Energy Efficient Homes For Rodent Control Across Cityscapes

https://doi.org/10.5061/dryad.n2z34tn5b

We have submitted our raw data as CSV files with the naming convention Philadelphia Main Model Final (Neighborhood) Year (1,5, or 10). We have also submitted the NetLogo code which is how our raw data was created. There are 5 NetLogo files. PhiladelphiaMainModel_Final_V5_NoRodentControl.nlogo, is the model which our analysis is derived. PhiladelphiaMainModel_Final_Rodent_Control.nlogo, is a complementary code with an extra function for those looking to use the code for exploration. The other NetLogo codes are bare editions for sensitivity analysis; the naming convention follows PhiladelphiaENV(Neighborhood)SensitivityAnalysisV3.nlogo. Finally we included 4 R scripts. The main analysis is FinalABMAnalysis4_24.R. The other complementary R codes are neighborhood specific sensitivity analysis codes with the naming convention, ...

Losses to life and property from unplanned fires (wildfires) are forecast to increase because of population growth in peri-urban areas and climate change. In response, there have been moves to increase fuel reduction—clearing, prescribed burning, biomass removal and grazing—to afford greater protection to peri-urban communities in fire-prone regions. But how effective are these measures? Severe wildfires in southern Australia in 2009 presented a rare opportunity to address this question empirically. We predicted that modifying several fuels could theoretically reduce house loss by 76%-97%, which would translate to considerably fewer wildfire-related deaths. However, maximum levels of fuel reduction are unlikely to be feasible at every house for logistical and environmental reasons. Significant fuel variables in a logistic regression model we selected to predict house loss were (in order of decreasing effect): (1) the cover of trees and shrubs within 40m of houses, (2) whether trees and ...

Random mating simulationsThese R commands will perform simulations of the Chino, NC, and NY populations without selection. Commands are also given for plotting the simulation results, reproducing the figures in the manuscript.chino-recursions_2016_08_08.RSelection simulations with fitness assigned at the genotype levelThis python script simulates a population with random mating and selection. Fitness values are randomly assigned to each genotype. The script can be run in parallel on multiple processors, assigned on the command line. The script appends new simulation results to existing simulations that have the same jobID.sim_Dryad.pySimulations with selection coefficients assigned to allelesThis perl script runs simulations of populations with natural selection. Recursions are used to simulate a population with non-overlapping generations. Selection coefficients are randomly assigned to the III^M and Y^M chromosomes in males and females, and to the Md-tra^D allele in females. From the...

In order to calibrate and evaluate a newly developed model for individual growth, the Maintenance-Growth Model (MGM), temporal data for body mass and ingestion was collected for male and female house crickets (Acheta domesticus) reared individually from birth to ultimate size at 28.6 °C under ad libitum conditions. , Newly hatched nymphs of house crickets (Acheta domesticus) were collected, weighted, and reared individually in plastic boxes under ad libitum conditions and a temperature of 28.6 °C for 72 days. A controlled amount of food was provided twice a week, when the cricket as well as remaining food and faecal, were measured by weight. Age at imago emergence was recorded for each individual cricket. At some occasions, faeces were separated from the remaining food and weighted separately (in order to estimate the relative egestion rate). At the end of the experiment, useful data for 35 individuals (14 males, 21 females) had been produced. The ingestion between two measurements was calculated based on the known food supply and the remaining material, with compensation for moisture uptake in food and egestion. See the related manuscript for a detailed description of the experimental setup., , # Growth and ingestion data for house crickets reared at ad libitum

https://doi.org/10.5061/dryad.xsj3tx9nn

Newly hatched nymphs of house crickets (Acheta domesticus) were reared individually in plastic boxes at an ambient temperature of 28.6 °C for 72 days (during the autumn of 2021). A controlled amount of food (a mixture of pellets for guinea pigs and rats) was provided twice a week. At each feeding occasion, the cricket and the remaining food and faecal were measured by weight. Sex and age at imago emergence was recorded for each cricket. At some occasions, faeces were separated from remaining food and weighted separately (in order to estimate the relative egestion rate). See the related manuscript for a detailed description of the experimental setup.

