Dataset Information

Marsh rabbit mortalities tie pythons to the precipitous decline of mammals in the Everglades.

ABSTRACT: To address the ongoing debate over the impact of invasive species on native terrestrial wildlife, we conducted a large-scale experiment to test the hypothesis that invasive Burmese pythons (Python molurus bivittatus) were a cause of the precipitous decline of mammals in Everglades National Park (ENP). Evidence linking pythons to mammal declines has been indirect and there are reasons to question whether pythons, or any predator, could have caused the precipitous declines seen across a range of mammalian functional groups. Experimentally manipulating marsh rabbits, we found that pythons accounted for 77% of rabbit mortalities within 11 months of their translocation to ENP and that python predation appeared to preclude the persistence of rabbit populations in ENP. On control sites, outside of the park, no rabbits were killed by pythons and 71% of attributable marsh rabbit mortalities were classified as mammal predations. Burmese pythons pose a serious threat to the faunal communities and ecological functioning of the Greater Everglades Ecosystem, which will probably spread as python populations expand their range.

SUBMITTER: McCleery RA

PROVIDER: S-EPMC4389622 | biostudies-literature | 2015 Apr

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature

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Marsh rabbit mortalities tie pythons to the precipitous decline of mammals in the Everglades.

McCleery Robert A RA Sovie Adia A Reed Robert N RN Cunningham Mark W MW Hunter Margaret E ME Hart Kristen M KM

Proceedings. Biological sciences 20150401 1805

To address the ongoing debate over the impact of invasive species on native terrestrial wildlife, we conducted a large-scale experiment to test the hypothesis that invasive Burmese pythons (Python molurus bivittatus) were a cause of the precipitous decline of mammals in Everglades National Park (ENP). Evidence linking pythons to mammal declines has been indirect and there are reasons to question whether pythons, or any predator, could have caused the precipitous declines seen across a range of m ...[more]

PMID: 25788598

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Project description:The Burmese python (Python bivittatus) is now established as a breeding population throughout south Florida, USA. However, the extent of the invasion, and the ecological impacts of this novel apex predator on animal communities are incompletely known, in large part because Burmese pythons (hereafter "pythons") are extremely cryptic and there has been no efficient way to detect them. Pythons are recently confirmed nest predators of long-legged wading bird breeding colonies (orders Ciconiiformes and Pelecaniformes). Pythons can consume large quantities of prey and may not be recognized as predators by wading birds, therefore they could be a particular threat to colonies. To quantify python occupancy rates at tree islands where wading birds breed, we utilized environmental DNA (eDNA) analysis-a genetic tool which detects shed DNA in water samples and provides high detection probabilities. We fitted multi-scale Bayesian occupancy models to test the prediction that pythons occupy islands with wading bird colonies at higher rates compared to representative control islands containing no breeding birds. Our results suggest that pythons are widely distributed across the central Everglades in proximity to active wading bird colonies. In support of our prediction that pythons are attracted to colonies, site-level python eDNA occupancy rates were higher at wading bird colonies (ψ = 0.88, 95% credible interval [0.59-1.00]) than at the control islands (ψ = 0.42 [0.16-0.80]) in April through June (n = 15 colony-control pairs). We found our water temperature proxy (time of day) to be informative of detection probability, in accordance with other studies demonstrating an effect of temperature on eDNA degradation in occupied samples. Individual sample concentrations ranged from 0.26 to 38.29 copies/μL and we generally detected higher concentrations of python eDNA in colony sites. Continued monitoring of wading bird colonies is warranted to determine the effect pythons are having on populations and investigate putative management activities.

Project description:Malformations of cortical development are the underlying eitiology of many cases of Mental Retardation and Epilepsy. Subtle, below the resolution of current MRI, cortical dysplasias are probably involved in many cases of MR, Epilepsy and Autism for which no diagnosis can currently be made. Therefore, understanding the process of cortical development will be vital in diagnosing and eventual treatment of many patients with these conditions. More specifically, the cortex forms from two major populations of neuroblasts which reach their final destination in the cortex by differerent mechanisms. One is radial migration from ventricular neuroblasts to the cortical plate. These cells are excititory projection neurons and glia. The second pathway is from the ventral ganglionic eminences and tangential migration of the interneuronal population of primarily inhibitory neurons. Much less is known about the control of the latter process, and many of these currently undiagnosed subtle malformations may stem from abnormalities of this tangential migration. This project focuses on the understanding the control of the tangentially migrating inhibitory interneurons. We aim to uncover the transcriptional differences between two distinct neuronal populations, GFP positive cells in the ganglionic emience and GFP positive cells within the cortical plate, in order to understand the genetic control of tangential migration. We will acomplish this aim by targeting two different labeled transcripts againts the affymetrix mouse genome arrays. We hypothesis that there will be distinct differences in mRNA transcription profiles between the ganglionic eminence and cortical plate within developing interneurons. The differences in transcript profiles will be genes that regulate the migration and differentiation of these developing neurons. Transgenic mice have been generated which express green flourscent protien (GFP) based on the activity of the Dlx 5-6 promotor. Dlx 5-6 are highly regulated genes, and are expressed only in developing interneurons with in the embryonic brain. The expression of this gene begins at around E8 within the medial and lateral ganglionic eminence (GE) and then remain present as cells born within these regions migrate out into the developing cortex. Therefore, we can take advantage of these mice by harvesting embryos at a midpoint in their development (E13.5-14.5) and dissect out GFP positive cells from the ganglionic eminence and from the cortical plate. In order to obtain enough cells to extract sufficent mRNA, we have choosen to perform microdisction of the entire GE and entire cortical plate then break up the tissue into single cell suspension and Florescent activated cell sort (FACs) the populations of GFP + and GFP - cells. We then will extract the total RNA from the GFP postive cell populations using a Trizol based method and purify the RNA with a Quiagen column purification method. The purified RNA will then be amplified using the Affymetrix 1 or 2 round T7 based amplification procedure in order to generate the microgram quantities of labelled cRNA. The labelled biotin cRNA will be sent to the microarray consortium for hybridization againt the Affy mouse genome chip. Three embryos will be pooled in order to obtain sufficent RNA and 6 GFP positive GE and cortical plate samples will be used. The six replicates will be obtained from at least 3 different pregnant mice. Keywords: other

Dataset Information

Marsh rabbit mortalities tie pythons to the precipitous decline of mammals in the Everglades.

Publications

Marsh rabbit mortalities tie pythons to the precipitous decline of mammals in the Everglades.

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