Dakota Wesleyan University (DWU) is a private Methodist university in Mitchell, South Dakota. It was founded in 1885 and is affiliated with the United Methodist Church. The student body averages slightly fewer than 800 students. The campus of the university is listed on the National Register of Historic Places.
A significant increase in mental health concerns among college athletes has fueled interest in the impact of athletic identity on psychological outcomes. Research has produced mixed results regarding the association between athletic identity and mental health. This study sought to clarify this relationship and to improve our understanding of depression among NAIA college athletes, especially those who attach a great degree of importance and strength to the athlete’s role in relation to other activities. Voluntary college athletes aged 18-years-old or older and attending an NAIA member institution participated in the study (n = 361). They completed a web-based instrument that consisted of the following: (1) demographic questionnaire, (2) Patient Health Questionnaire (PHQ-9), and (3) Athletic Identity Measurement Scale (AIMS). Results showed that exceedingly elevated levels of athletic identity and threats to it can contribute to depression. Given the implications for success, college athletic programs and university administrators need to focus on the exploration of identity and address the hurdles that college athletes face when injury or other factors threaten their identity.
Many ecosystems have been altered since European colonization, resulting in the loss of historical ecosystems along with information about historical ecosystems. Tree density estimation from historical land surveys with alignment to expert classifications of historical vegetation strengthen reconstructions of vegetation history through research triangulation. For the midwestern United States, we extended historical tree density estimates (≥12.7 cm in diameter) to contextualize expert classifications of vegetation types in Illinois and Minnesota, part of the historical Great Plains grasslands with very frequent fire exposure, and Indiana and southern Michigan, which were more protected from fire. We also identified a tree density threshold between grasslands and savannas and contrasted density estimates with two alternate density estimates. After refining expert-classified vegetation types, out of 14 major historical ecosystems in this region, 11 were grasslands, savannas, or woodlands. The three additional ecosystems were American beech (Fagus grandifolia) closed woodlands and forests in Indiana and American beech-oak (Quercus) closed woodlands and forests and tamarack (Larix laricina) and ash (Fraxinus) swamp forests in southern Michigan. Because tree densities in the grasslands of Illinois and Minnesota did not exceed 4 trees/ha and tree densities in the savannas of Indiana, Michigan, and Minnesota ranged from 23 trees/ha to 78 trees/ha, around 15 trees/ha may be a reasonable threshold between grasslands and savannas. Density estimates generally matched with two other sources of density estimates, despite using different approaches, supporting the reliability of density estimation. Anchoring density estimates from land surveys to other sources of historical vegetation establishes the validity of density estimation, while supplementing expert-classified ecosystems.
The New Right, a populist movement that forged a coalition between economic libertarians and religious conservatives, transformed Midwestern politics. Traditional Catholics and evangelicals frustrated by the Great Society, Roe v. Wade, and shifting cultural norms propelled the “Reagan Revolution.” By 1992, however, the “Religious Right” had become a Republican liability in the industrial Midwest. In reviving their economic principles and persuading conservative Christians to temper their demands, Republicans found a formula for Midwest electoral success. Though cultural issues mobilized rural supporters of the Tea Party and Donald Trump, economic messaging has secured GOP victories in Midwest swing states since 2010.
Tom Chivers’ Everything is Predictable: How Bayesian Statistics Explain Our World, is an interesting and wide-ranging narrative on Bayesian thinking, its history, and its applicability to both our everyday lives and the pursuit of scientific truth. Although appropriate for the non-expert, afficionados and teachers of quantitative literacy should find the plethora of examples, links to psychology as it applies to how people reason about probabilities, and even Chivers’ philosophical musings informative and thought-provoking.
Harmful algal blooms (HABs), driven by cyanobacteria such as Microcystis, pose a critical and escalating threat to global freshwater security. Standard environmental monitoring often provides reactive rather than predictive data, underestimating the true ecological state after cyanobacteria draw down nutrient levels, and fails to capture the risk of biofilm establishment within water infrastructure. To develop a proactive monitoring framework, we conducted a two-year longitudinal study (2024-2025) of Lake Mitchell, South Dakota, integrating environmental chemistry with advanced computational metagenomics. We used 16S/18S rRNA amplicon sequencing (QIIME2) to profile microbial community structure and Phylogenetic Investigation of Communities by Reconstruction of Unobserved States (PICRUSt2) to predict functional enzyme repertoires. Temporal analysis revealed a significant ecological trajectory toward eutrophic conditions in 2025, characterized by increased alkalinity (pH 8.58 to 8.79) and substantial dissolved nutrient depletion. Crucially, community shifts showed a sharp increase in the HAB-former Microcystis alongside the heterotrophic degrader Flavobacterium. Functional inference reinforced this finding, revealing the significant enrichment of metabolic pathways linked to stress and replication, which often precedes settlement and biofilm initiation: specifically, elevated ATP-dependent helicase (EC:3.6.4.12) and NADH dehydrogenase (EC:1.6.5.3). These enzyme signatures reflect an intensified state of oxidative stress handling and metabolic turnover, characteristic of established bloom communities with high surface-attachment potential. These findings show that predictive functional metagenomic signatures serve as strong and sensitive markers of bloom development and the potential for harmful bacteria to colonize water-treatmen infrastructure. Because these signatures operate independently of short-term nutrient fluctuations, they offer early insight into conditions that may lead to surface-associated microbial growth later in the system-information that is critical for protecting municipal water supplies and public health from HAB contamination.
