title: Common myna

text: In 2019, common mynas were added to the List of Invasive Alien Species of Union concern. They have established in Spain and Portugal and were introduced to France, where they occasionally bred.


title: Common myna

text: The common myna was introduced to both the North Island and South Island of New Zealand in the 1870s. However, the cooler summer temperatures in the South Island appear to have impeded the breeding success rate of the southern populations, preventing the proliferation of the species, which was largely non-existent there by the 1890s. In contrast, the North Island population was able to breed more successfully and large portions of the North Island are now populated. However, in the southern reaches of the North Island, the cooler summer temperatures, like those of the South Island, have prevented the establishment of large myna populations. Since the 1950s, mynas continued to migrate north and subsequently populating beyond the Waikato region, leading to a majority of its successful population thriving upon higher latitude regions due to warmer climate. At present, mynas have become especially common in regions of higher latitude, particularly the Northland region, but rarely found south of Whanganui.


title: Common myna

text: In South Africa where it escaped into the wild in 1902, it has become very common and its distribution is greater where human populations are greater or where there is more human disturbance. The bird is also notorious for being a pest, kicking other birds out of their nests and killing their young due to the myna's strong territorial instinct. In South Africa it is considered somewhat of a major pest and disturbance of the natural habitat; as a result, it has been declared an invasive species, requiring it to be controlled.


title: Common myna

text: Morphological studies show that the process of spatial sorting is at work on the range expansion of "A. tristis" in South Africa. Dispersal-relevant traits are significantly correlated with distance from the range core, with strong sexual dimorphism, indicative of sex-biased dispersal. Morphological variations are significant in wing and head traits of females, suggesting females as the primary dispersing sex. In contrast, traits not related to dispersal such as those associated with foraging show no signs of spatial sorting but are significantly affected by environmental variables such as vegetation and intensity of urbanisation.


title: Common myna

text: To study the invasion genetics and landscape-scale dynamics of "A. tristis", scientists have recently developed 16 polymorphic nuclear microsatellite markers using the next generation sequencing (NGS) approach.


title: Common myna

text: The common myna is a hollow-nesting species; that is, it nests and breeds in protected hollows found either naturally in trees or artificially on buildings (for example, recessed windowsills or low eaves). Compared to native hollow-nesting species, the common myna is extremely aggressive, and breeding males will actively defend areas ranging up to 0.83 hectares in size (though males in densely populated urban settings tend to only defend the area immediately surrounding their nests).


title: Common myna

text: This aggressiveness has enabled the common myna to displace many breeding pairs of native hollow-nesters, thereby reducing their reproductive success. In Australia, their aggressiveness has enabled them to chase native birds as large as galahs out of their nests.


title: Common myna

text: The common myna is also known to maintain up to two roosts simultaneously; a temporary summer roost close to a breeding site (where the entire local male community sleeps during the summer, the period of highest aggression), and a permanent all-year roost where the female broods and incubates overnight. Both male and female common mynas will fiercely protect both roosts at all times, leading to further exclusion of native birds.


title: Common myna

text: The common myna (which feeds mostly on ground-dwelling insects, tropical fruits such as grapes, plums and some berries and, in urban areas, discarded human food) poses a serious threat to Australian blueberry crops, though its main threat is to native bird species.


title: Common myna

text: In Hawaii, where the common myna was introduced to control pest armyworms and cutworms in sugarcane crops, the bird has helped to spread the robust "Lantana camara" weed across the islands’ open grasslands. It also has been recorded as the fourth-ranking avian pest in the fruit industry by a 2004 survey of the Hawaiian Farm Bureau and the sixth in number of complaints of avian pests overall.


title: Common myna

text: Common mynas can cause considerable damage to ripening fruit, particularly grapes, but also figs, apples, pears, strawberries, blueberries, guava, mangoes and breadfruit. Cereal crops such as maize, wheat and rice are susceptible where they occur near urban areas. Roosting and nesting commensal with humans create aesthetic and health concerns. Common mynas are known to carry avian malaria and exotic parasites such as the "Ornithonyssus bursia" mite, which can cause dermatitis in humans. The common myna can help spread agricultural weeds: for example, it spreads the seeds of "Lantana camara", which has been classed as a Weed of National Significance because of its invasiveness. Common mynas are regularly observed to usurp nests and hollows, destroy the eggs and kill the young of native bird species, including seabirds and parrots. There is evidence that common mynas have killed small land


title: Common myna

text: mammals such as mice, squirrels and possums, but further research on these occurrences is under consideration.


title: Common myna

text: The common myna, being a major agricultural pest and posing a threat to native species in non-native countries, is controlled by various factors. Mynas are either killed or chased away as control. Poison, shooting, cage traps, and bird-scaring devices are currently used for control.


title: Common myna

text: In Sanskrit literature, the common myna has a number of names, most are descriptive of the appearance or behaviour of the bird. In addition to "saarika", the names for the common myna include "kalahapriya", which means "one who is fond of arguments" referring to the quarrelsome nature of this bird; "chitranetra", meaning "picturesque eyes"; "peetanetra" (one with yellow eyes) and "peetapaad" (one with yellow legs).


title: James Bond in video games

text: The "James Bond" video game franchise is a series centering on Ian Fleming's fictional British MI6 agent, James Bond. Games of the series have been predominantly shooter games, with some games of other genres including role-playing and adventure games. Several games are based upon the "James Bond" films and developed and published by a variety of companies, The intellectual property is owned by Danjaq.


title: James Bond in video games

text: In 1983, Parker Brothers released the first officially licensed James Bond video game, "James Bond 007", for multiple platforms. An earlier unofficial game, "Shaken but Not Stirred", had been released in 1982.


title: James Bond in video games

text: Since 1983, there have been numerous video games based on the films, Ian Fleming's novels, and original scripts created by the developer or publisher of the game. Mindscape, Domark, Interplay, and THQ all created James Bond games.


title: James Bond in video games

text: The video games were somewhat profitable in the 1980s and early 1990s, featuring a mixture of styles including side-scrolling action and text adventure.


title: James Bond in video games

text: The popularity of the James Bond video game series did not rise quickly until 1997's "GoldenEye 007" by Rare for the Nintendo 64. "GoldenEye 007" expanded on the plot of the film "GoldenEye" and is a first-person shooter with a multiplayer mode. The game received very positive reviews and sold over eight million copies.


title: James Bond in video games

text: In 1998, Nintendo released "James Bond 007" for the Game Boy developed by Saffire. The game features a story including characters from multiple James Bond films, such as Oddjob and Jaws. It also incorporates gambling minigames, such as Baccarat and Blackjack.


title: James Bond in video games

text: Electronic Arts took over the license from MGM Interactive when a video game based on "Tomorrow Never Dies" was in development in 1998. Taking the initial concepts for the video game adaptation, developer Black Ops Entertainment handled the final form of the title and the game saw the light of day in 1999 on PlayStation and met mixed reviews from critics, albeit becoming a financial success. The following entry was to be based on "The World Is Not Enough", consisting of several versions released on multiple platforms, including one on Nintendo 64 developed by Eurocom, a version for PlayStation developed by Black Ops Entertainment, and Game Boy Color by 2n Productions, with all three meeting different results in spite of being commercially successful. Unlike the former two versions – first-person shooters – the Game Boy Color version is played from a top-down perspective.


title: James Bond in video games

text: In 2001, EA released "" for PlayStation 2, GameCube, and Xbox, featuring an original storyline and lacking the likeness of then Bond actor Pierce Brosnan. The game added the elements of "rail" shooting and driving segments to a first-person shooter. The game sold nearly 5 million copies, making it the second-most successful game in the series, while only receiving mixed reviews. There are no differences between the console versions.


title: James Bond in video games

text: In 2002, "" was released, coinciding with the 40th anniversary of the film franchise and using Brosnan's likeness for the Bond character, but not his voice. It was developed by Eurocom for the GameCube, PlayStation 2, and Xbox consoles, with a PC port by Gearbox Software and a Mac port by Aspyr. The computer versions are substantially different from the console versions, featuring different missions, a modified story line, and online play. In 2003, the game also had a Game Boy Advance version by JV Games, which also differs from both the console versions and PC versions.


title: James Bond in video games

text: In 2004, EA released "", developed by EA Redwood, for the GameCube, PlayStation 2 and Xbox. Unlike the two previous installments, "Everything or Nothing" is a third-person shooter with driving missions, and it stars the voices and likenesses of Pierce Brosnan, Judi Dench, Willem Dafoe and John Cleese, among others. It was written by the scriptwriter of "GoldenEye" and "Tomorrow Never Dies", screenwriter Bruce Feirstein, with a plot connected to the Roger Moore Bond film "A View to a Kill". It was released to mostly positive reviews. A different version of "" was also developed by Griptonite Games for the Game Boy Advance.


title: James Bond in video games

text: Later that year, "" was released on the same platforms with the exception of the Game Boy Advance version. A first-person shooter loosely connected to the Bond franchise a spin-off, it stars a former MI6 spy known as "GoldenEye", who works for Auric Goldfinger against Dr. Julius No. The game was panned for its misleading title and poor storyline. The game was released on PlayStation 2, Xbox, GameCube and Nintendo DS. EA listed "007 Racing" and "GoldenEye: Rogue Agent" as spin-offs, out of their canonical order they have built.


title: James Bond in video games

text: 2005 saw the release of "From Russia with Love", based on the 1963 film of the same name. It stars Sean Connery as James Bond, and the other characters had the same likeness of the original cast. The game is a third-person shooter in the same style as "Everything or Nothing", with expansions in the story and certain details changed (such as trading SPECTRE for OCTOPUS, due to legal problems). The game received positive reviews, and was released on GameCube, Xbox, PS2 and PSP.


title: James Bond in video games

text: Electronic Arts announced in 2006 a game based on then-upcoming "Casino Royale", but it ended up being cancelled, because it would not be ready by the film's release in November. This fact, which would lead MGM to lose millions in licensing fees, along with EA's commitment to move away from movie franchise games and focus more on internal intellectual properties, led the company to abandon the Bond franchise in May 2006.


