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Theses/Dissertations

2021

Ecology

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Full-Text Articles in Life Sciences

Using Spatial Methods To Analyse Anthropogenic Predation Risk And Movement Ecology Of White-Tailed Deer (Odocoileus Virginianus), Rhiannon D. Kirton Dec 2021

Using Spatial Methods To Analyse Anthropogenic Predation Risk And Movement Ecology Of White-Tailed Deer (Odocoileus Virginianus), Rhiannon D. Kirton

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

Hunting has been used as a central tool by wildlife managers to maintain populations of game species, however, we still lack a good understanding of exactly how hunting influences deer biology. Technological advances in GPS data over the last two decades now enable us to perform more detailed analysis on the effects of human hunters on wildlife populations. This research explores the spatial ecology of hunters and White-tailed deer in the Cross Timbers ecoregion of Oklahoma. Using new statistical methodologies to analyse simultaneous GPS tracking data on deer and hunters to study their spatial interactions. The results show how new …

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Microbial Communities Hosted By Carnivorous Pitcher Plants: Diversity, Recruitment, Functions And Succession In Sarracenia Purpurea Microbiomes, Jacob Jeffrey Grothjan Dec 2021

Microbial Communities Hosted By Carnivorous Pitcher Plants: Diversity, Recruitment, Functions And Succession In Sarracenia Purpurea Microbiomes, Jacob Jeffrey Grothjan

Theses and Dissertations

The pitcher plant Sarracenia purpurea supplements nutrient acquisition through carnivory, capturing insect prey which are digested by a food web community of eukaryotes and bacteria. Analysis of both bacterial and eukaryotic diversity, and an understanding of bacterial recruitment into pitchers and succession of bacterial and eukaryotic communities over time have not been well explored. This thesis presents three studies designed to address these gaps using field sampling and manipulative greenhouse experiments. Study I compared bacterial and eukaryotic composition and diversity of pitcher communities within and between populations of plants in two distinct wetland habitats. Genetic sequence analysis revealed an underappreciated …

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Body Mass And Body Condition Variation Of Mallards (Anas Platyrhynchos) Within And Among Winters Within The Lower Mississippi Alluvial Valley, John Thompson Veon Dec 2021

Body Mass And Body Condition Variation Of Mallards (Anas Platyrhynchos) Within And Among Winters Within The Lower Mississippi Alluvial Valley, John Thompson Veon

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Most North American waterfowl overwinter in southern North America before migrating back to breeding grounds in the northern US and Canada. These species face the challenge of needing to maintain or increase their body mass during an environmentally difficult winter period. Successful body mass maintenance during the winter period has major ramifications not only for their winter survival but for their fitness across the entire year. Recent research in Europe and the western United States suggests that the body mass of mallards (Anas platyrhynchos) has increased from the late 1960s to early 2000s. However, the factors responsible for increases in …

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The Brown Bear Gut Microbiome: A Novel Tool For Conservation & Management, Sarah M. Trujillo Dec 2021

The Brown Bear Gut Microbiome: A Novel Tool For Conservation & Management, Sarah M. Trujillo

All NMU Master's Theses

Gut microbiomes (GMBs), complex communities of microorganisms inhabiting the gastrointestinal tracts of their hosts, perform countless micro-ecosystem services such as facilitating energy uptake and modulating immune responses. While scientists increasingly recognize the role GMBs play in host health, the role of GMBs in wildlife ecology and conservation has yet to be realized fully. Here, I use brown bears (Ursus arctos) as an ecological model to investigate (1) how both extrinsic and intrinsic factors influence GMB community membership and structure; and (2) the correlation between GMB membership and brown bear health metrics. To achieve these aims, I subsampled archived …

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Resource Allocation And Phenotypic Plasticity Of Simultaneous Hermaphroditic Turtle Barnacles (Chelonibia Testudinaria), Kevin C. Cash Nov 2021

Resource Allocation And Phenotypic Plasticity Of Simultaneous Hermaphroditic Turtle Barnacles (Chelonibia Testudinaria), Kevin C. Cash

All HCAS Student Capstones, Theses, and Dissertations

This research addresses the knowledge gap of phenotypic plasticity in a commonly found and important species of epizoic barnacle, Chelonibia testudinaria. Limited research has been published regarding how phenotypic expression is mediated the spatial distribution of barnacles on a mobile host. To investigate this potential relationship, barnacles were collected from the backs of turtles along the beaches of Fort Lauderdale Florida. These barnacles were assessed for various phenotypic traits as well as their corresponding spatial distribution on the turtle carapace. Barnacles were safely removed from the carapace using a chisel before their preservation in ethanol. Barnacles were then numbered …

