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Full-Text Articles in Life Sciences

Back From The Brink?: Rebounding And Remnant Amphibian Populations In A Pathogen Enzootic Environment, Alexander D. Shepack Oct 2020

Back From The Brink?: Rebounding And Remnant Amphibian Populations In A Pathogen Enzootic Environment, Alexander D. Shepack

FIU Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The Anthropocene epoch has been marred by a global biodiversity crisis and the advent of Earth’s sixth mass extinction. Amphibians, the most threatened vertebrate taxa, have become the poster children for this sixth mass extinction. The pathogenic fungus Batrachochytrium dendrobatidis has been blamed for many of declines and extinctions seen in amphibians. The now panglobal Bd causes the disease chytridiomycosis in a large number of amphibian species and has been linked to population crashes in Central and South America, Australia, Europe, and the United States. Now enzootic around the world, amphibian populations continue to confront Bd in a long-term battle …


Spatial And Temporal Patterns Of Arctic Nearshore Fish Community And Food Web Structures, Mark B. Barton Jun 2018

Spatial And Temporal Patterns Of Arctic Nearshore Fish Community And Food Web Structures, Mark B. Barton

FIU Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Climate change and increasing anthropogenic activities are causing rapid changes to environmental and ecological processes in the Arctic Ocean. To better understand these changes, scientists have increased research efforts in these regions, but to date the number of studies on Arctic nearshore habitats are lacking. My dissertation responds to the paucity of information and investigates patterns in Arctic nearshore fish communities and food webs to gain insight to how these ecosystems may shift as these changes continue. I used multivariate statistical analysis to examine patterns in community structure and composition to determine that Arctic nearshore fish communities are largely driven …


Quantitative Spatial Upscaling Of Categorical Data In The Context Of Landscape Ecology: A New Scaling Algorithm, Daniel Gann Jun 2018

Quantitative Spatial Upscaling Of Categorical Data In The Context Of Landscape Ecology: A New Scaling Algorithm, Daniel Gann

FIU Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Spatially explicit ecological models rely on spatially exhaustive data layers that have scales appropriate to the ecological processes of interest. Such data layers are often categorical raster maps derived from high-resolution, remotely sensed data that must be scaled to a lower spatial resolution to make them compatible with the scale of ecological analysis. Statistical functions commonly used to aggregate categorical data are majority-, nearest-neighbor- and random-rule. For heterogeneous landscapes and large scaling factors, however, use of these functions results in two critical issues: (1) ignoring large portions of information present in the high-resolution grid cells leads to high and …


An Ecological Study Of The Anurans In Tea Plantations In A Biodiversity Hotspot, Lilly M. Eluvathingal Nov 2016

An Ecological Study Of The Anurans In Tea Plantations In A Biodiversity Hotspot, Lilly M. Eluvathingal

FIU Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Increasing human population size is increasing the demand for resources like timber, oil, tea, coffee, and other crops. Plantation crops mimic some aspects of native habitats, and there are studies that report the presence of some native anuran biodiversity in plantations. I focused on tea plantations in the Western Ghats-Sri Lanka Biodiversity Hotspot and studied the diversity and health of anurans in different habitats found within a tea cultivation area, near Munnar region in the Western Ghats, India. The landscape includes tea bushes, native evergreen shola forest patches, and eucalyptus forest stands. I reviewed 40 studies comparing amphibian species richness …


In Search Of Safety, Negotiating Everyday Forms Of Risk: Sex Work, Criminalization, And Hiv/Aids In The Slums Of Kampala, Serena Cruz Oct 2015

In Search Of Safety, Negotiating Everyday Forms Of Risk: Sex Work, Criminalization, And Hiv/Aids In The Slums Of Kampala, Serena Cruz

FIU Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This dissertation offers an in-depth descriptive account of how women manage daily risks associated with sex work, criminalization, and HIV/AIDS. Primary data collection took place within two slums in Kampala, Uganda over the course of fourteen months. The emphasis was on ethnographic methodologies involving participant observation and informal and unstructured interviewing. Insights then informed document analysis of international and national policies concerning HIV prevention and treatment strategies in the context of Uganda. The dissertation finds social networks and social capital provide the basis for community formation in the sex trade. It holds that these interpersonal processes are necessary components for …