title: James Bond in video games

text: Shortly after Electronic Arts abandoned the license, in May 2006, Activision acquired non-exclusive rights to develop and publish James Bond games, which were to become exclusive in 2007. Activision's first game was "", which was based on the 2008 film of the same name as well as the previous film "Casino Royale". It was developed by Treyarch for PlayStation 3, Xbox 360, Wii and PC; Eurocom for PlayStation 2 and Vicarious Visions for the Nintendo DS. The game was released on 31 October 2008 and received mixed reviews, with the PlayStation 2 version receiving the best reviews.


title: James Bond in video games

text: At E3 2010, Nintendo revealed "GoldenEye 007", a remake for the Wii of the 1997 game. Developed by Eurocom, using their "" game engine, the game updated the story of the movie, with a script by Bruce Feirstein and the current Bond actor Daniel Craig as 007. It was released in November 2010 in all regions and received positive reviews from critics. Approximately a year later, an enhanced port of the game entitled "GoldenEye 007: Reloaded" was released for PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360. The port featured HD graphics, new missions and PlayStation Move support on the PS3 version.


title: James Bond in video games

text: Activision's third Bond game, "" was released on the same day as "GoldenEye 007" in November 2010. Developed by Bizarre Creations, the game returned to being a third person shooter, featured an original story and starred Daniel Craig, Judi Dench and Joss Stone, the latter of which also sang on the game's theme song "I'll Take it All". It was released for PlayStation 3, Xbox 360, PC and DS and received mixed reviews from critics. Developer Bizarre Creations was closed down by Activision in early 2011 just a few months after the game's release.


title: James Bond in video games

text: On 19 April 2012, Activision announced plans for a game titled "007 Legends" to coincide with the fiftieth anniversary of the James Bond film franchise. The game was described as a "greatest hits compilation", retelling six film narratives with an overarching storyline to connect them together. The missions were revealed to be based upon "Goldfinger", "On Her Majesty's Secret Service", "Moonraker", "Licence to Kill" and "Die Another Day". On 9 November 2012, Activision added the last mission to the game, released as a downloadable content, which was based on "Skyfall". The game was released for PlayStation 3, Xbox 360, PC and Wii U and received mixed reviews from critics. Developer Eurocom shut down soon after the game's release in December 2012.


title: James Bond in video games

text: On 4 January 2013, Activision and Steam's online stores removed online availability and pages for "Quantum of Solace", "", and "007 Legends" without explanation or warning, only to confirm three days later that the James Bond game license was revoked. A month later, Activision themselves declared that they would be backing away from licensed games in a formal statement.


title: James Bond in video games

text: On 7 January 2014, president and co-founder of Telltale Games, Kevin Bruner had expressed an interest in making a future James Bond game if he were afforded the chance. He stated that "I'm a giant James Bond fan and I'm always frustrated by games that make him a mass murderer." When he was asked which license he would adapt next if money and licensing hurdles were not a factor. "He's a super-spy, and that's a different skillset. The films make him less of a mass murderer, and there's not much killing in the books – more spying and intrigue." A rumour surfaced in June 2017 that Telltale was working on a video game entitled "007 Solstice". However, its status proved unlikely when Telltale filed for bankruptcy and closed down in November 2018.


title: James Bond in video games

text: On 21 January 2016, president of Curve Digital Dominic Wheatley expressed his interest alongside the company in the series, saying "I'd be very happy to have a James Bond licence. We could do a cracking game around that," adding that these opportunities are overlooked by the bigger firms, since Electronic Arts and Activision have their own IPs and no longer want to "promote someone else's brand."


title: James Bond in video games

text: In November 2020, IO Interactive announced "Project 007", a brand new James Bond video game, working closely with licensors MGM and Eon Productions. IO described the game as a "wholly original Bond story" where "players will step into the shoes of the world's favorite Secret Agent to earn their 00 status in the very first Bond origin story." The game is currently in pre-production with no set release window.


title: James Bond in video games

text: Shortly after "James Bond 007" was released in 1983 by Parker Brothers, another video game was announced, titled "Octopussy", based on the film of the same name. The game was planned for release on the Atari 2600 System, Mattel Intellivision, and compatible systems. Set for release in the summer of 1983, it was cancelled for unknown reasons shortly after it was announced by Parker Brothers.


title: James Bond in video games

text: A racing version of "GoldenEye 007" was announced for the Virtual Boy. The game was cancelled in 1996.


title: James Bond in video games

text: The original VHS release of "Tomorrow Never Dies" featured a brief trailer with Desmond Llewelyn which highlighted a game that would "start where the film ends". Footage shows Bond skiing, scuba diving and driving in third person and on a first-person shooting mission. The game was to come out on PlayStation and PC in the fall of 1998 and was being made by MGM Interactive, not EA; EA was not involved in Bond until November of that year. Because MGM's motion picture division had licensed exclusive James Bond console rights to Nintendo (for "GoldenEye 007" for the Nintendo 64), MGM had to buy some of their rights back from Nintendo in order to make the game.


title: James Bond in video games

text: A game based on the 1999 film "The World Is Not Enough" film and using the "Quake III Arena" engine for the PC and PlayStation 2 was cancelled in favor for "". Electronic Arts thought, by 2001, that too much time has passed since the release of the film, and that fans would be no longer interested in the product as talks of the succeeding film in the series, "Die Another Day", were taking place.


title: James Bond in video games

text: EA Games began conceptual work on the game in 2003, under the working title of "Bond6". The game was originally meant to be released in 2005, set to star Pierce Brosnan as James Bond. A video game adaptation of "From Russia with Love" began development when Brosnan announced that he was stepping down from the role, which ended plans for "Bond6". The opening level planned for the former was retooled for the latter, and CGI work intended for the game was reused in television commercials for "GoldenEye: Rogue Agent".


title: James Bond in video games

text: A game was in development based on the film of the same name. Daniel Craig, in character as Bond, was going to give his voice and likeness to the video game. It was set to release on the PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 platforms. The game was 15% developed when the project was cancelled, as Electronic Arts would not finish it by the film's release in November 2006. Later, unfinished development screenshots from the Venice level were uncovered. Activision's debut in the series, "Quantum of Solace", combines the storylines of "Casino Royale" and "Quantum of Solace".


title: James Bond in video games

text: In December 2010, some screenshots and a video were leaked online that depicted a new James Bond game, which shared similar gameplay to its predecessor, "Blood Stone". Reportedly, the project had been in development by Raven Software, but was postponed six months prior to the leak, at which point the game was believed to be back in development. However, the game was ultimately cancelled due to "Blood Stone's" poor sales.


title: James Bond in video games

text: In January 2012, it was announced that a video game based on "Skyfall" would be released by Activision. Ultimately, a downloadable level based on "Skyfall" was released for Activision's "007 Legends", although a full game was not released.


title: James Bond in video games

text: Since 2002, games featuring the Bond character and the "007" trademark have been published and distributed on mobile phones. The first two are based on action sequences from "Die Another Day", one of them is titled "Hover Chase" and the other is "Ice Racer". Both were published by Vodafone.


title: James Bond in video games

text: With the official reboot of the film franchise in 2006, Sony Online Entertainment released a side-scroll action game based on "Casino Royale" developed by Glu Mobile, following a storyline inspired by the film. Similarly, an identical tie-in based on "Quantum of Solace" was released in 2008 by the same team. The same year, Sony Online Entertainment Los Angeles developed and published an arcade fighting game to coincide with the aforementioned film, entitled "Top Agent".


title: James Bond in video games

text: In 2014, it was reported that Glu Mobile was working on another mobile game bearing the James Bond license. A year later, its title was revealed as "World of Espionage", a point-and-click game retelling several previous storylines from the film series, debuting an early access mode in July 2015 and releasing a full version of the game in November later that year. The game, after being universally panned for its uninspired content, was removed from the online mobile stores in December 2016 and Glu Mobile pulled the plug on the title.


title: James Bond in video games

text: With the popularity laid by "GoldenEye 007" in 1997 on the Nintendo 64, fans of the video game have made many attempts to remake or recreate the title with updated makeovers on current engines over time. But, only one project succeeded. Entitled "", the game entered development in 2005 and officially saw its international release in 2010, five years after being in beta mode hosted by the Source engine. It is a total conversion mod based on the multiplayer mode from the aforementioned title.


title: James Bond in video games

text: A different team initiated similar attempts in 2013 to port the multiplayer mode from "" (2002) to the Source engine, hoping to release it on Steam under the title "Nightfire: Source". The project, as of today, remains in development.


title: James Bond in video games

text: To commemorate the video game's 25th anniversary, another project based on "GoldenEye 007" entered development in 2017 on Unreal Engine 4, with the aim of releasing it sometime in August 2022, based on the title's single-player campaign. However, in August 2020, the team received a cease and desist letter from Danjaq, forbidding the remake and stripping its use of any licensed asset related to the property, including James Bond and related characters. The project was reborn as "Spies Don't Die" – an original experience "inspired by 90s first-person shooters".


title: James Bond in video games

text: Downloadable content featuring a pack of cars used in the James Bond films is available in "Forza Horizon 4", officially branded and licensed by Danjaq, LLC.


title: James Bond in video games

text: James Bond is parodied in "Broforce" as a playable character, Double Bro Seven, whose name is a pun on Bond's code number 007, with his appearance being based on either Sean Connery, George Lazenby or Pierce Brosnan. Just like the actual Bond, he wears a tuxedo and uses a pistol. Unlike other characters in the game, he has a variety of special skills, including a martini, needed for a trophy called "Shaken, not stirred", which is a joke on a famous Bond catchphrase.


title: Daniel in the lions' den

text: Daniel in the lions' den (chapter 6 of the Book of Daniel) tells of how the biblical Daniel is saved from lions by the God of Israel "because I was found blameless before him" (Daniel 6:22). It parallels and complements chapter 3, the story of Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego: each begins with the jealousy of non-Jews towards successful Jews and an imperial edict requiring them to compromise their religion, and concludes with divine deliverance and a king who confesses the greatness of the God of the Jews and issues an edict of royal protection. The tales making up chapters 1–6 of Daniel date no earlier than the Hellenistic period (3rd to 2nd century BC) and were probably originally independent, but were collected in the mid-2nd century BC and expanded shortly afterwards with the visions of the later chapters to produce the modern book.


