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A New Adaptive Landscape: Urbanization As A Strong Evolutionary Force, Lauren Christie Breza

Masters Theses

Urbanization is rapidly increasing as human population growth steadily grows, but there is little consensus of the ecological consequence of this population shift and almost no information of the evolutionary consequences for local biodiversity. Nearly two-thirds of the world’s population will live in city centers by 2050 with profound impacts on landscapes that can act as important agents of selection. This study aims to identify 1) the net effect of urbanization on species richness, 2) how phylogenetic diversity varies between urban and rural sites, and 3) the strength of urbanization as a selection pressure. First, a meta-analysis was conducted in …

The Impact Of Minimum Wage Rates On Obesity In The United States During The Great Recession, Benjamin C. Mallicoat

Chancellor’s Honors Program Projects

No abstract provided.

Is There Variation In The Effects Of Primate Size As Seed Dispersers?: Seed And Seedling Performance After Gut Simulation Treatments In Hydrochloric Acid, Denise Chac

Chancellor’s Honors Program Projects

No abstract provided.

A Research On Family-Owned Newspaper, Mengmeng Li, Xiaofei Song, Alix Carole Bilip

Annual Research Symposium of the College of Communication and Information

This paper conducts a research on the family-owned newspapers by interviewing the managers from the industry and doing a solid content analysis. It answers three research questions: What is the role of organizational ecology in the development or innovation of family-owned newspapers? How can organizational ecology be applied to newspapers? What elements on the newspapers’ websites are possibly profitable for the newspaper?

Essays On Spatial Analysis Of Policy Impacts, Daegoon Lee

Masters Theses

This thesis is composed of two essays under the theme of spatial analysis of policy impacts. The objective of the first essay was to analyse how population dynamics affect greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. The effects of population redistribution resulting from the South Korean government’s decentralization efforts on GHG emissions were assessed. Simulation results suggest that the direction of change in total GHG emissions depends on the share of the population redistributed from higher to lower population density regions. If the entire redistributed population of 877,000 persons expected from the government’s decentralization project were from the Seoul Area, annual CO_{2 …}

Reconstruction Of Fire History In The National Key Deer Refuge, Monroe County, Florida, U.S.A.: The Palmetto Pond Macroscopic Charcoal Record, Desiree Lynn Kocis

Masters Theses

The pine rocklands in the Lower Florida Keys are considered endangered because of rises in sea level, urbanization, and human impacts on the natural fire regime. Macroscopic charcoal in a sediment core recovered from Palmetto Pond (24°41’45.15”N, 81°19’43.84”W) in 2010 was examined in contiguous 1-cm intervals to reconstruct Late Holocene fire history. Palmetto Pond is a shallow freshwater solution hole located within the pine rocklands of No Name Key in Monroe County, Florida. Radiocarbon dating of plant material at 247 cm depth in the Palmetto Pond profile indicates the sediment record extends back to ca. 4500 cal yr BP. Charcoal …

Associations Of Behavioral Profiles With Social And Vocal Behavior In The Carolina Chickadee (Poecile Carolinensis), Ellen H. Williams

Doctoral Dissertations

The research described here tested for relationships among behavioral consistency, personality traits, and communicative behavior in a socially and vocally complex avian species, the Carolina chickadee (Poecile carolinensis). First, I tested for the existence of behavioral profiles, also known as non-human animal personality, across varying contexts (presence of predator, foraging within a novel object, and novel conspecific) in the laboratory. I found evidence for behavioral profiles encompassing behavioral patterns such as activity, affiliation, aggression, and boldness. Second, I incorporated a larger social component to these studies by testing birds housed in social groups in semi-naturalistic aviary settings. In …

Dendroclimatological Analysis And Fire History Of Longleaf Pine (Pinus Palustris Mill.) In The Atlantic And Gulf Coastal Plain, Joseph P. Henderson

