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OPUS: Open Ulethbridge Scholarship

Open ULeth Scholarship (OPUS) is the University of Lethbridge's open access research repository. It contains a collection of materials related to research and teaching produced by the academic community.

Self-archiving your research in OPUS is one way to meet Open Access policies of granting agencies. It is important to retain your final, post-peer-reviewed drafts for submission to OPUS, as this is often the only version publishers will allow to be archived. Click here for information on the U of L Open Access Policy.

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    Sex-specific expression of non-coding RNA fragments in frontal cortex, hippocampus and cerebellum of rats
    (MDPI, 2022) Fiselier, Anna; Byeon, Boseon; Ilnytskyy, Yaroslav; Kovalchuk, Igor; Kovalchuk, Olga
    Non-coding RNA fragments (ncRFs) are processed from various non-coding RNAs (ncRNAs), with the most abundant being those produced from tRNAs. ncRFs were reported in many animal and plant species. Many ncRFs exhibit tissue specificity or/and are affected by stress. There is, however, only a handful of reports that describe differential expression of ncRFs in the brain regions. In this work, we analyzed the abundance of ncRFs processed from four major ncRNAs, including tRNA (tRFs), snoRNA (snoRFs), snRNA (snRFs), and rRNA (rRFs) in the frontal cortex (FC), hippocampus (HIP), and cerebellum (CER) of male and female rats. We found brain-specific and sex-specific differences. Reads mapping to lincRNAs were significantly larger in CER as compared to HIP and CER, while those mapping to snRNAs and tRNA were smaller in HIP than in FC and CER. tRF reads were the most abundant among all ncRF reads, and FC had more reads than HIP and CER. Reads mapping to antisense ncRNAs were significantly larger in females than in males in FC. Additionally, males consistently had more tRF, snRF, and snoRF reads in all brain regions. rRFs were more abundant in males in FC and females in HIP. Several tRFs were significantly underrepresented, including tRF-ValCAC, tRF-ValACC, and tRF-LysCTT in all brain regions. We also found brain- and sex-specific differences in the number of brain function-related mRNA targets. To summarize, we found sex-specific differences in the expression of several ncRNA fragments in various brain regions of healthy rats
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    Bee visitation, pollination service, and crop yield in commodity and hybrid seed canola
    (Elsevier, 2023) Robinson, Samuel V. J.; Cartar, Ralph V.; Pernal, Stephen F.; Waytes, Riley; Hoover, Shelley E.
    Insect-mediated pollination of crops is an important service to agriculture, as increased insect visitation can increase fruit production by increasing pollen deposition. Unfortunately, pollination is often treated as a “black box”, and pollination management suffers from key knowledge gaps that hinder its greater utility, particularly the specific mechanisms underlying the processes of visitation, pollination, and fruit production. We present a causal model that links insect visitation to pollination to three separate components of yield, using field data from two types of canola (Brassica napus) production systems. Our results demonstrate that yield in commodity canola fields is primarily determined by plant size, and we found no relationship between honey bee (Apis mellifera) visitation and pollen deposition, or pollen deposition and seed yield. In contrast, yield in hybrid seed canola fields was similarly controlled by plant size, but there was also a strong relationship between alfalfa leafcutting bee (Megachile rotundata) visitation and pollen deposition, as well as pollen deposition and seed yield, meaning that leafcutting bee visitation in increased pollen deposition in seed canola fields, while honey bee visitation did not. This model serves as a step towards a dynamic model of pollination services, and highlights the relative importance of bee pollination in canola production.
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    Carbohydrate flow through agricultural ecosystems: Implications for synthesis and microbial conversion of carbohydrates
    (Elsevier, 2023) Low, Kristin E.; Tingley, Jeffrey P.; Klassen, Leeann; King, Marissa L.; Xing, Xiaohui; Watt, Caitlin; Hoover, Shelley E.; Gorzelak, Monika; Abbott, D. Wade
