Life Sciences Commons^™

Resin Production In Natural And Artificial Red-Cockaded Woodpecker Cavity Trees, David Kulhavy, Kimberly B. Rozelle, William G. Ross, Daniel Unger, Richard N. Conner

Faculty Publications

Resin flow was measured in red-cockaded woodpecker (Picoides borealis Vieillot) clusters in longleaf pine (Pinus palustris Mill.) in the southern region of the Angelina National Forest, Texas. Resin flow (ml) at 1.4 m height over 24 hrs was measured from one 2.5 cm punch through the phloem between 0700 and 1000 hrs from March 1999 to September 2000, for a total of 9 measurements per tree. Resin was sampled in naturally active cavity trees, artificial (insert) active, natural inactive, artificial inactive and control pines (84 sample trees). Resin flow pattern was significantly different during the year, but not significantly different …

Quantifying Land Cover Change Due To Petroleum Exploration And Production In The Haynesville Shale Region Using Remote Sensing, Daniel Unger, I-Kuai Hung, Kenneth W. Farrish, Darinda Dans

Faculty Publications

The Haynesville Shale lies under areas of Louisiana and Texas and is one of the largest gas plays in the U.S. Encompassing approximately 2.9 million ha, this area has been subject to intensive exploration for oil and gas, while over 90% of it has traditionally been used for forestry and agriculture. In order to detect the landscape change in the past few decades, Landsat Thematic Mapper (TM) imagery for six years (1984, 1989, 1994, 2000, 2006, and 2011) was acquired. Unsupervised classifications were performed to classify each image into four cover types: agriculture, forest, well pad, and other. Change detection …

If It Pays, It Stays - Rewarding Private Forest Landowners, Steven H. Bullard

Faculty Publications

Article discusses monetizing the "ecosystem services" provided by private landowner forests. It discusses the potential of "workable vehicles" for rewarding landowners of private forest landowners for the many benefits their forests provide.

Stereo Photo Series For Estimating Natural Fuels In The Netherlands Volume 3: Veen, Brian P. Oswald

Faculty Publications

The photo series is a collection of photos and associated field data representing a region of The Netherlands. Volume 3 includes peatland vegetation types located in Northumberland National Park in England. These sites were used to represent those found in The Netherlands since peatlands in the UK are larger and thereby better for the field research. For each vegetation type, sites were sampled with varying fuel loads. The description of the sites consists of a wide-angle site photo, supplemented with field data on the various fuel loads and vegetative layers. The photo series is an important ecological tool to assess …

Loblolly Pine Growth Patterns On Reclaimed Mineland: Allometry, Biomass, And Volume, Jeremy Priest, Jeremy Stovall, Dean Coble, Brian Oswald, Hans Williams

Faculty Publications

Surface lignite coal mines in east Texas are commonly reforested using loblolly pine (Pinus taeda L.) following mining and reclamation activities. Due to the nature of such an extreme disturbance, altered growth patterns, growth rates, and productivity could be expected. We destructively sampled above- and belowground tissue to develop prediction equations specific to these sites. These prediction equations differed statistically from those found in the literature regarding unmined land. At the stand level, biomass and volume productivity appeared similar with young stands on reclaimed mineland performing slightly poorer than similarly managed unmined sites. Allometric partitioning of above- and belowground biomass …

Effects Of Competing Vegetation On Growth Of Loblolly Pine Plantations In The West Gulf Coastal Plain, Dean W. Coble

Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

Decomposition Of Three Common Moist-Soil Managed Wetland Plant Species, Daniel P. Collins, Warren C. Conway, Corey D. Mason, Jeffrey W. Gunnels

Faculty Publications

Moist-soil wetland management is used to precisely control delivery, duration, and timing of water addition to, and removal from, managed wetlands with targeted responses including germination and growth of desirable moist-soil plant species. Similarly, water delivery and removal drives decomposition of moist-soil plants as well as nutrient cycling within these systems, which is a key driver of productivity in such managed wetlands. Through deployment of litter bags, we examined rate of mass loss and decay coefficients of three locally abundant moist-soil annual species that are potentially valuable wintering-waterfowl food sources (nodding smartweed Persicaria lapathifolia, red-rooted flatnut sedge Cyperus erythrorhizos …

Integrating Hands-On Undergraduate Research In An Applied Spatial Science Senior Level Capstone Course, David Kulhavy, Daniel Unger, I-Kuai Hung, David Douglass

Faculty Publications

A senior within a spatial science Ecological Planning capstone course designed an undergraduate research project to increase his spatial science expertise and to assess the hands-on instruction methodology employed within the Bachelor of Science in Spatial Science program at Stephen F Austin State University. The height of 30 building features estimated remotely with LiDAR data, within the Pictometry remotely sensed web-based interface, and in situ with a laser rangefinder were compared to actual building feature height measurements. A comparison of estimated height with actual height indicated that all three estimation techniques tested were unbiased estimators of height. An ANOVA, conducted …

