Collection of scat samples is common in wildlife research, particularly for genetic capture-mark-recapture applications. Due to high degradation rates of genetic material in scat, large numbers of samples must be collected to generate robust estimates. Optimization of sampling approaches to account for taxa-specific patterns of scat deposition is, therefore, necessary to ensure sufficient sampl...

Peters and Barker (1993) elegantly demonstrate a curious means of inheritance of murine severe combined anemia and thrombocytopenia (Scat). Originally classified as a recessive autosomal disease with alleles scat (recessive) and scat+ (dominant), it was found that if both mother and offspring are scat homozygous, then the progeny are unaffected. Only when the mother is heterozygous and the offs...

Microsatellite sequences were isolated from enriched genomic libraries of the spotted spiny lobster, Panulirus guttatus using 454 pyrosequencing. Twenty-nine previously developed polymerase chain reaction primer pairs of Panulirus argus microsatellite loci were also tested for cross-species amplification in Panulirus guttatus. In total, eight consistently amplifying, and polymorphic loci were c...

Scat is frequently used to study animal diets because it is easy to find and collect, but one concern is that gross fecal analysis (GFA) techniques exaggerate the importance of small-bodied prey to mammalian mesopredator diets. To capitalize on the benefits of scat, we suggest the analysis of scat carbon and nitrogen isotope values (δ13C and δ15N). This technique offers researchers a non-invasi...

µ-ARGUS (4.2) user's manual-3-Preface This is the users manual of version 4.1 of µ-ARGUS, a software package to assist in producing safe microdata. The package has been developed under Windows 2000 and runs under Windows versions from Windows 2000 and later. This version is an update of the final version of µ-ARGUS that has been produced in the fifth Framework CASC (Computational Aspects of Sta...

Animal/cell investigations indicate that there is a decreased adipose tissue mass resulting from skeletal muscle (SkM) IL-15 secretion (e.g., SkM-blood-adipose tissue axis). IL-15 could regulate fat mass accumulation in obesity via lipolysis, although this has not been investigated in humans. Therefore, the purpose was to examine whether SkM and/or subcutaneous adipose tissue (SCAT) IL-15 conce...

Maintaining genetic diversity is a crucial component in conserving threatened species. For the iconic Australian koala, there is little genetic information on wild populations that is not either skewed by biased sampling methods (e.g., sampling effort skewed toward urban areas) or of limited usefulness due to low numbers of microsatellites used. The ability to genotype DNA extracted from koala ...