- San José, San José, Costa Rica
Julian Monge-Najera
Universidad de Costa Rica, Biology, Faculty Member
At least seven locations have been proposed for the sonic mechanism of Hamadryas butterflies, which has not been identified to date. Using light microscopy, five species of Hamadryas (including a "mute" population) were compared... more
At least seven locations have been proposed for the sonic mechanism of Hamadryas butterflies, which has not been identified to date. Using light microscopy, five species of Hamadryas (including a "mute" population) were compared with Siproeta stelenes, Ancirtia fatima and Ectima thecla, which do not emit audible sound. Three macrostructures were found exclusively inHamadryas: the abdominal rami, and in the forewings, a hemispheric membrane in the costal cell and the swollen base of the subcostal vein. Only the third appears to be related to sound emission (possibly, percussion by clapping the wings). Thus, the forewings appear to be the most feasible location for the sound emission mechanism in
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Las Hamadryas son mariposas neotropicales que emiten sonido y pasan mucho tiempo posadas en árboles, donde son crípticas. Se estudió cinco especies en Costa Rica y Panama. Cada especie tiene una altura característica para posarse. Se... more
Las Hamadryas son mariposas neotropicales que emiten sonido y pasan mucho tiempo posadas en árboles, donde son crípticas. Se estudió cinco especies en Costa Rica y Panama. Cada especie tiene una altura característica para posarse. Se posaron menos del lado sur de los árboles y evitaron las partes soleadas en días calurosos. Los machos dejaron su percha para volar hacia otras Hamadryas y hacia "mariposas" de cartón. Cuando se retiró los machos de los árboles éstos fueron tomados con mucha mayor frecuencia por otros machos. La mayoría de las interacciones aéreas de H. femnia se dieron entre las 1 3 : 00 y las 1 5 :00 h y fueron más frecuentes en la estación lluviosa. De noche, los machos compartían los árboles. El sonido característico del grupo es producido por venas modificadas en las alas delanteras.
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Detailed distribution maps for the major bromeliad genera native to Costa Rica were prepared bases on the collections in the three largest herbaria of the country and on citations from the literature. Most records are from the montane... more
Detailed distribution maps for the major bromeliad genera native to Costa Rica were prepared bases on the collections in the three largest herbaria of the country and on citations from the literature. Most records are from the montane habitats, probably reflecting the frequent need for moisture by these plants. Vriesea ans Guzmania have been collected mostly in moist lowland habitats. In 1975, Burt-Utley and Utley had hypothesized that the Holdridge Life Zone System should fit the distribution of epiphytic bromeliads because soil (a factor not considered in the System) is not important in their occurrence. However, on average, species were absent in about half of the Life Zones where they were expected to occur according to the Holdridge classification. It is hypothesized that the System failed because epiphytic bromeliad distribution reflects factor interactions rather than humidity, light or temperature individually.
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Velvet worms, or onychophorans, include placental species and, as a phylum, have survived all mass extinctions since the Cambrian. They capture prey with an extraordinary adhesive net that appears in an instant. The first naturalist to... more
Velvet worms, or onychophorans, include placental species and, as a phylum, have survived all mass extinctions since the Cambrian. They capture prey with an extraordinary adhesive net that appears in an instant. The first naturalist to formally mention them was Lansdown Guilding (1797-1831), a British priest from the Caribbean island of Saint Vincent. His life is as little known as the history of the field he initiated, onychophorology. This is the first general history of onychophorology, and I have divided it into half century periods. The beginning, 1826-1879, was defined by former students of great names in the history of biology, like Cuvier and von Baer. This generation included Milne-Edwars and Blanchard, and the greatest advances came from France, with smaller but still important contributions from England and Germany. In the 1880-1929 period, work concentrated in anatomy, behavior, biogeography and ecology, but of course the most important work was Bouvier’s mammoth monogra...
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The populations of pitvipers from south western Costa Rica, have traditionally been identified as Bothriechis schlegelii (Berthold). However, in 1954 E. H. Taylor described one specimen from the area as a new subspecies, B. schlegelii... more
The populations of pitvipers from south western Costa Rica, have traditionally been identified as Bothriechis schlegelii (Berthold). However, in 1954 E. H. Taylor described one specimen from the area as a new subspecies, B. schlegelii supraciliaris. Werrnan returned supraciliaris to synonymy with schlegelii four decades latero However, morphometry and color pattern in a SW Costa Rica population (25 specimens) differ from those of specimens (N=57) from other parts of Costa Rica and from descriptions of South American specimens. Here ihe epithet Bothriechis schlegelii supraciliaris Taylor 1954, is reestablished as a valid taxon and elevated to specific rank as B. supraciliaris stat.nov. It is closely related to B. schlegelii from which it differs by its color patterns based on a uniforrn ground color with polymorphic dorsal designs, and its lower counts of ventral and caudal scales.