title: Daniel in the lions' den

text: The final part of Daniel 14, within the deuterocanonical additions to Daniel, also describes an incident when Daniel is thrown into a lions' den.


title: Daniel in the lions' den

text: In Daniel 6, Daniel is raised to high office by his royal master Darius the Mede. Daniel's jealous rivals trick Darius into issuing a decree that for thirty days no prayers should be addressed to any god or man but Darius himself; anyone who disobeys this edict is to be thrown to the lions. Pious Daniel continues to pray daily to the God of Israel; and the king, although deeply distressed, must condemn Daniel to death, for the edicts of the Medes and Persians cannot be altered. Hoping for Daniel's deliverance, Darius has him cast into the pit. At daybreak the king hurries to the place and cries out anxiously, asking if God had saved his friend. Daniel replies that his God had sent an angel to close the jaws of the lions, "because I was found blameless before him". The king commands that those who had conspired against Daniel be thrown to the lions in his place with their wives and children, and that the whole world should tremble and fear before the God of Daniel.


title: Daniel in the lions' den

text: It is generally accepted that the Book of Daniel originated as a collection of folktales among the Babylonian captivity, the Jewish community living in Babylon and Mesopotamia, in the Persian and Hellenistic periods (5th to 2nd centuries BC). Chapters 4–6, which includes the tale of Daniel in the lions' den, may belong to the earliest stage, as these differ quite markedly in the oldest texts. Although the entire book is traditionally ascribed to Daniel the seer, the tales of chapters 1–6, including the story of the lion's den, are the voice of an anonymous narrator (except for chapter 4 which is in the form of a letter from king Nebuchadnezzar). It is possible that the name of Daniel was chosen for the hero because of his reputation as a wise seer in Hebrew tradition.


title: Daniel in the lions' den

text: Chapters 2–7 are in Aramaic, and are in the clear form of a chiasm (a poetic structure in which the main point or message of a passage is placed in the centre and framed by further repetitions on either side):


title: Daniel in the lions' den

text: The story of Daniel in the lions' den in chapter 6 is paired with the story of Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego and the "fiery furnace" in Daniel 3. The parallels include the jealousy of non-Jews, an imperial edict requiring Jews to compromise their religion on pain of death, and divine deliverance. Each story climaxes with the king confessing the greatness of the God of the Jews and issuing an edict of royal protection. In each case life is preserved through divine presence in the fire or the pit.


title: Daniel in the lions' den

text: According to Josippon, "the beasts in the den received Daniel as faithful dogs might receive their returning master, wagging their tails and licking him". The Midrash Tehillim says that "the mouth of the den was closed with a huge stone, which had rolled of itself from Palestine to Babylon for that purpose" and that "upon this stone sat an angel in the shape of a lion, so that Daniel's enemies might not harass him."


title: Daniel in the lions' den

text: Although Daniel is sometimes depicted as a young man in illustrations of the incident, James Montgomery Boice points out that he would have been over eighty years old at the time.


title: Victoria Pratt

text: Pratt grew up in Chesley, Ontario, a self described "tomboy at heart." She attended the kinesiology program at York University in Toronto and graduated summa cum laude. Before starting her acting career, Pratt made a notable mark in the fitness world as a performance tester, working at the York University campus with various athletes including players from the Toronto Maple Leafs and San Jose Sharks, among others.


title: Victoria Pratt

text: After graduating from York, Pratt met Robert Kennedy, publisher of "MuscleMag", who convinced Pratt to try her hand at modelling and acting. Pratt quickly found success as a fitness model, gracing several magazine covers (including "MuscleMag" and "Oxygen") and working alongside future WWE stars Trish Stratus and Torrie Wilson.


title: Victoria Pratt

text: Pratt eventually began to land high-profile acting roles on TV throughout the late 1990s, including "", "Once a Thief", "Cleopatra 2525" (which she starred in for two seasons), and "Mutant X" (which she starred in for three seasons).


title: Victoria Pratt

text: Pratt made her film debut in the 1998 film titled "Legacy", alongside David Hasselhoff, directed by her future husband, T. J. Scott. Pratt also starred in several independent or small made-for-TV movies during the 1990s and early 2000s.


title: Victoria Pratt

text: Pratt has since garnered a small cult following who recognize her large body of work as an actress in cancelled, but popular low-budget science fiction productions. There were several Tumblr fan pages and websites dedicated to Pratt. AskMen called her a "butt-kicking sci-fi queen."


title: Victoria Pratt

text: Since the mid-2000s, Pratt has guest-starred on several hit TV series including "" (2009), "NCIS" (2010), "Lie to Me" (2011), and "Castle" (2013). In 2006, Pratt co-starred with model Josie Moran in the film "The Mallory Effect" which premiered at the Slamdance Film Festival. The same year Pratt starred with Taye Diggs on the ABC television series "Day Break" (2006), which premiered on November 15, 2006.


title: Victoria Pratt

text: Pratt has continued modelling throughout her career, recently being named "Oxygen Magazine"s "Cover Girl" in 2011. As of October 2015, she is a published author of adult fiction, her first book being "Double Down".


title: Victoria Pratt

text: She divides her time between Toronto, Los Angeles, Nashville, and New Zealand. Pratt has a blue belt in Shotokan karate and is a keen kickboxer.


title: Victoria Pratt

text: In her interview with "Oxygen Magazine", Pratt said she enjoyed "salsa dancing, hiking in the Hollywood hills and volleyball."


title: Victoria Pratt

text: On October 12, 2019, Pratt married American country singer Trace Adkins in New Orleans, Louisiana. Blake Shelton officiated the wedding.


title: Intertropical Convergence Zone

text: The Intertropical Convergence Zone (ITCZ ), known by sailors as the doldrums or the calms because of its monotonous windless weather, is the area where the northeast and the southeast trade winds converge. It encircles Earth near the thermal equator though its specific position varies seasonally. When it lies near the geographic Equator, it is called the near-equatorial trough. Where the ITCZ is drawn into and merges with a monsoonal circulation, it is sometimes referred to as a monsoon trough, a usage that is more common in Australia and parts of Asia.


title: Intertropical Convergence Zone

text: The ITCZ was originally identified from the 1920s to the 1940s as the "Intertropical Front" ("ITF"), but after the recognition in the 1940s and the 1950s of the significance of wind field convergence in tropical weather production, the term "Intertropical Convergence Zone" ("ITCZ") was then applied.


title: Intertropical Convergence Zone

text: The ITCZ appears as a band of clouds, usually thunderstorms, that encircle the globe near the Equator. In the Northern Hemisphere, the trade winds move in a southwestward direction from the northeast, while in the Southern Hemisphere, they move northwestward from the southeast. When the ITCZ is positioned north or south of the Equator, these directions change according to the Coriolis effect imparted by Earth's rotation. For instance, when the ITCZ is situated north of the Equator, the southeast trade wind changes to a southwest wind as it crosses the Equator. The ITCZ is formed by vertical motion largely appearing as convective activity of thunderstorms driven by solar heating, which effectively draw air in; these are the trade winds. The ITCZ is effectively a tracer of the ascending branch of the Hadley cell and is wet. The dry descending branch is the horse latitudes.


title: Intertropical Convergence Zone

text: The location of the ITCZ gradually varies with the seasons, roughly corresponding with the location of the thermal equator. As the heat capacity of the oceans is greater than air over land, migration is more prominent over land. Over the oceans, where the convergence zone is better defined, the seasonal cycle is more subtle, as the convection is constrained by the distribution of ocean temperatures. Sometimes, a double ITCZ forms, with one located north and another south of the Equator, one of which is usually stronger than the other. When this occurs, a narrow ridge of high pressure forms between the two convergence zones.


title: Intertropical Convergence Zone

text: The ITCZ is commonly defined as an equatorial zone where the trade winds converge. Rainfall seasonality is traditionally attributed to the north–south migration of the ITCZ, which follows the sun. Although this is largely valid over the equatorial oceans, the ITCZ and the region of maximum rainfall can be decoupled over the continents. The equatorial precipitation over land is not simply a response to just the surface convergence. Rather, it is modulated by a number of regional features such as local atmospheric jets and waves, proximity to the oceans, terrain-induced convective systems, moisture recycling, and spatiotemporal variability of land cover and albedo.


title: Intertropical Convergence Zone

text: The South Pacific convergence zone (SPCZ) is a reverse-oriented, or west-northwest to east-southeast aligned, trough extending from the west Pacific warm pool southeastwards towards French Polynesia. It lies just south of the equator during the Southern Hemisphere warm season, but can be more extratropical in nature, especially east of the International Date Line. It is considered the largest and most important piece of the ITCZ, and has the least dependence upon heating from a nearby land mass during the summer than any other portion of the monsoon trough. The southern ITCZ in the southeast Pacific and southern Atlantic, known as the SITCZ, occurs during the Southern Hemisphere fall between 3° and 10° south of the equator east of the 140th meridian west longitude during cool or neutral El Niño–Southern Oscillation (ENSO) patterns. When ENSO reaches its warm phase, otherwise known as El Niño, the tongue of lowered sea surface temperatures due to upwelling off the South American continent disappears, which causes this convergence zone to vanish as well.


title: Intertropical Convergence Zone

text: Variation in the location of the intertropical convergence zone drastically affects rainfall in many equatorial nations, resulting in the wet and dry seasons of the tropics rather than the cold and warm seasons of higher latitudes. Longer term changes in the intertropical convergence zone can result in severe droughts or flooding in nearby areas.


title: Intertropical Convergence Zone

text: In some cases, the ITCZ may become narrow, especially when it moves away from the equator; the ITCZ can then be interpreted as a front along the leading edge of the equatorial air. There appears to be a 15 to 25-day cycle in thunderstorm activity along the ITCZ, which is roughly half the wavelength of the Madden–Julian oscillation (MJO).


title: Intertropical Convergence Zone

text: Within the ITCZ the average winds are slight, unlike the zones north and south of the equator where the trade winds feed. As trans-equator sea voyages became more common, sailors in the eighteenth century named this belt of calm "the doldrums" because of the calm, stagnant, or inactive winds.


