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Reply To Comment: Controls On Turnover Of Marine Dissolved Organic Matter-Testing The Null Hypothesis Of Purely Concentration-Driven Uptake, Yuan Shen, Ronald Benner Jan 2022

Reply To Comment: Controls On Turnover Of Marine Dissolved Organic Matter-Testing The Null Hypothesis Of Purely Concentration-Driven Uptake, Yuan Shen, Ronald Benner

Faculty Publications

Our recent bioassay experiments indicate that molecular properties are a primary control on the microbial utilization of dissolved organic matter in the ocean. This finding is questioned by Lennartz and Dittmar who modeled our experiments and concluded that our observations could be largely explained by concentration-driven uptake independent from molecular properties. We suggest the authors' models are deficient for establishing the relative roles of molecular properties and concentration-driven uptake. Our conclusion is consistent with earlier and recent experimental results and biogeochemical observations, supporting a unified theory with molecular properties as a more prominent control than concentration-driven uptake on marine organic …


Leveraging Natural Resources Toward Resilience: Outreach, Restoration, And Monitoring For A Resilient Nh Coast, Alyson Eberhardt, David M. Burdick, Gregg E. Moore Jul 2021

Leveraging Natural Resources Toward Resilience: Outreach, Restoration, And Monitoring For A Resilient Nh Coast, Alyson Eberhardt, David M. Burdick, Gregg E. Moore

Faculty Publications

Both sound science and meaningful community engagement are critical to creating resilient coastlines given that important natural resources and high population densities coexist in these areas. Salt marshes and sand dunes provide important benefits to the people who live near them, such as mitigating flood impacts, when the condition of the ecosystem is robust enough to support such functions. To enhance the ability of these systems to perform ecosystem services, the goals of this project were to 1. Empower landowners to sustainably manage their own property to support coastal ecosystems and the benefits they provide, 2. Restore eroded sand dunes …


What Is Refractory Organic Matter In The Ocean?, Federico Baltar, Xosé A. Alvarez-Salgado, Javier Arístegui, Ronald Benner, Dennis A. Hansell, Gerhard J. Herndl, Christian Lønborg Apr 2021

What Is Refractory Organic Matter In The Ocean?, Federico Baltar, Xosé A. Alvarez-Salgado, Javier Arístegui, Ronald Benner, Dennis A. Hansell, Gerhard J. Herndl, Christian Lønborg

Faculty Publications

About 20% of the organic carbon produced in the sunlit surface ocean is transported into the ocean’s interior as dissolved, suspended and sinking particles to be mineralized and sequestered as dissolved inorganic carbon (DIC), sedimentary particulate organic carbon (POC) or “refractory” dissolved organic carbon (rDOC). Recently, the physical and biological mechanisms associated with the particle pumps have been revisited, suggesting that accepted fluxes might be severely underestimated (Boyd et al., 2019; Buesseler et al., 2020). Perhaps even more poorly understood are the mechanisms driving rDOC production and its potential accumulation in the ocean. On the basis of …


Internet Of Things For Sustainable Forestry, Abdul Salam Jan 2020

Internet Of Things For Sustainable Forestry, Abdul Salam

Faculty Publications

Forests and grasslands play an important role in water and air purification, prevention of the soil erosion, and in provision of habitat to wildlife. Internet of Things has a tremendous potential to play a vital role in the forest ecosystem management and stability. The conservation of species and habitats, timber production, prevention of forest soil degradation, forest fire prediction, mitigation, and control can be attained through forest management using Internet of Things. The use and adoption of IoT in forest ecosystem management is challenging due to many factors. Vast geographical areas and limited resources in terms of budget and equipment …


A Theoretical Model Of Underground Dipole Antennas For Communications In Internet Of Underground Things, Abdul Salam, Mehmet C. Vuran, Xin Dong, Christos Argyropoulos, Suat Irmak Feb 2019

A Theoretical Model Of Underground Dipole Antennas For Communications In Internet Of Underground Things, Abdul Salam, Mehmet C. Vuran, Xin Dong, Christos Argyropoulos, Suat Irmak