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Los liquenes son frecuentemente utilizados como biomonitores (bioindicadores y bioacumuladores) para evaluar la calidad atmosferica, debido a su longevidad y porque obtienen la mayor parte de sus nutrientes del aire, lo que los hace muy... more
Los liquenes son frecuentemente utilizados como biomonitores (bioindicadores y bioacumuladores) para evaluar la calidad atmosferica, debido a su longevidad y porque obtienen la mayor parte de sus nutrientes del aire, lo que los hace muy sensibles a las impurezas presentes en el medio. Ellos se emplean como biomonitores cuando se realiza un mapeo de todas las especies presentes en un area especifica o se estudian a lo largo del tiempo para comparar los resultados con valores promedio y por bioacumulacion cuando se hace un muestreo de las especies liquenicas y se miden, por medio de analisis quimicos, los contaminantes acumulados en sus talos. Tras revisar la ultima literatura publicada a nivel mundial, se concluye que el dioxido de azufre y el dioxido de nitrogeno son los principales contaminantes presentes en la atmosfera y ellos influyen en el crecimiento, distribucion y salud de los liquenes. Africa y Oceania son las regiones donde menos trabajos recientes existen en el campo.
Research Interests: Art and Biocenosis
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The intluence of wing length on mate preference was exanuned in natural populations of the Neotropical guaya fruit tly, Anastrepha striata Schiner, at two locations in Costa Rica. Based on evidence that the fungi are transmitted during... more
The intluence of wing length on mate preference was exanuned in natural populations of the Neotropical guaya fruit tly, Anastrepha striata Schiner, at two locations in Costa Rica. Based on evidence that the fungi are transmitted during mating, site-specific infection by Laboulbeniales fungi on the body surface was used to assess mating history. At both.sites, males and females that carrled fungi on the legs andlor on the ventral part of the thorax (males), and on both sides of the notum andlor the dorsal base of the abdomen (females), had significantly longer wings than males and females without fungi. This suggests that individuals of both sexes with longer wings (i.e. larger individuals) enjoy higher mating success. Fungus infection is more frequent in the wet than in the seasonally dry forest, possibly because hosts are .available year-roimd in the wet forest.
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espanolAproximadamente en el ano de 1938, la United Fruit Company instala una de las ciudades division en Golfito, en el Pacifico Sur de Costa Rica, y construye un conjunto urbano flanqueado por una Fila Montanosa y una pequena Bahia... more
espanolAproximadamente en el ano de 1938, la United Fruit Company instala una de las ciudades division en Golfito, en el Pacifico Sur de Costa Rica, y construye un conjunto urbano flanqueado por una Fila Montanosa y una pequena Bahia rodeada de manglares. En este documento se analizan los patrones de cambio en dicho paisaje, desde sus variables culturales y ambientales a partir de la repeticion fotografica. Se seleccionaron 14 fotografias correspondientes a la decada de 1950, cada una fue repetida desde la ubicacion original y fue analizada mediante el metodo de plantilla y la aplicacion de indicadores. Una reduccion relevante en la cobertura de zonas verdes urbanas fue identificada, en contraste con un aumento en la cobertura de bosque. Se identifico una baja presencia de equipamientos urbanos, el desmejoramiento parcial en las tipologias arquitectonicas tradicionales y una baja adaptacion a las condiciones tropicales en la arquitectura contemporanea de la ciudad. La gestion territ...
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In a study of the ecology of epiphyllous liverworts in a Tropical lower montane et forest, it was found that the degree of epiphyllic cover and herbivory are generally higher in larger leaves, vhich indicates that both behave as functions... more
In a study of the ecology of epiphyllous liverworts in a Tropical lower montane et forest, it was found that the degree of epiphyllic cover and herbivory are generally higher in larger leaves, vhich indicates that both behave as functions of area. The epiphyllic growth and area consumed by herbivores increase more rapidly than leaf area, and there is no statistical relationship between epiphyllv, and herbivory and leaf shape. Absolute and relative epiphyllic cover are higher in the forest clearing than in the understory, perhaps as a result of high atmospheric humidity and occurrence of heliophilic species. This quantitative survey approach is convenient for two reasons: it provides a defined view of actual field conditions and serves as a guide to posterior experimental corroboration. RESUME - Letude de lecologie des hepatiques epiphylles en foret tropicale humide de basse altitude permet de mettre en evidence que Ic recouvrement par les Cpiphylles et l'action des herbivores so...