title: Intertropical Convergence Zone

text: Tropical cyclogenesis depends upon low-level vorticity as one of its six requirements, and the ITCZ fills this role as it is a zone of wind change and speed, otherwise known as horizontal wind shear. As the ITCZ migrates to tropical and subtropical latitudes and even beyond during the respective hemisphere's summer season, increasing Coriolis force makes the formation of tropical cyclones within this zone more possible. Surges of higher pressure from high latitudes can enhance tropical disturbances along its axis. In the north Atlantic and the northeastern Pacific oceans, tropical waves move along the axis of the ITCZ causing an increase in thunderstorm activity, and clusters of thunderstorms can develop under weak vertical wind shear.


title: Intertropical Convergence Zone

text: Thunderstorms along the Intertropical Convergence Zone played a role in the loss of Air France Flight 447, which left Rio de Janeiro–Galeão International Airport on Sunday, 31 May 2009, at about 7:00 p.m. local time (6:00 p.m. EDT or 10:00 p.m. UTC) and had been expected to land at Charles de Gaulle Airport near Paris on Monday, 1 June 2009, at 11:15 a.m. (5:15 a.m. EDT or 9:15 a.m. UTC). The aircraft crashed with no survivors while flying through a series of large ITCZ thunderstorms, and ice forming rapidly on airspeed sensors was the precipitating cause for a cascade of human errors which ultimately doomed the flight. Most aircraft flying these routes are able to avoid the larger convective cells without incident.


title: Intertropical Convergence Zone

text: In the Age of Sail, to find oneself becalmed in this region in a hot and muggy climate could mean death when wind was the only effective way to propel ships across the ocean. Calm periods within the doldrums could strand ships for days or weeks. Even today, leisure and competitive sailors attempt to cross the zone as quickly as possible as the erratic weather and wind patterns may cause unexpected delays.


title: Intertropical Convergence Zone

text: The doldrums are notably described in Samuel Taylor Coleridge's poem "The Rime of the Ancient Mariner" (1798) and also provide a metaphor for the initial state of boredom and indifference of Milo, the child hero of Norton Juster's classic children's novel "The Phantom Tollbooth". It is also cited in the book Wind, Sand and Stars.


title: Pollination

text: Pollination is the transfer of pollen from an anther of a plant to the stigma of a plant, later enabling fertilisation and the production of seeds, most often by an animal or by wind. Pollinating agents can be animals such as insects, birds, and bats; water; wind; and even plants themselves, when self-pollination occurs within a closed flower. Pollination often occurs within a species. When pollination occurs between species, it can produce hybrid offspring in nature and in plant breeding work.


title: Pollination

text: In angiosperms, after the pollen grain (gametophyte) has landed on the stigma, it germinates and develops a pollen tube which grows down the style until it reaches an ovary. Its two gametes travel down the tube to where the gametophyte(s) containing the female gametes are held within the carpel. After entering an ovum cell through the micropyle, one male nucleus fuses with the polar bodies to produce the endosperm tissues, while the other fuses with the ovule to produce the embryo. Hence the term: "double fertilisation". This process would result in the production of a seed, made of both nutritious tissues and embryo.


title: Pollination

text: In gymnosperms, the ovule is not contained in a carpel, but exposed on the surface of a dedicated support organ, such as the scale of a cone, so that the penetration of carpel tissue is unnecessary. Details of the process vary according to the division of gymnosperms in question. Two main modes of fertilisation are found in gymnosperms: cycads and "Ginkgo" have motile sperm that swim directly to the egg inside the ovule, whereas conifers and gnetophytes have sperm that are unable to swim but are conveyed to the egg along a pollen tube.


title: Pollination

text: The study of pollination spans many disciplines, such as botany, horticulture, entomology, and ecology. The pollination process as an interaction between flower and pollen vector was first addressed in the 18th century by Christian Konrad Sprengel. It is important in horticulture and agriculture, because fruiting is dependent on fertilisation: the result of pollination. The study of pollination by insects is known as "anthecology". There are also studies in economics that look at the positives and negatives of pollination, focused on bees, and how the process affects the pollinators themselves.


title: Pollination

text: Pollen germination has three stages; hydration, activation and pollen tube emergence. The pollen grain is severely dehydrated so that its mass is reduced, enabling it to be more easily transported from flower to flower. Germination only takes place after rehydration, ensuring that premature germination does not take place in the anther. Hydration allows the plasma membrane of the pollen grain to reform into its normal bilayer organization providing an effective osmotic membrane. Activation involves the development of actin filaments throughout the cytoplasm of the cell, which eventually become concentrated at the point from which the pollen tube will emerge. Hydration and activation continue as the pollen tube begins to grow.


title: Pollination

text: In conifers, the reproductive structures are borne on cones. The cones are either pollen cones (male) or ovulate cones (female), but some species are monoecious and others dioecious. A pollen cone contains hundreds of microsporangia carried on (or borne on) reproductive structures called sporophylls. Spore mother cells in the microsporangia divide by meiosis to form haploid microspores that develop further by two mitotic divisions into immature male gametophytes (pollen grains). The four resulting cells consist of a large tube cell that forms the pollen tube, a generative cell that will produce two sperm by mitosis, and two prothallial cells that degenerate. These cells comprise a very reduced microgametophyte, that is contained within the resistant.


title: Pollination

text: The pollen grains are dispersed by the wind to the female, ovulate cone that is made up of many overlapping scales (sporophylls, and thus megasporophylls), each protecting two ovules, each of which consists of a megasporangium (the nucellus) wrapped in two layers of tissue, the integument and the cupule, that were derived from highly modified branches of ancestral gymnosperms. When a pollen grain lands close enough to the tip of an ovule, it is drawn in through the micropyle ( a pore in the integuments covering the tip of the ovule) often by means of a drop of liquid known as a pollination drop. The pollen enters a pollen chamber close to the nucellus, and there it may wait for a year before it germinates and forms a pollen tube that grows through the wall of the megasporangium (=nucellus) where fertilisation takes place. During this time, the megaspore mother cell divides by meiosis to form four haploid cells, three of which degenerate. The surviving one develops as a megaspore and divides repeatedly to form an immature female gametophyte (egg sac). Two or three archegonia containing an egg then develop inside the gametophyte. Meanwhile, in the spring of the second year two sperm cells are produced by mitosis of the body cell of the male gametophyte. The pollen tube elongates and pierces and grows through the megasporangium wall and delivers the sperm cells to the female gametophyte inside. Fertilisation takes place when the nucleus of one of the sperm cells enters the egg cell in the megagametophyte's archegonium.


title: Pollination

text: In flowering plants, the anthers of the flower produce microspores by meiosis. These undergo mitosis to form male gametophytes, each of which contains two haploid cells. Meanwhile, the ovules produce megaspores by meiosis, further division of these form the female gametophytes, which are very strongly reduced, each consisting only of a few cells, one of which is the egg. When a pollen grain adheres to the stigma of a carpel it germinates, developing a pollen tube that grows through the tissues of the style, entering the ovule through the micropyle. When the tube reaches the egg sac, two sperm cells pass through it into the female gametophyte and fertilisation takes place.


title: Pollination

text: Pollination may be biotic or abiotic. Biotic pollination relies on living pollinators to move the pollen from one flower to another. Abiotic pollination relies on wind, water or even rain. About 80% of angiosperms rely on biotic pollination.


title: Pollination

text: Abiotic pollination uses nonliving methods such as wind and water to move pollen from one flower to another. This allows the plant to spend energy directly on pollen rather than on attracting pollinators with flowers and nectar. Pollination by wind is more common amongst abiotic pollination.


title: Pollination

text: Some 98% of abiotic pollination is anemophily, i.e., pollination by wind. This probably arose from insect pollination (entomophily), most likely due to changes in the environment or the availability of pollinators. The transfer of pollen is more efficient than previously thought; wind pollinated plants have developed to have specific heights, in addition to specific floral, stamen and stigma positions that promote effective pollen dispersal and transfer.


title: Pollination

text: Pollination by water, hydrophily, uses water to transport pollen, sometimes as whole anthers; these can travel across the surface of the water to carry dry pollen from one flower to another. In "Vallisneria spiralis", an unopened male flower floats to the surface of the water, and, upon reaching the surface, opens up and the fertile anthers project forward. The female flower, also floating, has its stigma protected from the water, while its sepals are slightly depressed into the water, allowing the male flowers to tumble in.


title: Pollination

text: Rain pollination is used by a small percentage of plants. Heavy rain discourages insect pollination and damages unprotected flowers, but can itself disperse pollen of suitably adapted plants, such as "Ranunculus flammula", "Narthecium ossifragum", and "Caltha palustris". In these plants, excess rain drains allowing the floating pollen to come in contact with the stigma. In some orchids ombrophily occurs, and rain water splashes cause the anther cap to be removed, allowing for the pollen to be exposed. After exposure, raindrops causes the pollen to be shot upward, when the stipe pulls them back, and then fall into the cavity of the stigma. Thus, for the orchid "Acampe rigida", this allows the plant to self-pollinate, which is useful when biotic pollinators in the environment have decreased.


title: Pollination

text: It is possible for a plant have varying pollination methods, including both biotic and abiotic pollination. The orchid "Oeceoclades maculata" uses both rain and butterflies, depending on its environmental conditions.


title: Pollination

text: More commonly, pollination involves pollinators (also called pollen vectors): organisms that carry or move the pollen grains from the anther of one flower to the receptive part of the carpel or pistil (stigma) of another. Between 100,000 and 200,000 species of animal act as pollinators of the world's 250,000 species of flowering plant. The majority of these pollinators are insects, but about 1,500 species of birds and mammals visit flowers and may transfer pollen between them. Besides birds and bats which are the most frequent visitors, these include monkeys, lemurs, squirrels, rodents and possums.


title: Pollination

text: Entomophily, pollination by insects, often occurs on plants that have developed colored petals and a strong scent to attract insects such as, bees, wasps and occasionally ants (Hymenoptera), beetles (Coleoptera), moths and butterflies (Lepidoptera), and flies (Diptera). The existence of insect pollination dates back to the dinosaur era.


