scholarly journals Risk Modeling of Bat Rabies in the Caribbean Islands

2020 ◽  
Vol 5 (1) ◽  
pp. 35
Author(s):  
Clint N. Morgan ◽  
Ryan M. Wallace ◽  
Alexandra Vokaty ◽  
Janine F.R. Seetahal ◽  
Yoshinori J. Nakazawa
Keyword(s):  
Pairwise Comparison ◽  
Control Measures ◽  
Risk Modeling ◽  
Cayman Islands ◽  
The Bahamas ◽  
Analytic Hierarchy ◽  
Caribbean Islands ◽  
Control And Prevention ◽  
The Caribbean ◽  
Bat Rabies

Rabies surveillance and control measures vary significantly between Caribbean islands. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention currently recommends certain groups of U.S. travelers to any Caribbean island receive pre-exposure rabies immunization. However, most islands self-declare as “rabies free”, and have never publicly released data to support rabies-free claims. We used the Analytic Hierarchy Process to create pairwise comparison values among five risk factors determined by subject matter experts. Risk factor weights were calculated and used in a geospatial analysis to calculate a risk value for each island nation (higher values indicate higher risk). Risk values ranged from 8.73 (Trinidad) to 1.57 (The Bahamas, Turks and Caicos Islands). All four countries that have documented occurrences of laboratory confirmed rabid bats were ranked highest (Trinidad and Tobago, Grenada, Cuba, Dominican Republic), as well as Haiti. The top five highest risk countries that currently have no reports of bat rabies include St. Vincent and the Grenadines, Jamaica, Puerto Rico, the Cayman Islands, and Dominica. This study reviews the inter-island movement potential of bats, designates areas of high risk for bat-associated rabies within the Caribbean islands, and demonstrates a need for further surveillance efforts in bat populations within islands that self-declare as rabies free.

scholarly journals Definition of the Caribbean Islands biogeographic region, with checklist and recommendations for standardized common names of amphibians and reptiles

2019 ◽  
pp. 1-53
Author(s):  
S. Blair Hedges ◽  
Robert Powell ◽  
Robert W. Henderson ◽  
Sarah Hanson ◽  
John C. Murphy
Keyword(s):  
South America ◽  
Human Population ◽  
Biological Study ◽  
Population Densities ◽  
The Bahamas ◽  
Caribbean Islands ◽  
Biogeographic Region ◽  
The Caribbean ◽  
Definition Of ◽  
Conservation Threats

To facilitate biological study we define “Caribbean Islands” as a biogeographic region that includes the Antilles, the Bahamas, and islands bordering Central and South America separated from mainland areas by at least 20 meters of water depth. The advantages of this definition are that it captures nearly all islands with endemic species and with at least some Antillean-derived species, and still circumscribes a region of high biodiversity and biogeographic significance. We argue that Caribbean islands, in this expanded sense, are also cohesive from a conservation standpoint in that they share high human population densities and similar conservation threats. A disadvantage of this definition, strictly applied, is that it includes some islands (e.g., Trinidad) that have mostly mainland species. However, we propose that researchers can increase the stringency of the definition so that it is less inclusive, and make comparisons between different definitions as needed. We provide an updated checklist with standardized common English names for the 1,013 species of amphibians and reptiles occurring in the region, along with principles for constructing common names.

scholarly journals The Bahamas and the First Extensive Expedition, 1931-1932, of the USDA to the Caribbean Islands

2020 ◽  
Vol 26 ◽  
pp. 33
Author(s):  
Raquel Chavarria ◽  
Brett Jestrow ◽  
Ethan Freid ◽  
Javier Francisco-Ortega
Keyword(s):  
The Bahamas ◽  
Caribbean Islands ◽  
The Caribbean

scholarly journals A genetic history of the pre-contact Caribbean

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Daniel M. Fernandes ◽  
Kendra A. Sirak ◽  
Harald Ringbauer ◽  
Jakob Sedig ◽  
Nadin Rohland ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
South America ◽  
High Mobility ◽  
Effective Population ◽  
The Bahamas ◽  
Caribbean Islands ◽  
Population Size Estimates ◽  
Ceramic Age ◽  
Population Sizes ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Caribbean

