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Wright fishhook cactus is a small globose cactus endemic to an area of 280,000 ha in south-central Utah and was listed as endangered in October of 1979 by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS). There is a general paucity of information about this species, and no published data on the seed bank for any species in the genus. Our objective with this study was to provide insight into the established seed bank density for this species. We processed 500 soil samples from various locations near individual cacti and potential neighboring nurse plants. We found that the species had a detectable seed bank of a size similar to other members of the Cactaceae family. Seed bank densities were the highest immediately adjacent to, and downslope from, parent plants. Our data indicate that areas within 20 cm of seed-producing cacti contain by far the greatest density of seeds. These areas should be given special consideration in future management plans for this species.

Abstract Background Assessing wildlife movements and habitat use is important for species conservation and management and can be informative for understanding population dynamics. The African buffalo (Syncerus caffer) population of Ruaha National Park, Tanzania has been declining, and little was known about the movement, habitat selection, and space use of the population, which is important for understanding possible reasons behind the decline. A total of 12 African buffalo cows from four different herds were collared with satellite transmitters. Movements were assessed over 2 years from 11 animals. Results The space use of the individual collared buffaloes as an approximation of the 95% home range size estimated using Brownian bridge models, ranged from 73 to 601 km2. The estimated home ranges were larger in the wet season than in the dry season. With the exception of one buffalo all collared animals completed a wet season migration of varying distances. A consistent pattern of seasonal movement was observed with one herd, whereas the other herds did not behave the same way in the two wet seasons that they were tracked. Herd splitting and herd switching occurred on multiple occasions. Buffaloes strongly associated with habitats near the Great Ruaha River in the dry season and had little association to permanent water sources in the wet season. Daily movements averaged 4.6 km (standard deviation, SD = 2.6 km), with the longest distances traveled during November (mean 6.9 km, SD = 3.6 km) at the end of the dry season and beginning of the wet season. The shortest daily distances traveled occurred in the wet season in April–June (mean 3.6 km, SD = 1.6–1.8 km). Conclusion The Great Ruaha River has experienced significant drying in the last decades due to water diversions upstream, which likely has reduced the suitable range for buffaloes. The loss of dry season habitat due to water scarcity has likely contributed to the population decline of the Ruaha buffaloes.

Greater sage-grouse populations have decreased steadily since European settlement in western North America. Reduced availability of brood-rearing habitat has been identified as a limiting factor for many populations. We used radio-telemetry to acquire locations of sage-grouse broods from 1998 to 2012 in Strawberry Valley, Utah. Using these locations and remotely-sensed NAIP (National Agricultural Imagery Program) imagery, we 1) determined which characteristics of brood-rearing habitat could be used in widely available, high resolution imagery 2) assessed the spatial extent at which sage-grouse selected brood-rearing habitat, and 3) created a predictive habitat model to identify areas of preferred brood-rearing habitat. We used AIC model selection to evaluate support for a list of variables derived from remotely-sensed imagery. We examined the relationship of these explanatory variables at three spatial extents (45, 200, and 795 meter radii). Our top model included 10 variables (percent shrub, percent grass, percent tree, percent paved road, percent riparian, meters of sage/tree edge, meters of riparian/tree edge, distance to tree, distance to transmission lines, and distance to permanent structures). Variables from each spatial extent were represented in our top model with the majority being associated with the larger (795 meter) spatial extent. When applied to our study area, our top model predicted 75% of naïve brood locations suggesting reasonable success using this method and widely available NAIP imagery. We encourage application of our methodology to other sage-grouse populations and species of conservation concern.

[This corrects the article DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0156290.].

In this paper, the definitions of subjective well-being have been reviewed with a focus on its emotional core, which we consider to be the ratio of positive to negative affect over time. The reviewed evidence showed that negative emotions tend to be of longer duration than positive and that the NA system produces stronger emotional responses than the PA system. Also, a variety of experimental results show that negative stimuli make unique demands on cognitive resources (particularly perception and attention) compared to positive stimuli. The evidence that the negative affect system produces stronger affective output, per unit input, than the positive affect system, is a phenomenon known as negativity bias. I also went so far as to argue that negativity exceeds positivity by a factor of pi (3.14) and that efforts to speed adaptation to negative events may be more important to overall SWB then efforts to prolong responses to positive events (Larsen and Prizmic, 2008). The fact that negativity is stronger than positivity, combined with the notion of differential adaptation (people adapt faster to good events than to bad events), creates the conditions that drive the hedonic treadmill. However, most people are, to some degree, able to overcome the psychological forces of the hedonic treadmill and maintain at least a modicum of emotional well-being (Biswas-Diener, Vitterso, & Diener, 2005). It is likely that the ability called "emotional intelligence" refers in large part to the capacity to manage negative affect following unpleasant or stressful events (Larsen & Learner, 2006). Moreover, such an ability is likely to be made up of particular behaviors and strategies that each contributes specifically to the management of negative emotions (Larsen & Prizmic, 2004).

Algom, Chajut, and Lev (2004) reported that the Emotion-Word Stroop task does not generate the cognitive processes involved in the Color-Word Stroop paradigm. An Emotion Face-Word naming task that satisfies the criteria of the Stroop paradigm is explored. Two alternative hypotheses were tested: that valence can produce Stroop-like interference or that negative information captures attention, i.e., automatic vigilance. This naming task produced facilitation and interference when the emotion words were congruent or incongruent, respectively. Vigilance effects for negative faces and negative words were also found, such that naming the faces was significantly slower when they were negative or when the superimposed words were negative. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]