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Articles 1 - 11 of 11
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Linking Dna Polymorphisms And Populations' Evolutionary History, Ivan Juric
Linking Dna Polymorphisms And Populations' Evolutionary History, Ivan Juric
Doctoral Dissertations
This dissertation seeks to provide an understanding of how different evolutionary forces can affect the DNA polymorphism patterns. I use a combination of individual-based simulations and analytical to examine polymorphism patterns during divergence with gene flow, hybridization and territory expansion. In the first chapter, I show how during divergence with gene flow the appearance and maintenance of “Genomic Islands of Divergence” can be explained using standard population genetics terminology, thus removing some of the confusion recently introduced in that literature. In the second chapter I derive the expressions for the distribution of coalescent times and pairwise differences in a hybridization …
Behavioral Responses Of Brazilian Free-Tailed Bats (Tadarida Brasiliensis) To Noctuid Moth Migrations, Jennifer Joy Krauel
Behavioral Responses Of Brazilian Free-Tailed Bats (Tadarida Brasiliensis) To Noctuid Moth Migrations, Jennifer Joy Krauel
Doctoral Dissertations
Animal migrations involve significant movement of biomass across landscapes and are likely to have cascading effects on animal and plant communities. However, most studies on migration address the behavior and ecology of single taxa, such as birds or insects. Few consider more than one trophic level or predator/prey interaction within the overall migration context. I studied the migration ecology of noctuid moths and of Brazilian free-tailed bats in Texas. Noctuid moth migrations during the 2010-2012 fall seasons were driven significantly by weather at the regional and local levels. Bats also responded to the same weather patterns, with changes in body …
The Economic Costs And Ecological Benefits Of Protected Areas For Biodiversity Conservation, Gwenllian D. Iacona
The Economic Costs And Ecological Benefits Of Protected Areas For Biodiversity Conservation, Gwenllian D. Iacona
Doctoral Dissertations
Conservation science acknowledges that economic cost and ecological benefit information is important for effective biodiversity conservation decision making. Obtaining this information for protected areas has proven difficult, however. This dissertation explores various aspects of obtaining information on the costs and benefits of protected areas in an effort to support applied conservation. Here I present a set of studies that 1) examine the threat and cost of plant invasion on protected areas, both for cumulative invasion and 2) across species that differ in their management priority, 3) provide a method for measuring the benefit of forest conservation, and 4) describe the …
Population Dynamics And Genetic Structure Of Louisiana Black Bears In The Lower Mississippi Alluvial Valley Of Louisiana, Jared Scott Laufenberg
Population Dynamics And Genetic Structure Of Louisiana Black Bears In The Lower Mississippi Alluvial Valley Of Louisiana, Jared Scott Laufenberg
Doctoral Dissertations
In 1992, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service granted the Louisiana black bear threatened status under the U.S. Endangered Species Act, listing loss and fragmentation of habitat as the primary threats. The 1995 Recovery Plan outlines recovery goals designed to meet the objective of reducing threats to the Louisiana black bear metapopulation and supporting habitat. To meet that objective, the Recovery Plan requires 1) at least 2 viable subpopulations, 1 each in the Tensas and Atchafalaya River Basins, 2) movement corridors between the 2 viable subpopulations, and 3) long-term protection of the habitat supporting each viable subpopulation and interconnecting corridors …
New Remote Sensing Methods For Detecting And Quantifying Forest Disturbance And Regeneration In The Eastern United States, Michael Joseph Hughes
New Remote Sensing Methods For Detecting And Quantifying Forest Disturbance And Regeneration In The Eastern United States, Michael Joseph Hughes
Doctoral Dissertations
Forest disturbances, such as wildfires, the southern pine beetle, and the hemlock woolly adelgid, affect millions of hectares of forest in North America with significant implications for forest health and management. This dissertation presents new methods to quantify and monitor disturbance through time in the forests of the eastern United States using remotely sensed imagery from the Landsat family of satellites, detect clouds and cloud-shadow in imagery, generate composite images from the clear-sky regions of multiple images acquired at different times, delineate the extents of disturbance events, identify the years in which they occur, and label those events with an …
Quantitative Characterization Of Proteins And Post-Translational Modifications In Complex Proteomes Using High-Resolution Mass Spectrometry-Based Proteomics, Zhou Li
Doctoral Dissertations
