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Full-Text Articles in Life Sciences
Measuring The Production Of Migratory Westslope Cutthroat Trout In Tributaries To Priest River, Idaho, Collin J. Hendricks
Measuring The Production Of Migratory Westslope Cutthroat Trout In Tributaries To Priest River, Idaho, Collin J. Hendricks
EWU Masters Thesis Collection
Iteroparous salmonids that exhibit a migratory life history are essential to functioning metapopulations. They are demographically important as migratory females produce more eggs than non-migratory individuals. Additionally, they provide genetic support through gene flow, resulting in more robust, genetically diverse populations. The lower Priest River flows into the Pend Oreille River in the panhandle of northern Idaho and is a system susceptible to degrading conditions due to increasing water temperature. It is also, a significant contributor of migratory Westslope Cutthroat Trout Oncorhynchus clarkii lewisi (WCT) in the Clark- Fork Pend Oreille Basin (CFPOR). The goal of our study was to …
Fairy Shrimp (Anostraca) In The Vernal Pools Of Eastern Washington, Megan Garvey
Fairy Shrimp (Anostraca) In The Vernal Pools Of Eastern Washington, Megan Garvey
EWU Masters Thesis Collection
Vernal pools are ephemeral wetlands that retain water annually from winter and spring precipitation and snowmelt but are dry the rest of the year. Though important habitats and sources of freshwater biodiversity, they are little accounted for in wetland conservation and restoration practices. Like much of the world’s wetlands, they have seen a significant decline from anthropogenic impacts and conversion for alternative land use. Pools are also at significant risk due to the impacts of climate change and invasive species. These small temporary water bodies perform vital ecosystem services and are host to rare and endemic species. Anostraca, or fairy …
Modernizing Fish Surveys: Evaluating How Reliable Environmental Dna Sampling Is In Monitoring Fish Populations, Alicia Cozza
Modernizing Fish Surveys: Evaluating How Reliable Environmental Dna Sampling Is In Monitoring Fish Populations, Alicia Cozza
EWU Masters Thesis Collection
No abstract provided.
Effects Of Beaver Dam Analogs On Stream Ecosystem Function Of Crab Creek, Washington State, Nicholas D. Broderius
Effects Of Beaver Dam Analogs On Stream Ecosystem Function Of Crab Creek, Washington State, Nicholas D. Broderius
EWU Masters Thesis Collection
This study documents the effects of beaver dam analogs (BDAs) on nutrient transport, fish community composition, macroinvertebrate drift, and benthic macroinvertebrate communities of Crab Creek, WA, USA. In 2019, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS), and Natural Resource Conservation Service (NRCS) placed 25 BDAs in Crab Creek on a section of private land near Harrington, WA. Beaver dam analogs are structures placed in streams to mimic the ecosystem effects of beaver activity and are increasingly used as a stream restoration technique. The primary goals of placing these BDAs in the stream was to impound sediment and create a new …
Beaver Moderated Fire Resistance In The North Cascades And Potential For Climate Change Adaptation, Joseph John Weirich Iii
Beaver Moderated Fire Resistance In The North Cascades And Potential For Climate Change Adaptation, Joseph John Weirich Iii
EWU Masters Thesis Collection
Climate change and fire suppression have altered historic fire regimes, creating conditions for larger, more intense fires. Intense burns can alter watershed hydrology, increasing the potential for harmful channel incision, which impairs riparian ecosystem function by lowering the water table, disconnecting floodplains from aquatic environments. However, wetlands and functioning riparian zones can reduce burn intensity. Beaver, with their unique ability to build dams, can restore incised and degraded streams, store water, and expand wetland environments, potentially decreasing wildfire intensity, fire spread and create fire breaks across the landscape. My objective was to test the hypothesis that beaver impoundments increase landscape …
Life History And Microbiome Analysis Of Freshwater Fingernail Clams (Sphaeriidae) Exposed To Trace Metal Pollution, Dechen D. Edwards
Life History And Microbiome Analysis Of Freshwater Fingernail Clams (Sphaeriidae) Exposed To Trace Metal Pollution, Dechen D. Edwards
EWU Masters Thesis Collection
