Digital Commons Network^™

Resource Debate In Southwest Alaska: The Bristol Bay Fishery And The Pebble Mine, Ethan Jerome Gottschalk

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

Bristol Bay, in Southwest Alaska, is the largest sockeye salmon fishery in the world. After an almost total collapse of salmon numbers in the mid 1970’s, the salmon have returned and average in the tens of millions every year. The salmon play a vital economic, cultural, and subsistence role in the lives of the people who call Bristol Bay home. At present there is a plan to develop a low-grade, but substantial, mineral deposit that consists primarily of copper, gold, and molybdenum. The estimated value of the minerals present is more than $500 billion. This plan is known as the …

Climate Change, Gene Flow, And The Legendary Synchrony Of Snowshoe Hares, Ellen Cheng

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

In recent decades, climate change has been invoked in the apparent collapse of some of the best-known examples of cyclic and synchronous population dynamics among boreal species. Simultaneously, some studies have predicted that as species' ranges shift poleward and southern habitats fragment in response to climate change, we will lose the southern glacial refugial populations that have historically harbored species' highest genetic diversity and uniqueness. I investigated how climate change and habitat fragmentation may impact genetic and population dynamic processes for the snowshoe hare (Lepus americanus), a species historically recognized as a key driver of North American boreal community dynamics. …

Phenotype-Dependent Regulation Of The System XC- Cystine/Glutamate Exchanger By Glutathione Levels In Rat Astrocyte Primary Cultures, Todd Seib

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

The system x_C- (Sx_C-) transporter functions under normal physiological conditions in astrocytes to mediate the exchange of extracellular cystine (L-Cys₂) for intracellular glutamate (L-Glu). The internalized L-Cys₂ serves as a rate-limiting precursor in the biosynthesis of glutathione (GSH), while the externalized L-Glu can access EAA receptors and contribute to either excitatory signaling or excitotoxcity. Although the regulation of Sx_C- has been studied in a variety of cells, particularly as related to xenobiotic exposure, much less is known about its regulation in astrocytes. In the present study the influence of phenotype (culturing …

Double Sampling For Coarse Woody Debris Estimations Following Line Intersect Sampling, Allissa Corrow

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

Coarse woody debris (CWD), an essential component of healthy forests, has typically been defined as dead and down, large woody material. Quantification of this resource provides a useful metric for assessing wildlife habitat, fuel loading, and more recently, carbon sequestration. Although many CWD sampling methods exist, accurate estimation is difficult and expensive. Double sampling incorporates auxiliary data that is positively correlated with the attribute of interest as a means of reducing sampling costs and/or increasing estimation precision. The present study investigated double sampling applications to the common CWD sampling technique, line intersect sampling (LIS). We identified aggregate length as a …

Luminal Calcium Regulates Membrane Fusion In The Early Secretory Pathway, Marvin Bentley

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

Calcium is an important regulatory ion which acts as a trigger or is required at a basal level for many membrane fusion events. The role of calcium, and in particular luminal calcium, in regulating fusion in the early secretory pathway has not been thoroughly investigated. Here, I show that calcium has an inhibitory effect on homotypic coat protein complex (COPII) vesicle fusion. In particular, chelation of luminal calcium as well as fast chelation of extra luminal calcium, result in a significant increase of COPII vesicle fusion. Specific inhibition of Sarco/endoplasmic reticulum calcium ATPases using cyclopiazonic acid in the presence of …

Masculine Domesticity In The Mining West: An Archaeological Investigation At Coloma Ghost Town, Margaret Anne Thurlo

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

The recovery of a scorifier, or roasting dish, at Feature 131 in Coloma, Montana led to the theory that the feature represented an assayer’s household. Historical documentation, in the form of a personal diary, revealed that the assayer at Coloma, Chester Pray, shared a cabin with another man. This revelation led to a particular question: what would the material record of an all-male household look like? The majority of previous engendered investigations into 19th century households focused on the role of women. Gender is often equated with women in historical and archaeological studies, and it became necessary to integrate literature …

