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Full-Text Articles in Life Sciences

Characterizing And Predicting Beaver Pond Habitat In Kittitas County, Washington, Kylie Vroman Jan 2022

Characterizing And Predicting Beaver Pond Habitat In Kittitas County, Washington, Kylie Vroman

All Master's Theses

North American Beavers (Castor canadensis) are important ecosystem engineers in the Pacific Northwest (PNW), as they provide ecosystem services and create habitats that benefit aquatic species, watersheds, and riparian vegetation. Even though the species has been coined a “nuisance” in some settings, it is common for environmental agencies to capture beavers and relocate them to areas where it is less likely for them to cause damage. This study geospatially modeled the Kittitas County landscape to identify areas of suitable habitat. Nine existing beaver ponds in Kittitas County were investigated; three of which were prior relocation sites that had failed, three …


A Comparison Of Chimpanzee Wound Rates Before And During Covid-19 Zoo Closures, Robin Elana Salak Jan 2022

A Comparison Of Chimpanzee Wound Rates Before And During Covid-19 Zoo Closures, Robin Elana Salak

All Master's Theses

Visitor effect studies have had inconsistent impacts on animals, due in part to the inability to control for all confounding variables such as time of day, seasonal weather patterns, and so forth. This study represents the first instance where chimpanzee (Pan troglodytes) wounding frequencies were investigated across extensive time periods in the presence and complete absence of visitors, thus eliminating many visitor-related variables. Additional variables were eliminated through the zoo selection process, based on institutional responses to a 29-question survey, providing a novel approach to the question of visitor effects. The aim of this study was to determine …


Spatio-Temporal Movement Patterns Of Sub-Adult Adfluvial Bull Trout, Aimee Taylor Jan 2022

Spatio-Temporal Movement Patterns Of Sub-Adult Adfluvial Bull Trout, Aimee Taylor

All Master's Theses

Bull Trout in the Yakima River basin of Washington are primarily adfluvial, often using managed lakes as habitat. Kachess Lake, composed of Big and Little Kachess Lakes, is managed by the Bureau of Reclamation (BOR) for water storage. BOR plans to build a structure that can withdraw an additional 200,000 acre-feet of water in drought years, which would disconnect the two basins for multiple years. This study examined the spatio-temporal movement of sub-adult Bull Trout in Kachess Lake to understand distribution patterns and the effects of environmental variables. We sought to answer 1) does time (week of the year), diel …