Faculty Publications

The realization of Internet of Underground Things (IOUT) relies on the establishment of reliable communication links, where the antenna becomes a major design component due to the significant impacts of soil. In this paper, a theoretical model is developed to capture the impacts of change of soil moisture on the return loss, resonant frequency, and bandwidth of a buried dipole antenna. Experiments are conducted in silty clay loam, sandy, and silt loam soil, to characterize the effects of soil, in an indoor testbed and field testbeds. It is shown that at subsurface burial depths (0.1-0.4m), change in soil moisture impacts …


Betting & Hierarchy In Paleontology, Leonard Finkelman Jan 2019

Betting & Hierarchy In Paleontology, Leonard Finkelman

Faculty Publications

In his Rock, Bone, and Ruin: An Optimist’s Guide to the Historical Sciences, Adrian Currie argues that historical scientists should be optimistic about success in reconstructing the past on the basis of future research. This optimism follows in part from examples of success in paleontology. I argue that paleontologists’ success in these cases is underwritten by the hierarchical nature of biological information: extinct organisms have extant analogues at various levels of taxonomic, ecological, and physiological hierarchies, and paleontologists are adept at exploiting analogies within one informational hierarchy to infer information in another. On this account, fossils serve the role …


Crossed Tracks: Mesolimulus, Archaeopteryx, And The Nature Of Fossils, Leonard Finkelman Jan 2019

Crossed Tracks: Mesolimulus, Archaeopteryx, And The Nature Of Fossils, Leonard Finkelman

Faculty Publications

Organisms leave a variety of traces in the fossil record. Among these traces, vertebrate and invertebrate paleontologists conventionally recognize a distinction between the remains of an organism’s phenotype (body fossils) and the remains of an organism’s life activities (trace fossils). The same convention recognizes body fossils as biological structures and trace fossils as geological objects. This convention explains some curious practices in the classification, as with the distinction between taxa for trace fossils and for tracemakers. I consider the distinction between “parallel taxonomies,” or parataxonomies, which privileges some kinds of fossil taxa as “natural” and others as “artificial.” The motivations …


Correlates Of Snake Entanglement In Erosion Control Blankets, Sarah E. Ebert, Kasey L. Jobe, Christopher M. Schalk, Daniel Saenz, Cory K. Adams, Christopher E. Comer Jan 2019

Correlates Of Snake Entanglement In Erosion Control Blankets, Sarah E. Ebert, Kasey L. Jobe, Christopher M. Schalk, Daniel Saenz, Cory K. Adams, Christopher E. Comer

Faculty Publications

In road construction projects across the United States, erosion control methods (e.g., erosion control blankets [ECBs]), are mandated to stimulate seedbed regeneration and prevent soil loss. Previous reports have suggested that snakes are vulnerable to entanglement in ECBs. We conducted a literature review, field surveys, and an entanglement experiment to examine what factors increase a snake’s risk of ECB entanglement. Our literature review produced reports of 175 reptiles entangled in mesh products, 89.1% of which were snakes, with 43.6% of snake entanglements occurring in erosion control products. During our field surveys, we found 10 entangled snakes (n = 2 alive; …


Physical Processes Dictate Early Biogeochemical Dynamics Of Soil Pyrogenic Organic Matter In A Subtropical Forest Ecosystem, Jason Stuart, Russell Anderson, Patrick Lazzarino, Kevin A. Kuehn, Omar R. Harvey May 2018

Physical Processes Dictate Early Biogeochemical Dynamics Of Soil Pyrogenic Organic Matter In A Subtropical Forest Ecosystem, Jason Stuart, Russell Anderson, Patrick Lazzarino, Kevin A. Kuehn, Omar R. Harvey

Faculty Publications

Quantifying links between pyOM dynamics, environmental factors and processes is central to predicting ecosystem function and response to future perturbations. In this study, changes in carbon (TC), nitrogen (TN), pH, and relative recalcitrance (R50) for pineand cordgrass-derived pyOM were measured at 3–6 weeks intervals throughout the first year of burial in the soil. Objectives were to (1) identify key environmental factors and processes driving early-stage pyOM dynamics, and (2) develop quantitative relationships between environmental factors and observed changes in pyOM properties. The study was conducted in sandy soils of a forested ecosystem within the Longleaf pine range of the United …


