Life Sciences Commons^™

Some Biogeographers, Evolutionists And Ecologists: Chrono-Biographical Sketches, Charles H. Smith, Joshua Woleben, Carubie Rodgers

DLPS Faculty Publications

Each name in the following list of naturalists is linked to a corresponding capsule "chrono-biographical" sketch of that individual prepared by the authors. Coverage extends from approximately 1950 backward in time as far as the eighteenth century; figures from all over the world are included (though there is admittedly a decided Anglo-American bias). The target subject here is biogeography, but this being a broad field there are many persons on the list who are better known as climatologists, zoologists, botanists, ecologists, oceanographers, paleontologists, etc.--in other words, who made their main reputations in cognate disciplines.

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An Investigation Of Human-Error Rates In Wildlife Photographic Identification; Implications For The Use Of Citizen Scientists, Megan Chesser

Masters Theses 1911 - February 2014

Rapid technological advancements in digital cameras and widespread public access to the internet have inspired many researchers to consider alternative methods for collecting, analyzing, and distributing scientific data. Two emerging fields of study that have capitalized on these developments are “citizen science” and photo-id in wildlife capture-mark-recapture (CMR) studies. Both approaches offer unprecedented flexibility and potential for acquiring previously inconceivable datasets, yet both remain dependent on data collection by human observers. The absence of rigorous assessment of observer error rates causes many scientists to resist citizen science altogether or to fail to incorporate citizen-collected data into ecological analyses. This same …

Bacterial Community Structure Of Contrasting Soils Underlying Bornean Rain Forests: Inferences From Microarray And Next-Generation Sequencing Methods, Sabrina E. Russo, Ryan Legge, Karrie A. Weber, Eoin L. Brodie, Katherine C. Goldfarb, Andrew K. Benson, Sylvester Tan

School of Biological Sciences: Faculty Publications

Soil microbial diversity is vast, and we lack even basic understanding of how this diversity is distributed ecologically. Using pyrosequencing and microarray methods, we quantified the structure of bacterial communities in two contrasting soils underlying Bornean rain forest (clay and sandy loam) that differ markedly in soil properties, aboveground tree flora, and leaf litter decomposition rates. We found significant soil-related taxonomic and phylogenetic differences between communities that, due to their proximity, are independent of climate. Bacterial communities showed distinct compositional and taxon-abundance distributions that were significantly correlated with the structure of the overlying tree community. Richness of bacteria was greater …

Reintegrating Human And Nature: Modern Sentimental Ecology In Rachel Carson And Barbara Kingsolver, Richard M. Magee

English Faculty Publications

Rachel Carson and Barbara Kingsolver were both trained as scientists and may be expected to embrace the rationalist, mechanical view of nature as something separate from, and perhaps even inferior to, the world of humans. Yet these two women both promoted a more complex approach to modernism's scientific paradigm in which nature is not merely a separate entity for dispassionate study but also an integral part of the human community. Both women display in their rhetorical choices a keen understanding of the language of community and interconnection, and their language and writing styles constantly promote the reintegration of humans and …

Grts And Graphs: Monitoring Natural Resources In Urban Landscapes, Todd R. Lookingbill, John Paul Schmit, Shawn L. Carter

Geography and the Environment Faculty Publications

Environmental monitoring programs are an important tool for providing land managers with a scientific basis for management decisions. However, many ecological processes operate on spatial scales that transcend management boundaries (Schonewald-Cox 1988). For example, adjacent lands may influence protected-area resources via edge effects, source-sink dynamics, or invasion processes (Jones et al. 2009). Hydrologic alterations outside management units also may have profound effects on the integrity of resources being managed (Pringle 2000). The impacts of climate change are presenting challenges to resource management at local-to-global scales (Karl et al. 2009). This potential disparity between ecological and political boundaries presents an interesting …