Description of data file structure

Data file: GrowthDataAL.csv

The data file contains a table with 9 columns, which are explained below:

1. Individual: Identification number...

Land conservation efforts throughout the U.S. enhance ecological amenities while generating wealth in the housing market through capitalization of amenities. This paper estimates the benefits of conservation that are capitalized into proximate home values and quantifies how those benefits are distributed across demographic groups. Using detailed property and household-level data from Massachusetts, we estimate that new land conservation led to $62 million in new housing wealth equity. However, houses owned by low-income or Black or Hispanic households are less likely to be located near protected areas, and hence, these populations are less likely to benefit financially. Direct study of the distribution of this new wealth from capitalized conservation is highly unequal, with the richest quartile of households receiving 43%, White households receiving 91%, and the richest White households receiving 40%, which is nearly 140% more than would be expected under equal distribution. We extend o...

Background: House mice are commensal animals with a nearly global distribution, structured into well-differentiated local populations. Besides genetic differences between the populations, they have also diverged behaviorally over time, whereby it remains open how fast general behavioral characteristics can change. Here we study the competitive potential of two very recently separated populations of the Western house mouse (Mus musculus domesticus) by using two different approaches – one under controlled cage conditions, the other under more natural conditions in enclosures mimicking a secondary encounter condition. Results: We observe a clear bias in the competitive ability towards one of the populations for both tests. The measured behavioral bias is also reflected in the number of hybrid offspring produced in the enclosures. Conclusion: Our data suggest that key behavioral characteristics with a direct influence on relative fitness can quickly change during the evolution of population...

 Individuals can behave as either leaders or followers in many taxa of collectively-moving animals. Leaders initiate movements and may incur predation risks while followers are thought to be more risk-averse. As a group encounters different challenges and ecological situations, individuals in the group may change their social role. We investigated leader and follower roles using dyads of captive house sparrow (Passer domesticus) during both exploration of a novel environment and a simulation of predator attack. During the exploration of a novel environment individuals behaved consistently either as leaders or followers. However, in the simulated attack tests, individuals in the dyads switched their roles, with ‘followers’ leading the escape flights and ‘leaders’ following them. Our study provides evidence of (i) consistent differences between individuals in behavior during social escape and (ii) a relationship between social roles across different situations. We suggest that such relati...

The tilt after-effect (TAE) is thought to be a manifestation of gain control in mechanisms selective for spatial orientation in visual stimuli. It has been demonstrated with luminance-defined stripes, contrast-defined stripes, orientation-defined stripes and even with natural images. Of course, all images can be decomposed into a sum of stripes, so it should not be surprising to find a TAE when adapting and test images contain stripes that differ by 15° or so. We show this latter condition is not necessary for the TAE with natural images: adaptation to slightly tilted and vertically filtered houses produced a ‘repulsive’ bias in the perceived orientation of horizontally filtered houses. These results suggest gain control in mechanisms selective for spatial orientation in natural images.

We present data on the breeding behaviour of a population of southern house wrens (Troglodytes aedon bonariae; Aves) in eastern Argentina during the breeding seasons of 2007, 2008, 2009 and 2010 (October-January). The data correspond to two sites with different risk of nest predation.

For more than 100 years, house mice (Mus musculus) have been used as a key animal model in biomedical research. House mice are genetically diverse, yet their genetic background at the global level has not been fully understood. Previous studies suggested that they originated in South Asia and diverged into three major subspecies almost simultaneously, approximately 350,000–500,000 years ago; however, they have spread across the world with the migration of modern humans in prehistoric and historic times (∼10,000 years ago to present), and undergone secondary contact, which have complicated the genetic landscape of wild house mice. In this study, we sequenced the whole genomes of 98 wild house mice collected from Eurasia, particularly East Asia, Southeast Asia, and South Asia. We found that although wild house mice consist of three major genetic groups corresponding to the three major subspecies, individuals representing admixture between subspecies are much more ubiquitous than previousl...