Assessing Cumulative Human Impacts On Northern Woodland Caribou With Traditional Ecological Knowledge And Resource Selection Functions, Jean Lieppert Polfus

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

Woodland caribou (Rangifer tarandus caribou) are federally listed and declining across Canada because of the cumulative impacts of human infrastructure development. The Atlin northern mountain herd, in the territory of the Taku River Tlingit First Nation (TRTFN), British Columbia, is less affected by development than southern herds. However, recent low productivity in this herd suggests that the impacts of development (i.e., roads, mines, cabins and towns) may be accumulating. To predict the cumulative impact of human development on the Atlin herd, we developed seasonal resource selection functions (RSF) at 2 spatial scales with data from 10 global positioning system collared …

Far Toward The Bottom, Megan Nicole Kruse

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

Short Story Collection

The Effct Of Low-Level Lead On Serotonin Expression In The Developing Mouse Superior Olivary Complex And Somatosensory Cortex, Sunyoung Park

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

Low-level Pb exposure is a risk factor for neurobehavioral and cognitive deficits in both humans and animals. These neurological dysfunctions have been associated with deficits in auditory temporal processing. The developing central nervous system is particularly susceptible to Pb exposure, and Pb decreases the immunoreactivity of serotonin (5-HT) and VMAT2 in the lateral superior olive (LSO). During early developmental, "non-serotonergic" sensory neurons, including LSO neurons and thalamocortical neurons of the somatosensory system, transiently take up 5-HT from the extracellular environment through the transient expression of the serotonin reuptake transporter SERT. Maintenance of appropriate 5-HT levels is important for development of …

The Faithful Skeptics: Conservative Christian Religious Beliefs And Perceptions Of Climate Change, Wylie Allen Carr

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

Global climate change presents one of the most challenging ecological and social problems facing the world today. In order to prevent potentially harmful ecological and social impacts from rising global average temperatures, Americans will need to drastically reduce their greenhouse gas emissions by 2050; our willingness to do so though is questionable as opinion poll data suggests that addressing climate change remains an extremely low priority for most Americans. Social scientists from across a variety of disciplines have suggested a number of reasons why this may be case; however very few have focused on the ways that religious beliefs are …

Development Of Metal-Based Luminescent Probes For Applications In Biomolecular Structure And Dynamics, Ayesha Sharmin

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

New transition-metal complexes containing luminescent properties have been designed and synthesized for application as structural probes for biomolecules. Potential DNA intercalators, 2- amino-anthracene substituted triosmium clusters, were synthesized by the reactions of 2-aminoanthracene with [Os3(CO)10(CH3CN)2]. The products [Os3(CO)10(μ-η2-(N-C(1))-NH2C14H8)(μ- H)], [Os3(CO)10(μ-η2-(N-C(3))-NHC14H9)(μ-H)], [Os3(CO)9(μ-η2-(N-C(3))-NHC14H8)(μ-H)2] and [Os3(CO)9(μ3-η2-(N-C(3))-NHC10H9)(μ-H)] obtained from this reaction have been structurally characterized by spectroscopic, photophysical and electrochemical techniques. Solid state structures are also reported for the complexes [Os3(CO)10(μ-η2-(N-C(3))-NHC14H9)(μ-H)] and [Os3(CO)9(μ-η2-(N-C(3))-NHC14H8)(μ-H)2]. To investigate bio-macromolecular dynamics on the sub-microsecond-to-microsecond timescale, a series of ruthenium based mono-nuclear metalligand charge-transfer complexes (MLCs) of formula [XRu(CO)(L–L)(L′)2][PF6] (X = H, TFA, Cl; L–L = 2,2′-bipyridyl, 1,10-phenanthroline, 5-amino-1,10-phenanthroline …

"The Lawmen Faced The Outlaws, No Badge Upon A Breast:" Historical Memory And The Legacy Of Henry Plummer And The Montana Vigilantes, Melissa Poindexter Thomasma