Doctoral Dissertations

The purpose of this research was to use longleaf pine trees at three major sites in the Southeastern Coastal Plain to: (1) determine how longleaf pine trees respond to climate, (2) reconstruct past climate conditions using long tree-ring chronologies, (3) determine the effects of atmospheric teleconnections on longleaf pine growth, and ( 4) reconstruct fire history from fire-scar data. The native range of longleaf pine and its associated communities extends from southeastern Virginia south and westward to the Trinity River in eastern Texas. I collected samples from living and remnant longleaf pine wood in coastal South Carolina, Eglin Air Force …

A Comparative Study Of Behavior In Neonate Gartersnakes, Thamnophis Butleri And T. Radix (Colubridae), In An Area Of Potential Hybridization, Lauren Elizabeth Kirby

Masters Theses

An isolated population of Butler’s gartersnake, Thamnophis butleri (Colubridae), in southeastern Wisconsin has recently been listed as Threatened by the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources. One of the possible reasons for the decline of T. butleri in Wisconsin is pressure from a closely related species, the plains gartersnake, T. radix. The possibility of hybridization between T. butleri and T. radix has received recent attention because T. butleri is threatened in the area where the hybridization may be occurring. This study addresses the issue of hybridization by studying the behavior of neonatal T. butleri born to females originating from areas where …

Macroscopic Sedimentary Charcoal As A Proxy For Past Fire In Northwestern Costa Rica, Kyle James Schlachter

Masters Theses

Proxy records of fire history offer valuable information on the role fire plays in an ecosystem. Such information can be used to understand the inter-relationships among fire, humans, and the environment. In the past, the forests of Costa Rica were thought to have been spared from significant pre-Columbian forest disturbance; however, paleoecological studies have shown that this notion is false. While the long-term human influence is now recognized in Costa Rica, the nature and extent of human effects in different regions remain poorly documented. Knowledge of pre-Columbian land uses in Costa Rica increases our understanding of the possible impacts of …

Aspects Of Ecology And Adaptation With An Emphasis On Hominoid Evolution, Clare Katharine Stott

Masters Theses

This thesis will explore hominoid evolution from the joint perspectives of ecology and palaeoanthropology. Unique to this study is the idea of Ecosystematics. While ecologists tend to focus their attentions on the immediate context of organismal existence and survival (i.e., the ecosystem), palaeoanthropologists more often focus on the long term, evolutionary trends of organismal adaptation, with usually much less attention given to the context of such adaptations. The Ecosystematic cycle bridges together these ideas of proximate (immediate context) and ultimate (long term) adaptation towards the end of better understanding of evolutionary patterns and processes inherent to hominid development. In this …

An Ecological Assessment Of Wetland Mitigation Projects In East Tennessee, Kim Pilarski

Masters Theses

Federal wetland protection regulations stipulate that developers who destroy natural wetlands are required to construct mitigation or replacement wetlands. Despite the frequency of wetland mitigation, few studies have evaluated the ability of mitigated wetlands to mimic the ecological function and community composition of natural wetlands. Fewer still compare mitigation sites with existing natural wetlands in the same ecological region.

Studies from other freshwater habitats suggest that comparisons of the ratios of functional feeding groups (FFGs) of benthic macroinvertebrates (i.e., shredders, scrapers, collectors, predators) may provide useful information about the ability of mitigated wetlands to mimic the ecological functions of natural …

Comparative Odontometric Scaling In Two South American Tamarin Species: Saguinus Oedipus Oedipus And Saguinus Fuscicollis Illigeri (Callitrichinae, Cebidae), Theodore M. Cole Iii

Masters Theses

Tamarins (Genus Saguinus) are small-bodied, arboreal monkeys found in the jungles and rain forests of South America. They belong to the subfamily Callitrichinae, and differ morphologically from other South American monkeys (belonging to the subfamily Cebinae) in a number of respects. The phylogenetic status of the Callitrichinae, relative to the Cebinae, has been the subject of much recent debate.

Previous research involving tamarins has involved a number of a priori assumptions and generalizations. There is a tendency to regard the tamarins as morphologically, behaviorally, and ecologically homogenous. A recent increase in the frequency and quality of studies involving tamarins has …