Arkansas

This study is based on qualitative and quantitative primary data that was collected through focus groups and surveys that were conducted by Clinton School students over the course of the Fall 2014 semester. This report seeks to understand the relations that community members have with their city government and public officials. Both the focus groups and the surveys utilized open-ended questions to better represent participants’ perceptions.

An analysis of the data collected indicates that the majority of participants were not familiar with the Mayor’s Office or the Little Rock City Board of Directors. Despite residents being aware of issues in the neighborhood, they possess limited knowledge of who their city officials are or how to submit a grievance to city government. Many participants were not confident that either entity would be responsive to their community’s issues. Additionally, many respondents indicated that they do not believe that the Mayor or the City Board of Directors would listen to them or help them with their issues.

Participants voiced concerns about numerous issues that could benefit from attention from the City of Little Rock, including crime in the neighborhood, the city’s failure to adequately maintain property, and a lack of constructive activities for youth and other community members. Many respondents indicated that they believed that neighborhoods south of I-630 receive a lower level of attention from city officials than neighborhoods north of I-630. Respondents noted that this perception applies to a variety of issues including access to public services, access to job opportunities, and a lack of investment in neighborhood infrastructure.

A new species of the seed fern Lyginopteris is described from a nodule in Upper Mississippian (middle Chesterian-Namurian A) shales of the Fayetteville Formation in northwestern Arkansas. The pyritized stem is 29 cm long and slightly compressed, with a diameter of about 11 £ 5 mm, and shows seven diverging leaf bases. The primary xylem of the specimen is eustelic. Foliar bundles extend through ®ve internodes before entering the rachis bases; they do not divide along their trajectory through the stem. Phyllotaxis of the specimen approaches 2/5. Longitudinally oriented sclerenchyma strands accompany the diverging foliar vascular bundles adaxially in the cortex, and are incorporated in the outer cortex above the level of foliar rachis divergence. In contrast to previously described Lyginopteris species, this species lacks capitate epidermal glands. A Lyginopteris type rachis with a paired vascular bundle is preserved in the same nodule. Coprolites probably produced by oribatid mites are present in different tissues of the stem. The study of the leaf trace divergence necessitated the use of a deformation model to help reconstruct the original position of the cauline bundles in the compressed stele. This occurrence of Lyginopteris con®rms earlier reports of the genus from North America and emphasizes that it was not restricted to Western Europe. q

Recent studies on sheep and goat farms in the southern United States indicate that multipleanthelmintic resistance in Haemonchus contortus is becoming a severe problem. Though many factors are involved in the evolution of resistance, the proportion of the parasite population under drug selection is believed to be the single most important factor influencing how rapidly resistance develops. Therefore, where prevention of resistance is an important parallel goal of worm control, it is recommended to leave a portion of the animals untreated. Recently, a novel system called FAMACHA © was developed in South Africa, which enables clinical identification of anemic sheep and goats. When H. contortus is the primary parasitic pathogen, this system can be applied on the farm level to reduce the number of treatments administered, thereby increasing the proportion of the worm population in refugia. Since most studies validating the FAMACHA © method have been performed in South Africa, it is important that the method be tested in other regions before its use is broadly recommended. We performed a validation study of FAMACHA © by testing the system in sheep (n = 847) and goats (n = 537) of various breeds and ages from 39 farms located in Arkansas, Georgia, Louisiana, Florida, and the US Virgin Islands. The color of the ocular conjunctiva of all animals were scored on a 1-5 scale using the FAMACHA © card, and blood samples were collected from each animal for determination of packed cell volume (PCV). Fecal samples were also collected from a majority of the animals tested for performance of fecal egg counts (FEC). Correlations between PCV and eye scores, PCV and FEC, and FEC and eye scores were all highly significant for both sheep and goats (P < 0.001). Data for both FAMACHA © scores and PCV were evaluated using two separate criteria for anemia: eye score values of 3, 4 and 5 or 4 and 5, and PCV values of ≤19 or ≤15 were considered anemic. Specificity was maximized when eye score values of 4 and 5 were considered anemic and PCV cut off for anemia was ≤19, but sensitivity was low. In contrast, sensitivity was 100% for both sheep and goats when eye score values of 3, 4 and 5 were considered anemic and PCV cut off was ≤15, but specificity was low. In both sheep and goats, predictive value of a negative was greater than 92% for all anemia and eye score categories, and was greater than 99% for both eye score categories when an anemia cutoff of ≤15 was used. Predictive value of a positive test was low under all criteria indicating that many non-anemic animals would be treated using this system. However, compared to conventional dosing practices where all animals are treated, a large proportion of animals would still be left untreated. These data indicate that the FAMACHA © method is an extremely useful tool for identifying anemic sheep and goats in the southern US and US Virgin Islands. However, further studies are required to determine optimal strategies for incorporating FAMACHA © -based selective treatment protocols into integrated nematode control programs.

