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Full-Text Articles in Life Sciences
Landscape Scale: Inter- And Intraspecific Variation In Plant Interactions Along A Stress Gradient In The Sheep Range Of Nevada, Jordan Dowell
Landscape Scale: Inter- And Intraspecific Variation In Plant Interactions Along A Stress Gradient In The Sheep Range Of Nevada, Jordan Dowell
UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones
Impending threats to shrubland ecosystems, posed by climate change, necessitate niche modeling efforts to project vegetation range shifts. However, efforts often remain unguided by individual-scale interspecific plant interactions. The stress gradient hypothesis posits that facilitation should increase in areas of high abiotic stress, only if the individuals are able to ameliorate the surrounding area via functional traits. The Sheep Range of Nevada was used to assess the role of functional traits as predictors of plant association. Larrea tridentata, Coleogyne ramosissima, and Artemisia nova were selected as shrubs with variable life history strategies and ranges in order to identify general patterns …
Religion, Partisanship, And Attitudes Toward Science Policy, Ted G. Jelen, Linda A. Lockett
Religion, Partisanship, And Attitudes Toward Science Policy, Ted G. Jelen, Linda A. Lockett
Political Science Faculty Research
We examine issues involving science which have been contested in recent public debate. These “contested science” issues include human evolution, stem-cell research, and climate change. We find that few respondents evince consistently skeptical attitudes toward science issues, and that religious variables are generally strong predictors of attitudes toward individual issues. Furthermore, and contrary to analyses of elite discourse, partisan identification is not generally predictive of attitudes toward contested scientific issues.
Assessing Growth Response To Climate Controls In A Great Basin Artemisia Tridentata Plant Community, Lorenzo F. Apodaca
Assessing Growth Response To Climate Controls In A Great Basin Artemisia Tridentata Plant Community, Lorenzo F. Apodaca
UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones
An assessment of the growth response of key vegetative species to climatic variability is vital to identifying possible local impacts on ecosystems faced with imminent climate change. With current climate projections in Nevada predicting a shift to an even more arid climate with greater year-to-year variability, the imperative exists to identify the effects of specific climatic controls on plant growth and to research methods to assess large-scale vegetative changes, especially in more remote areas where readily available data sets may be lacking. This study utilized annual growth ring indices constructed from big sagebrush (Artemisia tridentatassp.tridentata) stems collected in Spring Valley, …
Bryoecology In The American Southwest: Patterns Of Biodiversity And Responses To Global Change, John Carroll Brinda
Bryoecology In The American Southwest: Patterns Of Biodiversity And Responses To Global Change, John Carroll Brinda
UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones
This dissertation combines investigation of the large-scale responses of bryophyte species diversity and distribution with small-scale physiological adaptations to global change. These two areas of inquiry are linked because one way to predict plant species responses to global change is to examine their distribution across current ecological gradients produced by factors such as latitude and elevation. By examining these biogeographic patterns one can identify those species that have a narrow tolerance and therefore are most sensitive to change. Selected bryophytes might then be used as indicator species in long-term monitoring programs. Where historical data exist, these can be used to …
29 Years Of Vegetation Community Change Across Environmental Gradients In A Mojave Desert Mountain Range, Christopher L. Roberts, James S. Holland, Scott R. Abella
29 Years Of Vegetation Community Change Across Environmental Gradients In A Mojave Desert Mountain Range, Christopher L. Roberts, James S. Holland, Scott R. Abella
Graduate Research Symposium (GCUA) (2010 - 2017)
There is a great deal of uncertainty as to how biological communities respond to changes in land use and climate change, a situation particularly relevant in protected areas such as national parks that were designated to conserve specific biological features. Utilizing extant vegetation data sets with repeatable methodology can provide opportunities for insight into previous vegetation change and provide base line data for long-term monitoring projects useful for modeling vegetation community trajectories. We have relocated and resurveyed 106 sites from a vegetation community study initiated in 1979 in the Newberry Mountains, southern Nevada, within Lake Mead National Recreation Area managed …
Long Distance Microbial Transport In Air: Global Change Implications, Bradley J. Davey, J. C. Bruckner, Jenny C. Fisher, Duane P. Moser
Long Distance Microbial Transport In Air: Global Change Implications, Bradley J. Davey, J. C. Bruckner, Jenny C. Fisher, Duane P. Moser
Undergraduate Research Opportunities Program (UROP)
The first manifestations of global change will most likelv be observed in the Earth's atmosphere. Changing wind patterns, for example, may effect the long distance dispersal of microor-g anisms. The overall objective of this research is to correlate molecular assessments of microbial community structure from cloud water and snow samples, obtained from DRI's Storm Peak Laboratory atop Mt. Werner in Colorado, with atmospheric data and calculated air mass back trajectories. Our activities for summer of 2009 will be a focused proof-of-concept exercise to determine if intact microbial DNA and viable cells can be recovered from cloud water and alpine snow …