Lack of Evolution Acceptance Inhibits Students’ Negotiation of Biology-based Socioscientific Issues

The purpose of this study was to explore science content used during college students’ negotiation of biology-based socioscientific issues (SSI) and examine how it related to students’ conceptual understanding and acceptance of biological evolution. The Socioscientific Issues Questionnaire (SSI-Q) was developed to measure depth of evolutionary science content use during SSI negotiation. Fifty-two upper level undergraduate biology and non-biology majors completed the SSI-Q and also the Conceptual Inventory of Natural Selection to assess evolution understanding and the Measure of Acceptance of the Theory of Evolution to appraise evolution acceptance. A multiple regression analysis tested for interaction effects between the predictor variables, evolution understanding and evolution acceptance. Results indicate that college students primarily use science concepts related to evolution to negotiate biology-based SSI including variation in a population, inheritance of traits, differential success, and change through time. The hypothesis that the extent of one’s acceptance of evolution is a mitigating factor in how science content related to evolution is evoked during SSI negotiation was supported by the data, in that such content was consistently evoked by participants for each of the three SSI scenarios used in this study.     

Analysing the impact of communication and public participation on the acceptability of Germany’s Black Forest National Park

For successful management and development of protected areas in general, and national parks (NPs) more specifically, a high acceptance by local residents, interest groups, and policy makers is needed. Communication and participation as influencing factors of acceptability have mostly been analysed for already established NPs. Until today, there is little evidence as to whether communication and participation are relevant factors for gaining acceptance of NPs in their establishing phase. Using survey data regarding Black Forest NP (Germany), our aim is to ascertain how the NP administration’s communication and the participatory opportunities it provided affected the NP’s acceptability before its establishment in 2014, and how acceptability changed thereafter. The main results are: In 2014, half of the local population accepted Black Forest NP; and over the course of five years, this number increased only slightly. Regarding the information provided by the NP administration through different means of communication, almost half of the respondents felt (very) well-informed at both queried times. The public participation process accompanying the NP’s establishing phase was rated as good or very good by roughly one third of the respondents; while another third evaluated it as bad or very bad. The general participation efforts by the NP administration were evaluated mostly critically. However, respondents who showed a positive attitude towards the NP in 2019 were those who felt well-informed, rated the material as informative, the NP’s communication as honest, and the participation process as positive. Respondents were more likely to report a positive change within acceptability if they felt well-informed, had a positive impression of the NP rangers, and rated the general participation efforts as positive. These results are an important step toward better understanding the complexity of attitude formation, and they provide statistical evidence that communication and participation can influence the acceptability of protected areas from their early beginnings. Beyond our results regarding Black Forest NP, we also draw conclusions and recommendation of broader relevance.     

Procedure control and acceptance sampling plans for donor sperm banks: a theoretical study

The publication of European Directive 2004/23/EC in the European Parliament and in the European Council on 31 March 2004 concerning the setting of standards of quality and safety for the donation, procurement, testing, processing, preservation, storage and distribution of human cells and tissues made it obligatory for sperm banks to set up quality control systems to ensure, among other goals, the satisfactory control of all procedures carried out. The objective of the present study is to set out guidelines that will make it possible to ensure the quality of the donors and frozen specimens accepted and the homogeneity of the samples supplied by a sperm bank. For this purpose, we shall describe clear-cut criteria for the acceptance of donors and frozen sperm, taking into account both analytic variability and the biological variations to be expected in semen parameters. Furthermore, we shall show how the evaluation of the results of a frozen semen specimen, on the basis of analysing a single straw after such freezing, does not guarantee the homogeneity of all the straws. Therefore, we must design a sampling plan to take into consideration all the straws obtained from a donor. This kind of plan will depend on different parameters, such as acceptable levels of quality and the tolerable rate of straws with defective semen, and will involve certain risks, both for the sperm bank and for the client. The establishment of these acceptance control criteria for frozen specimens and for donors could be of practical use for the control of the procedures applied in the operation of a sperm bank.     

