Open Access. Powered by Scholars. Published by Universities.®
- Discipline
-
- Life Sciences (11)
- Ecology and Evolutionary Biology (8)
- Other Ecology and Evolutionary Biology (4)
- Environmental Microbiology and Microbial Ecology (3)
- Microbiology (3)
-
- Physical Sciences and Mathematics (3)
- Biodiversity (2)
- Environmental Sciences (2)
- Animal Sciences (1)
- Applied Mathematics (1)
- Architecture (1)
- Bacteriology (1)
- Bioinformatics (1)
- Education (1)
- Educational Technology (1)
- Entomology (1)
- Environmental Health and Protection (1)
- Environmental Monitoring (1)
- Forest Management (1)
- Forest Sciences (1)
- Marine Biology (1)
- Natural Resources Management and Policy (1)
- Natural Resources and Conservation (1)
- Ordinary Differential Equations and Applied Dynamics (1)
- Ornithology (1)
- Other Environmental Sciences (1)
- Terrestrial and Aquatic Ecology (1)
- Urban, Community and Regional Planning (1)
- Publication Year
Articles 1 - 18 of 18
Full-Text Articles in Entire DC Network
Evaluation Of Avian Use Of Agricultural Cover Crops During The Winter, Migration Stopover, And The Breeding Season In Tennessee, Brittany Panos
Evaluation Of Avian Use Of Agricultural Cover Crops During The Winter, Migration Stopover, And The Breeding Season In Tennessee, Brittany Panos
Masters Theses
The U.S. Department of Agriculture Natural Resources Conservation Service administers the cover crop program to provide technical and financial assistance to agricultural producers to sow herbaceous plant seeds to establish cover crops to protect agricultural fields from soil erosion during the non-growing season (late fall through spring). Soil retention and water quality benefits have been documented, but potential benefits for avian wildlife remain largely unknown. I used line-transect avian and vegetation surveys to examine use of cover crop fields by birds during the non-breeding period (winter), migration, and the breeding season. I compared avian use of cover crop fields with …
Designing A Serious Game To Simulate Ecological Processes On A Post-Eruption Mount St. Helens Landscape, Parker Maynard
Designing A Serious Game To Simulate Ecological Processes On A Post-Eruption Mount St. Helens Landscape, Parker Maynard
Masters Theses
Developing strategies to successfully manage landscapes to meet ecological, economic, and social goals is an increasing concern in a world experiencing anthropogenic global changes. The 1980 eruption of Mount St. Helens in Washington state provided a major learning opportunity in managing resource effectively after a major disturbance. This information is explored through Resilience: After The Eruption: a serious game developed as part of this thesis that synthesizes research about ecological recovery and resource management following the eruption of Mount St. Helens. The digital game allows players to take on the role of four different stakeholders performing landscape-based operations while …
Of Hosts And Habitats: The Ecological And Evolutionary Patterns Of The Amphibian Skin Microbiome, Benjamin Houston Holt
Of Hosts And Habitats: The Ecological And Evolutionary Patterns Of The Amphibian Skin Microbiome, Benjamin Houston Holt
Doctoral Dissertations
The skin microbiome of amphibian hosts can inhibit growth of pathogenic fungi, contribute to anti-predator compounds in newts, and is linked with sex-specific scents in frogs. However, despite growing evidence of symbiont importance to amphibians, how symbionts are acquired and maintained on hosts remains poorly resolved. Microbiomes exist on a dynamic spectrum from casual assemblages to intricate systems, and community members vary in fidelity and association to hosts. The establishment of these communities involves complex interactions between symbionts, host traits, and source communities. I seek to enhance our understanding by assessing the spatial-temporal patterns of the salamander skin microbiome relative …
Are Fungal Endophytes Of Fire Adapted Plants Also Fire Adapted?, Alexander C. Dowd
Are Fungal Endophytes Of Fire Adapted Plants Also Fire Adapted?, Alexander C. Dowd
Chancellor’s Honors Program Projects
No abstract provided.