title: Pollination

text: In zoophily, pollination is performed by vertebrates such as birds and bats, particularly, hummingbirds, sunbirds, spiderhunters, honeyeaters, and fruit bats. Ornithophily or bird pollination is the pollination of flowering plants by birds. Chiropterophily or bat pollination is the pollination of flowering plants by bats. Plants adapted to use bats or moths as pollinators typically have white petals, strong scent and flower at night, whereas plants that use birds as pollinators tend to produce copious nectar and have red petals.


title: Pollination

text: bumblebees ("Bombus" spp.), and butterflies (e.g., "Thymelicus flavus") have been observed to engage in flower constancy, which means they are more likely to transfer pollen to other conspecific plants. This can be beneficial for the pollinators, as flower constancy prevents the loss of pollen during interspecific flights and pollinators from clogging stigmas with pollen of other flower species. It also improves the probability that the pollinator will find productive flowers easily accessible and recognisable by familiar clues.


title: Pollination

text: Some flowers have specialized mechanisms to trap pollinators to increase effectiveness. Other flowers will attract pollinators by odor. For example, bee species such as "Euglossa cordata" are attracted to orchids this way, and it has been suggested that the bees will become intoxicated during these visits to the orchid flowers, which last up to 90 minutes. However, in general, plants that rely on pollen vectors tend to be adapted to their particular type of vector, for example day-pollinated species tend to be brightly coloured, but if they are pollinated largely by birds or specialist mammals, they tend to be larger and have larger nectar rewards than species that are strictly insect-pollinated. They also tend to spread their rewards over longer periods, having long flowering seasons; their specialist pollinators would be likely to starve if the pollination season were too short.


title: Pollination

text: As for the types of pollinators, reptile pollinators are known, but they form a minority in most ecological situations. They are most frequent and most ecologically significant in island systems, where insect and sometimes also bird populations may be unstable and less species-rich. Adaptation to a lack of animal food and of predation pressure, might therefore favour reptiles becoming more herbivorous and more inclined to feed on pollen and nectar. Most species of lizards in the families that seem to be significant in pollination seem to carry pollen only incidentally, especially the larger species such as Varanidae and Iguanidae, but especially several species of the Gekkonidae are active pollinators, and so is at least one species of the Lacertidae, "Podarcis lilfordi", which pollinates various species, but in particular is the major pollinator of "Euphorbia dendroides" on various Mediterranean islands.


title: Pollination

text: Mammals are not generally thought of as pollinators, but some rodents, bats and marsupials are significant pollinators and some even specialise in such activities. In South Africa certain species of "Protea" (in particular "Protea humiflora", "P. amplexicaulis", "P. subulifolia", "P. decurrens" and "P. cordata") are adapted to pollination by rodents (particularly Cape Spiny Mouse, "Acomys subspinosus") and elephant shrews ("Elephantulus" species). The flowers are borne near the ground, are yeasty smelling, not colourful, and sunbirds reject the nectar with its high xylose content. The mice apparently can digest the xylose and they eat large quantities of the pollen. In Australia pollination by flying, gliding and earthbound mammals has been demonstrated. Examples of pollen vectors include many species of wasps, that transport pollen of many plant species, being potential or even efficient pollinators.


title: Pollination

text: An estimated 48.7% of plant species are either dioecious or self-incompatible obligate out-crossers. It is also estimated that about 42% of flowering plants have a mixed mating system in nature. In the most common kind of mixed mating system, individual plants produce a single type of flower and fruits may contain self-pollinated, out-crossed or a mixture of progeny types.


title: Pollination

text: Pollination also requires consideration of pollenizers, the plants that serve as the pollen source for other plants. Some plants are "self-compatible" ("self-fertile") and can pollinate and fertilize themselves. Other plants have chemical or physical barriers to self-pollination.


title: Pollination

text: In agriculture and horticulture pollination management, a good pollenizer is a plant that provides compatible, viable and plentiful pollen and blooms at the same time as the plant that is to be pollinated or has pollen that can be stored and used when needed to pollinate the desired flowers. Hybridization is effective pollination between flowers of different species, or between different breeding lines or populations. see also Heterosis.


title: Pollination

text: Peaches are considered self-fertile because a commercial crop can be produced without cross-pollination, though cross-pollination usually gives a better crop. Apples are considered self-incompatible, because a commercial crop must be cross-pollinated. Many commercial fruit tree varieties are grafted clones, genetically identical. An orchard block of apples of one variety is genetically a single plant. Many growers now consider this a mistake. One means of correcting this mistake is to graft a limb of an appropriate pollenizer (generally a variety of crabapple) every six trees or so.


title: Pollination

text: The first fossil record for abiotic pollination is from fern-like plants in the late Carboniferous period. Gymnosperms show evidence for biotic pollination as early as the Triassic period. Many fossilized pollen grains show characteristics similar to the biotically dispersed pollen today. Furthermore, the gut contents, wing structures, and mouthpart morphology of fossilized beetles and flies suggest that they acted as early pollinators. The association between beetles and angiosperms during the early Cretaceous period led to parallel radiations of angiosperms and insects into the late Cretaceous. The evolution of nectaries in late Cretaceous flowers signals the beginning of the mutualism between hymenopterans and angiosperms.


title: Pollination

text: Bees provide a good example of the mutualism that exists between hymenopterans and angiosperms. Flowers provide bees with nectar (an energy source) and pollen (a source of protein). When bees go from flower to flower collecting pollen they are also depositing pollen grains onto the flowers, thus pollinating them. While pollen and nectar, in most cases, are the most notable reward attained from flowers, bees also visit flowers for other resources such as oil, fragrance, resin and even waxes. It has been estimated that bees originated with the origin or diversification of angiosperms. In addition, cases of coevolution between bee species and flowering plants have been illustrated by specialized adaptations. For example, long legs are selected for in "Rediviva neliana", a bee that collects oil from "Diascia capsularis", which have long spur lengths that are selected for in order to deposit pollen on the oil-collecting bee, which in turn selects for even longer legs in "R. neliana" and again longer spur length in "D. capsularis" is selected for, thus, continually driving each other's evolution.


title: Pollination

text: The most essential staple food crops on the planet, like wheat, maize, rice, soybeans and sorghum are wind pollinated or self pollinating. When considering the top 15 crops contributing to the human diet globally in 2013, slightly over 10% of the total human diet of plant crops (211 out of 1916 kcal/person/day) is dependent upon insect pollination.


title: Pollination

text: Pollination management is a branch of agriculture that seeks to protect and enhance present pollinators and often involves the culture and addition of pollinators in monoculture situations, such as commercial fruit orchards. The largest managed pollination event in the world is in California almond orchards, where nearly half (about one million hives) of the US honey bees are trucked to the almond orchards each spring. New York's apple crop requires about 30,000 hives; Maine's blueberry crop uses about 50,000 hives each year. The US solution to the pollinator shortage, so far, has been for commercial beekeepers to become pollination contractors and to migrate. Just as the combine harvesters follow the wheat harvest from Texas to Manitoba, beekeepers follow the bloom from south to north, to provide pollination for many different crops.


title: Pollination

text: In America, bees are brought to commercial plantings of cucumbers, squash, melons, strawberries, and many other crops. Honey bees are not the only managed pollinators: a few other species of bees are also raised as pollinators. The alfalfa leafcutter bee is an important pollinator for alfalfa seed in western United States and Canada. Bumblebees are increasingly raised and used extensively for greenhouse tomatoes and other crops.


title: Pollination

text: The ecological and financial importance of natural pollination by insects to agricultural crops, improving their quality and quantity, becomes more and more appreciated and has given rise to new financial opportunities. The vicinity of a forest or wild grasslands with native pollinators near agricultural crops, such as apples, almonds or coffee can improve their yield by about 20%. The benefits of native pollinators may result in forest owners demanding payment for their contribution in the improved crop results – a simple example of the economic value of ecological services. Farmers can also raise native crops in order to promote native bee pollinator species as shown with the native sweat bees "L. vierecki" in Delaware and "L. leucozonium" in southwest Virginia.


title: Pollination

text: The American Institute of Biological Sciences reports that native insect pollination saves the United States agricultural economy nearly an estimated $3.1 billion annually through natural crop production; pollination produces some $40 billion worth of products annually in the United States alone.


title: Pollination

text: Pollination of food crops has become an environmental issue, due to two trends. The trend to monoculture means that greater concentrations of pollinators are needed at bloom time than ever before, yet the area is forage poor or even deadly to bees for the rest of the season. The other trend is the decline of pollinator populations, due to pesticide misuse and overuse, new diseases and parasites of bees, clearcut logging, decline of beekeeping, suburban development, removal of hedges and other habitat from farms, and public concern about bees. Widespread aerial spraying for mosquitoes due to West Nile fears is causing an acceleration of the loss of pollinators.


title: Pollination

text: In some situations, farmers or horticulturists may aim to restrict natural pollination to only permit breeding with the preferred individuals plants. This may be achieved through the use of pollination bags.


title: Pollination

text: In some instances growers' demand for beehives far exceeds the available supply. The number of managed beehives in the US has steadily declined from close to 6 million after WWII, to less than 2.5 million today. In contrast, the area dedicated to growing bee-pollinated crops has grown over 300% in the same time period. Additionally, in the past five years there has been a decline in winter managed beehives, which has reached an unprecedented rate of colony losses at near 30%. At present, there is an enormous demand for beehive rentals that cannot always be met. There is a clear need across the agricultural industry for a management tool to draw pollinators into cultivations and encourage them to preferentially visit and pollinate the flowering crop. By attracting pollinators like honey bees and increasing their foraging behavior, particularly in the center of large plots, we can increase grower returns and optimize yield from their plantings. ISCA Technologies, from Riverside, California, created a semiochemical formulation called SPLAT Bloom, that modifies the behavior of honey bees, inciting them to visit flowers in every portion of the field.