Educational Malpractice: The Impact of Including Creationism in High School Biology Courses

College students whose recollections of their high school biology courses included creationism were significantly more likely to invoke creationism-based answers on questions derived from the Material Acceptance of the Theory of Evolution (MATE) instrument than were students whose recollections of their high school biology courses included evolution but not creationism. On average, students who were taught neither evolution nor creationism in their high school biology courses exhibited intermediary responses on the MATE instrument. These results suggest that (1) high school teachers’ treatments of evolution and creationism have a lasting impact and (2) the inclusion of creationism in high school biology courses increases the probability that students accept creationism and reject evolution when they arrive at college. These results are discussed relative to the impact of high school biology courses on students’ subsequent acceptance of evolution and creationism.     

Impact of calcium on N1 influenza neuraminidase dynamics and binding free energy

The highly pathogenic influenza strains H5N1 and H1N1 are currently treated with inhibitors of the viral surface protein neuraminidase (N1). Crystal structures of N1 indicate a conserved, high affinity calcium binding site located near the active site. The specific role of this calcium in the enzyme mechanism is unknown, though it has been shown to be important for enzymatic activity and thermostability. We report molecular dynamics (MD) simulations of calcium‐bound and calcium‐free N1 complexes with the inhibitor oseltamivir (marketed as the drug Tamiflu), independently using both the AMBER FF99SB and GROMOS96 force fields, to give structural insight into calcium stabilization of key framework residues. Y347, which demonstrates similar sampling patterns in the simulations of both force fields, is implicated as an important N1 residue that can “clamp” the ligand into a favorable binding pose. Free energy perturbation and thermodynamic integration calculations, using two different force fields, support the importance of Y347 and indicate a +3 to +5 kcal/mol change in the binding free energy of oseltamivir in the absence of calcium. With the important role of structure‐based drug design for neuraminidase inhibitors and the growing literature on emerging strains and subtypes, inclusion of this calcium for active site stability is particularly crucial for computational efforts such as homology modeling, virtual screening, and free energy methods. Proteins 2010. © 2010 Wiley‐Liss, Inc.     

Behavioural Acceptability of Sitona lepidus (Coleoptera: Curculionidae) to the Parasitoid Microctonus aethiopoides (Hymenoptera: Braconidae) Using the Pathogenic Bacterium Serratia marcescens Bizio

Microctonous aethiopoides Loan has been introduced into New Zealand to control the lucerne pest Sitona discoideus Gyllenhal (Coleoptera: Curculionidae). Sitona lepidus Gyllenhal (Coleoptera: Curculionidae) a pest of clover ( Trifolium spp.), has recently established in New Zealand. Laboratory experiments to test the potential of M. aethiopoides to parasitize S. lepidus has resulted in very low levels of parasitism. To investigate whether there were behavioural or physiological barriers to successful parasitism, two experiments were conducted using the insect pathogenic bacterium. Serratia marcescens Bizio as a marker for parasitoid ovipositor penetration. Firstly, M. aethiopoides 'treated' with S. marcescens were exposed to weevils and rapid weevil mortality was used to indicate ovipositor penetration. Up to 50% mortality of S. lepidus occurred, which was comparable with mortality observed in the permissive host Listronotus bonariensis . Dissection of S. lepidus exposed to parasitoids treated with distilled water showed that ca. 21% contained parasitoid eggs of which 98% were nonviable. In the second experiment, exposure periods of 24, 48 and 72 h to S. marcescens -treated parasitoids produced an increase in S. lepidus mortality of 14, 28 and 38%, respectively. There was 3% successful parasitoid development in weevils exposed for 72 h to parasitoids treated with distilled water. M. aethiopoides has been shown to develop successfully in a wide range of non-target weevil species both in the laboratory and field. Possible reasons for poor survival of M. aethiopoides immature stages in S. lepidus are discussed.     

