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Social Factors Driving Grouping Dynamics In Bighorn Sheep Ewe, Toni Proescholdt May 2023

Social Factors Driving Grouping Dynamics In Bighorn Sheep Ewe, Toni Proescholdt

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Spring 1920 to Summer 2023

Understanding and predicting movement is critical for conservation planning and disease risk mitigation, and important environmental drivers of animal movement have received extensive attention in the ecological literature. Social factors surrounding group fission and fusion events also directly affect movement. However, these events are infrequently measured in the wild and rarely linked to underlying mechanisms such as relatedness, agreement in reproductive status, or shared life stage. While some social factors cannot be directly observed in the field, individual animals congregating in groups and moving about a landscape can. In animal societies, groups may merge together in a fusion event, and …

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Evaluation Of Burned Aspen Communities In Jackson Hole, Wyoming, Charles E. Kay Jan 2001

Evaluation Of Burned Aspen Communities In Jackson Hole, Wyoming, Charles E. Kay

Aspen Bibliography

Aspen has been declining in Jackson Hole for many years, a condition generally attributed to the fact that lightning fires have been aggressively suppressed since the early 1900s. It is also believed that burning will successfully regenerate aspen stands despite high elk numbers. To test this hypothesis, I evaluated 467 burned and 495 adjacent, unburned aspen stands at eight different locations within Jackson Hole. Aspen suckering was stimulated by burning, but most aspen stands still failed to produce new stems greater than 2 m tall where ungulate use was moderate or high. Only when elk use was low were burned …

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Quaking Aspen Reproduce From Seed After Wildfire In The Mountains Of Southeastern Arizona, Ronald D. Quinn, Lin Wu Jan 2001

Quaking Aspen Reproduce From Seed After Wildfire In The Mountains Of Southeastern Arizona, Ronald D. Quinn, Lin Wu

Aspen Bibliography

Quaking aspen regenerated from seed after a stand replacement wildfire in the Chiricahua Mountains of southeastern Arizona. The wildfire had created gaps in the canopy so that aspen were able to establish from seed. Seedlings were found at a mean density of 0.17 m–2, 30 m or more from the nearest potential seed trees. Six clumps of aspen seedlings contained 18–186 trees, occupying areas of 145–500 square meters at densities of 0.09-0.27 m–2. White-tailed deer (Odocoileus virginianus) browsed 14.3% of the seedlings. Occasional sexual reproduction of aspen may be a general trait of the species throughout the western portion of …

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Landscape-Scale Dynamics Of Aspen In Rocky Mountain National Park, Colorado, Margot W. Kaye, Kuni Suzuki, Dan Binkley, Thomas J. Stohlgren Jan 2001

Landscape-Scale Dynamics Of Aspen In Rocky Mountain National Park, Colorado, Margot W. Kaye, Kuni Suzuki, Dan Binkley, Thomas J. Stohlgren

Aspen Bibliography

Past studies of quaking aspen in Rocky Mountain National Park suggested that the aspen population is declining due to intensive browsing by elk (Cervus elaphus). These studies were conducted in the elk winter range, an area of intensive elk impact. The elk summer range experiences less intense grazing pressure. We tested the hypothesis that impacts of elk would be greater in the elk winter range than the summer range with landscape-scale data from the Park. The detrimental effects of elk on aspen are highly localized and, at larger spatial scales, elk browsing does not seem to be influencing the aspen …

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Aspen's Ecological Role In The West, William H. Romme, Lisa Floyd-Hanna, David D. Hanna, Elisabeth Bartlett Jan 2001

Aspen's Ecological Role In The West, William H. Romme, Lisa Floyd-Hanna, David D. Hanna, Elisabeth Bartlett

Aspen Bibliography

Aspen exhibits a variety of ecological roles. In southern Colorado, the 1880 landscape mosaic contained a range of stand ages, of which half were >70 years old and half were younger. Pure aspen stands in southern Colorado are widespread and may result from previous short fire intervals that eliminated local conifer seed sources. Aspen regeneration in northern Yellowstone Park is controlled by ungulate browsing pressure and fire, so it has been limited since 1920. However, an episode of aspen seedling establishment occurred after the 1988 fires. We urgently need additional detailed, local case studies of aspen ecology to inform management …

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Palatability - More Than A Matter Of Taste, Behave Jan 2000

Palatability - More Than A Matter Of Taste, Behave

All Current Publications

This publication explores the theory that palatability is more than a matter of taste but is an interrelationship between a food's flavor and its postingestive effects.

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Behavior Depends On Consequences, Behave Jan 2000