Artificial nest sites can support populations of endangered species when they are correctly installed. Here we analysed the characteristics and conditions that determined whether the northern house martin Delichon urbicum occupied more than 300 artificial nests around the city of Münster, Germany. We found that artificial nest occupation rates were influenced by various environmental and temporal factors. Positive influences included longer time since installation and, to a lesser extent, the number of artificial nests at the same site. Negative impacts were observed from higher proportions of sealed surface cover in the surrounding area and, to a lesser extent, southward exposure. The distance to the nearest water body and the number of occupied natural nests showed no significant effect. We compared our results with descriptive evidence from the grey literature and published reports, and we give recommendations for installing artificial house martin nests for conservation practitioners. Future studies should also investigate the potential negative effects of “dirt boards” below the nests and of gaps between the roof and the artificial nests.

Wing damage attenuates aerial performance in many flying animals such as birds, bats and insects. Especially insect wings are fragile and light in order to reduce inertial power requirements for flight at elevated wing flapping frequencies. There is a continuing debate on the factors causing wing damage in insects including collisions with objects, mechanical stress during flight activity, and aging. This experimental study is engaged with the reasons and significance of wing damage for flight in the house fly Musca domestica. We determined natural wing area loss under two housing conditions and recorded flight activity and flight ability throughout the animals’ lifetime. Our data show that wing damage occurs on average after 6 h of flight, is sex-specific, and depends on housing conditions. Statistical tests show that both physiological age and flight activity have similar significance as predictors for wing damage. Tests on freely flying flies showed that minimum wing area for active ...

Emerging computation- and data-driven approaches are particularly useful for rationally designing materials with targeted properties. Generally, these approaches rely on identifying structure-property relationships by learning from a dataset of sufficiently large number of relevant materials. The learned information can then be used to predict the properties of materials not already in the dataset, thus accelerating the materials design. Herein, we develop a dataset of 1,073 polymers and related materials and make it available at http://khazana.uconn.edu/. This dataset is uniformly prepared using first-principles calculations with structures obtained either from other sources or by using structure search methods. Because the immediate target of this work is to assist the design of high dielectric constant polymers, it is initially designed to include the optimized structures, atomization energies, band gaps, and dielectric constants. It will be progressively expanded by accumulating new...

