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Understanding The Invasion History And Dispersal Patterns Of The Faucet Snail, Bithynia Tentaculata, Emma B. Grindle Jan 2022

Understanding The Invasion History And Dispersal Patterns Of The Faucet Snail, Bithynia Tentaculata, Emma B. Grindle

Graduate Research Theses & Dissertations

Invasive species pose a major threat to biodiversity and are becoming increasingly common across the globe. The success of these invasive species often comes down to an ability to disperse effectively into novel environments over time and at multiple scales. Aquatic invasive species can be particularly challenging as they are not readily visible and are often well established before being formally observed. In the Upper Mississippi River region, an invasive European snail species, the faucet snail (Bithynia tentaculata) has invaded from Europe via the Great Lakes. The snail serves as an intermediate host for several species of trematode parasites that …


Microbial Community And Soil Responses To Land Management Practices In Remnant And Restored Tallgrass Prairies, Desirae Marie Klimek Jan 2022

Microbial Community And Soil Responses To Land Management Practices In Remnant And Restored Tallgrass Prairies, Desirae Marie Klimek

Graduate Research Theses & Dissertations

Critical ecosystem functions, such as decomposition and nutrient cycling, are driven by microbial communities within soil. As such, it is important to examine the effect of restoration practices, such as the presence of native grazers and prescribed burning, on these microbes and the soil they inhabit. The Nachusa Grasslands provides a chronosequence of restored tallgrass prairies ranging in restoration age from 5 to 33 years, as well as remnant prairies, and agricultural fields. These sites were sampled seasonally from 2013-2020 and microbial ribosomal RNA genes were surveyed to characterize soil microbial communities and assess how common restoration practices affect these …


Nutrient Scarcity And Cellular Cooperation In A Clonal Hydroid, Weam S. El Rahmany Jan 2022

Nutrient Scarcity And Cellular Cooperation In A Clonal Hydroid, Weam S. El Rahmany

Graduate Research Theses & Dissertations

Biological complexity forms when lower-level units (e.g., genes, cells, organisms) cooperatively band together. This complexity may be exemplified by multicellularity, the cooperation between the cells of the same species, or symbiosis, cooperation between the cells of different species. This cooperation is under continual threat, as defection, the opposite of cooperation, is favored by default by lower-level units (i.e., cells). Animal cancers may be the most well-known phenomena that exemplify the concept of cellular defection. Cancer cells have been shown to feature morphological and metabolic traits, developed through differential gene expression or mutations, that favor their growth at the cost of …


Grassland Bird Responses To Bison And Prescribed Fire Disturbances At Nachusa Grasslands And Kankakee Sands, Antonio Del Valle Jan 2022

Grassland Bird Responses To Bison And Prescribed Fire Disturbances At Nachusa Grasslands And Kankakee Sands, Antonio Del Valle

Graduate Research Theses & Dissertations

Grazing from native herbivores such as bison (Bison bison), in combination with prescribed fire, are applied to tallgrass prairies by managers to recreate important disturbance patterns in this ecosystem. Bird communities may be indirectly impacted by these disturbances through their direct impact on plants that provides critical breeding habitat for grassland birds. The objectives of this research are to determine the impacts that bison and prescribed fire have on grassland breeding birds in two tallgrass prairie preserves, Kankakee Sands and Nachusa Grasslands. Birds, vegetation structure, and bison activity were surveyed systematically at these two preserves in 2020 and 2021. Prescribed …


Wetland Restoration Efforts Result In Increasing Phylogenetic Diversity, Nicholas T. Foster Jan 2022

Wetland Restoration Efforts Result In Increasing Phylogenetic Diversity, Nicholas T. Foster

Graduate Research Theses & Dissertations

Over the course of ecological restoration efforts, it has been observed that, despite restoration activities, species richness sometimes declines in a given habitat. While this response can be interpreted to mean that restoration activities are ineffective, other measures known as Phylogenetic Diversity Metrics can show that the community is actually becoming more diverse. Utilizing plant inventories collected as transect data from 1992-2021 of five wetland sites under various types of restoration in northern Illinois, a regional wetland community phylogeny was assembled. The community phylogeny was then analyzed for phylogenetic diversity measures through this 30-year period across the five sites. Additionally, …


Caregivers’ Inclination To See Their Children As Psychological Agents And Its Antecedents: A Cross-Cultural Study Of Parental Bonding, Reflective Functioning, And Maternal Mind-Mindedness, Chun-Hao Chiu Jan 2022

Caregivers’ Inclination To See Their Children As Psychological Agents And Its Antecedents: A Cross-Cultural Study Of Parental Bonding, Reflective Functioning, And Maternal Mind-Mindedness, Chun-Hao Chiu

Graduate Research Theses & Dissertations

This dissertation examined difference in maternal mind-mindedness among American mothers, Taiwanese mothers, and mothers who emigrated from Taiwan and had their first child in the United States (Taiwanese Immigrant Mothers). It also investigated relationships between maternal mind-mindedness and mothers’ bonding with their parents during early years and their general mentalizing abilities for these three groups of mothers. One hundred twenty-three American mothers (Mage = 33.33 years old; SD = 5.31), 129 Taiwanese mothers (Mage = 35.93 years old; SD = 4.05), and 105 Taiwanese Immigrant Mothers (Mage = 36.85 years old; SD = 4.42) participated in this study online, through …