To address concerns about water quality in Cub Creek, Homestead National Monument of America (HOME), Nebraska, the National Park Service began monitoring aquatic invertebrates annually beginning in 1996. Invertebrates were collected using Hester-Dendy multiplate samplers placed at two sampling sites on Cub Creek. Water quality parameters measured in the creek included temperature, dissolved oxygen, specific conductance, pH, turbidity, nitrate-nitrogen, total phosphorus, and fecal coliform bacteria (Escherichia coli). Most water quality measurements met state standards and were generally consistent and typical for streams of this size in the region, but phosphorus concentrations, turbidity, and fecal coliform bacteria levels greatly exceeded acceptable levels. Similarly, summary data for invertebrate community metrics, including low taxa richness, diversity and evenness, low Ephemeroptera, Plecoptera, Trichoptera (EPT) richness, and high Hilsenhoff Biotic Index (HBI) suggest that Cub Creek is not fully biologically supporting. However, invertebrate metrics generally did not exceed control chart limits based on historical data collected from 1996–2004, showing that since 2005 the metrics have not deviated significantly from their historical baseline. Additionally, Mann-Kendall trend test for each metric for the period 1996–2012 did not show significant trends (P ≥0.05) thus further indicating that stream integrity has not diminished beyond that when monitoring first began. Impacts to water quality in Cub Creek originate upstream of the monument boundaries, making mitigation difficult. Protecting and managing in-stream habitat and riparian zone integrity will aid in maintaining the integrity of Cub Creek flowing through the monument.

A new saline species of the diatom genus Entomoneis is described using light and electron microscopic observations. The species, E. reimeri sp. nov., is distinguished from other Entomoneis species by a distinctive striae count, a lack of junction-dots and the micromorphometric structures of the valve face. Most members of this genus are considered marine or brackish water forms. The type locality of this taxon is a natural salt marsh in Russell County, Kansas.

The methods called Double-rope techniques (DRT) were used to sample vertical transects into the temperate forest canopy, to determine the diversity and abundance of tardigrades. This technique is reputedly the safest method of accessing canopies and it uses a minimum of technical hardware. In this case, DRT served to facilitate the access of mobility-limited students into the forest canopy, thereby providing an inspiring experience in field biology for this underserved group as well as allowing replicated point sampling of organisms throughout the treetops.

The Graneros Shale was deposited in the Late Cretaceous Western Interior Seaway of North America during the mid-Cenomanian (ca. 95 Ma). In this study, we report an assemblage of fossil vertebrates from the middle portion of the Graneros Shale in southeastern Nebraska. The fauna consists of at least 11 taxa, including eight chondnchthyan and one osteichthyan fishes as well as two reptilians (turtle and plesiosaur). Although the exact taxonomie identity of the turtle material is uncertain, all other taxa are fully marine forms and represent vertebrates that lived in the Seaway during the initial stage of its major transgression.

Northern pike, Esox lucius, were historically stocked throughout Kansas; however, lack of suitable habitat generally led to the senescence of these populations. Currently, Kingman State Fishing Lake (SFL) is the only public fishery in Kansas that still supports a self-sustaining northern pike population. Due to the extreme habitat conditions on the far southern edge of the northern pike's range, traditional sampling methods (e.g., fall trap nets and gill nets, spring electrofishmg) generally cause excessive mortality or are not effective at capturing northern pike. As such, data regarding the only Kansas northern pike fishery are lacking. Northern pike were sampled with trap nets during February and March 2011, to estimate population charactensties such as recruitment, growth, mortality, and population size. Kingman SFL northern pike grew quickly, generally lived less than 10 years, and exhibited annual recruitment. Total annual mortality was 44%. Population estimates obtained from mark-recapture data suggest the population density is approximately four to nine adult northern pike per surface hectare.

We analyzed ethnobotanical data on Kansas plants to evaluate differences among families for medicinal uses by Native Americans. We compared three different statistical methods used in previous ethnobotanical studies for use in our Native Medicinal Plant Research Program, which seeks to determine which plant families are more likely to contain species with medicinal compounds. The three approaches were linear regression, binomial approach, and Bayesian analysis. All were useful for determining medicinal plant use differences among plant families, although regression analysis was most useful for our purposes. Asteraceae and Fabaceae are abundant in the open sun environments of Great Plains grasslands and contain high numbers of medicinal plants. In contrast, although grasses (Poaceae) and sedges (Cyperaceae) also are species-rich and ecologically abundant, each is underrepresented as being used by Native Americans as medicine, which can be explained at least partially by their paucity of secondary compounds.

One of the most challenging issues confronting scientific writers, especially young or otherwise inexperienced writers, is the concept of plagiarism. Although some forms of plagiarism are obvious, such as quoting someone else without quotation marks or citation, other instances are more challenging to discern, and there is no universal agreement as to what extent text must be paraphrased to avoid the stigma of plagiarism. However, in an effort to avoid plagiarism, some text is paraphrased with words and phrases that misrepresent the original meaning, perhaps only subtly, but enough that it could be considered inappropriate, an issue not typically addressed in discussions of plagiarism. This summary addresses the issues of plagiarism, misrepresentation, and related topics in scientific writing in the hope it will assist authors as they assess and improve their writing skills.