Life Sciences Commons^™

Phytoplankton Community Distribution And Light Absorption Properties In The Northern Gulf Of Mexico, Sumit Chakraborty

Dissertations

The theme of this dissertation was to understand the spatio-temporal dynamics of the phytoplankton community, its light absorption properties, and its relationship to underlying physicochemical processes. Understanding these phenomena will benefit efforts to predict pathways of carbon transformation in the ocean, to estimate primary productivity (PP) and to characterize distributions of phytoplankton communities using ocean color remote sensing.

This research entailed four different studies, which address different objectives. The first two studies dealt with phytoplankton community composition and its relationship to environmental variables. A chemotaxonomic approach was used, which was successful in revealing distinct phytoplankton assemblages in distinct water mass …

Evaluation Of Human Fecal Pollution In Mississippi Coastal And Creek Waters Using Library Independent Markers, Christopher John Flood

Dissertations

The objective of this study was to determine whether statistically valid correlations could be elucidated between standard indicator bacteria (enterococci and fecal coliforms) from coastal creek and marine samples and the presence of four library independent molecular markers that are human or sewage specific. Eight hundred and nineteen samples were collected between August 2007 and July 2010 to determine enterococcal and fecal coliform counts and the presence of genetic markers for sewage indicator organisms Methanobrevibacter smithii, human specific Bacteroides sp., Bacteroides thetaiotaomicron, and Fecalibacterium sp. During the course of this study environmental parameters were measured and statistically analyzed to determine …

Community Metrics And Trophic Dynamics In Tidal Creeks In An Anthropogenically Fragmented, Coastal Landscape, Michael Robert Lowe

Dissertations

Salt marsh landscapes are among the most anthropogenically altered ecosystems in the world. Urbanization (i.e., accumulation of impervious cover and man made structrues) of the coastal landscape can disrupt the delivery of numerous ecosystem services. Among the many services provided by salt marsh habitats, they serves as the primary habitats for distinct macroinfauna (i.e., benthic and epibenthic macrofauna) and nekton (i.e., fish and decapod crustaceans) assemblages. In this dissertation, I used a number of metrics to test the overarching hypothesis that coastal urbanization has negative consequences for salt marsh faunal assemblages. Chapter I uses a landscape ecology approach to show …