Multiple Parasitism by Cotesia sesamiae and Cotesia flavipes (Hymenoptera: Braconidae) on Busseola fusca (Lepidoptera: Noctuidae)

Busseola fusca (Fuller) is one of the most important pest of cereals in sub-Saharan Africa. Cotesia sesamiae (Cameron) is the predominant parasitoid attacking B. fusca larvae in many parts of Africa. An exotic parasitoid, Cotesia flavipes Cameron, was introduced into Kenya in 1993 for the control of Chilo partellus (Swinhoe). Laboratory studies indicated that although C. flavipes would search for, and attack B. fusca , it was not able to complete its development in this host. The aim of the present study was to investigate the outcome of multiple parasitism of B. fusca by the two Cotesia species. The study showed that when both parasitoid species stung a B. fusca larva at the same time, both parasitoids emerged from more than half of the host larvae, C. flavipes alone emerged from 17%, and C. sesamiae alone emerged from 9%. When the larvae were parasitized by C. sesamiae first, and then 2 h later by C. flavipes , and vice versa, most of the progeny were C. flavipes . However, when B. fusca larvae were stung by C. sesamiae three days before oviposition by C. flavipes , significantly more C. sesamiae emerged from the larvae. When C. flavipes oviposited first, no larvae produced C. flavipes only. The interaction of parasitoids and the host immune system, and the implications of these results for the biological control of stem borers in East Africa are discussed.     

The effect of egg load on readiness to accept a low-quality host plant is weak and age dependent in a geometrid moth

Abstract.  1. Most empirical and theoretical studies treat egg load as a major determinant of insect oviposition behaviour, and predict a positive link between egg load and readiness to oviposit.
2. In the present study, the correlation between egg load and readiness to lay eggs on a low-ranked host was examined in wild-caught moths, Scotopteryx chenopodiata L. (Lepidoptera: Geometridae).
3. No overall effect of egg load on oviposition could be detected. However, there was a significant interaction between egg load and wing wear: in only one wing-wear class, out of four, high egg load tended to promote oviposition, while in the three other classes the effect was insignificant.
4. The results suggest that the effect of egg load on oviposition may depend on the age of the ovipositing insect.     

Multiple imputation for missing values through conditional Semiparametric odds ratio models

Multiple imputation is a practically useful approach to handling incompletely observed data in statistical analysis. Parameter estimation and inference based on imputed full data have been made easy by Rubin's rule for result combination. However, creating proper imputation that accommodates flexible models for statistical analysis in practice can be very challenging. We propose an imputation framework that uses conditional semiparametric odds ratio models to impute the missing values. The proposed imputation framework is more flexible and robust than the imputation approach based on the normal model. It is a compatible framework in comparison to the approach based on fully conditionally specified models. The proposed algorithms for multiple imputation through the Markov chain Monte Carlo sampling approach can be straightforwardly carried out. Simulation studies demonstrate that the proposed approach performs better than existing, commonly used imputation approaches. The proposed approach is applied to imputing missing values in bone fracture data.     

Morphological, anatomical and chemical characterization of white spruce ( Picea glauca ‘Conica’) differently aged needles and hypotheses on their influence on Oligonychus ununguis infestation

Our investigations suggest that the usually observed avoidance by O. ununguis of current year’s twigs of P. glauca ‘Conica’ as a place for feeding and development may be connected with their morphological and anatomical structure as well their biochemical composition. Needles of the current year’s twigs were covered with a thicker layer of wax and formed more extensive epidermis cell walls, in comparison with needles of 1-year-old twigs. Young needles also showed lower concentration of reducing sugars and soluble proteins, which might additionally reduce their nutritional suitability for mite development. Differences were also found between the 1-year-old growth and current growth in contribution of essential oils and a range of other compounds. Further analyses of the effect of these compounds on mite behavior may provide additional explanation of the feeding preferences of the mite.