burrows of the Indo-Pacific Rock-boring Urchin E. mathaei (Type C) at Mana Island, Fiji. Results: Burrows with E. mathaei averaged shorter in length than burrows without E. mathaei. We observed 42 motile macroinvertebrates of at least eight species and 49 fishes of at least eight species in burrows with E. mathaei (n = 1 127), and four motile macroinvertebrates of three species and one fish of one species in burrows lacking E. mathaei (n = 243). Motile macroinvertebrates occurred with statistically equal frequencies in burrows with E. mathaei (3.6 %) and in burrows without E. mathaei (2.5 %). Fishes occurred significantly more frequently in burrows with E. mathaei (4.3 %) than in burrows without E. mathaei (0.4 %). Conclusion: Fishes, but not motile macroinvertebrates, gain more protection from predators by sheltering in burrows with sea urchins, whose spines offer additional protection, than in burrows without sea urchins.

Background: Annually, there are 3.7 billion downloads of mobile health apps. There are 275.6 million smartphones in the US. Diabetes affects 34.2 million people and 88 million have prediabetes. Diabetes is a risk factor for COVID-19 and affects longterm health of the survivors. Other risk factors for COVID-19, include race and gender. There are also linguistic barriers to care in Diabetes and COVID-19. Both diabetes and COVID-19 have higher risks associated with race and ethnicity. With the pandemic, the US government, Google and Facebook, in March 2020, provided emergency grants for COVID-19 and dissemination of public education. Did the Diabetes apps meet this moment of public health crisis?. Purpose: Do Diabetes Apps provide information about COVID-19 and its risk factors? Methods: Using the search term “diabetes,” the top ten most downloaded android and iOS apps were assessed in the Google Play Store/Apple App Store, respectively. Inclusion criteria: 1) Android: Downloads > 100,000; iOS: Reviews > 300, star rating >4. Apple App store does not provide download information. 2) Free; 3) Ability to track health data: HbA1C, FBS; 4) Language Accessibility via in-app language settings. Results: In the Google Play Store(DROID), the top ten apps in descending order were: 1) mySugr, 2) Onetouch Reveal, 3) OneDrop Diabetes Management, 4) Diabetes: M, 5) Health2Sync - Diabetes Care, 6) Diabetes, 7) Ontrack Diabetes, 8) Blood Glucose Tracker, 9) Glucose Buddy Diabetes Tracker, and 10) Diabetes Connect. In the Apple App Store(iOS), the top ten apps in descending order were: 1) OneTouch Reveal, 2) Glucose Buddy Diabetes, 3) One Drop for Diabetes, 4) Glucose - Blood Sugar Tracker, 5) Blood Sugar Monitor by Dario, 6) mySugr, 7) Sugarmate, 8) DiabetesPal, 9) Diabetes:M, 10) Center Health - The Diabetes App. Of the 10 DROID apps: 0/10 had COVID symptom information in the app; 3/10 had a COVID statement; In-app language settings: 2/10 had Spanish and 1/10 had Chinese. Gender: 7/10 Droid apps. Race/Ethnicity: 0/10. Of the ten iOS apps: 0/10 had COVID symptom information in the app; 4/10 had a COVID statement (Only mySugr has CDC link for COVID information); In-app language settings: 1/10 had Spanish and 0/10 had Chinese settings. Gender: 9/10 Droid apps; 7/10 iOS apps, Race/Ethnicty:1/10. Conclusion: Of the top 20 diabetes apps, none had information about COVID-19 and its symptoms within the app. Also, the overall language accessibility is limited. Despite popularity of ehealth, physicians can continue to play an important role in public education about Diabetes and COVID-19 during this important time of the pandemic.