Urban Tree Height Assessment Using Pictometry Hyperspatial 4-Inch Multispectral Imagery, Daniel Unger, David Kulhavy, Jeffrey M. Williams, David Creech, I-Kuai Hung

Faculty Publications

Tree height is a critical variable of forest inventory assessments, and estimating the height of trees has been a component of forest inventory assessments for decades. The actual tree height of 60 open-grown baldcypress (Taxodium distichum) trees measured with a telescopic height pole were compared to Pictometry hyperspatial 4-in. multispectral imagery estimated tree height on the campus of Stephen F. Austin State University, Nacogdoches, Texas. Linear correlation coefficients (r) between actual tree height and Pictometry-estimated tree height for all 60 trees and the shortest 30 and tallest 30 trees were [1]0.997 for all r values. Pictometry estimated tree …

Morphologic And Taxonomic Analysis Of The Weedy And Cultivated Amaranthus Hybridus Species Complex, Dinesh Adhikary, Donald B. Pratt

Faculty Publications

The hybridus species complex of the genus Amaranthus is a group of weedy and cultivated plants from the New World that are considered difficult to identify. Classification schemes have varied between a single species approach, Amaranthus hybridus s.l., and a five species approach that recognizes the widespread weedy A. hybridus s.s., the South American endemic A. quitensis, and the three cultivated taxa (A. hypochondriacus, A. cruentus, and A. caudatus) as distinct species. The goals of this study were to analyze patterns of floral variation within the species complex and to determine distinguishing morphological features of …

The Frequency Of Ticks Carrying Rickettsia Sp., Sarah C. Canterberry, Daniel J. Bennett, Robert J. Wiggers

Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

Effects Of Urbanization On The Occurrence Of Batrachochytrium Dendrobatidis: Do Urban Environments Provide Refuge From The Amphibian Chytrid Fungus?, Daniel Saenz, Taylor L. Hall, Matthew Kwiatkowski

Faculty Publications

Batrachochytrium dendrobatidis (Bd) is a widespread pathogenic fungus that is known to cause the disease, chytridiomycosis, which can be lethal to many amphibians. We compared occurrence rates on spring peepers (Pseudacris crucifer) in urban and forested breeding sites in eastern Texas, USA. All study sites were at approximately the same latitude and altitude, and samples were collected at the same time of year to isolate differences in Bd infection rates between habitat types. We found significant differences (p<0.001) in the occurrence of Bd between habitats; with dramatically lower rates of occurrence at urban sites (19.5 %), compared to forested sites (62.9 …

Evaluation Of The Performance Of A Rural Municipal Wastewater Treatment Plant In Nacogdoches, East Texas (Usa) (Abstract), Kefa Karimu Onchoke, Michael Janusa, Salomey Asantewaa Sasu

Faculty Publications

The performance of a rural wastewater treatment facility, Nacogdoches Wastewater Treatment Plant

(NWWTP), in East Texas, USA, was assessed from January 2013 through June 2014. The elemental concentrations (Na, Mg, Ca, Ni, Pb, Mn, Cr, Mo, and Cu, Al, As, B, Ba, Ag, Cd, Fe, Hg, K, Se, Zn, Co, P, and S) were measured using inductively coupled plasma optical emission spectrometry. The anion concentrations (Br−, NO3- , NO2- , PO34-,F−, Cl−, and SO24−) were measured by ion chromatography. In general, the NWWTP was found efficient in removal to ≥ 96% for metals. The removal efficiency for anions was in …

The Relationship Of Female Physical Attractiveness To Body Fatness, Guanlin Wang, Kurosh Djafarian, Chima A. Egedigwe, Asmaa El Hamdouchi, Robert Ojiambo, Harris Ramuth, Sandra Johanna Wallner-Liebmann, Sonja Lackner, Adama Diouf, Justina Sauciuvenaite, Catherine Hambly, Lobke M. Vaanholt, Mark D. Faries, John R. Speakman

Faculty Publications

Aspects of the female body may be attractive because they signal evolutionary fitness. Greater body fatness might reflect greater potential to survive famines, but individuals carrying larger fat stores may have poor health and lower fertility in non-famine conditions. A mathematical statistical model using epidemiological data linking fatness to fitness traits, predicted a peaked relationship between fatness and attractiveness (maximum at body mass index (BMI) = 22.8 to 24.8 depending on ethnicity and assumptions). Participants from three Caucasian populations (Austria, Lithuania and the UK), three Asian populations (China, Iran and Mauritius) and four African populations (Kenya, Morocco, Nigeria and Senegal) …