Evaluating The Ecological Relationships Among Beauveria Bassiana, Kudzu Bug And Kudzu, Kassie L. Hollabaugh
Evaluating The Ecological Relationships Among Beauveria Bassiana, Kudzu Bug And Kudzu, Kassie L. Hollabaugh
Masters Theses
When kudzu bug, Megacopta cribraria, was identified in the United States in 2009 as an invasive species, populations began to establish, increase, and spread throughout the southeastern region at intense rates. Kudzu bug invades urban structures, causing unpleasant scenes for homeowners, and reduces crop yield, such as soybean. Kudzu bug caused about $2.8 million in soybean yield loss and treatment in Tennessee in 2020. Although initial spread was rapid throughout the southeastern U.S., spatial modeling has shown populations of kudzu bug are declining and reducing risk of crop damage to growers. These local and regional declines in populations appear …
Distribution, Ecological Niche, Movement, And Home Range Of The Sickle Darter (Percina Williamsi) In The Upper Tennessee River Basin., Kyler Hecke
Doctoral Dissertations
The Sickle Darter (Percina williamsi) is a rare and imperiled species that is endemic to the upper Tennessee River basin. Over the last ~50 years it has declined across much of its range, and as a result it has been petitioned for federal listing under the Endangered species Act. This species has been relatively understudied, and important questions remain to be addressed: 1.) What is the current distribution of the Sickle darter and how has it varied spatiotemporally? 2.) What is the ecological niche of the Sickle Darter? and 3.) What is the movement capability of the Sickle …
The Effects Of Urbanization On The Avian Gut Microbiome, Mae Berlow
The Effects Of Urbanization On The Avian Gut Microbiome, Mae Berlow
Doctoral Dissertations
The gut microbiome influences and is influenced by the host, and can affect the host organism by contributing to health, development and immunity. Similarly, the host can influence this community; it’s makeup can vary with host species, locality, diet, social stressors, and environmental stressors. Some of these environmental stressors have arisen due to human-induced rapid environmental change, like urbanization. The physiology and behaviors of organisms that are able to persist in urban environments are often different from their non-urban congeners. Nutrition, development, and immunity—all of which are affected by the gut microbiome—are important factors that can determine survival in urban …
Investigating The Ecology And Behavior Of The Indiana Bat And Tri-Colored Bat During Fall Swarming And Spring Staging, Mallory E. Tate
Investigating The Ecology And Behavior Of The Indiana Bat And Tri-Colored Bat During Fall Swarming And Spring Staging, Mallory E. Tate
Masters Theses
White-nose syndrome has devastated bat populations across North America since 2005. Due to declines in Indiana bat (Myotis sodalis) and tri-colored bat (Perimyotis subflavus) populations across the eastern United States, management prescriptions need to consider all seasons of these species annual cycles. However, data is severely lacking on the two seasons surrounding winter hibernation. These include fall swarming, a time period when bats are mating and preparing for hibernation, and spring staging, when bats are emerging from hibernation and preparing for spring migration. Both periods are critical for successful reproduction and survival following white-nose syndrome infection. …
Improving Identification Methods For Tabanus Flies (Diptera: Tabanidae) From The Southeastern United States Using Dna Barcoding & Environmental Niche Modeling, Travis Davis
Masters Theses
Blood-feeding female horse flies (Diptera: Tabanidae: Tabanus) are pests of livestock and man worldwide. Direct damage from Tabanus blood-feeding results in blood loss and physical damage to the skin. Indirect outcomes are the potential transmission of pathogens, economic losses in livestock production, and disruption of outdoor recreation. Horse flies are an understudied group and Tabanus classification remains incompletely resolved due to variable morphological characters, high diversity, and limited research within the group. Therefore, the first step to evaluating horse flies as pests is improving identification methods. Our overarching goal was to improve methods of Tabanus identification by building a DNA …
Athletes’ Perceptions Of Their High School Sport Ecology And Life Skills Development, Kylee Jo Ault
Athletes’ Perceptions Of Their High School Sport Ecology And Life Skills Development, Kylee Jo Ault
Masters Theses
Sport psychology researchers have examined the degree to which youth sport participation leads to positive developmental outcomes. Contemporary findings suggest that these outcomes are more likely to occur when adults intentionally design environments that foster life skills development. However, many of these studies have only examined one adult relationship (e.g. Camiré, Trudel, & Bernard, 2013; Gould, Collins, Lauer, & Chung, 2007; Turnnidge, Côté, & Hancock, 2014) without acknowledging the larger context surrounding interscholastic sport. The purpose of this study was to examine high school student-athletes’ perceptions of how stakeholders in their high school sport-ecosystem influence their life skills development and …
Plasticity And Biotic Interactions Mediate Plant Persistence In A Changing World, Alix Ann Pfennigwerth
Plasticity And Biotic Interactions Mediate Plant Persistence In A Changing World, Alix Ann Pfennigwerth
Masters Theses
Anthropogenic global change is occurring today at a faster rate and larger scale than ever before. Understanding how plants will respond to such large-scale disturbance is critical for biodiversity conservation, yet the ecological and evolutionary mechanisms underlying these responses remain poorly understood. In this thesis, I investigated the mechanisms underlying plant response to two major drivers of global change, climate change and the widespread mortality of foundation species. First, I examined genetic and plastic plant trait responses to climatic variation using elevation gradients, which serve as space-for-time substitutions for climate change. Through field observations in three populations of the North …
