Life Sciences Commons^™

Sustainability For Whom? Place-Makers Of Detroit, Dominica, Ecuador, And Mexico, Emma Gaalaas Mullaney

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Drawing from more than a decade of work with farmers in rural and urban areas across the Americas, Professor Gaalaas Mullaney highlights some key findings about how small-scale farmers have a big influence on the conservation of cultural and ecological richness in their region. In each of these diverse places, innovative farmers work at the margins of dominant political and economic institutions with only occasional recognition of the value that they produce. What can these farmers teach us about how to cultivate place-based sustainability? How is sustainability related to social and economic justice?

Turning Monitoring Data Into Simple Population Growth Models: Getting Your Ducks In A Row, Holly Gaff

Annual Symposium on Biomathematics and Ecology Education and Research

No abstract provided.

Land Cover Change Shows Little Effect On Migration Patterns Of Wood Storks And Great Egrets, Johanna Smith

Annual Symposium on Biomathematics and Ecology Education and Research

No abstract provided.

A Stochastic Epidemiological Model Of The Response Of American Chestnut Populations To Fungal Blight, Kelsey Lieberman, Rebecca Rouleau, Anita Davelos Baines, Martin Allen

Annual Symposium on Biomathematics and Ecology Education and Research

No abstract provided.

Using The Oxford Nanopore Minion (A Portable Dna Sequencer) For Microbial Ecology, Lee Kerkhof

Sustainability Seminar Series

An approach utilizing the MinIon to sequence bacterial ribosomal operons within natural samples has been developed. Bacterial rRNA operons were amplified from 6 samples employing a mixture of farm soil and bioreactor DNA in known concentrations. Replicate extraction/amplifications (n=4) yielded over 10,000 2D sequences which were analyzed using a simplified data analysis pipeline based on NCBI Blast and assembly with Geneious software. The method could detect over 1000 operational taxonomic units in a quantitative manner. An iterative assembly scheme was developed to re- construct those rRNA operons with > 30x coverage from 30 OTUs among the Proteobacteria, Actinobacteria, Acidobacteria, Firmicutes, and …

Acoustic Signatures Of Habitat Types In The Miombo Woodlands Of Western Tanzania, Sheryl Vanessa Amorocho, Dante Francomano, Kristen M. Bellisario, Ben Gottesman, Bryan C. Pijanowski

The Summer Undergraduate Research Fellowship (SURF) Symposium

The Miombo Woodlands of Tanzania comprise several habitat types that are home to a great number of flora and fauna. Understanding their responses to increasing human disturbance is important for conservation, especially in places where people depend so directly on their local ecosystem services to survive. Soundscapes are a powerful approach to study complex biomes undergoing change. The sounds emitted by soniferous fauna characterize the acoustic profile of the landscapes they inhabit such that habitats with the highest acoustic abundance are considered as the most diverse and possibly more ecologically resilient. However, acoustic variability within similar habitat types may pose …

Non-Native Mangroves Of Moloka'i, Hawai'i: A Socio-Ecological Analysis, Casey Lewis

Student Research Symposium

Invasive species are recognized as a leading threat to ecosystems and their management is expensive, time consuming, and labor intensive. Therefore, it is important to review both benefits and detriments of the species to inform appropriate management decisions. Red mangrove was introduced to Moloka'i, Hawaii in 1902 to mitigate the effects of soil erosion and has since spread along the coast and to adjacent islands creating novel habitat. This study assessed both biological services and social attitudes towards Moloka'i's non-native mangroves to provide a comprehensive evaluation of the species. Zooplankton community structure was examined in mangrove and non-mangrove sites and …

Using Freshwater Mussels As An Indicator For River Water Quality, Joseph Gerland, Will Titone, Ariana Clark, Brad Michael

Undergraduate Research Conference

Using the freshwater mussel to monitor water quality is a practical and advantageous way to use nature’s indicator species. River water quality is an important measurement that is constantly monitored for many purposes. The sampling involved with monitoring can be very costly and time-consuming. Using mussels as indicator species could save money and time. So, this project has been dedicated to exploring the applications and reality of using freshwater mussels to monitor river quality.