Aquatic habitats impacted by anthropogenic activities such as mining can contain metal mixtures of nonessential and essential trace metals. The consequences of chronic exposure to metal mixtures on the life history of benthic organisms are unclear, as are the potential effects on host-associated microbial communities. I use an energy-budget based methodology to ask whether exposure to metal mixtures influences the life histories of freshwater fingernail clams (Sphaeriidae) and if fingernail clams are selecting a different microbial community if chronically exposed to metal mixtures than if in a site that is not impacted by metal pollution. Fingernail clams are small, cosmopolitan, …
Comparison Of Wetland Restoration Techniques In And Around Turnbull National Wildlife Refuge, Cheney, Wa, Jade S. Clinkenbeard
Comparison Of Wetland Restoration Techniques In And Around Turnbull National Wildlife Refuge, Cheney, Wa, Jade S. Clinkenbeard
EWU Masters Thesis Collection
Throughout the West, wetlands have been drained or filled in for agricultural or urban uses. Staff at Turnbull National Wildlife Refuge (TNWR) in Cheney work with local landowners to restore wetlands through excavation or flooding techniques. Unfortunately, TNWR staff cannot evaluate the wetlands to determine which technique is most successful. This thesis project compared the macroinvertebrate and plant communities and the limnological features of wetlands restored through excavation and flooding with those of unaltered, reference wetlands on TNWR. I hypothesized that the reference wetlands would hold water longest and would have higher plant diversity and macroinvertebrate diversity and abundance than …
Measuring Variation In Body Morphology And Life History Traits In Brook Stickleback (Culaea Inconstans), Eastern Washington, Usa, Lily Crytser
EWU Masters Thesis Collection
For freshwater ecosystems, invasive species are considered a major threat to biodiversity, and pose a challenge to those attempting to advance management strategies aimed at conserving natural populations. An invasive species’ ability to successfully invade a new ecosystem may be influenced by phenotypic plasticity, flexibility of life history traits, and the ability to migrate/disperse, among other factors. Brook stickleback (Culaea inconstans) have been a concern in eastern Washington since 1999 when they were discovered in water bodies on Turnbull National Wildlife Refuge. The purpose of this project was to describe potential variation in body morphology traits between systems that differed …
Targeted Short-Term Nutrient Reduction To Manage Ventenata Dubia An Invasive Winter Annual Grass: Soil And Plant Responses, Jaren F. Lamm
Targeted Short-Term Nutrient Reduction To Manage Ventenata Dubia An Invasive Winter Annual Grass: Soil And Plant Responses, Jaren F. Lamm
EWU Masters Thesis Collection
Invasive winter annual grasses, IWAGs, have degraded extensive ecosystems around the world and continue to invade new ones yearly. IWAGs readily form large monocultures or near monocultures, thus management and restoration goals largely focus on maintaining or increasing plant diversity in impacted ecosystems. Unfortunately, common management methods also reduce native plant diversity and harm the soil microbiome. These effects require additional measures to be taken, like reseeding, and plant diversity is still usually well below remnant targets. Early season short-term nutrient reduction to manage IWAGs is largely unexplored and would potentially decrease IWAG abundance, active earlier than most plants, but …
The Effects Of Warming On Carbon And Microbial Community Wetland Dynamics At Turnbull National Wildlife Refuge, Washington, Marissa A. Medina
The Effects Of Warming On Carbon And Microbial Community Wetland Dynamics At Turnbull National Wildlife Refuge, Washington, Marissa A. Medina
EWU Masters Thesis Collection
Wetlands are biodiverse ecosystems that play a key role in the biogeochemical cycling of carbon. In the face of global warming, wetland hydroperiods could shift causing changes in their functionality. My field experiment surveyed 3 plots within 12 wetlands of each hydroperiod class (i.e. 12 permanent, 12 semi-permanent, 12 ephemeral). This survey was paired with a warming experiment by placing open top warming chambers on half of each wetland type. In chapter one, I compared carbon dynamics across hydroperiods and treatment by measuring soil organic carbon (in Summer 2018) and effluxes of carbon dioxide and methane (in Summer 2018, Fall …
Riparian Resilience In The Face Of Interacting Disturbances: Understanding Complex Interactions Between Wildfire, Erosion, And Beaver (Castor Canadensis) In Grazed Dryland Riparian Systems Of Low Order Streams In North Central Washington State, Usa, Alexa Whipple