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Machine Learning For Species Habitat Analysis, Abigail Lavallin Nov 2021

Machine Learning For Species Habitat Analysis, Abigail Lavallin

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Management and conservation initiatives will always be controlled by finite resources, whether financialor temporal. Understanding a species’ spatial ecology, and how its requirements vary across habitats and locations is key to a successful species management plan. During recent decades, it has been noted how many species populations have declined, despite conservation practices working to increase their numbers. The most prevalent impacts affecting fauna populations have come from anthropogenic change in the form of habitat loss and destruction, along with fragmentation, and global climate change. There is a clear need for management practices to now operate on an entire landscape instead …

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Observations Of Post-Wildfire Landcover Trends In Boreal Alaska Using A Suite Of Remote Sensing Approaches, Eric John Deutsch Aug 2021

Observations Of Post-Wildfire Landcover Trends In Boreal Alaska Using A Suite Of Remote Sensing Approaches, Eric John Deutsch

Theses - ALL

Wildfires are a common occurrence in the boreal ecosystems of the Pacific Northwest. Studies suggest that anthropogenic climate change has fostered more frequent and higher severity fires in recent decades in these forests, which may result in substantial changes in vegetation structure and ecosystem functioning. However, large-scale studies examining the linkages between changing boreal wildfire regimes and vegetation structure have historically been limited in spatial scope due to the broad area and inaccessibility of many boreal regions, including the Alaskan interior. The development and advancement of satellite remote sensing instruments and geospatial analysis techniques provide researchers with unmatched abilities to …

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Landscape Population And Evolutionary Genomics Of Several Closely Related Species Of Mallard-Like Ducks, Joshua Brown Aug 2021

Landscape Population And Evolutionary Genomics Of Several Closely Related Species Of Mallard-Like Ducks, Joshua Brown

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

Divergence and speciation proceed through three major evolutionary forces (i.e., selection, genetic drift, and gene flow) that are often spatially and temporally heterogeneous across the landscape. Moreover, these forces can have differing but subtle effects within the genomes of diverging taxa, and therefore, disentangling the effects of these evolutionary mechanisms throughout the speciation process can be challenging. Here, I use a recent species radiation, the mallard complex, to investigate how strong, yet varied, evolutionary pressures influence the speciation process. The mallard complex consists of 14 mallard-like waterfowl species around the world that have some of the highest rates of hybridization …

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Characterizing The Temporal And Spatial Distribution Of The Cannonball Jellyfish (Stomolophus Meleagris) In The South Atlantic Bight, Lauren G. Faulk Jul 2021

Characterizing The Temporal And Spatial Distribution Of The Cannonball Jellyfish (Stomolophus Meleagris) In The South Atlantic Bight, Lauren G. Faulk

Theses and Dissertations

The cannonball jellyfish, Stomolophus meleagris, is commercially harvested throughout its range in the tropical and sub-tropical Americas, including in the South Atlantic Bight, where an estimated 4,000 tons (less than 2.4% of the estimated stock in South Carolina during the spring) are harvested annually. Like many Scyphozoan jellyfish, cannonball jellies have high interannual variability and little is known about the environmental drivers of their distribution and phenology. To better understand the ecology of this targeted species, we used fisheries-independent abundance data of cannonball jellyfish from 2001 to 2019 collected by the Southeast Area Monitoring and Assessment Program (SEAMAP) throughout the …

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Phytoplankton Community Response To Changing Environmental Conditions Across Two Central California Sites, Nicholas Soares Jun 2021

Phytoplankton Community Response To Changing Environmental Conditions Across Two Central California Sites, Nicholas Soares

Biological Sciences

Understanding the role that changing environmental conditions play in altering phytoplankton abundance and community composition, and in turn ecosystem structure and function, will be increasingly important for the sustainable use and management of ocean resources in a changing climate. Characterizing change in nearshore ecosystems requires long-term studies with a broad spatial extent, with most studies sacrificing spatial extent for temporal duration. However, phytoplankton and ecosystem response can vary substantially over small spatial scales due to local oceanographic forcing and anthropogenic influence, making the application of long-term data from one site to another in the same geographic vicinity potentially challenging. In …

