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Full-Text Articles in Life Sciences

The Long-Term Effects Of Wildfire Severity On Oak-Pine Communities And Their Microclimates, Scott Glenn Culbert Jan 2023

The Long-Term Effects Of Wildfire Severity On Oak-Pine Communities And Their Microclimates, Scott Glenn Culbert

Theses and Dissertations--Forestry and Natural Resources

In the eastern U.S., fire-dependent tree species have historically dominated upland forest communities, but are now experiencing widespread regeneration challenges as a result of 20th century fire suppression policies, and are being replaced by mesophytic species. Wildfires that contain areas of high burn severity may provide an important means of mitigating these challenges and facilitating fire-dependent species regeneration and recruitment into larger size classes. One mechanism by which high-severity fire can accomplish this is by modifying understory microclimate characteristics to be more conducive to these species’ growth. A wildfire within the Daniel Boone National Forest, Kentucky, USA, provided the …


Natural And Anthropogenic Drivers Of Tree Evolutionary Dynamics, Brandon M. Lind Jan 2018

Natural And Anthropogenic Drivers Of Tree Evolutionary Dynamics, Brandon M. Lind

Theses and Dissertations

Species of trees inhabit diverse and heterogeneous environments, and often play important ecological roles in such communities. As a result of their vast ecological breadth, trees have become adapted to various environmental pressures. In this dissertation I examine various environmental factors that drive evolutionary dynamics in threePinusspecies in California and Nevada, USA. In chapter two, I assess the role of management influence of thinning, fire, and their interaction on fine-scale gene flow within fire-suppressed populations of Pinus lambertiana, a historically dominant and ecologically important member of mixed-conifer forests of the Sierra Nevada, California. Here, I find evidence …


The Role Of Habitat Management In Shaping Predation, Animal Color, And Gene Flow In A Metapopulation Of Florida Scrub Lizards (Sceloporus Woodi), Richard William Orton Jan 2017

The Role Of Habitat Management In Shaping Predation, Animal Color, And Gene Flow In A Metapopulation Of Florida Scrub Lizards (Sceloporus Woodi), Richard William Orton

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Anthropogenic disturbance is known to affect biological diversity at the community, species, and genetic levels. Habitat fragmentation, in particular, has been shown to impact predator abundance and distribution, impede dispersal, and augment genetic drift. In small populations, which often result from habitat fragmentation, the effects of human disturbance may be disproportionately expressed. Small populations are more susceptible to selection pressures and random drift because genetic and phenotypic frequencies can become rapidly fixed, in comparison to larger populations. In turn, fixation of maladaptive alleles or morphs can accelerate extinction. For example, cryptic color polymorphism can be maintained by apostatic selection, where …


[Re]Visiting The Rime: A Case Study Of Adaptation As Process And Product With The Rime Of The Ancient Mariner, Sally Ferguson May 2016

[Re]Visiting The Rime: A Case Study Of Adaptation As Process And Product With The Rime Of The Ancient Mariner, Sally Ferguson

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

This thesis combines adaptation theory with ecology to examine Samuel Taylor Coleridge's Rime of the Ancient Mariner (1798) and its adaptations; it argues further combinations of adaptation with evolutionary theory and ecological ideas could allow for a better interpretation of many texts. The adaptation Rime of the Modern Mariner (2011) by Nick Hayes and the appropriation Perelandra (1943) by C.S. Lewis will also be present in individual chapters to examine the texts' interactions with each other as they evolve and how each work represents the combined theory.