Open Access. Powered by Scholars. Published by Universities.®
Articles 1 - 2 of 2
Full-Text Articles in Life Sciences
Bee And Butterfly Response To Floral Resources In Central Iowa Prairie Restorations, Chandler Dolan, Kathleen Madsen, Mark Myers, Ai Wen
Bee And Butterfly Response To Floral Resources In Central Iowa Prairie Restorations, Chandler Dolan, Kathleen Madsen, Mark Myers, Ai Wen
Research in the Capitol
Over 90 percent of Iowa’s land is devoted to cultivated row crops and pasture, which has caused a decline in biodiversity and habitat for many bee and butterfly species. To restore lost ecosystems and conserve pollinator diversity, the USDA recently developed a new Conservation Reserve Program Pollinator Habitat conservation practice (CP-42). Since 2012, Iowa farmers have enrolled over 200,000 acres in this program with little evaluation of its effectiveness. In 2017, a team of students and faculty from the University of Northern Iowa and Tallgrass Prairie Center developed methods to evaluate vegetation and pollinator activity in CP-42 restoration plantings. Using …
Biogeography Of Southwestern Pocket Gophers In The Genus Geomys, Courtney Massey, James W. Demastes
Biogeography Of Southwestern Pocket Gophers In The Genus Geomys, Courtney Massey, James W. Demastes
Research in the Capitol
Species status between closely related species can be difficult to discern. The southwest United States is home to several species of pocket gophers (Geomys), including the northern species, G.arenarius and G. bursarius major, and southern G. bursarius knoxjonesi. Current biogeographic hypotheses for this assemblage involve a population of G. bursarius using one of several potential colonization routes across the arid region between the Pecos River and the Rio Grande Valley, which led to isolation and the speciation of G. arenarius. My project tested three likely colonization routes using comprehensive geographic samples of the aforementioned pocket …