Mass spectrometry-based proteomics is focused on identifying the entire suite of proteins and their post-translational modifications (PTMs) in a cell, organism, or community. In particular, quantitative proteomics measures abundance changes of thousands of proteins among multiple samples and provides network-level insight into how biological systems respond to environmental perturbations. Various quantitative proteomics methods have been developed, including label-free, metabolic labeling, and isobaric chemical labeling. This dissertation starts with systematic comparison of these three methods, and shows that isobaric chemical labeling provides accurate, precise, and reproducible quantification for thousands of proteins. Based on these results, we applied this approach to characterizing …
Impacts Of Climate Change, Human Land Use, And Mercury Contamination On Southern Appalachian Plethodontid Salamanders, Michael Kevin Hamed
Impacts Of Climate Change, Human Land Use, And Mercury Contamination On Southern Appalachian Plethodontid Salamanders, Michael Kevin Hamed
Doctoral Dissertations
The Southern Appalachian Mountains are home to the greatest diversity of Plethodontid Salamanders in the world. The future for these salamanders is uncertain as globally amphibians have been experiencing significant population declines. We investigated the impact of habitat loss, chemical contaminants, and climate change on Plethodontid salamanders in northeastern Tennessee and southwestern Virginia. Four-toed salamanders (Hemidactylium scutatum) were negatively impacted by powerline right-of-way (ROW) mowing. Embryonic and larval survival significantly decreased in ROW after mowing and required up to 3 years of vegetation regrowth to reach post mowing survival. We also investigated mercury contamination in black-bellied salamanders ( …
Biogeographical Patterns, Ecological Drivers, And Evolutionary Mechanisms Of Plant Invasions, Rafael Dudeque Zenni
Biogeographical Patterns, Ecological Drivers, And Evolutionary Mechanisms Of Plant Invasions, Rafael Dudeque Zenni
Doctoral Dissertations
Understanding and predicting organisms’ responses to novel environments is a key issue for global change biology. In this dissertation, I study biogeographical patterns of plant invasions in Brazil, explore some of their ecological drivers, and disentangle the gene-level mechanisms that cause introduced organisms to become successful or failed invaders. I found that, for the invasive flora of Brazil, species were not introduced to new regions at random and that a species’ reason for introduction and continent of origin were associated. Asian ornamental and African forage plants are overrepresented, and two families (Poaceae and Fabaceae) dominate the invasive flora of Brazil. …
Impacts And Implications Of Co-Occurring Invasive Plant Species, Sara Elizabeth Kuebbing
Impacts And Implications Of Co-Occurring Invasive Plant Species, Sara Elizabeth Kuebbing
Doctoral Dissertations
The anthropogenic spread of species is a potent form of global change that impacts the population dynamics of native species, the composition of native communities, and the functioning of ecosystems. As the reorganization of species around the globe continues unabated, there is an increasing likelihood that habitats will contain co-occurring invaders. In this dissertation, I emphasize the need to study co-occurring invasive plants by juxtaposing the relative occurrence of multiple versus single invasive plants in important conservation habitats to the relative occurrence of published studies that consider the impacts of single versus multiple invasive plants. I found that over two-thirds …
Regional Assessment Of The Relationships Of Conservation Practices To Northern Bobwhite And Other Priority Grassland Bird Breeding Populations, Christopher Manuel Lituma
Regional Assessment Of The Relationships Of Conservation Practices To Northern Bobwhite And Other Priority Grassland Bird Breeding Populations, Christopher Manuel Lituma
Doctoral Dissertations
I documented populations of Northern Bobwhites (Colinus virginianus) and other priority grassland and early successional birds in the Central Hardwoods Bird Conservation Region (CHBCR), and determined whether conservation practices have been effective in positively impacting species occupancy and abundance. I designed and implemented a roadside survey by randomly locating five 15-km routes with 5-min unlimited distance point counts (30 counts/route), along secondary roads within Northern Bobwhite focal counties (n = 37) in the CHBCR. I also developed a survey to assess roadside biases for estimates of relative abundance (a), occupancy (ψ), detection probability (p), and associated …
Adaptive Radiation Along A Benthic/Pelagic Ecological Axis In North America’S Most Diverse, Endemic Clade Of Freshwater Fishes, Phillip Ray Hollingsworth Jr.
Adaptive Radiation Along A Benthic/Pelagic Ecological Axis In North America’S Most Diverse, Endemic Clade Of Freshwater Fishes, Phillip Ray Hollingsworth Jr.
Doctoral Dissertations
Eastern North America is unparalleled throughout the temperate world in terms of freshwater fish biodiversity. A monophyletic group of approximately 250 cyprinid fishes, known as the open posterior myodome (OPM) clade, dominates the fish species richness in the freshwater ecosystems of this region. In this dissertation, I explore the influence of eco-evolutionary divergence along a benthic/pelagic habitat axis on the generation of this hyper-diverse group of fishes. My three chapters work synergistically to address the question: Did a historical shift from benthic to pelagic habitats by OPM cyprinids represent the invasion of an open adaptive zone and result in the …