Digital Commons Network^™

Trophic Ecology Of A Dominant Mesopredatory Fish Family (Alepisauridae) In The Western North Atlantic Revealed By Stomach Content And Stable Isotope Analysis, Ellyn Willse

All HCAS Student Capstones, Theses, and Dissertations

The mesopelagic zone of the ocean is gaining increased notice due to its potential for commercial value and the lack of knowledge of its ecosystems. Lancetfishes, Alepisaurus spp., are large mesopelagic predators and common bycatch species in commercial fishing operations that potentially play a role in connecting epipelagic and mesopelagic waters and may be a source of carbon from near the surface to the mesopelagic. While little is known about the behavior and biology of Lancetfishes, they share many food sources, and are themselves a food source for important commercial fisheries species such as tuna and swordfish. This study examines …

A Multi-Spatial Analysis Of Land Use Effects On Freshwater Mussels In The Upper Cuyahoga River And Tinkers Creek, Tamar Atwell

ETD Archive

Mussels are considered one indicator of good water quality in rivers, but over the past 20 years mussel populations have continued to decline, while water quality improves. According to the Ohio Environmental Protection Agency (OEPA), water quality in the Cuyahoga River is now within safe levels for all parameters. However, what are safe levels for humans may not be safe for mussels. An analysis of freshwater mussel populations in two similarly sized watersheds, the Upper Cuyahoga River and Tinkers Creek was conducted. Correlations of mussel abundance and diversity were assessed by multivariate GIS/remote sensing tools to contrast water flow rates, …

Analysis And Identification Of Lipolytic Bacterial Species For The Degradation Of Wastewater Lipids, Lindsay C. Smoak

Honors College Theses

The aim of this study was to isolate native bacterial strains from the wastewater treatment facilities of Statesboro, GA to identify their lipolytic activities. Obtained bacterial strains were further assessed via morphological and biochemical methods to determine their enzymatic capabilities. Use of the detergent Tween-20 in growth mediums was the first criteria to assess lipase activity, and these isolates were further investigated to quantitatively measure lipase presence and activity. Lipase protein was precipitated and dialyzed to perform a lipase activity assay, followed by Sodium Dodecyl Sulphate–Polyacrylamide Gel Electrophoresis (SDS-PAGE) to confirm the presence of the lipolytic enzymes. Sanger sequencing was …

Movement Patterns Of The Shovelnose Guitarfish (Pseudobatos Productus) And California Bat Ray (Myliobatis Californica) In The Southern California Bight, Annabel Gong

Theses

While the movement patterns of large elasmobranch species have been studied extensively, those of smaller, mesopredatory species remain understudied. The shovelnose guitarfish (Pseudobatos productus) and the California bat ray (Myliobatis californica) are among the least studied elasmobranchs in the Southern California Bight. This study quantified the broad- and fine-scale movement patterns of these species using passive acoustic telemetry. Twelve guitarfish were surgically implanted with coded acoustic transmitters at a known aggregation site off La Jolla (San Diego County), California, USA and tracked for 849.5 days each, on average. Six bat rays were also implanted here and tracked for …

The Rise Of An Eco-Spiritual Imaginary: Ecology And Spirituality As Decolonial Protest In Contemporary Multi-Ethnic American Literature, Andrew Michael Spencer

English Theses and Dissertations

The Rise of an Eco-Spiritual Imaginary reveals a shared ecological aesthetic among contemporary U.S. ethnic writers whose novels communicate a decolonial spiritual reverence for the earth. This shared narrative focus challenges white settler colonial mythologies of manifest destiny and American exceptionalism to instantiate new ways of imagining community across socially constructed boundaries of time, space, nation, race, and species. The eco-spiritual imaginary—by which I mean a shared reverence for the ecological interconnection between all living beings—articulates a common biological origin and sacredness of all life that transcends racial difference while remaining grounded in local ethnicities and bioregions. The novelists representing …

On The Evolutionary Ecology Of Microbial Metabolic Niche Construction, Jean Celestin Charles Vila