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A Year In Syntropy: Exploring Syntropic Agriculture, Ajah Eills May 2021

A Year In Syntropy: Exploring Syntropic Agriculture, Ajah Eills

College Honors Program

Syntropic agriculture is a form of sustainable agriculture that originated in Brazil around 25 years ago. Although it has since spread throughout Brazil and Australia, there has yet to be a comprehensive study of the driving scientific principles behind syntropy. For my thesis, I conducted literature research and interviews with farmers, with the goal of describing the ecological principles on which syntropy is based, including its primary goal to improve soil health. Much of my thesis contrasted syntropic agriculture with conventional agriculture as practiced in the United States today, but I also explored the differences between syntropic agriculture and other …

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The Effects Of Urbanization On The Avian Gut Microbiome, Mae Berlow May 2021

The Effects Of Urbanization On The Avian Gut Microbiome, Mae Berlow

Doctoral Dissertations

The gut microbiome influences and is influenced by the host, and can affect the host organism by contributing to health, development and immunity. Similarly, the host can influence this community; it’s makeup can vary with host species, locality, diet, social stressors, and environmental stressors. Some of these environmental stressors have arisen due to human-induced rapid environmental change, like urbanization. The physiology and behaviors of organisms that are able to persist in urban environments are often different from their non-urban congeners. Nutrition, development, and immunity—all of which are affected by the gut microbiome—are important factors that can determine survival in urban …

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Distributions And Habitat Associations Of Blue Point Pyrgulopsis And Blue Point Tryonia, Chenoa Janine Wilcox May 2021

Distributions And Habitat Associations Of Blue Point Pyrgulopsis And Blue Point Tryonia, Chenoa Janine Wilcox

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

Springsnails and other crenophilic species are often of conservation concern due to endemism, narrow habitat requirements, and susceptibility to habitat degradation. Because there is a distinct lack of natural history information for many of these organisms, management of species that are of concern is often based on data from non-target species related to the species of interest. In this thesis, I provide background information regarding springsnails in western North America (Chapter 1), describe a study investigating the distribution and habitat associations of two springsnails endemic to a single spring (Chapter 2), and provide supplemental information on habitat characteristics associated with …

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Incorporating Demographic Structure And Variable Interaction Types Into Community Assembly Models, Akhil Reddy Alasandagutti, Nayan Chawla May 2021

Incorporating Demographic Structure And Variable Interaction Types Into Community Assembly Models, Akhil Reddy Alasandagutti, Nayan Chawla

Honors Theses

Theoretical studies of ecological food webs have allowed ecologists to remove the constraints of specific location and timescales from their study of ecological communities; food webs are generally complex and thus empirical study is difficult. Further, this theoretical approach allows ecologists to compare ecological processes and outcomes across any possible food web structures. However, these simulated communities are only as useful as the model from which they were constructed. Modifying existing considerations in these models, and generating new ones, are the jobs of theoretical ecologists that seek to achieve the shared goal of a majority of simulations: representation of real …

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Role Of Secretory Leukocyte Protease Inhibitor In Urinary Tract Infection, Anne Rosen May 2021

Role Of Secretory Leukocyte Protease Inhibitor In Urinary Tract Infection, Anne Rosen

Arts & Sciences Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Urinary tract infections (UTIs) affect 150 million people per year worldwide and can be difficult to diagnose and treat leaving room for other biomarkers to be used to define an infection. Secretory leukocyte protease inhibitor (SLPI), an antimicrobial protein also with antiprotease and anti-inflammatory properties, may be involved in host response to UTI. Here we use an established UPEC-UTI model to infect female Slpi knockout and wild type mice to show SLPI plays a role in microbial ecology of the bladder. Bacterial abundance is altered in urinary tracts and is positively correlated with SLPI in urine of wild type mice. …

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Cyclic Fluctuations Of Zooplankton Dynamics In A Tidal Salt-Marsh Basin, Jamaal Jacobs Apr 2021

Cyclic Fluctuations Of Zooplankton Dynamics In A Tidal Salt-Marsh Basin, Jamaal Jacobs