title: Pollination

text: Loss of pollinators, also known as pollinator decline (of which colony collapse disorder is perhaps the most well known) has been noticed in recent years. These loss of pollinators have caused a disturbance in early plant regeneration processes such as seed dispersal and pollination. Early processes of plant regeneration greatly depend on plant-animal interactions and because these interactions are interrupted, biodiversity and ecosystem functioning are threatened. Pollination by animals aids in the genetic variability and diversity within plants because it allows for out-crossing instead for self-crossing. Without this genetic diversity there would be a lack of traits for natural selection to act on for the survival of the plant species. Seed dispersal is also important for plant fitness because it allows plants the ability to expand their populations. More than that, it permits plants to escape environments that have changed and have become difficult to reside in. All of these factors show the importance of pollinators for plants, which are a significant part of the foundation for a stable ecosystem. If only a few species of plants depended on Loss of pollinators is especially devastating because there are so many plant species rely on them. More than 87.5% of angiosperms, over 75% of tropical tree species, and 30-40% of tree species in temperate regions depend on pollination and seed dispersal.


title: Pollination

text: Factors that contribute to pollinator decline include habitat destruction, pesticide, parasitism/diseases, and climate change. The more destructive forms of human disturbances are land use changes such as fragmentation, selective logging, and the conversion to secondary forest habitat. Defaunation of frugivores is also an important driver. These alterations are especially harmful due to the sensitivity of the pollination process of plants. Research on tropical palms found that defaunation has caused a decline in seed dispersal, which causes a decrease in genetic variability in this species. Habitat destruction such as fragmentation and selective logging remove areas that are most optimal for the different types of pollinators, which removes pollinators food resources, nesting sites, and leads to isolation of populations. The effect of pesticides on pollinators has been debated because it is difficult to determine that a single pesticide is the cause as opposed to a mixture or other threats. Whether exposure alone causes damage, or if the duration and potency are also factors is unknown. However, insecticides have negative effects, as in the case of neonicotinoids that harm bee colonies. Many researchers believe it is the synergistic effects of these factors which are ultimately detrimental to pollinator populations.


title: Pollination

text: In the agriculture industry, climate change is causing a "pollinator crisis". This crisis is affecting the production of crops, and the relating costs, due to a decrease in pollination processes. This disturbance can be phenological or spatial. In the first case, species that normally occur in similar seasons or time cycles, now have different responses to environmental changes and therefore no longer interact. For example, a tree may flower sooner than usual, while the pollinator may reproduce later in the year and therefore the two species no longer coincide in time. Spatial disturbances occur when two species that would normally share the same distribution now respond differently to climate change and are shifting to different regions.


title: Pollination

text: The most known and understood pollinator, bees, have been used as the prime example of the decline in pollinators. Bees are essential in the pollination of agricultural crops and wild plants and are one of the main insects that perform this task. Out of the bees species, the honey bee or "Apis mellifera" has been studied the most and in the United States, there has been a loss of 59% of colonies from 1947 to 2005. The decrease in populations of the honey bee have been attributed to pesticides, genetically modified crops, fragmentation, parasites and diseases that have been introduced. There has been a focus on neonicotinoids effects on honey bee populations. Neonicotinoids insecticides have been used due to its low mammalian toxicity, target specificity, low application rates, and broad spectrum activity. However, the insecticides are able to make its way throughout the plant, which includes the pollen and nectar. Due to this, it has been shown to effect on the nervous system and colony relations in the honey bee populations.


title: Pollination

text: Butterflies too have suffered due to these modifications. Butterflies are helpful ecological indicators since they are sensitive to changes within the environment like the season, altitude, and above all, human impact on the environment. Butterfly populations were higher within the natural forest and were lower in open land. The reason for the difference in density is the fact that in open land the butterflies would be exposed to desiccation and predation. These open regions are caused by habitat destruction like logging for timber, livestock grazing, and firewood collection. Due to this destruction, butterfly species' diversity can decrease and it is known that there is a correlation in butterfly diversity and plant diversity.


title: Pollination

text: Besides the imbalance of the ecosystem caused by the decline in pollinators, it may jeopardise food security. Pollination is necessary for plants to continue their populations and 3/4 of the plant species that contribute to the world's food supply are plants that require pollinators. Insect pollinators, like bees, are large contributors to crop production, over 200 billion dollars worth of crop species are pollinated by these insects. Pollinators are also essential because they improve crop quality and increase genetic diversity, which is necessary in producing fruit with nutritional value and various flavors. Crops that do not depend on animals for pollination but on the wind or self-pollination, like corn and potatoes, have doubled in production and make up a large part of the human diet but do not provide the micronutrients that are needed. The essential nutrients that are necessary in the human diet are present in plants that rely on animal pollinators. There have been issues in vitamin and mineral deficiencies and it is believed that if pollinator populations continue to decrease these deficiencies will become even more prominent.


title: Pollination

text: Wild pollinators often visit a large number of plant species and plants are visited by a large number of pollinator species. All these relations together form a network of interactions between plants and pollinators. Surprising similarities were found in the structure of networks consisting out of the interactions between plants and pollinators. This structure was found to be similar in very different ecosystems on different continents, consisting of entirely different species.


title: Pollination

text: The structure of plant-pollinator networks may have large consequences for the way in which pollinator communities respond to increasingly harsh conditions. Mathematical models, examining the consequences of this network structure for the stability of pollinator communities suggest that the specific way in which plant-pollinator networks are organized minimizes competition between pollinators and may even lead to strong indirect facilitation between pollinators when conditions are harsh. This means that pollinator species together can survive under harsh conditions. But it also means that pollinator species collapse simultaneously when conditions pass a critical point. This simultaneous collapse occurs, because pollinator species depend on each other when surviving under difficult conditions.


title: Pollination

text: Such a community-wide collapse, involving many pollinator species, can occur suddenly when increasingly harsh conditions pass a critical point and recovery from such a collapse might not be easy. The improvement in conditions needed for pollinators to recover, could be substantially larger than the improvement needed to return to conditions at which the pollinator community collapsed.


title: Pollination

text: While there are 200,000 - 350,000 different species of animals that help pollination, honeybees are responsible for majority of the pollination for consumed crops, providing between $235 and $577 US billion of benefits to global food production. Since the early 1900s, beekeepers in the United States started renting out their colonies to farmers to increase the farmer's crop yields, earning additional revenue from providing privatized pollination. As of 2016, 41% of an average US beekeeper's revenue comes from providing such pollination service to farmers, making it the biggest proportion of their income, with the rest coming from sales of honey, beeswax, government subsidy, etc. This is an example of how a positive externality, pollination of crops from beekeeping and honey-making, was successfully accounted for and incorporated into the overall market for agriculture. On top of assisting food production, pollination service provide beneficial spillovers as bees germinate not only the crops, but also other plants around the area that they are set loose to pollinate, increasing biodiversity for the local ecosystem. There is even further spillover as biodiversity increases ecosystem resistance for wildlife and crops. Due to their role of pollination in crop production, commercial honeybees are considered to be livestock by the US Department of Agriculture. The impact of pollination varies by crop. For example, almond production in the United States, an $11 billion industry based almost exclusively in the state of California, is heavily dependent on imported honeybees for pollination of almond trees. Almond industry uses up to 82% of the services in the pollination market. Each February, around 60% of the all bee colonies in the US are moved to California's Central Valley.


title: Pollination

text: Over the past decade, beekeepers across the US have reported that the mortality rate of their bee colonies has stayed constant at about 30% every year, making the deaths an expected cost of business for the beekeepers. While the exact cause of this phenomenon is unknown, according to the US Department of Agriculture Colony Collapse Disorder Progress Report it can be traced to factors such as pollution, pesticides, and pathogens from evidences found in areas of the colonies affected and the colonies themselves. Pollution and pesticides are detrimental to the health of the bees and their colonies as the bees' ability to pollinate and return to their colonies are great greatly compromised. Moreover, California's Central Valley is determined by the World Health Organization as the location of country's worst air pollution. Almond pollinating bees, approximately 60% of the bees in the US as mentioned above, will be mixed with bees from thousands of other hives provided by different beekeepers, making them exponentially susceptible to diseases and mites that any of them could be carrying. The deaths do not stop at commercial honeybees as there is evidence of significant pathogen spillover to other pollinators including wild bumble bees, infecting up to 35-100% of wild bees within 2 km radius of commercial pollination. The negative externality of private pollination services is the decline of biodiversity through the deaths of commercial and wild bees. Despite losing about a third of their workforce every year, beekeepers continue to rent out their bees to almond farms due to the high pay from the almond industry. In 2016, a colony rented out for almond pollination gave beekeepers an income of $165 per colony rented, around three times from average of other crops that use the pollination rental service. However, a recent study published in Oxford Academic's Journal of Economic Entomology found that once the costs for maintaining bees specifically for almond pollination, including overwintering, summer management, and the replacement dying bees are considered, almond pollination is barely or not profitable for average beekeepers.


title: Alicia Coppola

text: Alicia Coppola is an American actress. She became known for playing Lorna Devon in the soap opera "Another World" from 1991 to 1994. Afterwards, she made regular and guest star appearances in various television series, notably "Jericho" and "Blood & Treasure" and appeared in films such as "".


title: Alicia Coppola

text: Born in Huntington, New York, Coppola graduated from the Kent School in Kent, Connecticut, in 1986 and earned a bachelor's degree in political anthropology and philosophy from New York University in 1990. She is the sister of film producer Matthew Coppola and cousin of film producer Denise Di Novi. She does not appear to be related to the Coppola family of actors and filmmakers.


title: Alicia Coppola

text: Coppola began her career as a hostess on the MTV game show "Remote Control". In 1991, she joined the cast of the soap opera "Another World" playing the vixen Lorna Devon, the long-lost daughter of popular character Felicia Gallant. She played the role until 1994.


