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Full-Text Articles in Life Sciences

Post-Fire Vegetation And Pyrodiversity Influence Breeding Abundances Of Lewis's Woodpeckers In The Eastern Cascades, Oregon, Brittany Welch Jan 2024

Post-Fire Vegetation And Pyrodiversity Influence Breeding Abundances Of Lewis's Woodpeckers In The Eastern Cascades, Oregon, Brittany Welch

Cal Poly Humboldt theses and projects

Lewis’s woodpeckers (Melanerpes lewis) are described as "burn specialists" due to their preference for breeding in recently burned pine forests in the western US. However, despite increasing fire activity, this species experienced a 48% range-wide decline between 1968 and 2019, which raises questions about their adaptability to altered fire regimes in the region. We partnered with the Oregon Department of Fish & Wildlife to investigate how Lewis’s woodpeckers in the eastern Cascades, Oregon were influenced by post-fire habitat characteristics such as snag size, snag density, and burn severity across five wildfires that varied in fire age, size, and …


Evaluating Avian Use Of Cover Crops In The Corn Belt, Megan Figura Jan 2022

Evaluating Avian Use Of Cover Crops In The Corn Belt, Megan Figura

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The tallgrass prairie of North America has changed drastically since colonial settlement, with up to 99% of this region converted for agriculture and other land-uses. Concurrent with grassland conversion, grassland birds have experienced the most extreme, consistent, and widespread population declines of any avian guild. Agricultural lands in the U.S. Midwest were able to provide adequate habitat for several bird species until the 1950’s; however, altered and intensified management practices have degraded much of remaining suitable habitat and undermined ecosystem functions. Consequently, many grassland birds have been identified as Species of Greatest Conservation Need (SGCN) in many State Wildlife Action …


Joint Management Of Upland & Aquatic Habitat For The California Red-Legged Frog & California Tiger Salamander, Kyle E. Verblaauw Dec 2021

Joint Management Of Upland & Aquatic Habitat For The California Red-Legged Frog & California Tiger Salamander, Kyle E. Verblaauw

Master's Projects and Capstones

As federally and state protected amphibians, the California tiger salamander (Ambystoma californiense) and the California red-legged frog (Rana draytonii) are recipients of ample management focus. Both species face a variety of threats, including habitat loss and alteration, introduction of non-native species, spread of disease, and effects of climate change. While management plans for the California tiger salamander and California red-legged frog exist, they frequently do not consider both species in tandem and often contain multiple shortcomings. This document aims to address the shortfalls of current management by providing practical recommendations for jointly managing the upland and …


Pismo Clams (Tivela Stultorum) In Califorina: Population Status, Habitat Associations, Reproduction, And Growth, Alexandria R. Marquardt May 2020

Pismo Clams (Tivela Stultorum) In Califorina: Population Status, Habitat Associations, Reproduction, And Growth, Alexandria R. Marquardt

Master's Theses

Marine shellfish play a vital role in intertidal ecosystems and coastal communities, but many of these fisheries are small-scale and lack the necessary monitoring to ensure long-term sustainability. Effective management often requires information on key demographic parameters, such as population status, reproduction and growth. Pismo clams (Tivela stultorum) are a culturally important and iconic species in California, which supported a thriving commercial and recreational fishery throughout much of the 1900’s. However, Pismo clam populations have declined statewide in recent decades and are attributed to human harvest and predation by California sea otters (Enhydra lutris); However, no …


Genetic Estimates Of The Number Of Breeding Adults In Alligator Gar From The Choke Canyon Reservoir, Texas, E. Blayne Newsome May 2018

Genetic Estimates Of The Number Of Breeding Adults In Alligator Gar From The Choke Canyon Reservoir, Texas, E. Blayne Newsome

Honors Theses

Alligator gar were historically found across the coastal drainages of the Gulf of Mexico and up into the Mississippi River basin. However, their populations are experiencing decline in many portions of their range. Texas seems to have large populations of alligator gar, but state resource officers are seeking to better understand its biology so as to provide appropriate management recommendations to maintain the recreational fishery. In this study, I used genetic techniques to examine a cohort of 144 juvenile alligator gar collected in 2016 in the Choke Canyon Reservoir. By estimating the effective number of breeders and number of spawning …


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 …