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Recientemente se ha vuelto urgente comprender que es, como se hace y que aspectos positivos y negativos tiene la des-extincion de especies. En este articulo se resume, en lenguaje sencillo, los avances mas recientes en este campo con base... more
Recientemente se ha vuelto urgente comprender que es, como se hace y que aspectos positivos y negativos tiene la des-extincion de especies. En este articulo se resume, en lenguaje sencillo, los avances mas recientes en este campo con base en la literatura cientifica. El primer proyecto para resucitar especies extintas se inicio en Alemania en 1920 con el tarpan (Equus ferus ferus), y el uro (Bos primigenius) usando la tecnica de entrecruzamiento desarrollada por los hermanos Heck. Mas recientemente se han propuesto otras tecnicas, como el uso de semen u ovulos congelados de restos articos, la clonacion de tejidos de museos y la manipulacion de ADN con ingenieria genetica. Algunas especies costarricenses que se extinguieron pero teoricamente podrian resucitarse son el sapo dorado de Monteverde (Incilius periglenes), el sapo de Chirripo (Atelopus chirripoensis), el sapo del Pico Blanco (Incilius fastidiosus), el caracol escazuceno (Velifera gabbi), el tigre dientes de sable (Smilodon ...
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Introduction: In contrast with other tropical countries, Cuba has been frequently studied from the point of views of scientometrics. It has been reported that Cuban researchers often failed to cite other Cuban researchers or to... more
Introduction: In contrast with other tropical countries, Cuba has been frequently studied from the point of views of scientometrics. It has been reported that Cuban researchers often failed to cite other Cuban researchers or to collaborate with them, and that 78 % of the Cuban scientifc output is published in Cuban journals and mostly missed by Scopus and the Web of Science. Objective: In this article, we analyze article characteristics (subject, language, authorship), institutions and journals that appear in the Science Citation Index Expanded, as well as citations from the Web of Science Core Collection. Methods: We analyzed publications from Cuba, dated 1900 to 2019, that reached the index. Results: We retrieved a total of 23576 publications, mostly articles. In this database, English is the dominant language, and, over time, articles have become longer and increased the number of authors and references. Numerically, the leading institution is Universidad de La Habana. Research i...
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In contrast with other countries of the Central America biodiversity “hotspot”, El Salvador has received considerable attention from the scientometrics point of view. According to previous studies, the country is unusual in its strong... more
In contrast with other countries of the Central America biodiversity “hotspot”, El Salvador has received considerable attention from the scientometrics point of view. According to previous studies, the country is unusual in its strong concentration of research funds in the social sciences, and in the unexpectedly low productivity and visibility of its scientific institutions. We only found 788 publications with El Salvador authors in the Science Citation Index Expanded (SCI-EXPANDED) until 2015, mostly in English and about health, environment and agriculture. Articles have more authors than previously found for the rest of Central America. The fact that two historically important articles were written exclusively by Salvadoran scientists indicates the potential for high level science that the country has had at least since 1940. Scientific productivity and international collaboration are improving, but the whole productivity and impact of scientific institutions of El Salvador remai...
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Normally, butterfly behavior and population size are studied intensively for brief periods or occasionally for long periods, not in detail for long periods, producing an incomplete view in bolh cases. How time limitation affects studies... more
Normally, butterfly behavior and population size are studied intensively for brief periods or occasionally for long periods, not in detail for long periods, producing an incomplete view in bolh cases. How time limitation affects studies has been unknown for a long time. This paper analyses this problem based on an intensive long term study of Vanessa atalanta (L.) that covered nearly 8000 days, most of them consecutive, for 22 years (Apri1 15, 1977- Apri1 14, 1999), in a subtropical habitat near Orlando, Florida. There is no evidence Ihat ethological studies are affected by their normally brief duration (one year or less), but the analysis of yearly values hid the associations of number of individuals and arrival time with climate. In small areas, isolated population counts lasting less Ihan two weeks are not reliable, according to this study. We found no difference in number of visitors for El Niño years. The daily number of visitors was inversely correlated with temperature and pr...
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Lichens are traditionally divided into types such as…
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Significant amounts of economic resources are spent by poor countries for access to scientific information that is blocked by pay-walls, and when fees are corrected for local economies, they can be the equivalent of hundreds of dollars... more
Significant amounts of economic resources are spent by poor countries for access to scientific information that is blocked by pay-walls, and when fees are corrected for local economies, they can be the equivalent of hundreds of dollars per article. Pay-walls, is controlled by a small group of companies in rich countries, block knowledge from the societies that need it most. These companies should adjust their fees according to local economies: this would be fairer and would benefit everyone, including the same companies.
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Guatemala, with 16 million inhabitants, is the largest economy of Central America and should have the largest scientific output of the region. To assess its productivity and impact, we analyzed the 3380 Guatemala articles included in the... more
Guatemala, with 16 million inhabitants, is the largest economy of Central America and should have the largest scientific output of the region. To assess its productivity and impact, we analyzed the 3380 Guatemala articles included in the SCI-expanded in June, 2017. Most Guatemala documents are articles in English, deal with nutrition and health problems, and have a mean of 7.4 authors per article. Also in this particular database, citation lifespan is 40 years, and citations are higher for articles in English (twice more than those in Spanish), for reviews (mean 24 citations per review) and for studies resulting from international collaboration, which is done mostly with the USA and Mexico. The most productive institutions are the Center for Studies of Sensory Impairment CESSIAM, the universities of San Carlos and El Valle, and the Central American Nutrition Institute INCAP (but the INCAP has decreased productivity in recent years). The most productive researchers are N.W. Solomons,...