title: Alicia Coppola

text: Her better-known TV jobs include a recurring role on "Trinity" (1998–99), a starring role on the American remake of the British comedy "Cold Feet" (1999), and top billing on the TNT drama "Bull" (2000). She played Leesa in a 1999 episode of "Sports Night", appeared briefly as Lt. Stadi in the pilot episode of "", played a cannibalistic murderer on "", a widow who marries her late husband's killer on "", and appeared several times as JAG lawyer Lieutenant Commander Faith Coleman on "JAG" and "NCIS" (she also appeared in an episode of "", but as a different character). In 2003, she starred alongside Gary Oldman and Ving Rhames in the film "Sin", and played a Hollywood rehab stereotype by the name of Toni Stark on "Dawson's Creek". She played a power company public relations representative in a 2004 episode of "Monk". Coppola also took on the unusual role of a female serial killer agreeing to help catch her copycat in the 2005 episode of "Crossing Jordan" titled "Road Kill". She had a recurring role on NBC's "American Dreams", playing the role of Nancy. She appeared on "Two and a Half Men" as Dr. Michelle Talmadge, in the episode "Woo-Hoo, a Hernia Exam!" (2005).


title: Alicia Coppola

text: Coppola played a short role on the Fox television series "Bones" in 2005 as Joy Deaver in the episode, "The Girl in the Fridge".


title: Alicia Coppola

text: Coppola also had a role as a Muslim intelligence analyst working for the Los Angeles branch of the Counter Terrorist Unit (CTU), in a single episode of "24", named Azara ("1–2 am" during Day 4). All four of her scenes were cut from the broadcast episode, but are restored as extras on the Day 4 DVD. In them, she discovers a lead in the investigation which is originally dismissed by fellow analyst Edgar Stiles, who suspects her because of her religion. Edgar later apologizes to her when her lead turns out to be important.


title: Alicia Coppola

text: Starting in the fall of 2006, she appeared in the recurring role of IRS Agent Mimi Clark in the post-apocalyptic drama "Jericho". She became a series regular in February 2007. She was an FBI agent in "", also directed by "Jericho" executive producer Jon Turteltaub.


title: Alicia Coppola

text: Coppola appeared on the season 2 episode "Little Angels" of CBS' "", playing FBI agent Amy Rand, an expert on kidnapping cases. She has also appeared on "The Nine Lives of Chloe King" as Valentina, the leader of the Mai. She appeared on "Monk" in "Mr. Monk and the Blackout" as the power plant public relations spokesperson and as Monk's date. She appeared in the MTV series "Teen Wolf" as the powerful Alpha werewolf Talia Hale. In 2014, she appeared on "Sons of Anarchy" as Mildred Treal in the episode "Faith and Despondency". Coppola returned to daytime soap operas for the first time in twenty years when she took a recurring role on CBS's "The Young and the Restless" in spring 2016. Coppola appeared as Dr. Tammy Brunner in a 2017 episode of "Designated Survivor".


title: Alicia Coppola

text: Coppola is married to actor, writer, and producer Anthony Michael Jones, best known for appearing in "General Hospital" as Father Coates, a recurring occasional role which he played in 11 episodes from 2002 through 2010. They have three daughters.


title: Sun path

text: Sun path, sometimes also called day arc, refers to the daily and seasonal arc-like path that the Sun appears to follow across the sky as the Earth rotates and orbits the Sun. The Sun's path affects the length of daytime experienced and amount of daylight received along a certain latitude during a given season.


title: Sun path

text: The relative position of the Sun is a major factor in the heat gain of buildings and in the performance of solar energy systems. Accurate location-specific knowledge of sun path and climatic conditions is essential for economic decisions about solar collector area, orientation, landscaping, summer shading, and the cost-effective use of solar trackers.


title: Sun path

text: Sun paths at any latitude and any time of the year can be determined from basic geometry. The Earth's axis of rotation tilts about 23.5 degrees, relative to the plane of Earth's orbit around the Sun. As the Earth orbits the Sun, this creates the 47° declination difference between the solstice sun paths, as well as the hemisphere-specific difference between summer and winter.


title: Sun path

text: In the Northern Hemisphere, the winter sun (November, December, January) rises in the southeast, transits the celestial meridian at a low angle in the south (more than 43° above the southern horizon in the tropics), and then sets in the southwest. It is on the south (equator) side of the house all day long. A vertical window facing south (equator side) is effective for capturing solar thermal energy. For comparison, the winter sun in the Southern Hemisphere (May, June, July) rises in the northeast, peaks out at a low angle in the north (more than halfway up from the horizon in the tropics), and then sets in the northwest. There, the north-facing window would let in plenty of solar thermal energy to the house.


title: Sun path

text: In the Northern Hemisphere in summer (May, June, July), the Sun rises in the northeast, peaks out slightly south of overhead point (lower in the south at higher latitude), and then sets in the northwest, whereas in the Southern Hemisphere in summer (November, December, January), the Sun rises in the southeast, peaks out slightly north of overhead point (lower in the north at higher latitude), and then sets in the southwest. A simple latitude-dependent equator-side overhang can easily be designed to block 100% of the direct solar gain from entering vertical equator-facing windows on the hottest days of the year. Roll-down exterior shade screens, interior translucent-or-opaque window quilts, drapes, shutters, movable trellises, etc. can be used for hourly, daily or seasonal sun and heat transfer control (without any active electrical air conditioning).


title: Sun path

text: Everywhere around the world during the equinoxes (March 20/21 and September 22/23) except for the poles, the sun rises due east and sets due west. In the Northern Hemisphere, the equinox sun peaks in the southern half (about halfway up from the horizon at mid latitude) of the sky, while in the Southern Hemisphere, that sun peaks in the northern half of the sky. When facing the equator, the sun appears to move from left to right in the Northern Hemisphere and from right to left in the Southern Hemisphere.


title: Sun path

text: The latitude (and hemisphere)-specific solar path differences are critical to effective passive solar building design. They are essential data for optimal window and overhang seasonal design. Solar designers must know the precise solar path angles for each location they design for, and how they compare to place-based seasonal heating and cooling requirements.


title: Sun path

text: In the U.S., the precise location-specific altitude-and-azimuth seasonal solar path numbers are available from NOAA – the "equator side" of a building is south in the Northern Hemisphere, and north in the Southern Hemisphere, where the peak summer solstice solar altitude occurs on December 21.


title: Sun path

text: On the equator, the sun will be straight overhead and a vertical stick will cast no shadow at solar noon on the equinoxes. Roughly 23.5 degrees north of the equator on the Tropic of Cancer, a vertical stick will cast no shadow on June 21, the summer solstice for the northern hemisphere. The rest of the year, the noon shadow will point to the North pole. Roughly 23.5 degrees south of the equator on the Tropic of Capricorn, a vertical stick will cast no shadow on December 21, the summer solstice for the southern hemisphere, and the rest of the year its noon shadow will point to the South pole. North of the Tropic of Cancer, the noon shadow will always point north, and conversely, south of the Tropic of Capricorn, the noon shadow will always point south.


title: Sun path

text: The solar noon shadows of objects on points beyond and below subsolar points will point towards true north and true south respectively only when the solar declination has its maximum positive (δ☉ = +23.44°) or maximum negative (δ☉ = −23.44°) value. On the other hand, on the equinoxes when the sun is neither declined north nor south (δ☉ = 0°) and solar time noon shadows point NNW north of the equator and SSE south of the equator on the vernal equinox (and point NNE north of the equator and SSW south of the equator on the autumnal equinox).


title: Sun path

text: Within the polar circles (north of the Arctic Circle and south of the Antarctic Circle), each year will experience at least one day when the Sun remains below the horizon for 24 hours (on the winter solstice), and at least one day when the Sun remains above the horizon for 24 hours (on the summer solstice).


title: Sun path

text: In the middle latitudes, the length of daytime, as well as solar altitude and azimuth, vary from one day to the next, and from season to season. The difference between the lengths of a long summer day and of a short winter day increases as one moves farther away from the Equator.


title: Sun path

text: The pictures below show the following perspectives from Earth, marking the hourly positions of the Sun on both solstice days. When connected, the suns form two day arcs, the paths along which the Sun appears to follow on the celestial sphere in its diurnal motion. The longer arc is always the midsummer path while the shorter arc the midwinter path. The two arcs are 46.88° (2 × 23.44°) apart, indicating the declination difference between the solstice suns.


title: Sun path

text: In addition, some "ghost" suns are visible below the horizon, as much as 18° down, during which twilight occurs. The pictures can be used for both the northern and the southern hemispheres of Earth. A theoretical observer is supposed to stand near the tree on a small island in the middle of the sea. The green arrows represent the cardinal directions.


title: Sun path

text: A 2021 publication about solar geometry first calculates the x-, y-, and z-component of the solar vector, which is a unit vector with its tail fixed at the observer's location and its head kept pointing toward the Sun, and then uses the components to calculate the solar zenith angle and solar azimuth angle. The calculated solar vector at 1-hour step for a full year for both daytime and nighttime can be used to visualize the Sun path effectively.


title: Sun path

text: In the following figures, the origin of the coordinate system is the observer's location, x-positive is East, y-positive is North, and z-positive is upward; at North Pole, y-negative is tangent to the prime meridian; at South Pole, y-positive is tangent to the prime meridian; z-positive is daytime, and z-negative is nighttime; the time step is 1 hour.


title: Sun path

text: Each "8" pattern in all figures is an analemma corresponding to a specific hour of every day of the year; all the 24 hours on a specific day of the year depict the sun path of that day.


title: Carli Lloyd

text: Carli Anne Hollins (; born July 16, 1982) is an American former professional soccer player. She is a two-time Olympic gold medalist (2008 and 2012), two-time FIFA Women's World Cup champion (2015 and 2019), two-time FIFA Player of the Year (2015 and 2016), and a four-time Olympian (2008, 2012, 2016 and 2021). Lloyd scored the gold medal-winning goals in the finals of the 2008 Summer Olympics and the 2012 Summer Olympics. Lloyd also helped the United States win their titles at the 2015 and 2019 FIFA Women's World Cups, the bronze medal at the 2020 Summer Olympics, and she played for the team at the 2011 FIFA Women's World Cup where the U.S. finished in second place. After the 2020 Summer Olympics, Lloyd announced she would be retiring from the national team following four final friendly matches in 2021. Lloyd has made 316 appearances for the U.S. national team, placing her second in caps, and has the fourth-most goals and fifth-most assists for the team. In March 2021, she was named as the highest paid female soccer player in the world. She played her last international match with the USWNT on October 26, 2021, shortly before retiring from professional soccer at the completion of the 2021 NJ/NY Gotham FC season.


