The nocturnal, terrestrial frog Eleutherodactylus coqui, known as the Coqui, is endemic to Puerto Rico and was accidentally introduced to Hawai'i via nursery plants in the late 1980s. Over the past two decades E. coqui has spread to the four main Hawaiian Islands, and a major campaign was launched to eliminate and control it. One of the primary reasons this frog has received attention is its loud mating call (85-90 dB at 0.5 m). Many homeowners do not want the frogs on their property, and their presence has influenced housing prices. In addition, E. coqui has indirectly impacted the floriculture industry because customers are reticent to purchase products potentially infested with frogs. Eleutherodactylus coqui attains extremely high densities in Hawai'i, up to 91,000 frogs ha À1 , and can reproduce year-round, once every 1-2 months, and become reproductive around 8-9 months. Although the Coqui has been hypothesized to potentially compete with native insectivores, the most obvious potential ecological impact of the invasion is predation on invertebrate populations and disruption of associated ecosystem processes. Multiple forms of control have been attempted in Hawai'i with varying success. The most successful control available at this time is citric acid. Currently, the frog is established throughout the island of Hawai'i but may soon be eliminated on the other Hawaiian Islands via control efforts. Eradication is deemed no longer possible on the island of Hawai'i.

Ecological speciation can be driven by divergent natural and/or sexual selection. The relative contribution of these processes to species divergence, however, is unknown. Here, we investigate how sexual selection in the form of male and female mate preferences contributes to divergence of body size. This trait is known be under divergent natural selection and also contributes to sexual isolation in species pairs of threespine sticklebacks (Gasterosteus aculeatus). We show that neither female nor male size preferences contribute to body size divergence in this species pair, suggesting that size-based sexual isolation arises primarily through natural selection.

Western Burrowing Owls (Athene cunicularia hypugaea) are small, ground-dwelling owls of western North America that frequent prairie dog (Cynomys spp.) towns and other grasslands. Because they rely on rodent prey and occupy burrows once or concurrently inhabited by fossorial mammals, the owls often harbor fleas. We examined the potential role of fleas found on burrowing owls in plague dynamics by evaluating prevalence of Yersinia pestis in fleas collected from burrowing owls and in owl blood. During 2012-2013, fleas and blood were collected from burrowing owls in portions of five states with endemic plague-Idaho, Oregon, Washington, Colorado, and South Dakota. Fleas were enumerated, taxonomically identified, pooled by nest, and assayed for Y. pestis using culturing and molecular (PCR) approaches. Owl blood underwent serological analysis for plague antibodies and nested PCR for detection of Y. pestis. Of more than 4750 fleas collected from owls, Pulex irritans, a known plague vector in portions of its range, comprised more than 99.4%. However, diagnostic tests for Y. pestis of flea pools (culturing and PCR) and owl blood (PCR and serology) were negative. Thus, even though fleas were prevalent on burrowing owls and the potential for a relationship with burrowing owls as a phoretic host of infected fleas exists, we found no evidence of Y. pestis in sampled fleas or in owls that harbored them. We suggest that studies similar to those reported here during plague epizootics will be especially useful for confirming these results.

Humans are surrounded by threats to the environment, many of their own making. The severity of environmental problems will not decrease unless action is taken to develop and encourage greater environmentally responsible behavior (ERB) in the general populace. Environmental education (EE) is one method for strengthening precursors to ERB such as knowledge and attitudes, but research on the connection is currently unclear. In this paper we present the results of a study investigating the role played by rewards in encouraging ERB precursors for adults and children involved in a zoo-based Nature Swap program. We used semistructured interviews to question 91 participants, including 38 children, 38 adult guardians, and 15 staff members regarding the importance of rewards in the program. We content analyzed the interviews to identify and describe major themes and then coded them. We found that adult guardians and Play Partners perceived intrinsic and extrinsic rewards as aiding in maintaining motivation and interest in the nonformal Nature Swap program. In addition, both children and adult companion participants in the program mentioned strengthened precursors to ERB. Overall we found that adult companions perceived that children who participated in the program spent more quality time outdoors and had a heightened awareness of their surroundings as a result of program-based rewards. Implications for other EE and conservation education programs are discussed.

Performance outcomes for cochlear implant (CI) users traditionally focus on measures of speech perception. However, existing research indicates that environmental sound identification tasks also remain challenging for adult CI users compared to normal-hearing (NH) or hearing-impaired (HI) peers. In contrast, anecdotal reports indicate that environmental sound perception improves post-implantation. Methodological choices may contribute to this discrepancy; CI users may be benefiting from more integrative higher-level processes that are not adequately measured by source identification tasks. This study employs two alternative tasks that are designed to assess perception of the semantic properties of environmental sounds. The first is a comprehension tasks, which requires listeners to make inferences about naturalistic sound scene recordings (e.g. which other activities might you expect to take place, or at which time of day does this scene most likely occur). The second task presents a triplet of isolated environmental sound recordings and requires participants to select the sound that does not belong. Preliminary data indicate that CI users are able to perform the tasks with varying levels of proficiency relative to NH and HI listeners. Comprehension tasks focused on context-dependent semantic processing may, thus, complement findings from more traditional single-sound identification tasks.