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Map of Collection Sites and Mountain Lion Ranges Samples were collected from Albright College; Bald Eagle State Park; the Pennsylvania State Museum; Howard, PA; and the Thomas T. Taber Museum. The current and historic ranges for mountain lions are also displayed 3 . Map source: ESRI. The map was generated using ArcGIS Pro 1.2 by ESRI (available at: http://www.esri.com/).
Source publication
Mountain lions ( Puma concolor ) were once endemic across the United States. The Northeastern population of mountain lions has been largely nonexistent since the early 1800s and was officially declared extinct in 2011. This regionally extinct mountain lion is Pennsylvania State University’s official mascot, where it is referred to as the ‘Nittany L...
Contexts in source publication
Context 1
... goal is to raise awareness of species conservation and extinction risk issues among the students of Pennsylvania State University and the broader Penn State community, for whom the 'Nittany Lion' is a beloved mascot, via the application of recent ancient DNA (aDNA) and genomic sequencing advances to preserved skin samples from nineteenth century Pennsylvania mountain lions and then by disseminating our results. This first study focused on reconstructing complete mtDNA sequences from Northeastern mountain lion specimens curated in Pennsylvania museums and private collections that had been preserved in the late 1800s via taxidermy (Figure 1). We focused initially on mtDNA because there are typically hundreds to thousands more mtDNA genome copies than nuclear genome copies per eukaryotic cell, including for skin cells 17 . ...
Context 2
... aDNA samples, this damage pattern tends to increase with sample age 29 . We observed very low proportions of such mismatches for our samples, likely due to their relatively recent ages compared to many aDNA samples (Supplemental Figure 1). Damage masking correction was thus unnecessary. ...
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Citations
This article begins with deep appreciation of Chet Bowers’ powerful charge to take up thick description as a pedagogical tool, while also acknowledging the unpleasant manner in which he offered this charge in response to Gruenewald’s notion of a critical pedagogy of place. The article, then, prompted by Bowers’ charge, is a story and analysis of our ‘rush of descriptions’ about a controversial issue in the community where we reside. To better understand how thick description might contribute to EcoJustice pedagogy we present excerpts of our rush of descriptions and analyze them using Bowers’ 5 themes of language, commodification, tradition, science, and technology. In doing so, we found that our in-depth examination does, indeed, make apparent these themes, suggesting thick description could be a promising component of EcoJustice pedagogy.