    Carbohydrates are chemically and structurally diverse biomolecules, serving numerous and varied roles in agricultural ecosystems. Crops and horticulture products are inherent sources of carbohydrates that are consumed by humans and non-human animals alike; however carbohydrates are also present in other agricul- tural materials, such as soil and compost, human and animal tissues, milk and dairy products, and honey. The biosynthesis, modification, and flow of carbohydrates within and between agricultural ecosystems is intimately related with microbial communities that colonize and thrive within these environments. Recent advances in –omics techniques have ushered in a new era for microbial ecology by illuminating the functional potential for carbohydrate metabolism encoded within microbial genomes, while agricultural glycomics is providing fresh perspective on carbohydrate-microbe interactions and how they influence the flow of functionalized carbon. Indeed, carbohydrates and carbohydrate-active enzymes are interventions with unrealized potential for improving carbon sequestration, soil fertility and stability, developing alternatives to antimicrobials, and circular production systems. In this manner, glycomics represents a new frontier for carbohydrate-based biotechnological solutions for agricultural systems facing escalating challenges, such as the changing climate.
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    Requeening queenright honey bee colonies with queen cells in honey supers
    (Oxford University Press, 2023) Holmes, Leslie A.; Kearns, Jeffery D.; Ovinge, Lynae P.; Wolf Veiga, Patricia; Hoover, Shelley E.
    Many Canadian beekeepers replace a subset of their honey bee queens annually. However, introducing a new queen to a honey bee colony is a management practice with a high degree of uncertainty. Despite the consensus that it is most effective to introduce queens to queenless colonies, some commercial beekeepers claim success with introducing queen cells into the honey super of queenright colonies. We tested the success rate of this practice by introducing queen cells to 100 queenright colonies in southern Alberta during a honey flow. The genotypes of the resultant offspring drones were determined using the microsatellite marker A76 to identify their laying queen mothers. Our results show that new queens successfully supersede original queens in 6% of queenright colonies, suggesting that the practice does not result in the new queen taking over leadership in most colonies. Additionally, supersedure by daughter queens is more common (13%) than new queen supersedure when introducing queen cells to queenright colonies during a honey flow. However, there could be a benefit to the practice of requeening queenright colonies with queen cells in honey supers if the colonies that accepted a new queen (whether a daughter of or unrelated to the old queen) were colonies with a failing queen.
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    The effects of protein supplementation, fumagillin treatment, and colony management on the productivity and long-term survival of honey bee (Apis mellifera) colonies
    (PLOS, 2024) Peirson, Michael; Ibrahim, Abdullah; Ovinge, Lynae P.; Hoover, Shelley E.; Guarna, M. Marta; Melathopoulos, Andony; Pernal, Stephen F.
    In this study, we intensively measured the longitudinal productivity and survival of 362 commercially managed honey bee colonies in Canada, over a two-year period. A full factorial experimental design was used, whereby two treatments were repeated across apiaries situated in three distinct geographic regions: Northern Alberta, Southern Alberta and Prince Edward Island, each having unique bee management strategies. In the protein supplemented treatment, colonies were continuously provided a commercial protein supplement containing 25% w/w pollen, in addition to any feed normally provided by beekeepers in that region. In the fumagillin treatment, colonies were treated with the label dose of Fumagilin-B® each year during the fall. Neither treatment provided consistent benefits across all sites and dates. Fumagillin was associated with a large increase in honey production only at the Northern Alberta site, while protein supplementation produced an early season increase in brood production only at the Southern Alberta site. The protein supplement provided no long-lasting benefit at any site and was also associated with an increased risk of death and decreased colony size later in the study. Differences in colony survival and productivity among regions, and among colonies within beekeeping operations, were far larger than the effects of either treatment, suggesting that returns from extra feed supplements and fumagillin were highly contextually dependent. We conclude that use of fumagillin is safe and sometimes beneficial, but that beekeepers should only consider excess protein supplementation when natural forage is limiting.