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Public opinion is important in obtaining support for the conservation of biodiversity, and invertebrates have a "public relations problem" because -for reasons that are both cultural and biological- they are poorly known and... more
Public opinion is important in obtaining support for the conservation of biodiversity, and invertebrates have a "public relations problem" because -for reasons that are both cultural and biological- they are poorly known and often unpopular. In this article I present the results of an experiment on the power of a short lecture to improve attitude towards invertebrates, using the case of velvet worms. Velvet worms are "living fossils" that have inspired a wide range of cultural expressions, probably because of the adhesive net they use to capture prey. For the experiment, a group of 141 Costa Ricans, aged 10 to 58 years old, rated their reaction to a color photograph of Epiperipatus biolleyi, a Costa Rican species of velvet worm, before and after a five-minute lecture about the natural history of the worm. Even before the treatment, most of the respondents had a correct idea of the animal's anatomy (84%); supported the use of public funds to conserve it (71%);...
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La prevalencia de la Hipertensión Arterial (HTA) se ha incrementado en todo el mundo y las accionespreventivas resultan insuficientes, ya que solamente un tercio total de esta población está controlada. La HTAes la primera causa de... more
La prevalencia de la Hipertensión Arterial (HTA) se ha incrementado en todo el mundo y las accionespreventivas resultan insuficientes, ya que solamente un tercio total de esta población está controlada. La HTAes la primera causa de morbilidad y mortalidad mundial. En este artículo se presenta el primer estudio sobrelos niveles de hipertensión en el personal de una universidad a distancia, mediante el análisis del total deconsultas en la Universidad Estatal a Distancia de Costa Rica al 15 de diciembre del 2007 (1526 expedientesmédicos). La población estudiada se encuentra en edades comprendidas entre los 20 a 70 años, residentes delGran Área Metropolitana, con nivel socioeconómico y preparación académica variable. Se analizó la relaciónentre la HTA y las variables tratamiento, sexo, edad y tipo de trabajo, usando la prueba chi-cuadrado. Solo 45de los pacientes conocían de su problema de hipertensión antes de llegar a consulta en el servicio médicoinstitucional y 136 pacientes reciben...
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Aparentemente no existen datos publicados sobre la morbilidad y consulta externa del personal en una universidad a distancia. Este informe presenta esos datos para la Universidad Estatal a Distancia de Costa Rica. Los participantes en el... more
Aparentemente no existen datos publicados sobre la morbilidad y consulta externa del personal en una universidad a distancia. Este informe presenta esos datos para la Universidad Estatal a Distancia de Costa Rica. Los participantes en el estudio fueron todos los empleados que se presentaron a consulta entre el 15 de enero del 2004 y el 15 de diciembre del 2006. En lugar de hacer un muestreo, se estudió el total de la población, usando como instrumentos los 1526 expedientes médicos correspondientes. Procedimiento: en una primera etapa se leyeron los expedientes en su totalidad y se tabularon los datos de morbilidad. A partir de este registro se procedió al análisis estadístico con el programa Statgraphics Centurion XV. Los hallazgos principales fueron que el 50% de los pacientes solamente asistieron una vez a consulta externa durante el periodo y que la mayoría tenía entre 20 y 50 años de edad. Los días con mayor cantidad de consultas fueron lunes, martes y miércoles. La cantidad de ...
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The Monster of Troy, depicted in a 6th Century BC Corinthian vase, has been proposed to be the earliest artistic record of a vertebrate fossil, possibly a Miocene giraffe (Samotherium sp.). The purpose of the paper was to analyze the... more
The Monster of Troy, depicted in a 6th Century BC Corinthian vase, has been proposed to be the earliest artistic record of a vertebrate fossil, possibly a Miocene giraffe (Samotherium sp.). The purpose of the paper was to analyze the giraffe hypothesis using four approaches: a double-blind random design in which 78 biologists compared the vase skull with Samotherium and several reptiles; an informed survey of 30 art and science students who critically assessed the hypothesis based on images of candidate species; an objective computerized mathematical comparison of the images; and a detailed morphological comparison of the skulls. All of the participants rejected the giraffe hypothesis. The types of eyes and teeth unambiguously discard a mammal, whether fossil or living, as the model. The model was most likely an extant carnivorous reptile of the Varanidae family.