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

In the winter of 1863-1864, the Montana vigilantes hanged over twenty men in and around Bannack and Virginia City, including the region's elected sheriff, Henry Plummer. The mob claimed that these men were members of a highly-organized Road Agent Gang. While no evidence of this organization of highwaymen exists, the episode endures in the popular history of Montana; this thesis explores four elements of the legacy of this episode. First, it presents a biography of Henry Plummer and brief summary of the organization and actions of the Vigilance Committee. Second, it establishes an historiography of the episode; it couches the …

“The Season Of Famine” As A Challenge To Food Security In Northern Rural Togo: Addressing Seasonal Hunger Through Household Coping Strategies, Jennifer Gorsegner

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

Improved understanding about food security has led researchers to develop increasingly holistic approaches to studying the effects of household food insecurity. This research, based in the remote prefecture of Dankpen in Togo, West Africa, presents insights into the lives of rural subsistence farmers, the role of population pressures, and the effectiveness of both international and national development work. Originally I wanted to identify positive deviants who were food secure living in the Dankpen prefecture. I conducted group interviews in five villages surrounding the prefectural capital, Guérin-Kouka in December 2009 and January 2010. There was combined total of 61 men and …

A New Life In Montana: The Laotian Hmong -- Their History, Culture And American Journey, David A. Keightley

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

Keightley, David, M.A., May 2010 History A New Life in Montana: The Laotian Hmong – Their History, Culture and American Journey Chairperson: Michael Mayer Following the end of the Vietnam War, hundreds of thousands of Vietnamese, Laotian and Cambodian refugees fled their homelands for America, where they started their lives over again. This paper examines the immigration of Hmong hill-tribesmen from Laos to the United States and their adjustment to a new life in America, particularly in the small community of Missoula Montana. How did they acculturate to such a very different environment from what they had known in Laos, …

An Exploratory Analysis Of Health Insurance Decisions Among Rural Western Montana Small Business Owners, Rebecca Esther Goe

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

For decades small business owners have been struggling to offer health insurance to their employees. Health insurance reform has been an issue of contention over the last few decades, culminating in the passage of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act on March 23,2010. One measure policy makers took to increase access to health insurance was to provide incentives to small business owners to offer health insurance. However, prior research has indicated that economic incentives alone do not guarantee the provision of health insurance coverage by small business owners. Previous research has rarely examined the noneconomic (social/cultural) factors behind why …

To Save The World: The Untold Stories Of Memorial Row, Michael Dean Webster

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

On Arbor Day, 1919, 32 Ponderosa Pine trees were planted on the campus of the University of Montana to commemorate individuals associated with the university who died while serving Montana in World War I. Collectively called Memorial Row and situated among present-day McGill and Don Anderson Halls and the Social Science and Education buildings, the trees honor individuals who died in combat, as a result of combat injuries, and from the Spanish Influenza pandemic of 1918 while stationed with the Student Army Training Corps (SATC) on the UM campus or at Fort Missoula. Four women who volunteered as nurses and …

Using Patchy Plant Invasions To Understand How Diffuse Interactions Modify Facilitation And Competition, Kerry Lee Metlen

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

Indirect interactions among plants promote conditionality in competitive outcomes that affect plant community structure and function. I utilized spatially patchy distributions of two invasive exotic plants, Centaurea stoebe and Bromus tectorum, to explore conditionality in plant interactions and the implications of this conditionality for community invasibility. Additionally, I expanded this research to investigate how these two invaders interact with each other as they overrun native ecosystems. Throughout intermountain prairie of western Montana Centaurea was found at high abundances in open prairie, but was a relatively minor component of the plant community under isolated Pinus ponderosa. In contrast, Bromus …

Discovering Orientation Between Theory And Narrative, Maxwell Haus Clark

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

Through the concept of orientation, this essay attempts to establish a philosophical account of the structure of our daily lives. By examining Kant’s notion of orientation and Heidegger’s response to Kant, I highlight the importance of the fact that orientation comes from the world, not simply from our ability to determine our position in the world by means of a coordinate system. Consequently, I argue, the concrete instantiation of a life given in a narrative can supplement the structure that the theoretical framework of justice, which establishes the principles guiding the institutions of our society, claims to leave undetermined. This …