EWU Masters Thesis Collection
Riparian systems of low order streams in the western United States (US) provide critical ecosystem functions and services such as diverse habitat for numerous species, flood attenuation and essential water storage in water limited environments. These systems have experienced long term disturbance from anthropogenic activities including mining, timber harvest, livestock grazing and near extirpation of a keystone riparian species, Castor canadensis (North American beaver). However, increasing frequency of large-scale wildfires and climate change driven weather is altering the severity and scale of riparian disturbance, often shifting highly impacted streams to a stable degraded state, unable to store water or provide …
The Source Of Excess Nutrients To Pine Draw, Turnbull National Wildlife Refuge, Henry Price
The Source Of Excess Nutrients To Pine Draw, Turnbull National Wildlife Refuge, Henry Price
EWU Masters Thesis Collection
Nitrogen and phosphorus are the most common limiting nutrients for biological activity in freshwater ecosystems. Applying inorganic nitrogen fertilizer has increased crop productivity but caused excess nitrogen inputs to the hydrosphere. Nitrate contamination is a worldwide environmental problem. The fate of nitrogen in ecosystems is variable based on land type and hydrogeological interactions. Excess nitrogen can be retained in soils, sequestered in stream organisms, denitrified or transported downstream. The goals of this study were to monitor nitrogen concentrations in Pine Draw, Turnbull National Wildlife Refuge (TNWR), Washington, U.S.A., and to determine the source of nitrogen loading. Pine Draw is unique …
Vegetation Community Development After Dam Removal On The Elwha River, Olivia A. Morgan
Vegetation Community Development After Dam Removal On The Elwha River, Olivia A. Morgan
EWU Masters Thesis Collection
The Elwha River is the site of the largest dam removal project in the world to date and serves as a case study for the ecological effects of large dam removal. The 2012-2014 removal of two dams on the Elwha River exposed a cumulative 2.76 km2 of previously inundated surfaces. Environmental conditions including sediment texture and nutrients, slope-aspect, dispersal distance from the river and mature forest, disturbance, and elevation vary widely across the reservoir surfaces, causing significant variation in the plant community. The first objective of my study is to continue a long-term study of the passively restored vegetation community …
Riparian Vegetation And The Soil Seed Bank Five Years After Dam Removal On The Elwha River, Washington, Cody C. Thomas
Riparian Vegetation And The Soil Seed Bank Five Years After Dam Removal On The Elwha River, Washington, Cody C. Thomas
EWU Masters Thesis Collection
Damming of rivers is widespread and can profoundly impact riparian areas by altering the fluvial processes that drive riparian vegetation communities. Dam removal may reverse these effects; however, very few studies have examined the response of riparian vegetation to large dam removal and associated disturbances, such as the release of sediment. Understanding how dam removal impacts downstream riparian vegetation is crucial as dam removal becomes more common. The Elwha River, Washington, is the location of the largest dam removals to date and provides an unprecedented opportunity to explore questions related to dam removal and riparian vegetation. The objectives of this …
Monitoring The Influx Of Marine Derived Nitrogen And Characterizing Soil Food Webs Of Riparian Zones Of The Elwha River Watershed, Wa, Usa., Wendal R.H. Kane
Monitoring The Influx Of Marine Derived Nitrogen And Characterizing Soil Food Webs Of Riparian Zones Of The Elwha River Watershed, Wa, Usa., Wendal R.H. Kane
EWU Masters Thesis Collection
Nitrogen is often the most limiting nutrient to productivity in terrestrial ecosystems, and can have large effects on ecosystem processes. Two sources of nitrogen to Pacific Northwest riparian areas are marine derived nitrogen (MDN) via anadromous pacific salmon and symbiotic nitrogen fixation via Alnus rubra. The recent removal of two large dams on the Elwha River, WA, opened up ~60 km of previously inaccessible river habitat for pacific salmon. I used naturally abundant stable nitrogen isotopes (denoted as ‰ δ15N) to establish baseline data to monitor the influx of MDN to riparian zones of Elwha River tributaries, post dam removal. …