Individual Variation In Plant Traits Drives Species Interactions, Ecosystem Functioning, And Responses To Global Change, Quentin Daniel Read
Individual Variation In Plant Traits Drives Species Interactions, Ecosystem Functioning, And Responses To Global Change, Quentin Daniel Read
Doctoral Dissertations
Ecologists have long sought to understand the processes that lead to the riotous diversity in communities of organisms that inhabit disparate climates and landscapes. Such a diversity of traits leads to a diversity of interactions among species in natural communities, which in turn generates a diversity of potential responses to ongoing global change. In this dissertation, I do three things: I explore the forces that structure plant communities and the ecosystem functions that they mediate, I describe patterns of variation among communities, species, and individual organisms across environmental contexts, and I disentangle the direct effects of global change from the …
Reconnecting The Urban Web: Chicago's Failed Olympic Hope, Eric Archer
Reconnecting The Urban Web: Chicago's Failed Olympic Hope, Eric Archer
Masters Theses
‘Towers in the park,’ a destructive urbanistic typology that gained notoriety with idealistic projects by Le Corbusier, are prevalent in American cities. This architectural and urban concept consists of mono-functional high-rise towers, typically residential, placed on a superblock of unprogrammed over-scaled greenspace. The original intention was to create order within the city and provide plenty of landscaping and urban space for the city’s occupants. Noble in goals, these mega-towers have been chastised for their lack of character, inappropriate scale, and the inability to create vibrant public space that promote interaction and community by creating an over concentration of segregated nodes …
Environmental Constraints On Cyanomyophage Abundance In The Subtropical Pacific Ocean, Tiana Maria Pimentel
Environmental Constraints On Cyanomyophage Abundance In The Subtropical Pacific Ocean, Tiana Maria Pimentel
Masters Theses
Viruses are abundant in the world’s oceans and are thought to be important participants in marine biogeochemical cycling. Of these viruses, cyanophages are considered especially important because they infect and lyse cyanobacteria, which are some of the main primary producers in marine environments. Cyanophages are thought to influence the abundance and diversity of cyanobacterial populations and impart significant mortality, thereby affecting primary productivity and microbial community structure. Despite their ecological relevance, little is known about how environmental factors shape cyanophage abundance and diversity over large temporal and spatial scales. To address this gap in knowledge, seawater samples were collected during …
Genetic And Ecological Characterization Of Indigoidine Production By Phaeobacter Sp. Strain Y4i, William Nathan Cude
Genetic And Ecological Characterization Of Indigoidine Production By Phaeobacter Sp. Strain Y4i, William Nathan Cude
Doctoral Dissertations
The Roseobacter clade is a widely distributed, abundant, and biogeochemically active lineage of marine alpha-proteobacteria. Members of the Roseobacter lineage are prolific surface colonizers in marine coastal environments, and antimicrobial secondary metabolite production has been hypothesized to provide a competitive advantage in colonization. In this work, Phaeobacter sp. strain Y4I was found to produce the water soluble, blue pigment indigoidine via a nonribosomal peptide synthase-based biosynthetic pathway encoded by a novel series of genetically linked genes, termed igiBCDFE. Comparison of wildtype, non-pigmented, and hyper-pigmented Y4I insertional mutants demonstrated a perfect correlation between indigoidine production and the inhibition of Vibrio …
Modeling The Genetic Consequences Of Mutualism On Communities, Carrie E. Eaton
Modeling The Genetic Consequences Of Mutualism On Communities, Carrie E. Eaton
Doctoral Dissertations
Three models of coevolutionary dynamics between mutualistically interacting species are developed. The first is a three loci, haploid model describing a general plant-pollinator system, such as Greya moth and its host plant. In this case, the system will always collapse to a single plant type and pollinator type. In a community with an mutant plant type, it is possible for a host-switch to occur, governed by the initial relative abundance plant type and the pollinator choosiness. In addition, genetic diversity can be maintained if the pollinator has no differential host preference, only adaptation to a host. Next, this model is …
Diversity And Activity Of Roseobacters And Roseophage, Charles Ryan Budinoff
Diversity And Activity Of Roseobacters And Roseophage, Charles Ryan Budinoff
Doctoral Dissertations
Bacteria of the Roseobacter lineage are dominant bacterioplankton in coastal systems and contribute significantly to secondary production in oceanic environments. Generalities of Roseobacter ecology, diversity, and distributions are known, but the intraspecific differences between species and their dynamics over short temporal periods is not well understood. Bacteriophage that infect Roseobacters (‘roseophage’) have the potential to shunt secondary production into the dissolved carbon pool and through the process of infection alter Roseobacter physiology. Despite their significance, little effort was made prior to the onset of this study to characterize roseophage. Using culture dependent and independent approaches, I describe the diversity and …
Plant Genotype, Not Nutrients, Shape Aphid Population Dynamics, Heather E. Tran, Lara Souza, Nathan J. Sanders, Aimee T. Classen
Plant Genotype, Not Nutrients, Shape Aphid Population Dynamics, Heather E. Tran, Lara Souza, Nathan J. Sanders, Aimee T. Classen
Chancellor’s Honors Program Projects
No abstract provided.