Explore the vast range of titles available.

Urban landscapes can present ecological challenges for wildlife species, yet many species survive, and even thrive, near dense human populations. Coyotes (Canis latrans), for example, have expanded their geographic range across North America and, as a result of their adaptability and behavioral flexibility, are now a common occupant of many urban areas in the United States. We investigated the spatial ecology of 27 coyotes fitted with Global Positioning System (GPS) telemetry collars radio-collared in the Cuyahoga Valley, Ohio. Our objectives were to quantify coyote space use, evaluate resource selection, and investigate coyote movement and activity patterns. To measure space use, we estimated home range (95%) and core area (50%) size of coyotes using the adaptive local convex hull (a-LoCoH) method. We found the mean (± SE) home range size of resident coyotes (4.7 ± 1.8 km2) was significantly smaller than ranges of transient coyotes (67.7 ± 89.6 km2). Similarly, mean (± SE) core area size of resident coyotes (0.9 ± 0.6 km2) was significantly smaller than core areas of transient coyotes (11.9 ± 16.7 km2). Home range and core area size of both resident and transient coyotes did not vary by sex, age, or season. For all coyotes, use of natural land cover was significantly greater than use of altered and developed land. When coyotes were using altered and developed land, GPS fixes were most common at night. Coyote movement patterns differed with respect to status, time period, and season; peaking during nighttime hours. A better understanding of coyote space use and movement within anthropogenic landscapes aids management of people, parks, and wildlife by providing the data necessary for research-based management decisions.

Texas is estimated to harbor more than 2 million feral hogs, Sus scrofa. The increasing abundance of feral hogs throughout the United States is a testament to their ability to adapt to nearly any environment. We GPS-collared and tracked 16 feral hogs in the spring of 2015 and 2016 in the Texas Panhandle, United States. We determined home range and core area size using kernel density (KDE) and minimum convex polygon (MCP) estimators and selection of habitats by feral hogs in two field sites. Mean (±se) KDE home range and core area sizes were 9.73 ± 1.74 km2 and 1.31 ± 0.23 km2, respectively. Mean (±se) MCP home range and core area sizes were 15.13 ± 3.49 km2 and 3.14 ± 0.69 km2, respectively. Home range sizes were slightly larger but comparable to other home range sizes in Texas, and with home range and core area sizes larger for males than female. Feral hogs did not exhibit second-and-third order habitat selection at random (P < 0.005) in both field sites. Hogs selected for woodland and floodplain habitats over human developed areas. Feral hogs spent more time in agricultural habitats during crepuscular and nighttime periods and more time in natural habitats throughout the day. These results suggest management techniques in northern Texas need to be executed for the removal or deterrence of feral hogs in areas of cultivated crops, ideally before the planting period through the harvesting season.

How many stars have formed in the Universe, and when did they do so? These fundamental questions are difficult to answer because there are systematic uncertainties in converting the light we observe into the total mass of stars in galaxies. The Fermi-LAT Collaboration addressed these questions by exploiting the way that gamma rays from distant blazars propagate through intergalactic space, which depends on the total amount of light emitted by all galaxies. The collaboration found that star formation peaked about 3 billion years after the Big Bang (see the Perspective by Prandini). Although this is similar to previous estimates from optical and infrared observations, the results provide valuable confirmation because they should be affected by different systematic effects. Science , this issue p. 1031 ; see also p. 995 Intergalactic gamma rays are used to determine the star formation history of the Universe. The light emitted by all galaxies over the history of the Universe produces the extragalactic background light (EBL) at ultraviolet, optical, and infrared wavelengths. The EBL is a source of opacity for gamma rays via photon-photon interactions, leaving an imprint in the spectra of distant gamma-ray sources. We measured this attenuation using 739 active galaxies and one gamma-ray burst detected by the Fermi Large Area Telescope. This allowed us to reconstruct the evolution of the EBL and determine the star formation history of the Universe over 90% of cosmic time. Our star formation history is consistent with independent measurements from galaxy surveys, peaking at redshift z ~ 2. Upper limits of the EBL at the epoch of reionization suggest a turnover in the abundance of faint galaxies at z ~ 6.

The state of Texas has the highest population of feral hogs, Sus scrofa, than any state in the U.S.A. The expanding abundance and distribution of feral hogs throughout North America is testimony to their ability to adapt to differing environmental and habitat conditions. We evaluated movements and activity of 18 feral hogs fitted with Global Positioning System (GPS) collars between March 2015 through July 2017 in the Texas Panhandle, U.S.A., following three toxicant field studies. We investigated movements of feral hogs in response to individual, weather, and environmental variables using generalized linear mixed models. Nocturnal and diurnal 3 h movements were 753.8 ± 14.28 m and 277.45 ± 8.04 m for all hogs, respectively. Overall mean distance (± se) traveled by feral hogs was 3666.9 ± 64.7 m per day (range: 7.9 to 12985.33 m). Daily distance by males and females averaged 3903.6 ± 112.05 m and 3546.1 ± 78.88 m, respectively, and were not found to be significantly different between sexes. Behavior of feral hogs showed a unimodal pattern, peaking during nocturnal hours. Time of day, land cover type, and temperature were important explanatory variables driving 3 h movements. Sex, temperature, and previous day precipitation were important explanatory variables driving daily distances. Predicting what drives hog movement (e.g., individual and external factors) can allow managers to identify when and where to locate individuals for control efforts, possibly preventing initial invasions by feral hogs.