Research Interests: Art and Uniciencia
Little Red Riding Hood is a widely known classic story and its text has been abundantly analyzed, but no detailed statistical stud- ies have been published about how it has been illustrated. We analyzed 554 images from the public artists’... more
Little Red Riding Hood is a widely known classic story and its text has been abundantly analyzed, but no detailed statistical stud- ies have been published about how it has been illustrated. We analyzed 554 images from the public artists’ site DeviantArt (January, 2015); clas- si ed them according to how the wolf, Little Red, and the environment were represented by the artists; and applied non-parametrical statisti- cal tests to check several hypotheses. When compared with profession- als, amateur artists tended to present a more neutral environment, and to humanize the wolf. Female artists were more likely to represent the wolf as a dressed man. Men were more likely to set the story outside of forests, to eroticize Red and to show her confused, scared or unin- terested when rst meeting the wolf. The neutral attitude of amateurs towards nature suggests indecision, while professional artists seem more used to produce family-friendly images. The female tendency to present the wolf as ...
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La ecología urbana inició en Costa Rica en la década de 1950 con el estudio de los parásitos urbanos, seguido en la década de 1960 por la ecología de árboles urbanos y en la de 1990 por la ornitología de ciudad. En 2008, con la creación... more
La ecología urbana inició en Costa Rica en la década de 1950 con el estudio de los parásitos urbanos, seguido en la década de 1960 por la ecología de árboles urbanos y en la de 1990 por la ornitología de ciudad. En 2008, con la creación del primer centro en el mundo dedicado a la ecología de asentamientos tropicales, el Laboratorio de Ecología Urbana de la UNED, se entró en la etapa institucional de la disciplina. Entre los pioneros del campo en Costa Rica se encuentran Róger Bolaños, Luis Fournier, Gary Stiles y Zaidett Barrientos.
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Onychophoran worms are considered "living fossils" because their basic body structure has changed little in 500 million years. Only two species have been properly recorded from Mexico: Macroperipatus perrieri from Veracruz, and... more
Onychophoran worms are considered "living fossils" because their basic body structure has changed little in 500 million years. Only two species have been properly recorded from Mexico: Macroperipatus perrieri from Veracruz, and Oroperipatus eisenii from Nayarit. Here we report an undescribed species of Oroperipatus from Tuxtla Gutiérrez, Chiapas. Males, which are rarer, smaller and reddish than females, are 3-4cm long and have 24-25 leg pairs (N=6). Females are 4-7,5cm long and have 28-29 pairs (N=19). We propose the common name "Tuxtla Brownish Purple Velvet Worm" to help study and protect the species until it receives formal description. This new record expands the known distribution of the phylum in Mexico from the evergreen forest of Veracruz to the deciduous forest of Tuxtla (400Km).
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Onychophorans or velvet worm are the only phylum without extant marine species and the only invertebrates with a true placenta, but most species are rare and thus more likely to become extinct. A key obstacle for their conservation is the... more
Onychophorans or velvet worm are the only phylum without extant marine species and the only invertebrates with a true placenta, but most species are rare and thus more likely to become extinct. A key obstacle for their conservation is the time and work needed to describe species with the high standards current taxonomy, and many species will remain undescribed and without any name for years. Here we propose a way to associate information with undescribed species: "common names", a solution that has proved its value in ornithology. Onychophoran common names must include a geographic indicator and a description a salient characteristic, and to show its viability, here we apply our proposal to the velvet worm fauna of southeastern Central America. Common names like "Lajas Ferruginous Brown Onychophoran", "Churuquita Collared Cinnamon Rufous Onychophoran" and "Antón Collared Mauve Onychophoran" will help conservation until formal Latin binomials b...
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Velvet worms, fragile invertebrates from an ancient lineage, are prone to extinction because of their small populations, low vagility and limited geographic ranges. However, I found that 19 species, nearly all of them Latin American and... more
Velvet worms, fragile invertebrates from an ancient lineage, are prone to extinction because of their small populations, low vagility and limited geographic ranges. However, I found that 19 species, nearly all of them Latin American and Caribbean peripatids, have been reported from heavily urbanized areas. Onychophoran worms lack most of the characteristics of successful urban animals, but I hypothesize that they survive in cities because diet and undetectability favor them. Citizen scientists could help with the urgent need of learning more about urban onychophorans.
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In 1995, Costa Rica had one of the first citizen science projects on roadkills, which identified the most frequent species and their rates by road length, and currently it has one of the largest iNaturalist projects on the same subject.... more
In 1995, Costa Rica had one of the first citizen science projects on roadkills, which identified the most frequent species and their rates by road length, and currently it has one of the largest iNaturalist projects on the same subject. Here I assess what information can be extracted from this type of project and how results compare with those from professionals. I analyzed over 900 records from Fauna Silvestre en Carreteras de Costa Rica, from October 2013 through August 2017. There was no sexual difference in participation or productivity, but per capita output was 12 times higher than in the Brazilian CBEE project. Some species suffered higher mortality during reproduction, while the anteater T. mexicana suffered more in the dry season, when food was scarce. Roadkills matched seasonal changes in traffic routes and the geographic distribution of records in relation to urban areas reflected the ecology of each species. At least for this case, citizen science can provide reliable da...
