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Full-Text Articles in Life Sciences

Enhancing Urban Water Quality Through Biological-Chemical Treatment: Aquatic Macroinvertebrate Community And Temporal Chlorophyll-A Response, Matthew Chaffee Dec 2023

Enhancing Urban Water Quality Through Biological-Chemical Treatment: Aquatic Macroinvertebrate Community And Temporal Chlorophyll-A Response, Matthew Chaffee

Department of Biological Systems Engineering: Dissertations and Theses

With a growing human population, urbanization is impeding a plethora of natural waterways. Of these, urban ponds play a vital role in nutrient sequestration, flood prevention, and habitat sanctuaries. However, nutrient loading can reduce habitat effectiveness and promote harmful algae blooms. To reduce internal nutrient loads, a biological-chemical treatment strategy consisting of floating treatment wetlands (FTWs) and lanthanum were applied to two urban retention ponds, Densmore and Wilderness Ridge Ponds. To measure effectiveness, chlorophyll-a samples were collected and correlated with Sentinel-2. A novel band algorithm termed 3BR1 produced a strong correlation (R2 = 0.72) to physical chlorophyll-a …


Temporal Changes In Biological Community Structure In Response To Wetland Restoration: A Study Based On Amphibians And Reptiles, Kayla Keith May 2023

Temporal Changes In Biological Community Structure In Response To Wetland Restoration: A Study Based On Amphibians And Reptiles, Kayla Keith

Honors Program Theses and Projects

Wetland degradation is a serious environmental concern worldwide. In the United States, over half of the wetland ecosystems have degraded since 1780, which can have numerous, lasting consequences with negative outcomes on ecosystems and human society alike. Ecological restoration can regain both the lost wetland acreage and functions. Both global and national scale interests in ecological restoration have trickled down, which has kindled the local and regional natural resource managers and conservation authorities to invest in restoration. Consequently, large-scale wetland restoration projects are now underway in southeastern Massachusetts, which has coincided with a decline in commercial cranberry farming in the …


Increased Floodplain Inundation In The Amazon Since 1980, Ayan Fleischmann, Fabrice Papa, Stephen K. Hamilton, Alice Fassoni-Andrade, Sly Wongchuig, Jhan Carlo Espinoza, Rodrigo Paiva, John Melack, Etienne Fluet-Chouinard, Rafael M. Almeida Feb 2023

Increased Floodplain Inundation In The Amazon Since 1980, Ayan Fleischmann, Fabrice Papa, Stephen K. Hamilton, Alice Fassoni-Andrade, Sly Wongchuig, Jhan Carlo Espinoza, Rodrigo Paiva, John Melack, Etienne Fluet-Chouinard, Rafael M. Almeida

School of Earth, Environmental, and Marine Sciences Faculty Publications and Presentations

Extensive floodplains throughout the Amazon basin support important ecosystem services and influence global water and carbon cycles. A recent change in the hydroclimatic regime of the region, with increased rainfall in the northern portions of the basin, has produced record-breaking high water levels on the Amazon River mainstem. Yet, the implications for the magnitude and duration of floodplain inundation across the basin remain unknown. Here we leverage state-of-the-art hydrological models, supported by in situ and remote sensing observations, to show that the maximum annual inundation extent along the central Amazon increased by 26% since 1980. We further reveal increased flood …


Distribution Patterns And Factors Influencing Relative Abundance Of The Alligator Snapping Turtle (Macrochelys Temminckii) In Mississippi, Luke Pearson, Lucas Haralson, Gabrielle Berry, Grover J. Brown, Carl Qualls Jan 2023

Distribution Patterns And Factors Influencing Relative Abundance Of The Alligator Snapping Turtle (Macrochelys Temminckii) In Mississippi, Luke Pearson, Lucas Haralson, Gabrielle Berry, Grover J. Brown, Carl Qualls

Research, Publications & Creative Work

Macrochelys temminckii (Alligator Snapping Turtle) was recently proposed as a threatened species under the US Endangered Species Act due to current and projected future declining populations range wide. Despite a presumed statewide distribution in Mississippi, the Alligator Snapping Turtle had been documented in only 32 of 82 counties between 1857 and 2012, thus leaving a substantial gap in our knowledge of this species’ distribution. Therefore, we collected credible records from museums, literature, and the general public, as well as directly assessed the current distribution and relative abundance of the Alligator Snapping Turtle in all major river systems (i.e., Pascagoula, Pearl, …


