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Developing Next-Generation Ecoinformatics Tools For Advancing Global Change Science, Ifeanyi H. Nwigboji
Developing Next-Generation Ecoinformatics Tools For Advancing Global Change Science, Ifeanyi H. Nwigboji
Open Access Theses & Dissertations
Ecosystems are responding to a variety of human-induced, interlinked stressors that have emerged from changing climate, alteration to the global water cycle, sea-level rise, and land use and land cover change, among others. Quantifying these changes and their associated impacts on ecosystems requires a huge amount of long-term data. Due to advances in data collection techniques, such as remote sensing platforms, environmental sensors, synthesized datasets, and various software technologies, the volume and variety of long-term ecological data being collected has tremendously increased. Although there are several complex models and analyses that are increasingly parametrized with data from such sensors, there …
Context Dependence Of Warming Induced Shifts In Alpine Soil Microbial Functions, Sydne Rose Spinella
Context Dependence Of Warming Induced Shifts In Alpine Soil Microbial Functions, Sydne Rose Spinella
Open Access Theses & Dissertations
Atmospheric warming is occurring due to anthropogenic release of carbon dioxide. Climate change has the potential to increase microbial activity in soil, where a significant amount of terrestrial carbon is stored, which may lead to release of this soil carbon into the atmosphere, positively feeding back to global temperature rise. Understanding how the indirect impacts of climate warming, like shifts in plant community composition, affect soil microbes can improve predictions of ecosystem functions and services under climate change. This project examined direct and indirect consequences of warming on microbial processes using independent and combined treatments of experimental warming and dominant …
Climate Change: The Final Crisis Of Capital, Walker Daniel Peatross
Climate Change: The Final Crisis Of Capital, Walker Daniel Peatross
Open Access Theses & Dissertations
As the body of scientific research on climate change continues to grow it has become undeniable that we live in the midst of an ecological crisis; however, this leaves us with a myriad of secondary questions whose answers are more contentious. In this project, I use a mixture of Marxist and Phenomenological analysis to explore these uncertainties. In chapter one, I will detail Marx's description of capitalism both to demonstrate the inherent irrationality of the system and also to represent the ecological critique implicit in Marxist Theory. In chapter two, I will examine how the ideology of neoliberal political theory …
Landscape Population And Evolutionary Genomics Of Several Closely Related Species Of Mallard-Like Ducks, Joshua Brown
Landscape Population And Evolutionary Genomics Of Several Closely Related Species Of Mallard-Like Ducks, Joshua Brown
Open Access Theses & Dissertations
Divergence and speciation proceed through three major evolutionary forces (i.e., selection, genetic drift, and gene flow) that are often spatially and temporally heterogeneous across the landscape. Moreover, these forces can have differing but subtle effects within the genomes of diverging taxa, and therefore, disentangling the effects of these evolutionary mechanisms throughout the speciation process can be challenging. Here, I use a recent species radiation, the mallard complex, to investigate how strong, yet varied, evolutionary pressures influence the speciation process. The mallard complex consists of 14 mallard-like waterfowl species around the world that have some of the highest rates of hybridization …
(Re)Mapping The Rhetorical Situation: Toward A Transactional Networked Ecology, Ramesh Kumar Pokharel
(Re)Mapping The Rhetorical Situation: Toward A Transactional Networked Ecology, Ramesh Kumar Pokharel
Open Access Theses & Dissertations
The existing theories of the rhetorical situation that focus on and around Bitzer's theory define the rhetorical situation as something "real," "genuine," "objective" based on historic reality. I believe that this modernist containment to perceive the rhetorical situation as fixed entities limit our understanding about it in a broader sense, because it cannot capture the changed meaning that naturally exists with the impact of new media and technology. With the advent of new media and technology, the notion of rhetorical situation also has changed and thus there is an exigence of a new theory of the rhetorical situations that better …
Ecology Of The Rock Rattlesnake, Crotalus Lepidus, In The Northern Chihuahuan Desert, Vicente Mata Silva
Ecology Of The Rock Rattlesnake, Crotalus Lepidus, In The Northern Chihuahuan Desert, Vicente Mata Silva
Open Access Theses & Dissertations
The Rock Rattlesnake, Crotalus lepidus is a small species that is found from southern Arizona, southern New Mexico, and southern Texas, in the U.S., into northern Mexico. To date, little is known about the ecology of this species. Ecological information is becoming desperately needed for supporting the conservation and protection of species living in fragile environments such as the Chihuahuan Desert amid current local and global threats (e.g., habitat destruction and modification, urban development, and climate change). Although rattlesnakes spend a significant amount of time underground while overwintering, little is known about the physiology and behavior of these organisms during …
Development And Testing Of An Unmanned Aircraft System For Environmental Science, Jerald James Brady
Development And Testing Of An Unmanned Aircraft System For Environmental Science, Jerald James Brady
Open Access Theses & Dissertations
For some environmental science applications, Unmanned Aircraft Systems (UASs) are increasingly recognized for their capacity to collect remotely sensed data in a safer, more efficient and effective manner than is permitted with manned aircraft and satellite remote sensing platforms. To date, however, technological, human, and other challenges have constrained adoption of UASs in the environmental sciences. This study developed and tested a new UAS for an archetypical environmental science research group (stakeholder) composed of non-UAS experts. Specifically, this thesis: 1) Assessed the research and operational needs of the stakeholder to determine the optimum UAS platform; 2) Developed an Unmanned Aerial …