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Full-Text Articles in Life Sciences
Adaptive Plasticity Of Coloration In Response To Environmental Change, Karissa Coffield
Adaptive Plasticity Of Coloration In Response To Environmental Change, Karissa Coffield
Scholars Week
When rapid environmental changes occur, different selective forces can create phenotypic trade-offs in which a trait can provide fitness benefits or costs under different environmental conditions. Amphibians are particularly vulnerable to environmental change, and previous research has revealed that some species will plastically respond to variation in temperature and ultra-violet radiation (UVR) by altering their coloration. Divergent selection on coloration may change with elevation and climate induced shifts in temperature because high temperatures are likely to result in lighter color morphs but as elevation increases, UVR exposure increases leading to the prediction that darker color morphs will be more common. …
Adaptive Plasticity Of Coloration In Response To Environmental Change, Karissa Coffield
Adaptive Plasticity Of Coloration In Response To Environmental Change, Karissa Coffield
Scholars Week
When rapid environmental changes occur, different selective forces can create phenotypic trade-offs in which a trait can provide fitness benefits or costs under different environmental conditions. Amphibians are particularly vulnerable to environmental change, and previous research has revealed that some species will plastically respond to variation in temperature and ultra-violet radiation (UVR) by altering their coloration. Divergent selection on coloration may change with elevation and climate induced shifts in temperature because high temperatures are likely to result in lighter color morphs but as elevation increases, UVR exposure increases leading to the prediction that darker color morphs will be more common. …
Adaptive Plasticity Of Coloration In Response To Environmental Change, Karissa Coffield
Adaptive Plasticity Of Coloration In Response To Environmental Change, Karissa Coffield
Scholars Week
When rapid environmental changes occur, different selective forces can create phenotypic trade-offs in which a trait can provide fitness benefits or costs under different environmental conditions. Amphibians are particularly vulnerable to environmental change, and previous research has revealed that some species will plastically respond to variation in temperature and ultra-violet radiation (UVR) by altering their coloration. Divergent selection on coloration may change with elevation and climate induced shifts in temperature because high temperatures are likely to result in lighter color morphs but as elevation increases, UVR exposure increases leading to the prediction that darker color morphs will be more common. …
Using Modeling To Investigate Factors Driving Avian Diversity In Urban Ecosystems, Clay Bliznick
Using Modeling To Investigate Factors Driving Avian Diversity In Urban Ecosystems, Clay Bliznick
Scholars Week
Anthropogenic influences have altered global landscapes considerably throughout the past two centuries, resulting in the decline of natural land cover types. Conversely, land cover types such as cropland and urban areas that are derived from human activities have experienced vast expansion. This landscape transition has serious implications for ecosystem services. To mitigate the loss of these services, it is necessary to maintain ecological integrity within these anthropogenically-influenced systems. Being able to support high biodiversity is an indicator of well-functioning ecosystems, thus quantifying biodiversity and assessing its contributing factors can be useful for developing management strategies in artificial environments. Our objective …
Morph- And Sex-Specific Differences In Corticosterone Of The Arizona Tiger Salamander (Ambystoma Mavortium Nebulosum), Megan Zerger
Morph- And Sex-Specific Differences In Corticosterone Of The Arizona Tiger Salamander (Ambystoma Mavortium Nebulosum), Megan Zerger
Scholars Week
Life history morph, sex, and body condition are traits that may influence stress within salamander populations because of differences in physiology and environmental conditions. Given widespread declines and the effects chronic stress can have on amphibian health, it is important to understand within-population drivers of stress and how population level variation may influence population viability. Thus, the objective of our study was to assess how corticosterone varies within the Arizona tiger salamander (Ambystoma mavortium nebulosum) population at the Mexican Cut Nature Preserve. We used a non-invasive skin swabbing method to collect baseline and elevated corticosterone from paedomorph (aquatic …
Chlorophyll A And Primary Production Dynamics In Kentucky Lake: 2009-2018, Morgan Franklin
Chlorophyll A And Primary Production Dynamics In Kentucky Lake: 2009-2018, Morgan Franklin
Scholars Week
Chlorophyll α (chl α) can be used as a proxy for phytoplankton biomass, while primary productivity (PP), the rate at which carbon is fixed into phytoplankton cells, is an indicator of how quickly carbon is turned over within the phytoplankton community. The purpose of this research was to examine the spatial distribution of chl α seasonally in Kentucky Lake and to examine the relationship between chl α and PP in two embayments of contrasting land use. The two sites analyzed are Ledbetter and Panther embayments. Data analysis showed that the chl α and PP were highly correlated; r=0.45 in Ledbetter …
Examining The Relationship Between Climate And Seasonal Stream Thermal Regimes In A High Desert Ecosystem, Hannah Moore, Melody Feden
Examining The Relationship Between Climate And Seasonal Stream Thermal Regimes In A High Desert Ecosystem, Hannah Moore, Melody Feden
Scholars Week
Climate change is negatively affecting ecosystems around the world, and in the coming years, scientists predict that these changes will only intensify and accelerate. In the western mountains of North America, climate change projections predict elevated temperatures, reduced snowpack, and earlier snowmelt. Elevated air temperatures have the propensity to affect water temperatures in sensitive freshwater ecosystems. Temperature increases may cause streams to reach the upper thermal limit for many aquatic organisms, such as aquatic invertebrates and fish, and result in death or dispersal for these organisms. This makes the availability of cold-water refugia in streams that much more important for …
Can Omnivores Mediate The Effects Of Degradation?, Hannah Moore
Can Omnivores Mediate The Effects Of Degradation?, Hannah Moore
Scholars Week
Omnivores feed at multiple trophic levels and have large effects on community structuring and stability. The magnitude and direction of such effects, whether omnivores stabilize or destabilize communities, remains unresolved. Shifts in omnivore diet and trophic position may be of particular importance to community stability in degraded habitats, where resources are sparse. For example, omnivores may reduce the severity and duration of community responses to degradationby dampening the effects of any disturbance-mediated trophic cascade. The relatively simple food webs of freshwater systems are ideal for studying trophic ecology, and in the western U.S., streams are heavily degraded by overgrazing, beaver …
Kentucky Lake: An Opportunity For Long Term Monitoring Of Fish Communities, Bradley Hartman
Kentucky Lake: An Opportunity For Long Term Monitoring Of Fish Communities, Bradley Hartman
Scholars Week
Global aquatic ecosystems are impacted by a variety of mechanisms including habitat destruction, fish overharvest, and the introduction of invasive species. Long term monitoring of an ecosystem’s fish community, along with abiotic and biotic factors that influence the fish community, is crucial in establishing effective management strategies. Currently, numerous monitoring programs exist across the United States. However, a long term monitoring program of non-game and non-commercial fish community dynamics has not been established within Kentucky Lake in Western Kentucky. Preliminary sampling of the Kentucky Lake fish community was performed using boat electroshocking and surface trawling. Four embayments within Kentucky Lake …