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Introduction: studies in the last two decades have found declining snake populations in both temperate and tropical sites, including informal reports from Drake Bay, Costa Rica. Objective: to investigate if reports of decreasing snake... more
Introduction: studies in the last two decades have found declining snake populations in both temperate and tropical sites, including informal reports from Drake Bay, Costa Rica. Objective: to investigate if reports of decreasing snake populations in Drake Bay had a real basis, and if environmental factors, particularly temperature, rain and light, have played a role in that decrease. Methods: we worked at Drake Bay from 2012 through 2017 and made over 4000 h of transect counts. Using head flashlights we surveyed a transect covered by lowland tropical rainforest at an altitude of 12–38 m above sea level, near the Agujas River, mostly at 1930–2200 hours. We counted all the snakes that we could see along the transect. Results: snake counts increase from August to September and then decline rapidly. The May snakes/rainfall peaks coincide, but the second snake peak occurs one month before the rain peak; we counted more snakes in dry nights, with the exception of Imantodes cenchoa which w...
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Introducción: Costa Rica es el país centroamericano con más estudios bibliométricos, sin embargo, muy pocos son sobre las tendencias históricas de revistas académicas particulares. Objetivo: Analizamos las tendencias estadísticas de la... more
Introducción: Costa Rica es el país centroamericano con más estudios bibliométricos, sin embargo, muy pocos son sobre las tendencias históricas de revistas académicas particulares. Objetivo: Analizamos las tendencias estadísticas de la primera década de la revista Cuadernos de Investigación UNED, considerando cuatro temas: quiénes publican, qué publican, cómo han variado las tendencias a lo largo del tiempo y qué podemos esperar en el futuro. Resultados: La cantidad de cuadros por artículo fue alta al inicio, luego más bajo, oscilando de forma estable entre 2 y 3. La cantidad de figuras por artículo oscila entre 2 y 5. Los artículos han tendido a acortarse. La cantidad de autores por artículo oscila entre 2 y 3. Autoras ha oscilado entre un tercio y la mitad. Las seis personas con mayor cantidad total de artículos publicados son de la Universidad Estatal a Distancia (UNED), seguida de la Universidad de Costa Rica (UCR); la mitad, mujeres. Predominan los artículos sobre Costa Rica, s...
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Fluorescent lamps in kitchens accumulate grease from cooking oil fumes and become traps for insects, particularly dipterans. New smaller lamps may be less harmful for urban insect populations.
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While roads are indispensable for modern civilization and beneficial for many wildlife species, they have been causing mortality from collisions since high speed chariots were invented 4 000 years ago. Most scientific work about road kill... more
While roads are indispensable for modern civilization and beneficial for many wildlife species, they have been causing mortality from collisions since high speed chariots were invented 4 000 years ago. Most scientific work about road kill has been done in temperate ecosystems, but some authors have suspected that they have different characteristics in tropical ecosystems. In this review, I summarize publications that focus on road kills in tropical countries from Africa, America, Asia and Oceania. I found 73 studies that focus on tropical road kills. Output increased after 2011 and the most productive countries, in articles per capita, are Costa Rica, Colombia and Brazil. Most studies report that mammals are the main victims, but bird deaths are severely underestimated and amphibians suffer mass mortality in reproductive concentrations. Every road victim is itself a small ecosystem that contains thousands of microscopic species, but “Road Kill Microbiology” is yet to be developed as...
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Charismatic species, like the panda, play an important role in conservation, and velvet worms arguably are charismatic worms. Thanks to their extraordinary hunting mechanism, they have inspired from a female metal band in Japan, to... more
Charismatic species, like the panda, play an important role in conservation, and velvet worms arguably are charismatic worms. Thanks to their extraordinary hunting mechanism, they have inspired from a female metal band in Japan, to origami worms in Russia and video game monsters in the USA. Objective: To assess their conservation status in Costa Rica. Methods: we located all collection records of the 29 known species from the Onychophora Database in the map of the Costa Rican Conservation Network. Results: We found that seven species are protected inside forest reserves, five in Protected Zones, four in Wildlife Refuges, two in National Parks and one, Principapillatus hitoyensis, in a strictly pristine Biological Reserve. The largest species in the world, Peripatus solorzanoi, occurs both inside a Forest Reserve and in protected private land. Protection inside Costa Rican nature areas is enforced year round by personnel that includes armed guards, and is supported by educational pro...
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There are no studies that quantitatively compare life histories among scorpion species. Statistical procedures applied to 94 scorpion species indicate that those with larger bodies do not necessarily have larger litters or longer life... more
There are no studies that quantitatively compare life histories among scorpion species. Statistical procedures applied to 94 scorpion species indicate that those with larger bodies do not necessarily have larger litters or longer life cycles, opposite to some theoretical predictions.