Humans settled the Caribbean ~6,000 years ago, with intensified agriculture and ceramic use marking a shift from the Archaic Age to the Ceramic Age ~2,500 years ago. To shed new light on the history of Caribbean people, we report genome-wide data from 184 individuals predating European contact from The Bahamas, Cuba, Hispaniola, Puerto Rico, Curaçao, and northwestern Venezuela. A largely homogeneous ceramic-using population most likely originating in northeastern South America and related to present-day Arawak-speaking groups moved throughout the Caribbean at least 1,800 years ago, spreading ancestry that is still detected in parts of the region today. These people eventually almost entirely replaced Archaic-related lineages in Hispaniola but not in northwestern Cuba, where unadmixed Archaic-related ancestry persisted into the last millennium. We document high mobility and inter-island connectivity throughout the Ceramic Age as reflected in relatives buried ~75 kilometers apart in Hispaniola and low genetic differentiation across many Caribbean islands, albeit with subtle population structure distinguishing the Bahamian islands we studied from the rest of the Caribbean and from each other, and long-term population continuity in southeastern coastal Hispaniola differentiating this region from the rest of the island. Ceramic-associated people avoided close kin unions despite limited mate pools reflecting low effective population sizes (2Ne=1000-2000) even at sites on the large Caribbean islands. While census population sizes can be an order of magnitude larger than effective population sizes, pan-Caribbean population size estimates of hundreds of thousands are likely too large. Transitions in pottery styles show no evidence of being driven by waves of migration of new people from mainland South America; instead, they more likely reflect the spread of ideas and people within an interconnected Caribbean world.

Cybister (s. str.) poblanus sp. n. from Mexico and notes on other species of Cybistrinae (Coleoptera: Dytiscidae)

Zootaxa ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 5061 (2) ◽  
pp. 323-339
Author(s):  
ROBERTO ARCE-PÉREZ ◽  
RODOLFO NOVELO-GUTIÉRREZ ◽  
HANS FERY
Keyword(s):  
New Species ◽  
North America ◽  
Male Genitalia ◽  
The Other ◽  
Key To Species ◽  
The Bahamas ◽  
Caribbean Islands ◽  
The Third ◽  
Great Size ◽  
The Caribbean

Cybister (s. str.) poblanus sp. n. is described from the Puebla state in Mexico. The species belongs to a group of members of the genus Cybister Curtis, 1827, which occur only in North America (including the Caribbean Islands) and are characterised by having several distinct ridges on the metacoxae (stridulatory organ) in males. The new species is the third of the genus reported for Mexico and the fourth for North America. It can easily be separated from its congeners by its great size and the shape of the male aedeagus. The habitus, the male genitalia and other details of C. poblanus sp. n. are illustrated and photographs of the male genitalia of the other three Cybister are given for comparison. Megadytes (Bifurcitus) lherminieri (Guérin-Méneville, 1829) and M. (B.) magnus Trémouilles & Bachmann, 1980 are the only other big species of subfamily Cybistrinae which occur in North America. They are externally similar to the new species and can easily be confused with it, hence the illustrations of their aedeagi to facilitate identification. A key to species is given for all species of Cybistrinae occurring in America north of Belize and Guatemala, including Cuba and the Bahamas. Lectotypes are designated for Cybister flavocinctus Aubé, 1838, Cybister explanatus var. fusculus Zimmermann, 1919, and Cybister (Megadytes) aubei Wilke, 1920. Notes are given on material of some Neotropical and Nearctic species of Cybister and Megadytes stored in different museums.  

scholarly journals Faces Divulge the Origins of Caribbean Prehistoric Inhabitants

2020 ◽  
Vol 10 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Ann H. Ross ◽  
William F. Keegan ◽  
Michael P. Pateman ◽  
Colleen B. Young
Keyword(s):  
Greater Antilles ◽  
Facial Morphology ◽  
The Bahamas ◽  
Caribbean Islands ◽  
First Peoples ◽  
The Subject ◽  
The Caribbean ◽  
Competing Hypotheses ◽  
Intense Debate

AbstractThe origins of the first peoples to colonize the Caribbean Islands have been the subject of intense debate for over 30 years. Competing hypotheses have identified five separate migrations from the mainland with a separate debate concerning the colonization of The Bahamas. Significant differences in the facial morphology of the pre-Columbian inhabitants of Hispaniola and Cuba led to the present study of Lucayan skulls from The Bahamas. The goal was to determine which group the native Lucayans more closely resembled to resolve this long-standing dispute. The results indicate that they are related to groups from Hispaniola and Jamaica and not to Cuban inhabitants. This study clarified the larger picture of Caribbean migrations and supports evidence for a Carib invasion of the Greater Antilles around AD 800.