Stewardship In West African Vodun: A Case Study Of Ouidah, Benin, Hayden Thomas Janssen

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

Indigenous, animistic religions inherently convey a close relationship and stewardship for the environment. This stewardship is very apparent in the region of southern Benin, Africa. The Fon peoples of this region practice a traditional religion termed Vodun, which manifested from the 17th century slave trade, and subsequently migrated to the Caribbean and Americas where it transmuted into Voodoo, among other religions. The migration of pre-colonial religious canon to the Western Hemisphere has garnered ample study; however, the pioneering religion, Vodun, has received far less scholastic attention, despite Benin’s recognition of Vodun as a national religion. In this thesis, I contend …

Synthesis And Structure Activity Relationship Studies Of A Natural Product-Derived Compound Library, Paul Whitney Swain Iii

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

Infectious diseases will always be a public health concern. The incidence of bacterial strains found in clinical settings that exhibit resistance to our current arsenal of antimicrobial drugs has risen sharply in the past twenty years and is projected to keep rising. The Infectious Diseases Society of America (IDSA) stated that more people die of methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) infections per year in US hospitals than HIV/AIDS and tuberculosis combined. However, stagnation of research in the area of infectious diseases over the past forty years has left us dreadfully behind in the battle against these deadly pathogens.

Recently, researchers have …

Territoriality And Scent Marking Behavior Of African Wild Dogs In Northern Botswana, Margaret Parker

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

Conserving wide ranging, endangered species is challenging, and managers often lack information on movement and social dynamics. Wild dogs, Lycaon pictus, are large, wide-ranging carnivores and one of the most endangered animals in Africa. Unlike other large carnivores, wild dogs do not vocalize as a form of territorial advertisement so to explore mechanisms of communication and movement behaviors, I radio collared and observed a population of wild dogs in northern Botswana, to collect fine-scaled, contemporaneous movement data on neighboring packs of wild dogs, and collected scent marks from known individuals for chemical analyses and behavioral experiments.

To test whether wild …

Values Congruence: Its Effect On Perceptions Of Montana Elementary School Principal Leadership Practices And Student Achievement, Daniel Roy Zorn

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

The purpose of this quantitative study was to examine the relationship between principal and teacher values congruence and perceived principal leadership practices. Additionally, this study considered the relationship between values congruence, leadership practices, and student achievement. The perceptions teachers hold regarding their principal's effectiveness have proven to be an important variable that influences the quality of the school, when quality is defined in terms of student achievement levels (Cotton, 2003; Marzano et. al., 2005). This study sought a better understanding of the factors that influence a teacher's perceptions of their principal's effectiveness to provide insight into the teacher/principal relationship and …

The Effectiveness Of Trout Habitat Restoration In Eustache Creek, A Formerly Placer-Mined Stream In Western Montana, Emily K. Thompson

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

Thompson, Emily, Master of Science, July 2010 Environmental Studies The Effectiveness of Trout Habitat Restoration in Eustache Creek, a Formerly Placer-Mined Stream in Western Montana Committee Chair: Dr. Daniel Spencer Aquatic ecosystems in the western U.S. have been severely degraded over the last century by anthropogenic activities such as mining, logging and grazing. Habitat heterogeneity in streams of the western United States has been lost as a result of both in-stream activities (i.e. dredging and straightening channels) and riparian zone activities (i.e. logging and vegetation removal). A commonly stated objective of stream channel restoration projects is to restore stream habitat …

Assessing Effects Of An Overwinter Dewatering On The Egg-To-Fry Survival Of Brown Trout In A Montana Stream, Christa Lyn Torrens

