Life Sciences Commons^™

A Floristic Study Of The Oak Leaf Lake Unit Of The Swan Lake Wildlife Management Area In Nicollet County, Minnesota, Heidi Rauenhorst

All Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Other Capstone Projects

Prairies play an integral ecological role, protecting biodiversity and providing habitat for fauna. The number of prairie acres has significantly declined in Minnesota, making the existing prairies that much more valuable. The Oak Leaf Lake Unit of the Swan Lake Wildlife Management Area in Nicollet County, Minnesota (latitude 44.311050, longitude -94.015577) was purchased by the Minnesota Department of Natural Resources in 1994 and is being managed as tallgrass prairie. Floristic surveys were performed during the 2011 and 2012 growing seasons to gather baseline data. These data were used to assess the quality of the site through calculation of various indices …

Differential Gene Expression Of Minnesota (Mn) Hygienic Honeybees (Apis Mellifera) Performing Hygienic Behavior, Eric Northrup

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Hygienic behavior is the ability to remove dead and diseased brood from the comb early as to limit the detrimental impact of the parasite or pathogen. Minnesota (MN) Hygienic bees are generalists of hygienic behavior with the ability to remove several brood infected with several pathogens including the Varroa mite. This study explored the mechanisms of MN Hygienic behavior by comparing the transcriptome of MN Hygienic bee brains to non-hygienic bee brains via cDNA microarray. The results suggest that the brains of MN Hygienic bees may have a greater number of dendritic connections or are more sensitive to neurotransmitters. Quantitative …

Effects Of Hydrology On The Growth And Recruitment Of Stream Fish In The Eastern Broadleaf Province Of Minnesota, Eric J. Krumm

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Agricultural practices and urban development have altered streamflows within the Eastern Broadleaf Province of Minnesota. Stream-flow alteration can produce significant changes in native freshwater communities. Therefore, knowledge of streamflow effects on representative freshwater populations and communities within the province are needed to maintain ecological integrity. Fish community and population dynamics often display predictable responses to flow regimes, which can make fishes model organisms for examining flow-ecology relationships.

In lotic systems, annual variation in streamflow can influence the annual growth and recruitment of fishes. Understanding the growth and recruitment of fish populations is essential for management and conservation efforts. Growth can …

Zooplanktonic Community Dynamics Of The Minnesota River With An Ichthyoplankton Gear Comparison, Nathaniel Lederman

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The Minnesota River, like many large rivers, has been functionally altered by human activities and climate change. The Minnesota Pollution Control Agency has designated 271 kilometers (50.3%) of the 539 kilometer Minnesota River as “biologically impaired.” However, assessing biological communities in large rivers is often difficult and limited to examination of upper trophic levels (e.g., piscivorous fishes). Few studies examined zooplanktonic communities, largely due to difficulties associated with sampling. Because of the need to improve assessment strategies for biological impairments in the Minnesota River, the zooplanktonic community, including crustaceous zooplankton, rotifers, macroinvertebrates, and ichthyoplankton was evaluated within an impaired and …

The Utilization Of Morphological And Genetic Diagnostic Techniques For The Description Of Trematode Species Collected From Waterbirds From Lake Winnibigoshish, Minnesota, Usa, Tyler Joseph Achatz

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Historically, morphological techniques for species identification were the leading diagnostic methodology, however, the increased usage of genetic techniques has led to a decrease in reports of morphometrics. The decrease in morphological reports increases the chance of missing diagnostic morphometrics. The three studies described herein used morphological and genetic diagnostic methods to identify trematodes from five families in order to improve genetic and morphological information for trematode species identification.

The first study identified ten species of trematodes from intestines of waterbirds previously collected from Lake Winnibigoshish, Minnesota. Nine of the species were sequenced for 28S ribosomal DNA (rDNA). Two species were …

Development And Evaluation Of A Habitat Suitability Model For White-Tailed Deer In An Agricultural Landscape, Eric Anstedt

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White-tailed deer (Odocoileus virginianus) are an ecological, economical, and socially significant species that occupy a variety of ecoregions. White-tailed deer are mobile habitat generalists that prefer habitats containing woody cover. Deer have successfully adapted to habitat-fragmented, agricultural landscapes. As a result, deer are not uniformly distributed across intensively cultivated areas, which make field surveys difficult with often highly variable spatial data. To increase sampling efficiency (deer observed / sampling effort), the landscape can be stratified based upon preferred habitat types. Habitat suitability models (HSI) have been used to represent hypothesized wildlife-habitat relationships, and therefore the likelihood of deer being observed …