A new species of Scirtes (Coleoptera: Scirtidae) from southern Florida and the Caribbean

Zootaxa ◽  
2012 ◽  
Vol 3530 (1) ◽  
pp. 79 ◽  
Author(s):  
J. H. EPLER
Keyword(s):  
New Species ◽  
Cayman Islands ◽  
The Bahamas ◽  
The Caribbean ◽  
Southern Florida ◽  
A New Species

A new species, Scirtes goliai Epler, is described from southern Florida, the Bahamas and the Cayman Islands.  It is distinguished by its small size, oblong habitus, brown coloration, laminate prosternum and distinctive genitalia.  The species appears to be associated with mangroves.

scholarly journals Collagen Sequence Analysis Reveals Evolutionary History of Extinct West Indies Nesophontes (Island-Shrews)

2020 ◽  
Vol 37 (10) ◽  
pp. 2931-2943 ◽  
Author(s):  
Michael Buckley ◽  
Virginia L Harvey ◽  
Johanset Orihuela ◽  
Alexis M Mychajliw ◽  
Joseph N Keating ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Evolutionary History ◽  
Greater Antilles ◽  
Cayman Islands ◽  
Geographical Isolation ◽  
Sequence Analyses ◽  
Evolutionary Patterns ◽  
Caribbean Islands ◽  
The Past ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Caribbean

Abstract Ancient biomolecule analyses are proving increasingly useful in the study of evolutionary patterns, including extinct organisms. Proteomic sequencing techniques complement genomic approaches, having the potential to examine lineages further back in time than achievable using ancient DNA, given the less stringent preservation requirements. In this study, we demonstrate the ability to use collagen sequence analyses via proteomics to assist species delimitation as a foundation for informing evolutionary patterns. We uncover biogeographic information of an enigmatic and recently extinct lineage of Nesophontes across their range on the Caribbean islands. First, evolutionary relationships reconstructed from collagen sequences reaffirm the affinity of Nesophontes and Solenodon as sister taxa within Solenodonota. This relationship helps lay the foundation for testing geographical isolation hypotheses across islands within the Greater Antilles, including movement from Cuba toward Hispaniola. Second, our results are consistent with Cuba having just two species of Nesophontes (N. micrus and N. major) that exhibit intrapopulation morphological variation. Finally, analysis of the recently described species from the Cayman Islands (N. hemicingulus) indicates that it is a closer relative to N. major rather than N. micrus as previously speculated. This proteomic sequencing improves our understanding of the origin, evolution, and distribution of this extinct mammal lineage, particularly with respect to the approximate timing of speciation. Such knowledge is vital for this biodiversity hotspot, where the magnitude of recent extinctions may obscure true estimates of species richness in the past.

DETERMINING THE DESALINATION UNIT COMPOSITION FOR COSTAL AREAS AND SMALL ISLANDS USE ANALYTIC HIERARCHY PROCESS

2017 ◽  
Vol 9 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Imam Setiadi ◽  
Dinda Rita K. Hartaja
Keyword(s):  
Analytic Hierarchy Process ◽  
Energy Demand ◽  
Pairwise Comparison ◽  
Small Islands ◽  
Ahp Method ◽  
Analytic Hierarchy ◽  
Comparison Research ◽  
Hierarchy Process ◽  
Selection Of

Selection of the appropriate composition desalination units can be done with a variety of method approaches, one of the method is the Analytic Hierarchy Process. In determining the desalination unit with AHP method to consider is setting a goal, an alternative criteria and pairwise comparison. Research for the determination of the exact composition of the desalination unit in order to achieve sustainable drinking water suppy in coastal areas and small islands has been conducted. The results of the study are as follows, the energy demand of 50.83%, operator costs of 26.64%, maintenance costs of 14.13% and chemical requirement 8.4%. For an alternative composition desalination unit of RO 10 m3 / day is the best alternative composition with value of 59.61%, the composition of the next alternative is RO 20 m3/ day of 30.40% and the last alternative of the desalination unit composition is RO 120 m3/ day of 09.99%.Key words : Desalination, Mukti Stage Flash Composition, AHP

Geology and hydrogeology of the Caribbean islands aquifer system of the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands

2002 ◽  
Author(s):  
Robert A. Renken ◽  
W. C. Ward ◽  
I.P. Gill ◽  
Fernando Gómez-Gómez ◽  
Jesús Rodríguez-Martínez ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Puerto Rico ◽  
Virgin Islands ◽  
Aquifer System ◽  
Caribbean Islands ◽  
The Caribbean ◽  
The U.S
Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document