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Full-Text Articles in Life Sciences
Water Loss Rates And Desiccation Tolerances For Spiders And Crickets, Matthew Zach, Kevin E. Mccluney
Water Loss Rates And Desiccation Tolerances For Spiders And Crickets, Matthew Zach, Kevin E. Mccluney
Honors Projects
Despite the importance of water to living organisms, access varies across the globe with high variability over space and time. Seventy-five percent of the world’s freshwater alone is ice while 99% of unfrozen freshwater is underground (Winter et al. 1998). Understanding how terrestrial species respond to water availability and compensate for water stress can provide insight to their behavior, ecology and physiology. The goal of this research was to examine the differences in the evaporative water loss rates and desiccation tolerances of Hogna carolinensis and Acheta domesticus. First, an experiment was conducted to quantify the rate of evaporative water …
The Meat-Farming Ants: Predatory Mutualism Between Melissotarsus Ants (Hymenoptera: Formicidae) And Armored Scale Insects (Hemiptera: Diaspididae), Scott A. Schneider
The Meat-Farming Ants: Predatory Mutualism Between Melissotarsus Ants (Hymenoptera: Formicidae) And Armored Scale Insects (Hemiptera: Diaspididae), Scott A. Schneider
Doctoral Dissertations
Ant agricultural mutualisms are common, well studied, and receive attention from scientific and public spheres due to shared similarities with human agriculture (i.e. ant/fungus ‘crop farming’ and ant/insect ‘dairy farming’). They also serve as important model systems for studying many facets of mutualism. This study reveals that the repertoire of ant agriculture may also include ‘meat farming’. Predatory mutualisms occur between Melissotarsus ants and various species of armored scale insects. This dissertation employs a multi-disciplinary approach to investigate the evolutionary history and nature of ant/diaspidid mutualisms. Chapter 1 reviews the current state of knowledge regarding species composition of these associations …
Predicting Suitable Habitat Decline Of Midwestern United States Amphibians And Quantifying The Consequence Of Declines Using Pond-Breeding Salamanders, Brock Struecker
Predicting Suitable Habitat Decline Of Midwestern United States Amphibians And Quantifying The Consequence Of Declines Using Pond-Breeding Salamanders, Brock Struecker
Master's Theses
With current declines of vertebrate taxa meeting or exceeding those of historic mass extinction events, there is a growing need to investigate the main drivers of declines. Amphibians are perhaps at greatest risk of global climate change and land-use changes than most other vertebrate classes and also have significant roles in ecosystem processes – combined, this creates a cause for concern. I designed a study that would investigate the effects of current and predicted climate change and land-use changes on amphibians using species distribution models and a field study to identify the potential consequences of amphibian species declines by investigating …