Yale Graduate School of Arts and Sciences Dissertations

All organisms construct the shared environment in which they live. This is especially notable in micro-organisms as they secrete and uptake a diverse range of metabolites depending on their genotype and environment. Over the past few decades, systems biologists have developed computational tools to predict the nutrient uptake and secretions of microbes across environments, using metabolic networks inferred from whole-genome sequencing. These tools provide an opportunity to quantify eco-evolutionary dynamics at the genomic level, by combining genome-scale metabolic models mapping genotype to phenotype, with consumer-resource models predicting population dynamics from phenotype. By leveraging these new computational approaches and combining them …

Making Forests, Making Communities: An Ethnography Of Reforestation In Monteverde, Costa Rica, Megan Brown

Anthropology Theses and Dissertations

Reforestation is not just planting trees in the ground. More than net increase in forest cover, reforestation is a complex political endeavor undertaken by both humans and non-humans and a popular climate change mitigation tactic. However, little research has examined the dynamics between selection of specific reforestation strategies, health, and community resilience, particularly with attention to entanglements between the lives of both human and non-human forest dwellers. This ethnographic work, based on six months of in-person fieldwork and six months of digital ethnography, examines reforestation and forest relations in Costa Rica’s Monte Verde zone, a region which experienced widespread deforestation, …

Understanding The Genomic Influence And Virulence Capabilities Of Environmentally Isolated Vibrios, Shannon Elizabeth Pipes

Theses and Dissertations

The genus Vibrio consists of Gram-negative bacteria that possess a curved rod shape and are routinely isolated from estuarine and coastal salt water. Vibrio cholerae, Vibrio parahaemolyticus, and Vibrio vulnificus are the major three species that contribute to human disease worldwide, and a variety of other Vibrio species contribute to persistent problems in the aquaculture and fishing industries. The CDC estimates that vibrios cause 80,000 cases of disease each year in the United States alone, however, this number is thought to be underestimated, since some disease is only self-limiting, meaning patients may not seek medical treatment and have …

Urban Forest Dynamics: Untangling Ecosystem Patterns At Harbison State Forest, Derek Matchette

Theses and Dissertations

As expansion continues to push the wildland-urban interface farther into the suburbs and the landscape which surrounds cities, it will become more important to understand the factors that influence species composition in remaining green spaces. Harbison State Forest, an ~890-hectare urban forest provides a convenient setting to analyze species composition patterns within a multipurpose urban green space.

The factors that can create these patterns include environmental (topography, soil nutrient content, light, temperature, and precipitation), naturally occurring disturbances that alter these factors (e.g., fire, windthrow), and anthropogenic disturbances such as logging and prescribed burning.

I measured basal area by species on …

Crassostrea Gigas Invasion In Southern California: Macrofaunal Diversity And Local Community Impacts Of Ecosystem Engineers On Estuarine Habitats, Noah Jansen-Yee

Theses

Many marine ecosystems are facing the growing threat of biological invasions. These invasions can have a variety of different impacts on ecosystems and their inhabitants. The Pacific oyster, Crassostrea gigas, is currently in the relatively early stages of invasion in San Diego estuaries. Crassostrea gigas is a large, filter-feeding bivalve that forms dense oyster beds on hard substrate. These oysters are known to outcompete native counterparts and drastically alter habitats where they are present. Crassostrea gigas is an ecosystem engineer that, through shell creation and formation of a dense oyster matrix, impacts ecosystems in a variety of direct and indirect …

A Slippery Slope Of Resemblances, Lauren Clark

Theses and Dissertations

My studio has become an ecosystem. Plastics, linens and found objects are transformed with both “natural” and “artificial” dyes, pigments, and aggregates, until there is a co-corruption akin to an ecology. I am searching for an alternate relationship between phenomena, wonder and knowing.