title: Carli Lloyd

text: During the United States' 5–2 win over Japan in the 2015 FIFA Women's World Cup Final, Lloyd became the first player ever to score three goals in a FIFA Women's World Cup final and the second soccer player ever to score a hat-trick in any senior FIFA World Cup Final, after Geoff Hurst. Lloyd scored three goals in the first 16 minutes of the final, with the first two occurring in the first five minutes of the game and within three minutes of each other. She received the Golden Ball Trophy as the best player of the tournament and earned the Silver Boot for her six goals and one assist during the tournament.


title: Carli Lloyd

text: She previously played for the Chicago Red Stars, Sky Blue FC, and Atlanta Beat in Women's Professional Soccer (WPS). In 2013, she was allocated to the Western New York Flash for the inaugural season of the NWSL and helped her team win the regular season championship. After two seasons with the Flash, she was traded to Houston Dash prior to the 2015 season and then to Sky Blue before the 2018 season. Her memoir, "When Nobody Was Watching", was published in September 2016.


title: Carli Lloyd

text: Born to Stephen and Pamela Lloyd, Carli was raised in Delran Township, a suburban community located in South Jersey about 20 minutes northeast of Philadelphia. Lloyd began playing soccer at age five. Of her exposure to soccer at a young age, Lloyd's mother, Pamela said, "At that age, it was coed, and Carli was hanging with the boys. She always loved it and showed a lot of ability from an early age, but she also has always worked hard." Lloyd has a brother, Stephen, and a sister, Ashley. Lloyd attended the opening U.S. match of the 1999 FIFA Women's World Cup, which inspired her to play for the national team.


title: Carli Lloyd

text: Lloyd attended Delran High School from 1997 to 2000 where she played soccer under the tutelage of the late Rudy "The Red Baron" Klobach. As a high school athlete, she was known for her exceptional ball control and skill at distributing the ball from the midfield. During her senior year, she scored 26 goals and served eight assists while captaining her team to an 18–3 record. "The Philadelphia Inquirer" twice-named her Girls' High School Player of the Year in 1999 and 2000. She was named to the Star-Ledger All-State First Team twice and received 1999 and 2000 Parade All-American honors. In 2000, she was named the "Courier-Post" Player of the Year and the South Jersey Soccer Coaches Association (SJSCA) Midfielder of the Year.


title: Carli Lloyd

text: Lloyd attended Rutgers University from 2001 to 2004 and played for the Scarlet Knights women's soccer team under head coach Glenn Crooks. She was named First-Team All-Big East for four straight years – the first athlete at Rutgers to do so. She ended her collegiate career as the school's all-time leader in points (117), goals (50), and shots.


title: Carli Lloyd

text: During her freshman season, Lloyd started every match and was the team's leading scorer with 15 goals for a total of 37 points. She was named to Soccer America's All-Freshman Team and was the first Rutgers player to earn Big East Rookie of the Year honors. As a sophomore, she was the team's leading scorer for the second consecutive season with 12 goals and seven assists for 31 points. The same year Lloyd was a finalist for the Hermann Trophy, widely considered the highest accolade for collegiate soccer players. During her third season with the Scarlet Knights, she scored 13 goals and served 2 assists for a total of 28 points and was named a Big East Academic All-Star. As a senior, she was a starter for 18 of the 20 games she played, scored 10 goals and served one assist. Lloyd was named the 2004 Big East Midfielder of the Year. She earned a bachelor's degree from Rutgers University in Exercise Science and Sport Studies.


title: Carli Lloyd

text: While still in high school, Lloyd played for W-League teams Central Jersey Splash in 1999, New Brunswick Power in 2000, and South Jersey Banshees in 2001. In the summer prior to her senior year at Rutgers, Lloyd played for the New Jersey Wildcats in 2004 with teammates Kelly Smith, Manya Makoski, Tobin Heath, and Heather O'Reilly. She made only one appearance for the club.


title: Carli Lloyd

text: With the return of a top-flight women's professional soccer league to the United States via Women's Professional Soccer, Lloyd's playing rights were allocated to the Chicago Red Stars in 2008. During the league's inaugural season, she started in 14 of her 16 appearances for Chicago playing a total of 1,313 minutes on the pitch. She scored two goals: one in the 23rd minute of her team's 4–0 win over the Boston Breakers on April 25; and the other during the 24th minute of a 3–1 defeat of the Los Angeles Sol on August 2. The Red Stars finished sixth on the season with a record.


title: Carli Lloyd

text: Following the conclusion of the season, Lloyd was declared a free agent and subsequently signed with her home state club and 2009 WPS champions, Sky Blue FC, for the 2010 season. In April 2010, during a match against her former team, Chicago Red Stars, Lloyd slipped and broke her ankle. The injury kept her off the pitch for most of the season although she did return for two games in September.


title: Carli Lloyd

text: In December 2010, Lloyd signed with expansion team Atlanta Beat for the 2011 season. Of her signing, Beat head coach James Galanis said, "She is a fantastic midfielder and someone who is fully focused on the game. I have known her from her college days, and I have had the opportunity to train her and improve her game individually. She has made a lot of sacrifices off the field to reach her dreams, and she is going to bring a lot of professionalism to the team." Lloyd scored two goals in her ten appearances for the Beat. She scored the team's lone goal in a 4–1 defeat by the Boston Breakers on April 9. Her second goal on the season was an equalizer during the 70th minute of a 2–2 draw against the Western New York Flash. The Beat finished their first season in last place with a record.


title: Carli Lloyd

text: On January 11, 2013, Lloyd joined the Western New York Flash in the new National Women's Soccer League as part of the NWSL Player Allocation. After recovering from a shoulder injury suffered earlier in the year, Lloyd made her debut for the Flash on May 12, 2013, during the team's 2–1 defeat of FC Kansas City. She scored her first goal in a match against her former club, Sky Blue FC, helping the Flash win 3–0. During a match against the Washington Spirit on June 28, Lloyd scored a hat trick leading the Flash to a 4–0 win. She was subsequently named NWSL Player of the Week for her performance.


title: Carli Lloyd

text: Lloyd finished the 2013 season with 10 goals, the third most goals scored on the season. The Flash finished first during the regular season with a record and advanced to the playoffs. During the Flash's semi-final match against Sky Blue FC, Lloyd scored both of the Flash's game-winning goals: one in the 33rd minute and the second coming during stoppage time. Her two goals resulted in a 2–0 win that advanced the Flash to the championship final against the Portland Thorns FC. The Flash were defeated 2–0 during the final.


title: Carli Lloyd

text: On October 16, 2014, Lloyd was traded to the Houston Dash in exchange for Becky Edwards, Whitney Engen and a third-round pick in the 2016 NWSL College Draft.


title: Carli Lloyd

text: In February 2017, Lloyd joined Manchester City on loan, for the FA WSL Spring Series. While Lloyd was at Manchester City, they finished second in the WSL Spring Series, and won the 2016–17 FA Women's Cup, with her scoring in the final. Lloyd's final appearance for City came on May 21, when she was sent off for elbowing Yeovil Town's Annie Heatherson in the face. The three match ban she received for violent conduct ran for the remainder of her loan stay.


title: Carli Lloyd

text: On January 18, 2018, Lloyd was traded to the Sky Blue FC (later known as NJ/NY Gotham) along with Janine Beckie by the Dash in a three-team trade with the Chicago Red Stars and Sky Blue FC. Lloyd scored 4 goals in 18 appearances for Sky Blue in 2018. She scored the only goal in a 1–0 win over the Orlando Pride on the last day of the 2018 NWSL season. It was Sky Blue's first and only win of the season. She was named to the 2018 NWSL Second XI.


title: Carli Lloyd

text: Lloyd represented the United States at the under-21 level before making the jump to the senior team at the age of 23. As a member of the under-21 team, she played at the Nordic Cup four times winning consecutive titles from 2002 to 2005 in Finland, Denmark, Iceland, and Sweden respectively. During the first round of the 2003 Nordic Cup, she served the assist in the U.S.' 1–0 win against Denmark. At the 2004 Nordic Cup, she scored two goals and served one assist while starting in every match. The following year at the 2005 Nordic Cup, she scored three times including one goal during the championship match against Norway.


title: Carli Lloyd

text: Lloyd made her first appearance for the United States women's national soccer team on July 10, 2005, against Ukraine. She scored her first international goal on October 1, 2006, against Taiwan. At the 2006 Four Nations Tournament, Lloyd won a third cap. Her first two starts of her international career came at the 2006 Algarve Cup, starting the group game against Denmark and in the final against Germany. She played in 19 games, starting 13, and scored one goal.


title: Carli Lloyd

text: After scoring once in her first 24 matches with the national team, Lloyd scored four goals at the 2007 Algarve Cup. As the tournament's top scorer, she was awarded Most Valuable Player tournament honors. Lloyd logged her first brace for the national team during a 6–1 win against New Zealand.


title: Carli Lloyd

text: The same year, Lloyd played in her first FIFA Women's World Cup tournament. Heading into the tournament, the national team had not lost a game in regulation time in nearly three years and was considered a favorite to win the tournament in China. During their first match of the tournament, the U.S. tied North Korea 2–2. The team faced Sweden in their next match on September 14 and won 2–0 with two goals from Abby Wambach. The U.S. finished group play with a 1–0 win over Nigeria women's national football team on September 18.


title: Carli Lloyd

text: During the quarterfinal match against England on September 22, the U.S. won 3–0. All three goals were scored within 12 minutes. The U.S. faced Brazil in the semi-final in what would become a controversial and game-changing match for the team. Coach Greg Ryan decided to bench starting goalkeeper, Hope Solo, and instead started Brianna Scurry, a veteran goalkeeper who had started in three World Cups and two Olympics, but who had started very few matches since the 2004 Olympics. The U.S. was defeated 4–0 by Brazil. The loss relegated them to a final match against Norway, which they won 4–1, to secure third place standing at the tournament. Lloyd started three of the five games in which she played at the tournament.


title: Carli Lloyd

text: Throughout 2007, Lloyd started 13 of the 23 matches in which she played. She ranked third on the team in scoring with nine goals and three assists.