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Smoking is one of the leading worldwide causes of cardiovascular disease and cancer development, and it not only affects the consumer but also those who are exposed to secondhand smoke. The economic cost of caring for the sick affects... more
Smoking is one of the leading worldwide causes of cardiovascular disease and cancer development, and it not only affects the consumer but also those who are exposed to secondhand smoke. The economic cost of caring for the sick affects resources needed for education and prevention of addiction to cigarettes. This topic has been extensively studied in industrialized countries, but the information from Latin America is less available and seldom is based on inferential statistics applied to clear hypotheses, both central aspects in this article. To test several hypotheses on consumption and characteristics of patients we did an email survey to the entire staff of a state university in Costa Rica (N=2 850) in 2012. A 20% responded in a period of ten weeks and we applied a multiple regression to their answers. The results are statistically consistent with the hypothesis that being single, occupying high job positions and being male lead to increased consumption of tobacco and to an earlie...
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En comparación con las demás universidades costarricenses, la UNED se encuentra muy limitada en la producción científica, lo cual entra en contradicción con el hecho de que la UNED ha asumido el compromiso de fortalecer, ampliar y adaptar... more
En comparación con las demás universidades costarricenses, la UNED se encuentra muy limitada en la producción científica, lo cual entra en contradicción con el hecho de que la UNED ha asumido el compromiso de fortalecer, ampliar y adaptar las líneas de investigación en las áreas de competencias básicas del aprendizaje, medios didácticos, cognición y lenguaje. Esto se ha hecho para desarrollar la investigación en fundamentos de la educación a distancia, así como en los aspectos ambientales, de desarrollo sostenible y equidad social. Por ello proponemos que sea política de la UNED crear comunidades científicas interdisciplinarias o multidisciplinarias con al menos un investigador de impacto internacional; fomentar la movilidad de los investigadores y su interacción nacional e internacional; dar los recursos y estímulos necesarios para hacer investigación de impacto nacional e internacional en mayor escala; dar divulgación científica especializada y popular; ofrecer flexibilidad a los ...
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Gender and levels of adherence to antihypertensive treatment in personnel of the Costa Rican Distance Education University. Among chronic diseases, hypertension is one of the top causes of morbidity and mortality worldwide. Until now,... more
Gender and levels of adherence to antihypertensive treatment in personnel of the Costa Rican Distance Education University. Among chronic diseases, hypertension is one of the top causes of morbidity and mortality worldwide. Until now, health efforts have focused on decreasing this condition but the treatments have been ineffective and costly, and hypertension is one the least controlled diseases. Several studies have found that adherence to treatment in chronic diseases define therapeutic success. In turn, adherence depends on several factors from both the patients and their environment, but the relationship with the physician seems to be the main factor. In this context, gender is also an important factor in how patients deal with their disease. For this study, we interviewed 39 women and 41 men with hypertension who visited the health department at the Costa Rican Distance Education University, UNED, between January 14th, 2002 and December 15th, 2008. We wanted to see if there wer...
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The view that college students have about prostitution is poorly known, and the little research that is available has been done in the USA and Spain. To study the perceptions and knowledge of college students about prostitution in Costa... more
The view that college students have about prostitution is poorly known, and the little research that is available has been done in the USA and Spain. To study the perceptions and knowledge of college students about prostitution in Costa Rica, we interviewed sex workers, directors of foundations and 200 students from San José and Puntarenas, Costa Rica. Most students have a fairly realistic view of the phenomenon; most believe that people enter sex work through a combination of need and choice, that sex abuse is not inherent, that most sex workers have families to take care of with limited education. In regards to the clients most students believe the majority are varied in age, tend to have families and often become regulars. Our results are similar to those reported for Spain.
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In 1938, the American multinational United Fruit Company built a small city in Golfito, South Pacific of Costa Rica. Golfito persists today as an urban area flanked by a mountain chain and a small bay surrounded by mangroves. We applied a... more
In 1938, the American multinational United Fruit Company built a small city in Golfito, South Pacific of Costa Rica. Golfito persists today as an urban area flanked by a mountain chain and a small bay surrounded by mangroves. We applied a set of environmental indicators to assess the current environmental quality of the landscape. We compared 106 photographs of Golfito with photographs from San José (capital of Costa Rica) as a reference; this comparison found a smaller proportion of urban green areas, but more trees and forest in Golfito. Contemporary architecture and public spaces have few facilities (such as sidewalks, public lighting and furnishing), and suffers from deterioration and low adaptation to tropical climatic conditions, especially in traditional architectural remains. Landscape management must make the natural components compatible with the cultural components, and Golfito is unique in the country because of its intense and fragile relationship among city, history an...
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Concern for inadequate exposure to physical factors in the working environment began in the mid 20th. Century. The subject has been widely studied in industrial nations, but in Central America there are few published studies, so we... more
Concern for inadequate exposure to physical factors in the working environment began in the mid 20th. Century. The subject has been widely studied in industrial nations, but in Central America there are few published studies, so we measured two environmental factors in a university press workshop in Costa Rica, from April 05 to 16, 2010, a period in which production is high. With a calibrated Extech HD450 light meter we did at least three measurements of light along the workday (considering changes in natural lighting). We selected the measurement points where certain illumination is needed for proper operation of industrial machinery. We also made 20 real-time measurements of noise with a certified Extech sound meter, in the offset press room, where there is noisy industrial machinery. We found inadequate noise and lighting levels, and concluded that staff are exposed to inappropriate health conditions, so we recommend the relocation of lamps and periodical audiometric tests.KEY WO...