Las Chingonas: An Ecological Approach To Latina Student Mothers’ Journey Through College, Emely Elizabeth Medina-Rodriguez

Dissertations

Women with children are one of the growing student sub-populations in higher education. However, the support student mothers receive in colleges and universities has been historically unreliable and their experiences in college have not been studied in depth. This is especially true for student mothers from minoritized backgrounds with differing racial, ethnic, sexual, gender, and ability identities. This research aims to understand the experiences Latina graduate student mothers from an ecological and critical perspective. Guided by Critical Human Ecology and Black Feminist Thought, eight open-ended interviews were conducted and analyzed. Themes and categories came out of the patterns in the …

Geographic Range Size As A Predictor Of Dispersal-Dependent Behavioral Traits In Two Clades Of A Terrestrial Salamander, Teah Evers

Masters Theses

Animal movement has the potential to affect diverse processes within ecology and evolution including range expansion, gene flow, adaptation, and speciation. Two aspects of animal personality that are germane to dispersal are exploratory and aggressive behavior. These behavioral categories may represent a trade-off such that energy invested in territorial defense leaves little energy for movement and dispersal. The Eastern Red-backed Salamander (Plethodon cinereus) is a wide ranging, dispersal limited, terrestrial salamander with well documented phylogeographic divisions. I examined dispersal-relevant behavioral traits within two clades of P. cinereus with disparate geographic ranges. The Northern Clade (NC) has a range extending from …

Responses Of Arthropods To Fire And How Pollinators And Pollination Services Are Affected By Fire Severity, Blyssalyn V. Bieber

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Fires impact ecosystems globally and due to climate change, there are shifts in fire regimes that impact ecological communities which provide essential ecosystem services. Focusing on arthropods, fire can influence this ubiquitous animal group in various way. We performed a comprehensive meta-analysis evaluating how fires impact differing arthropod functional groups. We found that overall, fire negatively effects community level responses for most functional groups with herbivores as the only exception showing some positive effects of fire. We also studied mixed-severity fires that burned >20 years ago and compared floral visitor communities across fire severities. We implemented a pollinator exclusion experiment …

Research Handling Effects On Stress Hormones, Blood Parameters, And Heart Rate In Juvenile Northern Elephant Seals (Mirounga Angustirostris), Lauren A. Cooley

Master's Theses

Wildlife researchers must balance the need to safely capture and handle their study animals to sample tissues, collect morphological measurements, and attach dataloggers while simultaneously ensuring their results are not confounded by stress artifacts caused by handling. To determine the physiological effects of research activities including chemical immobilization, transport, instrumentation with biologgers, and overnight holding on a model marine mammal species, I collected hormone, blood chemistry, hematology, and heart rate data from 19 juvenile northern elephant seals (Mirounga angustirostris) throughout a translocation experiment. Across my six sampling timepoints, cortisol and aldosterone data revealed a moderate hormonal stress response to handling …

Bottom-Up Effects Of Degradation Outweighs Stabilizing Potential Of Omnivores, Hannah Marie Moore

Murray State Theses and Dissertations

Anthropogenic activities have led to degradation in streams throughout much of Western North America. In particular, cattle grazing has led to a loss of riparian vegetation resulting in higher water temperatures and an increase in nutrient runoff. The effects of degradation on food quality and quantity for aquatic consumers could have large implications for stream communities. Since omnivores feed at multiple trophic levels, they may be resilient to altered food webs, which may allow them to stabilize communities in degraded environments where resources have been reduced. To test the hypothesis that omnivores positively impact community stability in degraded conditions, I …

Self-Assessment Of Elementary Lesson Plans Through An Ecological Lens, Scott Edward Sebree

Honors Undergraduate Theses

Classrooms are ecosystems. Classrooms have well defined boundaries and host living and nonliving elements. These elements interact as classroom lessons and day to day ongoings occur. These interactions have potential to be synergized to increase learning outcomes. The purpose of this research is to develop a self-reflective instrument for teachers to consider the elements, interactions, and synergy of lessons. An instrument was developed based on models of other survey instruments (Cantu, 2015) (Appendix A). Content validity experts were recruited, and the instrument was refined as a self-reflective tool. As a self-reflective instrument teachers can use reflective practice to further intentional …