By affecting the probability of nest predation and brood parasitism, avian nest-site selection has significant implications for reproduction and fitness. Therefore, understanding factors associated with habitat use at the nest-site scale is imperative, especially for species of conservation concern. One such species, the Swainson’s Warbler (Limnothlypis swainsonii), is a rare neotropical migrant that breeds mainly in bottomland hardwood forests
throughout the southeastern United States, but relatively little is known about its nesting habitat. From 2004 through 2007, we studied nest-site selection of Swainson’s Warblers at two study areas in eastern Arkansas. We found that, relative to paired random plots, nest sites were characterized by dense understory vegetation, high total canopy cover, abundant leaf litter, and high density of woody stems, especially of giant cane (Arundinaria gigantea), a once-abundant bamboo native to the southeastern U.S. Indeed, most nests (90%) were placed in giant cane either exclusively or in combination with other nest substrates. However, understory vegetation density and total canopy cover were the best predictors of nest sites. We suggest that management for Swainson’s Warbler nesting habitat should focus on providing forests with uniformly dense understory vegetation and well-developed structure of the canopy and subcanopy. When possible, conservation efforts should focus on maintaining, enhancing,
or restoring dense cane thickets.

Published as T. J. Benson, N. M. Anich, J. D. Brown, and J. C. Bednarz. 2009. Swainson's Warbler Nest-Site Selection in Eastern Arkansas. Condor 111(4):694–705. © 2009 by the Regents of the University of California/Cooper Ornithological Society. Copying and permissions notice: Authorization to copy this content beyond fair use (as specified in Sections 107 and 108 of the U. S. Copyright Law) for internal or personal use, or the internal or personal use of specific clients, is granted by the Regents of the University of California/on behalf of the Cooper Ornithological Society for libraries and other users, provided that they are registered with and pay the specified fee via Rightslink® on JSTOR (http://www.jstor.org/r/ucal) or directly with the Copyright Clearance Center, http://www.copyright.com.

Nutrient regulations have been developed over the past decades to limit anthropogenic inputs of phosphorus (P) to surface waters. All of the regulations were promulgated in response to decreased water quality, which was at least partially associated with agricultural non-point source pollution. Improvements in water quality can take years, so the impacts of these regulations on water quality can not always be seen. Denmark has had nutrient management regulations aimed at achieving mass balance of P for 20 yr, and although great progress has been made, an average surplus of 11 kg P ha −1 remains. Northern Ireland is also trying to move toward mass balance, but decreases in inorganic P fertilizer use have been undermined by an increase in the use of feed concentrates. In the Chesapeake Bay watershed, which covers several states in the USA, a variety of best management practices are starting to have an eff ect on P losses from agriculture, but water quality has only improved slightly. Impairment to the supply of drinking water to the City of Tulsa Oklahoma led to a lawsuit that has greatly aff ected the management of poultry litter in the supplying watershed. Th is paper discusses the diff erent regulations that have developed in these four regions, evaluates the strategies used to prevent nonpoint source pollution of P, reports impacts on water quality, and looks for lessons that can be learned as we move forward.

People who have little responsibility for industrial capitalism must pay the price for global warming. The Marshall Islands of the Central Pacific Ocean are among the most vulnerable locations threatened by sea level rise and may cease to be habitable within this generation. Under its Compact of Free Association (COFA) with the U.S., citizens of the Republic of the Marshall Islands travel freely to the U.S. without needing a visa. As the conditions for survival become more difficult in the Marshall Islands, the COFA provision of free entry into the U.S. makes migration to the U.S. the logical option for the Marshallese people. The highest population of Marshallese migrants are now found in Northwest Arkansas, attracted by employment in the poultry industry, where, to survive, they find themselves contributing to the forces of global warming that make their island homes uninhabitable.