Rapidly Changing Range Limits In A Warming World: Critical Data Limitations And Knowledge Gaps For Advancing Understanding Of Mangrove Range Dynamics In The Southeastern Usa, Rémi Bardou, Michael J. Osland, Steven Scyphers, Christine Shepard, Karen E. Aerni, Jahson B. Alemu I, Robert Crimian, Richard H. Day, Nicholas M. Enwright, Laura C. Feher, Sarah L. Gibbs, Kiera O'Donnell, Savannah H. Swinea, Kalaina Thorne, Sarit Truskey, Anna R. Armitage, Ronald Baker, Josh L. Breithaupt, Kyle C. Cavanaugh, Erik S. Yando, A. Randall Hughes, Et Al. Jan 2023

Rapidly Changing Range Limits In A Warming World: Critical Data Limitations And Knowledge Gaps For Advancing Understanding Of Mangrove Range Dynamics In The Southeastern Usa, Rémi Bardou, Michael J. Osland, Steven Scyphers, Christine Shepard, Karen E. Aerni, Jahson B. Alemu I, Robert Crimian, Richard H. Day, Nicholas M. Enwright, Laura C. Feher, Sarah L. Gibbs, Kiera O'Donnell, Savannah H. Swinea, Kalaina Thorne, Sarit Truskey, Anna R. Armitage, Ronald Baker, Josh L. Breithaupt, Kyle C. Cavanaugh, Erik S. Yando, A. Randall Hughes, Et Al.

Biological Sciences Faculty Publications

Climate change is altering species’ range limits and transforming ecosystems. For example, warming temperatures are leading to the range expansion of tropical, cold-sensitive species at the expense of their cold-tolerant counterparts. In some temperate and subtropical coastal wetlands, warming winters are enabling mangrove forest encroachment into salt marsh, which is a major regime shift that has significant ecological and societal ramifications. Here, we synthesized existing data and expert knowledge to assess the distribution of mangroves near rapidly changing range limits in the southeastern USA. We used expert elicitation to identify data limitations and highlight knowledge gaps for advancing understanding of …


An Integrative Salt Marsh Conceptual Framework For Global Comparisons, Erik S. Yando, Scott F. Jones, W. Ryan James, Denise D. Colombano, Diana I. Montemayor, Stefanie Nolte, Jacqueline L. Raw, Shelby L. Ziegler, Luzhen Chen, Daniele Daffonchio, Marco Fusi, Kerrylee Rogers, Liudmila Sergienko Jan 2023

An Integrative Salt Marsh Conceptual Framework For Global Comparisons, Erik S. Yando, Scott F. Jones, W. Ryan James, Denise D. Colombano, Diana I. Montemayor, Stefanie Nolte, Jacqueline L. Raw, Shelby L. Ziegler, Luzhen Chen, Daniele Daffonchio, Marco Fusi, Kerrylee Rogers, Liudmila Sergienko

Biological Sciences Faculty Publications

Salt marshes occur globally across climatic and coastal settings, providing key linkages between terrestrial and marine ecosystems. However, salt marsh science lacks a unifying conceptual framework; consequently, historically well-studied locations have been used as normative benchmarks. To allow for more effective comparisons across the diversity of salt marshes, we developed an integrative salt marsh conceptual framework. We review ecosystem-relevant drivers from global to local spatial scales, integrate these multi-scale settings into a framework, and provide guidance on applying the framework using specific variables on 11 global examples. Overall, this framework allows for appropriate comparison of study sites by accounting for …


Wetland Walk Vr: Field Ecology In Northeast Florida, Kailan Sindelar Jan 2023

Wetland Walk Vr: Field Ecology In Northeast Florida, Kailan Sindelar

UNF Faculty Research and Scholarship

Join Field Ecologists of the University of North Florida as they begin to monitor the water in swamps and marshes. In this virtual reality experience you will walk through places that are normally too dangerous or harmful to visit, learning about life in these places, how we study it, and how you may connect to it.