Southern Illinois University Carbondale View Institution's Website 7 articles published in JoVE Environment A Set of In Situ Informed Simulated Medium Formats for Culturing Environmentally Acquired Anaerobic Microorganisms Tia Zimmerman1, Garion Leamon1, Georgia Dillenburg1, Bethany Egge1, Jennifer Pierce2, Ben Elliott3, Trevor Murphy1, Marjorie Brooks4, Scott D. Hamilton-Brehm1 1Department of Microbiology, Southern Illinois University Carbondale, 2MEDPREP, Southern Illinois University School of Medicine, 3Department of Geology, Southern Illinois University Carbondale, 4Department of Zoology, Southern Illinois University Carbondale The focus of this paper is to detail best practices for making media for fastidious anaerobic microorganisms acquired from an environment. These methods help manage anaerobic cultures and can be applied to support the growth of elusive uncultured microorganisms, the "microbial dark matter." Environment Simulating Impacts of Ice Storms on Forest Ecosystems John L. Campbell1, Lindsey E. Rustad1, Charles T. Driscoll2, Ian Halm3, Timothy J. Fahey4, Habibollah Fakhraei5, Peter M. Groffman6,7, Gary J. Hawley8, Wendy Leuenberger9, Paul G. Schaberg10 1Northern Research Station, U.S. Forest Service, Durham, NH, 2Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, Syracuse University, 3Northern Research Station, U.S. Forest Service, North Woodstock, NH, 4Department of Natural Resources, Cornell University, 5Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, Southern Illinois University, 6Advanced Science Research Center at the Graduate Center, City University of New York, 7Cary Institute of Ecosystem Studies, 8Rubenstein School of Environment and Natural Resources, University of Vermont, 9Department of Forestry and Natural Resources, University of Kentucky, 10Northern Research Station, U.S. Forest Service, Burlington, VT Ice storms are important weather events that are challenging to study because of difficulties in predicting their occurrence. Here, we describe a novel method for simulating ice storms that involves spraying water over a forest canopy during sub-freezing conditions. Environment Quantifying Corticolous Arthropods Using Sticky Traps Michael W. Eichholz*1, Elise C. Zarri*2, Kevin P. Sierzega*1 1Cooperative Wildlife Research Laboratory, Center for Ecology, Department of Zoology, Southern Illinois University, 2Montana Cooperative Research Unit, University of Montana We describe a semi-quantitative approach of measuring characteristics of corticolous (bark-dwelling) arthropod communities. We placed commercially manufactured sticky traps on tree boles to estimate abundance, total length (a surrogate to biomass), richness, and Shannon diversity for comparison among tree species. Environment A Method for Quantifying Foliage-Dwelling Arthropods Michael W. Eichholz1, Kevin P. Sierzega1 1Cooperative Wildlife Research Laboratory, Center for Ecology, Department of Zoology, Southern Illinois University We describe how to quantify leaf dwelling arthropods by sealing the leaves and end of branches in a bag, clipping and freezing the bagged material, and rinsing the previously frozen material in water to separate arthropods from the substrate for quantification. Bioengineering Surgical Retrieval, Isolation and In vitro Expansion of Human Anterior Cruciate Ligament-derived Cells for Tissue Engineering Applications Ashim Gupta1, Kevin Sharif2, Megan Walters2, Mia D. Woods1, Anish Potty2, Benjamin J. Main4, Saadiq F. El-Amin III1,2,3 1Department of Medical Microbiology, Immunology & Cell Biology, Southern Illinois University School of Medicine, 2Division of Orthopaedics and Rehabilitation, Department of Surgery, Southern Illinois University School of Medicine, 3Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, Biomedical Engineering Program, Southern Illinois University Carbondale, 4University of Illinois at Springfield For future applications as a patch to repair partial tears of the Anterior Cruciate Ligament (ACL), human ACL derived cells were isolated from tissue obtained during reconstructive procedures, expanded in vitro and grown on tissue engineered scaffolds. Cellular adhesion and morphology was then performed to confirm biocompatibility on scaffold surface. Neuroscience The Dig Task: A Simple Scent Discrimination Reveals Deficits Following Frontal Brain Damage Kris M. Martens1, Cole Vonder Haar1, Blake A. Hutsell1, Michael R. Hoane1 1Department of Psychology, Southern Illinois University at Carbondale In this protocol, a novel application of scent discrimination is described. The Dig task is a reasonably inexpensive task that can be used to assess frontally-mediated cognition following brain damage. Biology Real-time Monitoring of Ligand-receptor Interactions with Fluorescence Resonance Energy Transfer Navneet Dogra1, Julia C. Reyes1, Nishi Garg1, Punit Kohli1 1Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry, Southern Illinois University We demonstrate FRET between conjugated polymer polydiacetylene (PDA) and fluorophore attached to the surface of PDA liposomes for the sensing of biomolecules. PDA liposomes also contained receptor molecules on their surfaces for biomolecules to be used as probes. Ligand-receptor interactions lead to changes in the FRET efficiency between the fluorophore and PDA which is the basis of the sensing mechanism.