We studied the association of 11 species of fishes with 5 species of echinoids at Roatán, Honduras, from 27 August to 1 September 2017. Fishes associated most frequently with the echinoid Diadema antillarum (34.3% of echinoids, six fish species, n = 146 echinoids), followed by Echinometra viridis (25.0%, three fish species, n = 12), Echinometra lucunter (7.5%, ten fish species, n = 1,834), Eucidaris tribuloides (3.4%, four fish species, n = 116), and Tripneustes ventricosus (7.1%, one fish species, n = 28). Of 196 fishes seeking shelter beside echinoids, Malacoctenus aurolineatus was the most common (41.8% of fishes, three echinoid species), followed by Stegastes adustus (38.8%, three echinoid species), Stegastes diencaeus (6.6%, three echinoid species), Sargocentron coruscum (6.1%, five echinoid species), Chaetodon capistratus (1.5%, one echinoid species), Gobioclinus filamentosus (1.5%, one echinoid species), Pomacanthus paru (1.0%, two echinoid species), Labrisomus nuchipinnis (1.0%, two echinoid species), Equetus punctatus (0.5%, one echinoid species), Microspathodon chryurus (0.5%, one echinoid species), and Thalassoma bifasciatum (0.5%, one echinoid species). None of the fishes associated exclusively with echinoids or was specialized for associating with echinoids, indicating the association was facultative. All fishes were small (< 12 cm). Fishes associated most frequently with the longest-spined echinoid, D. antillarum, supporting the hypothesis that fishes seek shelter among the spines of echinoids to benefit from increased protection from predation.

The ion-atom merged-beam apparatus at Oak Ridge National Laboratory in Oak Ridge, Tennessee has been successful in measuring absolute cross sections of charge transfer between atomic ions and hydrogen atoms for many years. Moreover, the first molecular ion measurements with the current version of the apparatus, performed for D2+ + H, are used to benchmark theory between 0.5 - 2 keV/u including vibrationally specific adiabatic theory for the (H2–H)+ complex, the most fundamental ion-molecule two-electron system. The absolute cross section of direct charge transfer in D2+ + H was measured with the merged-beam apparatus between 2.0 keV/u - 10 keV/u, and is presented here. The new measurements agree with McGrath et al. measurements at their lowest energy of 10 keV/u. These new measurements show that, besides the local maximum at 0.1 keV/u observed in our previous measurements, the absolute cross section also has a maximum around 2.2 keV/u, delineating an oscillation-like structure.

Grebes (Podicipedidae) are primarily diurnal although migration occurs at night and some species forage opportunistically at night. We used motion-activated cameras to study nocturnal reproductive activities of the western grebe, Aechmophorus occidentalis, and Clark’s grebe, Aechmophorus clarkii, at Clear Lake, California, USA, during 2014–2016. During 9283 h of monitoring, 19.4% of rushing displays (n = 75) and 8.4% of copulations (n = 435), plus two weed dancing displays and four instances of egg-laying, occurred at night. Nocturnal copulation and egg-laying often occurred on empty, recently abandoned nests, but some incubating pairs of grebes also copulated at night. Nocturnal reproductive activities occurred more frequently at nests attached to submergent vegetation in open water far from shore when water levels were low than on nests attached to emergent vegetation close to shore when water levels were high, probably due to a reduced risk of predation by nocturnal mammals farther from shore. Nocturnal reproductive activities were not in response to elevated light levels at night, daylight disturbances, diurnal predation, high temperatures on hot days, or sexual interference during daylight. Instead, grebes attempted to increase mating investment and minimize parental investment by exploiting recently abandoned nests at night, and perhaps by undertaking extrapair copulations under the cover of darkness, but some pairs of grebes may simply extended routine reproductive activities into the night. Reproductive activities are probably limited at night by the need to feed during daylight and sleep at night, and by the increased risk of predation by mammals at night. Given the high costs of construction and maintenance of floating nests and the obvious benefit of quickly exploiting abandoned nests, nocturnal reproductive activities may occur more frequently in grebes and other waterbirds using floating nests than in other groups of birds whose reproductive activities occur mostly during daylight.