Short- And Long-Term Impacts Of Forest Management In Response To The Invasive Emerald Ash Borer In New England Forests, Hanusia Higgins

Graduate College Dissertations and Theses

As non-native forest pests disperse across the United States, the emerald ash borer, Agrilus planipennis (EAB), has emerged as one of the most costly and destructive invaders. In response to EAB, forest management practices, including pre-salvage logging, "phloem reduction" (large ash removal), and strategies to improve future ash regeneration, have been implemented to meet economic, ecological, cultural, and safety objectives. Although many studies have quantified the impacts of EAB on mortality of ash trees (Fraxinus spp.), less is known about the short- and long-term ecological impacts of forest management in response to this pest. In summer 2020, we measured forest …

Drought Tolerance In Native And Invasive Populations Of The Centaurea Jacea Hybrid Complex, Zoe Portlas

Graduate College Dissertations and Theses

Introduced plants face many ecological and evolutionary challenges when establishing in a new range, such as strong abiotic stressors and potentially novel selective environments. One such abiotic stress is water availability, which is a strong selective force shaping physiological and phenological traits that enable plants to tolerate or avoid drought stress. Despite the challenges of establishing in a new range, thousands of species have become invasive in recent centuries. Two hypotheses that may explain how a species is able to withstand stress in its introduced range are preadaptation, which posits that species are adapted to similar environments in their native …

Anthropogenic Influences On The Decline, Restoration, And Eco-Evolutionary Dynamics Of Lake Superior’S Coaster Brook Trout, Austin Johnson

Dissertations, Master's Theses and Master's Reports

The coaster brook trout is a life history variant of the brook trout (Salvelinus fontinalis) that is characterized by either lake residency or migration between stream and lake habitats. Coaster brook trout were once widespread throughout Lake Superior and its tributaries, but populations declined sharply in the late 19^th and early 20^th centuries. Historically, brook trout were a popular target of recreational and subsistence fishing in the Lake Superior basin, and it has been hypothesized that angling pressure combined with multiple forms of industrial development are what drove the coaster brook trout’s decline. In the mid …

Ecological Changes Of The Lower Niobrara River Valley And Lewis And Clark Lake Delta From Past To Present, Madalyn Christine Bollig

Dissertations and Theses

Over half of the world’s large river systems are impacted by dams. These may prevent sediment flow downstream, resulting in accumulation in the upstream reservoir. On the Missouri River, deltas and associated backwater-affected areas occur in nine locations across six reservoirs. One of these, the Lewis and Clark Lake delta-backwater, is influenced by sediment inputs from both the Missouri River and the Niobrara River. While the extension of the prograding delta into the reservoir has been well documented, there has been little research on upstream (backwater) effects of the delta on the lower Niobrara River. This study examined ecological changes …

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, …

The Other Side Of Silence: The Productive Limits Of Human Awareness And The Novel, Aven Elaina Williams

Senior Projects Spring 2022

Senior Project submitted to The Division of Languages and Literature of Bard College.

Fine Scale Mapping Of Laurentian Mixed Forest Natural Habitat Communities Using Multispectral Naip And Uav Datasets Combined With Machine Learning Methods, Parth P. Bhatt

Dissertations, Master's Theses and Master's Reports

Natural habitat communities are an important element of any forest ecosystem. Mapping and monitoring Laurentian Mixed Forest natural communities using high spatial resolution imagery is vital for management and conservation purposes. This study developed integrated spatial, spectral and Machine Learning (ML) approaches for mapping complex vegetation communities. The study utilized ultra-high and high spatial resolution National Agriculture Imagery Program (NAIP) and Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV) datasets, and Digital Elevation Model (DEM). Complex natural vegetation community habitats in the Laurentian Mixed Forest of the Upper Midwest. A detailed workflow is presented to effectively process UAV imageries in a dense forest environment …

Painting Colonialism Green: Understanding Colonial Ecology Through The Lens Of Palestinian Art, Lily Hibbard