In developed cities, bird communities are typically comprised of a few dominant invasive species that can cause considerable social and economic costs. While various studies advocate restricting anthropogenic food as a suitable management approach, a significant knowledge gap persists regarding how these species interact and respond to such an intervention. Here, we evaluate if limiting a shared food resource may affect their abundances similarly and assess if such limitations influence their niche dynamics. In Singapore, open food centres for people, colloquially known as hawker centres, serve as key food sources for three highly adapted urban birds: feral pigeons, Javan mynas, and house crows. We counted these three species across 63 hawker centres and analysed their niche dynamics across different phases – before, during COVID-19 social restrictions when dining-in was prohibited, and during an enforcement phase mandating the return of crockery. We modelled their counts, diet niche widths, and niche overlaps, considering predictors which include the sampling phases, food availability, structural characteristics of hawker centres, and spatial attributes such as distance to public housing. During social restrictions, feral pigeon and Javan myna counts showed a significant decline, while the count proportions of the three species compared to each other remained relatively stable. Hawker centres closer to bridges and public housing, and those that structurally more open, attracted more birds. The niche widths of feral pigeons and Javan mynas significantly narrowed during social restrictions due to reduced food availability. However, their niche overlaps remained consistent across sampling phases, indicating resource partitioning strategies to cope with extreme food shortages – feral pigeons adapted by foraging more on grass verges outside, while Javan mynas frequented tray return stations. This resilience in maintaining species proportions and the absence of significant niche overlap suggested the existence of an ecological balance despite substantial reductions in available food. Synthesis and applications. Our study underscores the importance of controlling human-provided food to collectively manage dominant urban bird commensals. Beyond the two social restriction phases, curbing the availability of anthropogenic food through enforcement also kept nuisance birds away, validating a cost-effective approach in reducing their counts. Methods A total of 63 hawker centres in Singapore were surveyed from 2019 to 2021. We conducted area searches and recorded the counts of feral pigeons, Javan mynas and house crows within the hawker centre premises and 10m of its perimeter (i.e., outside). To minimise double-counting, we only counted individuals that were detected in frontal view and omitted individuals that flew in from other sections of the hawker centre. The same surveyor conducted the surveys between different sampling occasions. We also observed their activity (i.e., feeding, perching and others which constitute moving either by flying, hopping or walking), perch location (i.e., ground, table, chair, elevated structures, tray return station and outside) and foraging substrate (i.e., ground, table, chair, crockery, tray return station and others). A tray return station is an open shelving unit for returning crockery, utensils and trays. Predictors affecting bird commensal counts included food availability, structural attributes, spatial factors and weather. Food availability metrics included the number of food stalls operating, the frequency of feeding incidences, food waste detected (within a 1m2 grid), uncleared crockery (i.e., plates and bowls that were left unattended), and the proportion of uncleared to total tray station levels. Additionally, we quantified the number of active cleaners and the extent of deterrent measures used (i.e., bird spikes, screens at tray station, nets, dummy predators and wires) by rating them from a scale of 0 to 3 (not used, low, medium to high coverage respectively). The scales for each measure were summed to obtain an overall deterrence metric. We also measured two structural characteristics of each hawker centre – the total length of elevated structures (e.g., beams, pipes, stall sign-boards and vents) representing available perches for birds to rest, and the openness as a proxy of accessibility, measured as a cross-sectional area in m2 (including access points for patrons and ventilated areas) with the aid of a laser rangefinder. Spatial predictors included the proportion of public residential housing within a 200m radius of a hawker centre, and the distances to nearest Mass Rapid Transit viaduct and bridge; structures commonly used by urban adapted birds for nesting. Last, we noted if the weather was clear (i.e., no rain or otherwise) during our surveys. To test the effect of food reduction on our bird counts, we surveyed the same 63 hawker centres during two social restriction phases and a tray return enforcement phase when mandatory return of crockery was enforced in hawker centres (Table 1). These three surveys were conducted at 1330 and 1500 as our previous surveys showed the highest bird count at these times. Table 1: Effective dates and survey dates during pre-COVID-19, social restriction and tray return enforcement phases.

Phases Phase start Phase end Survey start Survey end

Pre-COVID-19

-

4-Nov-19 27-Dec-19

Circuit Breaker 7-Apr-20 1-Jun-20 4-May-20 18-May-20

Phase 2 Heightened Alert 16-May-21 13-Jun-21 16-May-21 13-Jun-21

Tray return enforcement

1-Sep-21

3-Sep-21 30-Sep-21

We used aggregated counts of feral pigeons, Javan mynas and house crows separately at different perches for each sampling phase and hawker centre to quantify their niche widths. The niche widths were calculated using the Shannon-Weiner index since our data were discrete. For niche overlaps between the feral pigeon and Javan myna, we used Morisita’s index of similarity since it showed the least bias with changing sample size, number of resources, and resource evenness. We used general linear mixed models (GLMM) with negative binomial error distribution and log link function to determine the factors affecting their counts. To determine the effect of food availability on feral pigeon and Javan myna niche widths at our hawker centres, zero inflated gamma GLMM with log link function was used since our response included zero and positive values. Zero-one inflated beta regression (ZOIB) with random effects was used to determine the factors that influence the proportion of niche overlap between the feral pigeon and Javan myna.

As search engines have become the main information resources of our daily life, studies about search behavior on the internet have gained great popularity with the growing knowledge of how the search behavior itself can affect our daily decisions, e.g. what to purchase, where to travel and even how to define beauty. However, there is no consensus conclusion whether the search behavior itself or the linguistic meaning behind it that can affect their decision. After analyzing the linguistic meanings of 13,915 English words obtained from Google Trends and its profit gained from the US house market by automatic transactions. It is found that linguistic meanings can affect financial decision results as word clusters with supervised machine learning methods.