Expansion Of The Manage Database With Forest And Drainage Studies, Daren R. Harmel, Laura E. Christianson, Matthew W. Mcbroom, Douglas R. Smith, Kori D. Higgs Jan 2016

Expansion Of The Manage Database With Forest And Drainage Studies, Daren R. Harmel, Laura E. Christianson, Matthew W. Mcbroom, Douglas R. Smith, Kori D. Higgs

Faculty Publications

The “Measured Annual Nutrient loads from AGricultural Environments” (MANAGE) database was published in 2006 to expand an early 1980s compilation of nutrient export (load) data from cultivated and pasture/range land at the field or farm scale. Then in 2008, MANAGE was updated with 15 additional studies, and nitrogen (N) and phosphorus (P) concentrations in runoff were added. Since then, MANAGE has undergone significant expansion adding N and P water quality along with relevant management and site characteristic data from: (1) 30 runoff studies from forested land uses, (2) 91 drainage water quality studies from drained land, and (3) 12 additional …


Runoff And Sediment Losses From Annual And Unusual Storm Events From The Alto Experimental Watersheds, Texas: 23 Years After Silvicultural Treatments, Matthew W. Mcbroom, R Scott Beasley, Mingteh Chang, Brian Gowin, George G. Ice Oct 2003

Runoff And Sediment Losses From Annual And Unusual Storm Events From The Alto Experimental Watersheds, Texas: 23 Years After Silvicultural Treatments, Matthew W. Mcbroom, R Scott Beasley, Mingteh Chang, Brian Gowin, George G. Ice

Faculty Publications

Evaluating the potential impacts of intensive silvicultural practices on water quality is critical for establishing the long-term sustainability of contemporary forest management practices. From 1979 to 1985, a study involving nine small (~2.5 ha) forested watersheds was conducted near Alto, Texas in the upper western Gulf-Coastal Plain to evaluate the impacts then-current silvicultural practices on water quality. In the years following the study, silvicultural Best Management Practices (BMPs) including Streamside Management Zones (SMZs) and other erosion control practices evolved and questions arose about the applicability of earlier results to current practices. In 1999, these same watersheds were reinstrumented to evaluate …


Bacteriological Water Quality Of Forested And Pastured Streams Receiving Land-Applied Poultry Litter, Matthew W. Mcbroom, Chang Mingteh, Charles Wells May 2003

Bacteriological Water Quality Of Forested And Pastured Streams Receiving Land-Applied Poultry Litter, Matthew W. Mcbroom, Chang Mingteh, Charles Wells

Faculty Publications

Poultry production is a growing industry in East Texas, generating about 360,000 m tons of broiler litter each year as a by-product for application on pasturelands. Grab samples of fecal coliform (FC) and fecal streptococcus (FS) were collected monthly between March and December 1996 and FC and E-coli samples were collected weekly between July and October 2001 at six sites on the Waffelo and Terrapin Creeks in Nacogdoches County, Texas to assess possible impacts of poultry litter application on bacterial water quality. Sites were grouped by three pairs with each pair consisting of one upstream site in predominantly forested area …


Mercury Concentrations In Streams Of East Texas, Mingteh Chang, Mark C. Cochran, R. Scott Beasley, Matthew W. Mcbroom May 2003

Mercury Concentrations In Streams Of East Texas, Mingteh Chang, Mark C. Cochran, R. Scott Beasley, Matthew W. Mcbroom

Faculty Publications

Recent studies on potential mercury (Hg) contamination of fish from East Texas lakes and waterways have caused concern about mercury levels in East Texas waters. Historical records of Hg concentrations in 33 East Texas streams showed that median concentrations for each stream segment were no different than other U.S. streams. All the means and medians for stream segments having at least 20 recorded measurements were less than Texas (2.4 µg/L) water quality standards. Water samples collected in December 1995 and March 1996 from 6 different stream sites in Nacogdoches County had concentrations similar to historical records. Due to biological magnification, …