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Effect of the typography and paragraph presentation of printed textbooks, on distance learning in adults. The effect of graphic pre- sentation of texts on legibility has been studied, but its effect on learning is virtually unknown. We... more
Effect of the typography and paragraph presentation of printed textbooks, on distance learning in adults. The effect of graphic pre- sentation of texts on legibility has been studied, but its effect on learning is virtually unknown. We applied a control text and two treat- ments (variations in paragraphs and typography) to 169 students (67% women) selected through a random process from a population of 2692 students from a freshmen’s course at the State Distance University in San José, Costa Rica, in 2008. The information in the texts was new to the students. After 15 days allowed to study the texts, the students presented a written exam and completed an illustrated survey about paragraph and font characteristics that they preferred when studying. Neither the font nor the presentation of the paragraphs, or the sex of the students, had an effect on exam grade. The survey indicated that there is a subjective preference for 12-point Arial font, normal spacing between letters, single spa...
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Velvet worms are ancient predators with Cambrian origins that occasionally prey on Ctenid spiders. Here we report the opposite case: wolf spiders (Ctenus spp.) feeding on Epiperipatus spp. in Colombia and Costa Rica. Apparently the worms... more
Velvet worms are ancient predators with Cambrian origins that occasionally prey on Ctenid spiders. Here we report the opposite case: wolf spiders (Ctenus spp.) feeding on Epiperipatus spp. in Colombia and Costa Rica. Apparently the worms could not expel their defensive adhesive, and the efficacy of the spider venom suggests that onychophoran nerves and muscles are biochemically equivalent to those of insects.
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NOTE:Semi-aquatic turtles often dive to escape from terrestrial predators, but to our knowledge, the time that Costa Rican species can stay under water is unknown. To obtain preliminary measurements of this ecologically significant... more
NOTE:Semi-aquatic turtles often dive to escape from terrestrial predators, but to our knowledge, the time that Costa Rican species can stay under water is unknown. To obtain preliminary measurements of this ecologically significant parameter, we tested several individuals in an aquarium with water at 25°C in Sabanilla, San José, Costa Rica. We placed the turtles in the water and moved a hand on the surface whenever they attempted to swim upwards, but otherwise allowed them to resurface. They were all adult females except for Kinosternon scorpioides (3 males,1 female).The times they stayed under water were: K. scorpioides 60-3656s (15 repetitions); Kinosternon leucostomum 82-84s (6 repetitions); Rhinoclemmys pulcherrima 413-435s (2 repetitions) and R. funerea 525 seconds (one test).The maximum time was of about one hour, recorded for a female K. scorpioides. Standora et al. (1984) found that in nature, submersion times for the marine Dermochelyx coriacea averaged 480 seconds, similar...
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The Revista de Biología Tropical / International Journal of Tropical Biology and Conservation, founded in 1953, publishes feature articles about tropical nature and is considered one of the leading journals in Latin America. This article... more
The Revista de Biología Tropical / International Journal of Tropical Biology and Conservation, founded in 1953, publishes feature articles about tropical nature and is considered one of the leading journals in Latin America. This article analyzes document type, language, countries, institutions, citations and for the first time article lifespan, from 1976 through 2014. We analyzed 3 978 documents from the Science Citation Index Expanded. Articles comprised 88 % of the total production and had 3.7 citations on average, lower than reviews. Spanish and English articles were nearly equal in numbers and citation for English articles was only slightly higher. Costa Rica, Mexico, and the USA are the countries with more articles, and the leading institutions were Universidad de Costa Rica, Universidad Nacional, Universidad Nacional Autónoma de Mexico and Universidad de Oriente (Venezuela). The citation lifespan of articles is long, around 37 years. It is not surprising that Costa Rica, Mexi...
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Velvet worms, "peripatus" or onychophorans, are "living fossils" that were geographically widespread in Cambrian seas but now occur exclusively on terrestrial habitats. The only extant species studied in some detail... more
Velvet worms, "peripatus" or onychophorans, are "living fossils" that were geographically widespread in Cambrian seas but now occur exclusively on terrestrial habitats. The only extant species studied in some detail are those from Costa Rica, but their real geographic distribution was in urgent need of revision. To solve this problem we visited the localities mentioned in all the original taxonomic descriptions and redescriptions. These visits covered a 25 year period (1988-2014) and included interviews with local residents. We also examined all Costa Rican collections, and checked the information in old maps and books. Here we critically review geographic data, correct errors, designed neotype localities, report on the survival of populations after heavy volcanic eruptions or urbanization, and present the correct geographical distribution for the seven currently described Costa Rican species.