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The geographical ranges of many mammals and their associated parasites are dynamic. Comprehensive documentation of these communities over time provides a foundation for interpreting how changing environmental conditions, driven by accelerating climate change, other anthropogenic disturbances, and natural events, may influence host-parasite interactions. Fleas (Order Siphonaptera) are obligate, hematophagous parasites of birds and mammals with medical interest because of their role in transmitting pathogens. From 2016 to 2019, we sampled the small mammal and associated flea communities in El Malpais National Conservation Area (El Malpais) in Cibola County, New Mexico. Among 898 mammalian specimens, 925 fleas representing 29 species were collected from 18 host species. Pleochaetis exilis was the most abundant flea species, composing 27% of the total fleas collected, whereas Aetheca wagneri was the most prevalent flea species, parasitizing 8% of the community sampled. Across a total of 284 hosts recorded with fleas, A. wagneri, Malaraeus eremicus, and Peromyscopsylla hesperomys adelpha parasitized the most host species (n = 6 each). Onychomys leucogaster (Wied-Neuwied, 1841), the northern grasshopper mouse, a rodent highly implicated in plague dynamics, was host for the highest number of flea species (n = 15), followed by Peromyscus truei (Shufeldt, 1885) (n = 10). Our aims are to (a) describe the flea-mammal assemblage of a central New Mexico site, creating a baseline for diversity against which changing patterns of association can be assessed over time; (b) identify previously unrecognized host associations; and (c) examine infestation parameters, including the relationships of flea prevalence and mean abundance to host sex, host abundance, and seasonality. As such, our study exemplifies the Documentation and Assessment phases of the DAMA protocol (Document, Assess, Monitor, Act), a central component of exploring distribution and diversity of complex pathogen-host communities across space and time that are essential to a proactive understanding of emerging disease. 

Classical novae are shock-powered multiwavelength transients triggered by a thermonuclear runaway on an accreting white dwarf. V1674 Her is the fastest nova ever recorded (time to declined by two magnitudes is t2 = 1.1 d) that challenges our understanding of shock formation in novae. We investigate the physical mechanisms behind nova emission from GeV γ-rays to cm-band radio using coordinated Fermi-LAT, NuSTAR, Swift, and VLA observations supported by optical photometry. Fermi-LAT detected short-lived (18 h) 0.1–100 GeV emission from V1674 Her that appeared 6 h after the eruption began; this was at a level of (1.6 ± 0.4) × 10−6 photons cm−2 s−1. Eleven days later, simultaneous NuSTAR and Swift X-ray observations revealed optically thin thermal plasma shock-heated to kTshock = 4 keV. The lack of a detectable 6.7 keV Fe Kα emission suggests super-solar CNO abundances. The radio emission from V1674 Her was consistent with thermal emission at early times and synchrotron at late times. The radio spectrum steeply rising with frequency may be a result of either free-free absorption of synchrotron and thermal emission by unshocked outer regions of the nova shell or the Razin–Tsytovich effect attenuating synchrotron emission in dense plasma. The development of the shock inside the ejecta is unaffected by the extraordinarily rapid evolution and the intermediate polar host of this nova.

 

Abstract The Majorana Demonstrator comprises two arrays of high-purity germanium detectors constructed to search for neutrinoless double-beta decay in 76 Ge and other physics beyond the Standard Model. Its readout electronics were designed to have low electronic noise, and radioactive backgrounds were minimized by using low-mass components and low-radioactivity materials near the detectors. This paper provides a description of all components of the Majorana Demonstrator readout electronics, spanning the front-end electronics and internal cabling, back-end electronics, digitizer, and power supplies, along with the grounding scheme. The spectroscopic performance achieved with these readout electronics is also demonstrated.