We present results from an analysis looking for dark matter annihilation in the Sun with the IceCube neutrino telescope. Gravitationally trapped dark matter in the Sun’s core can annihilate into Standard Model particles making the Sun a source of  GeV neutrinos. IceCube is able to detect neutrinos with energies >100 GeV while its low-energy infill array DeepCore extends this to >10 GeV. This analysis uses data gathered in the austral winters between May 2011 and May 2014, corresponding to 532 days of livetime when the Sun, being below the horizon, is a source of up-going neutrino events, easiest to discriminate against the dominant background of atmospheric muons. The sensitivity is a factor of two to four better than previous searches due to additional statistics and improved analysis methods involving better background rejection and reconstructions. The resultant upper limits on the spin-dependent dark matter-proton scattering cross section reach down to 1.46 × 10 - 5  pb for a dark matter particle of mass 500 GeV annihilating exclusively into τ + τ - particles. These are currently the most stringent limits on the spin-dependent dark matter-proton scattering cross section for WIMP masses above 50 GeV.

We present a search for a neutrino signal from dark matter self-annihilations in the Milky Way using the IceCube Neutrino Observatory (IceCube). In 1005 days of data we found no significant excess of neutrinos over the background of neutrinos produced in atmospheric air showers from cosmic ray interactions. We derive upper limits on the velocity averaged product of the dark matter self-annihilation cross section and the relative velocity of the dark matter particles ⟨ σ A v ⟩ . Upper limits are set for dark matter particle candidate masses ranging from 10 GeV up to 1 TeV while considering annihilation through multiple channels. This work sets the most stringent limit on a neutrino signal from dark matter with mass between 10 and 100 GeV, with a limit of 1.18 · 10 - 23 cm 3 s - 1 for 100 GeV dark matter particles self-annihilating via τ + τ - to neutrinos (assuming the Navarro–Frenk–White dark matter halo profile).

The light emitted by stars and accreting compact objects through the history of the universe is encoded in the intensity of the extragalactic background light (EBL). Knowledge of the EBL is important to understand the nature of star formation and galaxy evolution, but direct measurements of the EBL are limited by galactic and other foreground emissions. Here, we report an absorption feature seen in the combined spectra of a sample of gamma-ray blazars out to a redshift of z ~1.6. This feature is caused by attenuation of gamma rays by the EBL at optical to ultraviolet frequencies and allowed us to measure the EBL flux density in this frequency band.

A classical nova results from runaway thermonuclear explosions on the surface of a white dwarf that accretes matter from a low-mass main-sequence stellar companion. In 2012 and 2013, three novae were detected in γ rays and stood in contrast to the first γ-ray–detected nova V407 Cygni 2010, which belongs to a rare class of symbiotic binary systems. Despite likely differences in the compositions and masses of their white dwarf progenitors, the three classical novae are similarly characterized as soft-spectrum transient γ-ray sources detected over 2- to 3-week durations. The γ-ray detections point to unexpected high-energy particle acceleration processes linked to the mass ejection from thermonuclear explosions in an unanticipated class of Galactic γ-ray sources.

We present the results of the first IceCube search for dark matter annihilation in the center of the Earth. Weakly interacting massive particles (WIMPs), candidates for dark matter, can scatter off nuclei inside the Earth and fall below its escape velocity. Over time the captured WIMPs will be accumulated and may eventually self-annihilate. Among the annihilation products only neutrinos can escape from the center of the Earth. Large-scale neutrino telescopes, such as the cubic kilometer IceCube Neutrino Observatory located at the South Pole, can be used to search for such neutrino fluxes. Data from 327 days of detector livetime during 2011/2012 were analyzed. No excess beyond the expected background from atmospheric neutrinos was detected. The derived upper limits on the annihilation rate of WIMPs in the Earth and the resulting muon flux are an order of magnitude stronger than the limits of the last analysis performed with data from IceCube's predecessor AMANDA. The limits can be translated in terms of a spin-independent WIMP-nucleon cross section. For a WIMP mass of 50 GeV this analysis results in the most restrictive limits achieved with IceCube data.

Millisecond pulsars, old neutron stars spun up by accreting matter from a companion star, can reach high rotation rates of hundreds of revolutions per second. Until now, all such \"recycled\" rotation-powered pulsars have been detected by their spin-modulated radio emission. In a computing-intensive blind search of gamma-ray data from the Fermi Large Area Telescope (with partial constraints from optical data), we detected a 2.5-millisecond pulsar, PSR J1311—3430. This unambiguously explains a formerly unidentified gamma-ray source that had been a decade-long enigma, confirming previous conjectures. The pulsar is in a circular orbit with an orbital period of only 93 minutes, the shortest of any spin-powered pulsar binary ever found.