Open Access. Powered by Scholars. Published by Universities.®
Articles 1 - 3 of 3
Full-Text Articles in Life Sciences
Identification Of Taxonomic And Functional Ichthyofaunal Zones Within The James River Basin, Virginia, Joseph L. Noel
Identification Of Taxonomic And Functional Ichthyofaunal Zones Within The James River Basin, Virginia, Joseph L. Noel
Theses and Dissertations
Environmental gradients structure ichthyofaunal communities longitudinally along river networks via the selective filtering of species’ traits. In many instances, these environmental influences have created distinct zones of co-occurring fish species. Zonation studies have most often been conducted with taxonomic data (species x site matrices), but the increasing availability of functional trait data creates an opportunity to build more rigorous understanding of species’ co-occurrence patterns. Notably, zonation studies that use taxonomic data may not reveal the same patterns as studies based on trait data. In this study, we tested for distinct ichthyofaunal zonation in James River Basin, VA using a combination …
Forest Structural Complexity And Net Primary Production Resilience Across A Gradient Of Disturbance In A Great Lakes Ecosystem, Lisa T. Haber
Forest Structural Complexity And Net Primary Production Resilience Across A Gradient Of Disturbance In A Great Lakes Ecosystem, Lisa T. Haber
Theses and Dissertations
Forests are an important component of the global carbon (C) cycle and contribute to climate change mitigation through atmospheric C uptake and storage in biomass and soils. However, the forest C sink is susceptible to disturbance, which modifies physical and biological structure and limits spatial extent of forests. Unlike severe, stand-replacing disturbances that reset forest successional trajectories and may simplify ecosystem structure, moderate severity disturbances may instead introduce complexity in ways that sustain net primary production (NPP), leading to the phenomenon of “NPP resilience.” In this study, we examined the linkage between disturbance severity and ecosystem biological and physical structural …
Climate Change And Mountaintop Removal Mining: A Maxent Assessment Of The Potential Dual Threat To West Virginia Fishes, Lindsey R F Hendrick
Climate Change And Mountaintop Removal Mining: A Maxent Assessment Of The Potential Dual Threat To West Virginia Fishes, Lindsey R F Hendrick
Theses and Dissertations
Accounts of species’ range shifts in response to climate change, most often as latitudinal shifts towards the poles or upslope shifts to higher elevations, are rapidly accumulating. These range shifts are often attributed to species ‘tracking’ their thermal niches as temperatures in their native ranges increase. Our objective was to estimate the degree to which climate change-driven shifts in water temperature may increase the exposure of West Virginia’s native freshwater fishes to mountaintop removal surface coal mining. Mid-century shifts in habitat suitability for nine non-game West Virginia fishes were projected via Maximum Entropy species distribution modeling, using a combination of …