The origin of terrestrial biota in Antarctica has been debated since the discovery of springtails on the first historic voyages to the southern continent more than 120 years ago. A plausible explanation for the long-term persistence of life requiring ice-free land on continental Antarctica has, however, remained elusive. The default glacial eradication scenario has dominated because hypotheses to date have failed to provide a mechanism for their widespread survival on the continent, particularly through the Last Glacial Maximum when geological evidence demonstrates that the ice sheet was more extensive than present. Here, we provide support for the alternative nunatak refuge hypothesis – that ice-free terrain with sufficient relief above the ice sheet provided refuges and was a source for terrestrial biota found today. This hypothesis is supported here by an increased understanding from the combination of biological and geological evidence, and we outline a mechanism for these refuges d...

Females of many species mate with multiple males (polyandry), resulting in male–male competition extending to post-copulation (sperm competition). Males adapt to such post-copulatory sexual selection by altering features of their ejaculate that increase its competitiveness and/or by decreasing the risk of sperm competition through female manipulation or interference with rival male behaviour. At ejaculation, males of many species deposit copulatory plugs, which are commonly interpreted as a male adaptation to post-copulatory competition and are thought to reduce or delay female remating. Here, we used a vertebrate model species, the house mouse, to study the consequences of copulatory plugs for post-copulatory competition. We experimentally manipulated plugs after a female's first mating and investigated the consequences for rival male behaviour and paternity outcome. We found that even intact copulatory plugs were ineffective at preventing female remating, but that plugs influenced the...

We used the open-access Zillow Inc. GetSearchResults API to sample house data for each ZPID in accordance with daily API call limits. For more information on the API see the official documentation page: https://www.zillow.com/howto/api/GetSearchResults.htm. We anonymized the property address and ZPID fields.

Investments in housing influence migration and landscape construction, making them a key component of human-environment interactions. However, the strategic decision-making that builds residential landscapes is an underdeveloped area of research in evolutionary approaches to human behavior. We develop a model of strategic settlement and fit it to data from Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia. We construct a stochastic dynamic programming model to explore the trade-offs between building, moving, and saving over time, finding different trade-offs depending on optimisation scenarios. Household strategies are estimated using data on 825 households that settled in the Ulaanbaatar Ger districts between 1942 and 2020. The Ger districts are areas of self-built housing featuring both mobile dwellings (gers) and immobile houses (bashins). Using Approximate Bayesian Computation, we find the parameters of our dynamic programming model that best fit the empirical data. The model is able to capture the time horizo..., The dataset is a subset of a household survey that was collected in Ulaanbaatar between 2019-2020. Data from the household survey have been anonymised and represent only the set of variables needed for the analysis detailed in the manuscript. For more information on methods and data management and cleaning procedures, see the methods section of the manuscript. , , # Strategic housing decisions and the evolution of urban settlements: Optimality modelling and empirical application in Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia

https://doi.org/10.5061/dryad.j9kd51ck4

Description of the data and file structure

The household survey from which these data stem was collected to address the strategic settlement decisions of residents in Ulaanbaatar's Ger districts.Â

The variables contained in the dataset represented a cleaned and anonymised subset of the household data, transformed specifically to interface with a theoretical model of strategic settlement decisions that is detailed in the accompanying manuscript.Â

The data hold information on 825 households.Â

Files and variables

File: data_for_analysis_anonym.csv

Description:Â Complete data for 825 households

Variables

• id:Â unique household identifier
• s_state:Â does a household have savings? (1 = no, 2 = yes)
• h_state:Â does a household live in a ...,

Objective: Prolonged periods of living in prefabricated houses (PHs) may increase the risk of musculoskeletal (MSK) symptoms; however, the association is not clear. This study aimed to investigate the association between continued residence in PHs and MSK pain in a population affected by a natural disaster, the Great East Japan Earthquake (GEJE) survivors. Design, setting, and participants: A panel study was conducted including 1,059 and 792 survivors at 2 and 4 years, respectively, after the GEJE, using a self-reported questionnaire. Those with no response on living status and those who did not live in a PH were excluded. Participants were classified into two groups by living status: continued residence in a PH (lived in a PH during both periods) or moving out of a PH (lived in a PH in the first period and did not live in a PH in the second). Primary outcome measure: MSK pain included lower back, shoulder, knee, hand or foot, and neck pain. Changes in the occurrence of MSK pain during ...