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Full-Text Articles in Life Sciences

Hydrologic Controls On Phosphorus Speciation And Mobilization In A Subalpine Watershed (East River, Colorado), Lucia Isobel Arthen-Long Oct 2021

Hydrologic Controls On Phosphorus Speciation And Mobilization In A Subalpine Watershed (East River, Colorado), Lucia Isobel Arthen-Long

Masters Theses

The cycling of phosphorus (P) through floodplain environments is critical to ecosystem productivity and has significant implications on both water quality and soil fertility. P export from soils in response to saturation has been well documented, but the relative vulnerability of specific P pools to mobilization remains poorly constrained, as do the mechanisms mediating its release. The prediction of P availability in and export from mountainous floodplain soils is of great importance as global climate change is projected to significantly alter precipitation regimes in alpine systems. This study combined a thorough characterization of P distribution across a hillslope to floodplain …


Statistical Improvements For Ecological Learning About Spatial Processes, Gaetan L. Dupont Oct 2021

Statistical Improvements For Ecological Learning About Spatial Processes, Gaetan L. Dupont

Masters Theses

Ecological inquiry is rooted fundamentally in understanding population abundance, both to develop theory and improve conservation outcomes. Despite this importance, estimating abundance is difficult due to the imperfect detection of individuals in a sample population. Further, accounting for space can provide more biologically realistic inference, shifting the focus from abundance to density and encouraging the exploration of spatial processes. To address these challenges, Spatial Capture-Recapture (“SCR”) has emerged as the most prominent method for estimating density reliably. The SCR model is conceptually straightforward: it combines a spatial model of detection with a point process model of the spatial distribution of …


Monitoring Mammals At Multiple Scales: Case Studies From Carnivore Communities, Kadambari Devarajan Oct 2021

Monitoring Mammals At Multiple Scales: Case Studies From Carnivore Communities, Kadambari Devarajan

Doctoral Dissertations

Carnivores are distributed widely and threatened by habitat loss, poaching, climate change, and disease. They are considered integral to ecosystem function through their direct and indirect interactions with species at different trophic levels. Given the importance of carnivores, it is of high conservation priority to understand the processes driving carnivore assemblages in different systems. It is thus essential to determine the abiotic and biotic drivers of carnivore community composition at different spatial scales and address the following questions: (i) What factors influence carnivore community composition and diversity? (ii) How do the factors influencing carnivore communities vary across spatial and temporal …