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

Natural instream flow regimes are necessary for the ecological health of streams, including the maintenance of healthy fish populations. Economic interests such as agriculture, mining, and other industries remove water from streams, which can negatively affect fish populations. Wintertime diversions of water affect autumn-spawning salmonids such as brown trout and bull trout; they occur at the critical egg-to-fry development phase, possibly reducing oxygen flow to the eggs and increasing the rate of sub-gravel freezing. This study was designed to examine the effects of a wintertime industrial water diversion on redd building and egg-to-fry survival of wild brown trout in Warm …

Are Black Bears Declining In Montana? Inference From Multiple Data Sources In The Face Of Uncertainty, Julie Ann Beston

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

Carnivores are managed both to maintain populations and reduce conflict with humans, but data-based decision-making is difficult due to the expense of data collection. When new fieldwork is impossible, we can benefit from available data in assessing populations. I used demographic and harvest data to assess the population status of black bears (Ursus americanus) in Montana.

I conducted a hierarchical Bayesian meta-analysis of black bear demographic studies to evaluate geographic structuring and estimate vital rates and population growth rate. Adult survival is higher in the west than the east, but the reverse is true for fecundity. The mean …

The Use Of Natural Product Substrates For The Synthesis Of Libraries Of Biologically Active, New Chemical Entities, Joshua Bryant Phillips

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

Since Alexander Fleming first noted the killing of a bacterial culture by a mold, antibiotics have revolutionized medicine, being able to treat, and often cure life-threatening illnesses and making surgical procedures possible by eliminating the possibility of opportunistic infection. However, during the past 30 years many of the infections that were once easily cured by the proper antibiotic are no longer so due to a precipitous rise in multi-drug resistant organisms. This rise in multi-drug resistant organisms poses a grave threat to the medical advances that have been made in the past century and underscores the need for new antibiotics. …

The Value Of A Neighborhood School: The Story Of Paxson Elementary, Missoula, Montana, Tina K. Erickson

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

The planning, management and administration of public schools in the United States has been largely ignored by professional planners. School siting issues rarely involve an urban planner’s perspective. In recent years there has been an increase in community participation in planning issues and planners have come to realize that people have valuable perspectives concerning issues of community design. Planners are beginning to take note of what has long been portrayed by environmental psychologists: people’s attachment to place is important to their engagement in their community. The complexity of community planning is such that the planners need to draw upon various …

Uncertainty Monitoring In Sprague-Dawley Rats (Rattus Norvegicus), Leslie Anne Angel

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

Comparative psychologists have explored the metacognitive capabilities of rhesus monkeys, a capuchin monkey, an orangutan, a dolphin, pigeons, and rats. Previous research with rats has demonstrated inconsistent results (Foote & Crystal, 2007; Smith & Schull, 1989). In the current study, two Sprague-Dawley rats were tested in a tone-length discrimination task in which they were prompted to press one of two levers indicating "short" or "long" depending on the duration of a tone. They also had the option to opt out of some trials. If the subjects knew when they did not know the answer to the task, they were expected …

Cairn Stones: A Mosaic Memoir And Manual, Bethany Mason Taylor

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

These twenty essays are scraps and fractals of larger stories, windows on coming to understand the world and my place in it. Taken as a whole, the collection tells the story of a formation of open-eyed hope. Roughly, they run from 2001 to 2010, covering the same years as the terrorist attacks of 2001, the War on Terror’s beginnings and toll, Hurricane Katrina, and growing awareness of globalization and climate change. These are big topics, and the only way I can make sense of them, and my coming of age within and around them, is to tell the stories of …

Causes And Consequences Of Prolonged Dormancy: Why Stay Belowground?, Jennifer R. Gremer

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

Prolonged dormancy is a stage in which mature plants fail to resprout during the growing season and instead remain alive belowground. Though it is relatively common, the causes and consequences of this intriguing stage have remained elusive. In this dissertation, I investigate the causes and consequences of prolonged dormancy in a long lived perennial herb, Astragalus scaphoides.

First, I use a combination of demography and ecophysiology to study the proximate mechanisms associated with prolonged dormancy. Analysis of a long-term demographic dataset indicates that both endogenous factors (e.g. age, condition, and history) and exogenous factors (e.g. climate and spatial variation) are …