Scripps Senior Theses

The objective of settler colonialism is, at its core, land domination and the continued subjugation of Indigenous people. I argue that this objective is achieved through four avenues of violence: consumption, extraction, manipulation of space, and severance from identity. By analyzing Palestinian resistance art, I examine the role of landscape manipulation, via destruction or creation of space, in perpetuating these four heralds of colonialism. I specifically focus on the cultural value of trees in occupied Palestine and the Israeli settler community, and the ways in which these trees have become weapons in an ongoing war of colonial design. By understanding …

Understanding Caribou Population Cycles, Jack R. St. John

Undergraduate Theses, Professional Papers, and Capstone Artifacts

The complex population dynamics of caribou (Rangifer tarandus) were studied to determine the patterns of their population cycles and the processes driving them. It is well established, via previous archaeological research and Indigenous knowledge, that large migrating caribou herds found in and around the tundra at northern latitudes experience population boom and busts roughly every several decades. However, the processes driving the dynamics of these cycles are relatively unknown, which makes managing caribou herds for recreational and subsistence harvests difficult. It has been hypothesized that a combination of intrinsic and extrinsic factors shape these cycles, with density-dependence, predation, …

Rice, Reciprocity, And Generosity: Embedded Ecologies In Hindu Women’S Rituals, Zoe Carlson

CMC Senior Theses

Hindu women’s perspectives of the more-than-human world are illuminated through ritual. Researching ecological actions millions of people of different faiths across the world partake in every day, in the context of the climate crisis of our present time, is a vital project I undertake in this thesis. I look to Hinduism, which has traditionally been called an “ecological” religion, but without a clear definition of what “ecological” means. I use Vijaya Nagarajan’s theories about Hinduism, women, and ecology as a theoretical guide. I apply her theory of “embedded ecologies” to analyze how knowledge about the environment is layered in cultural, …

Ecological Development Of Purpose Among Graduating College Students: A Mixed Methods Study, Alexis Mccarthy

West Chester University Doctoral Projects

This mixed methods study explored ecological purpose development among graduating college students at a large, public university in the Mid-Atlantic, focusing on the influence of college and familial contexts. Using Bronfenbrenner and Morris’ (2007) Process-Person-Context-Time (PPCT) model as a framework, I undertook an explanatory sequential design (Creswell & Plano Clark 2017), assigning more weight to qualitative results (quan à QUAL). I collected quantitative survey data from 110 graduating students a college of liberal arts (consisting of Art and Design, Communication and Media, English, History, Languages and Cultures, Philosophy, Theatre and Dance, and Women’s and Gender Studies majors) and then purposefully …

Exploring The Host Range, Impacts, And Distribution Of Black Rot Disease On Alliaria Petiolata, Gabriela Ivette Harney-Davila

Browse all Theses and Dissertations

Garlic mustard is an invasive Eurasian biennial spreading in deciduous forests of North America. Garlic mustard plants in Ohio can be infected with a strain of Xanthomonas campestris, the causal agent of black rot disease in brassicas. I examined variation in susceptibility to X. campestris among garlic mustard populations, several native wild species, and agricultural crop varieties. Twenty-four garlic mustard populations were universally susceptible to X. campestris, though disease severity varied. Cardamine concatenata and Cardamine diphylla were susceptible but can phenologically escape infection in the field. Of the 14 agricultural crops tested, three cultivars (Raphanus sativus, Brassica rapa var. Rapa …

Evaluating Energy-Based Trait Shifts And Population Level Impacts Of Big Brown Bats (Eptesicus Fuscus) With Long-Term Exposure To Pseudogymnoascus Destructans, Molly C. Simonis

Browse all Theses and Dissertations

Disturbances in environment can lead to a wide range of host physiological responses. These responses can either allow hosts to adjust to new conditions in their environment or can reduce their survival, and can subsequently cause host traits to shift. Small mammals are particularly vulnerable to stochastic disturbances, like a pathogen introduction, because of their high energy demands. Studies examining host responses to pathogens often focus on species highly susceptible to infection that typically have high mortality rates, leading to a gap in understanding the responses of less susceptible species. My dissertation evaluates the energy balance of Eptesicus fuscus (big …