Link Between Local Phenology And Climate Change, Blake Steiner, Tatyana Lobova

Virginias Collegiate Honors Council Conference

The SouthEast Virginia Phenology Project was initiated as collaboration between Norfolk Botanical Garden and Old Dominion University in 2010 to document phenology of seven native plants and potential effects of the climate change on their life cycle. The air temperature in Norfolk has increased on average by 0.02ºC per year since 1980. Four out of seven of taxonomically diverse plant species (Mayapple, Flowering Dogwood, Highbush Blueberry, and Common ButtonBush) exhibited significant sensitivity to warming temperatures. Of these four, only Common Buttonbush (Cephalanthus occidentalis) had shown significant phenophases shift. Specifically, first flowering and first fruiting dates had shifted 2.7 …

Illinois & Indiana Eco-Sites & Dnr Programs In The Watershed, Bob Caveny

Kankakee River Watershed Conference

Author Keywords:

Invasives control, IDNR, Private lands, Watersheds

Agricultural Practices To Improve Water Quality, Jeff O'Connor, Lauren Lurkins

Kankakee River Watershed Conference

Author Keywords:

Nutrient Loss Reduction Strategy, Illinois Farm Bureau programs, BMPs

Sand Trends And Habitat Degradation, Jerrod Parker, Drew Costenbader, Yong Cao, John Epifanio

Kankakee River Watershed Conference

Scholarship domains: Discovery, Teaching and Learning

Author keywords: Sand Movement, Fish Diversity, Kankakee River, Sportfish, Side-scan sonar

Fisheries & Stream Quality Update For The Kankakee River Basin, Stephen Pescitelli

Kankakee River Watershed Conference

Author keywords: stream quality, index of biotic integrity, walleye stocking

Scholarship domain: community application

Welcome, Randal D. Johnson

Kankakee River Watershed Conference

Remarks from conference planner, Dr. Randy Johnson.

Conference Planning Committee:

• Dr. Randal Johnson, Olivet Nazarene University
• J.R. Black, IL KRBC & NIAA
• Kevin Culver, Aqua
• Chad Miller, IL Farm Bureau
• Lynn Boerman, IL DNR
• Dr. Mike Pyle, Olivet Nazarene University
• Jennifer Love, Olivet Nazarene University

Changes In Cormorant Populations In The Strait Of Georgia, British Columbia, 1955-2015, Harry R. Carter, Trudy A. Chatwin, Mark C. Drever

Salish Sea Ecosystem Conference

Between 1987 and 2000, nesting populations of Pelagic Cormorant (Phalacrocorax pelagicus; PECO) and Double-crested Cormorant (P. auritus; DCCO) declined in the Strait of Georgia, BC. This northern section of the Salish Sea is a rapidly urbanizing area, and piscivorous birds are important indicators of ecosystem health. To update population status, we conducted a complete survey of 35 PECO and 23 DCCO colonies in July 2014 and opportunistic surveys of some colonies between 2001 through 2015. The PECO population decreased from ~2100-2400 nests in 1959-1987 to ~1100 nests by about 2000, and then rose slightly …

Advances In Salish Sea Acoustic Telemetry: 2015 Array Deployments And Promising Transmitter Performance, Erin L. Rechisky, David W. Welch, Aswea D. Porter, Paul Winchell

Salish Sea Ecosystem Conference

The first fish tracking arrays were deployed in the Salish Sea over a decade ago. These arrays have yielded a rich data set which have provided the first direct estimates of early marine-survival and migratory behavior for acoustic-tagged juvenile sockeye, Chinook, Coho and steelhead >130 mm in fork length (FL). In spring of 2015, as part of the Salish Sea Marine Survival Project, the Pacific Salmon Foundation, the Ocean Tracking Network and Kintama Research deployed additional arrays in the Discovery Islands and Johnstone Strait (north of the Strait of Georgia) to provide higher resolution survival data. These new arrays use …

Stronger Together: The Cross-Cultural Coalition To Stop Fossil Fuel Exports In The Salish Sea, Margaret Allen

Salish Sea Ecosystem Conference

A commonly observed paradox in conservation is that restriction of people’s access to nature and natural resources may protect ecosystem health, but sometimes decreases the wellbeing of local people and can invite conflict and reduce people’s willingness to protect resources. At a middle ground between complete protection and unrestricted commercial use is ecosystem-based management (EBM), which strives to maximize the overall wellbeing of both people and ecosystems. An important domain of human wellbeing to track for the purposes of EBM is resource access, or the ability to gain and maintain uses and benefits of the natural environment. Access does not …