Senior Theses

Zooplankton are pelagic aquatic animals that are limited in their movements by the water currents around them and are major links in aquatic food webs between primary producers and higher trophic levels. Their populations are temporally and spatially variable, as they are sensitive to changes in salinity, temperature, and dissolved oxygen. This is especially true in highly dynamic environments, like estuaries, where environmental conditions are highly variable across seasonal and daily cycles. In order to examine the variability in zooplankton populations across a tidal cycle, we collected zooplankton samples from North Inlet Estuary at 30-minute intervals over a half tidal …

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Evaluating The Multi-Level Community Effects Of Root Hemiparasites In Northern Illinois, Anna Marie Scheidel Mar 2021

Evaluating The Multi-Level Community Effects Of Root Hemiparasites In Northern Illinois, Anna Marie Scheidel

Theses and Dissertations

Root hemiparasites are green plants that tap into a neighboring plant’s water-filled xylem to acquire inorganic nutrients, which can lead to an accumulation of nutrients in hemiparasite biomass. I performed an observational field study at Nachusa Grasslands and Franklin Creek State Natural Area (Lee County, IL) in 2019 to investigate how the presence of five root hemiparasites (Aureolaria grandiflora (Benth.) Pennell, Agalinis tenuifolia (Vahl) Raf., Castilleja sessiliflora (Pursh), Dasistoma macrophylla (Nutt.) Raf., Pedicularis canadensis L.) affects their communities through the (a)keystone species hypothesis, that hemiparasites will increase measures of diversity by altering competition among surrounding plant species, (b) ecological engineer …

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Analyses Of Coyote (Canis Latrans) Consumption Of Anthropogenic Material And Dietary Composition In Urban And Non-Urban Habitats, Audrey A. Hayes Jan 2021

Analyses Of Coyote (Canis Latrans) Consumption Of Anthropogenic Material And Dietary Composition In Urban And Non-Urban Habitats, Audrey A. Hayes

Browse all Theses and Dissertations

Coyotes are a generalist species that have adapted to nearly every terrestrial habitat in the United States. The species’ success is heavily attributed to their omnivorous diets and tolerance for environments that are regularly disturbed. Because the larger predator species that typically act as apex predators are sensitive to highly fragmented landscapes, the coyote is the functioning apex predator in many ecosystems where large predators, such as wolves, have been extirpated. The coyotes’ ecological role in urban ecosystems has received much attention in the last few decades as the species’ presence in cities and suburbs has increased, along with human-coyote …

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Monitoring Relationships Between Corticosterone And Snake Fungal Disease In Timber Rattlesnakes (Crotalus Horridus) In Western Kentucky, John Bromley Hewlett Jan 2021

Monitoring Relationships Between Corticosterone And Snake Fungal Disease In Timber Rattlesnakes (Crotalus Horridus) In Western Kentucky, John Bromley Hewlett

Murray State Theses and Dissertations

Over the past four decades, emergent fungal diseases have been the most devastating relative to species declines and extinctions. While most research has focused on fungal diseases affecting amphibians and bats, less has focused on diseases like snake fungal disease (SFD), caused by Ophidiomyces ophiodiicola (Oo). SFD was first described in 2006 in North America within a Timber rattlesnake (Crotalus horridus) population in New Hampshire. Since then SFD has been documented in 19 US states, one US territory (Puerto Rico), and Europe. SFD causes high mortality in some species, including the Eastern Massasauga rattlesnakes (Sistrurus …

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Clarifying Patterns In Host Plant Use By Adelpha Butterflies (Nymphalidae: Limenitidinae), Karina Torres Jan 2021

Clarifying Patterns In Host Plant Use By Adelpha Butterflies (Nymphalidae: Limenitidinae), Karina Torres

University of the Pacific Theses and Dissertations

The remarkable diversity of plant-feeding insects could be explained by the dynamics of their plant associations, where host plant shifts and specialization onto a small fraction of available plants may promote diversification. Neotropical Adelpha butterflies contain a large number of species, and previous work indicated the colonization of a novel host plant family (Rubiaceae) fueled its rapid diversification. However, accumulating host records indicate wide taxonomic host breadth at family level and below. Here, we categorize Adelpha diet breadth based on known host plant relationships across the Neotropics and from Costa Rica, Ecuador and Brazil. We also use a diet breadth …

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Comparison Of Low-Cost Commercial Unpiloted Digital Aerial Photogrammetry To Airborne Laser Scanning Across Multiple Forest Types In California, James Edward Lamping Jan 2021

Comparison Of Low-Cost Commercial Unpiloted Digital Aerial Photogrammetry To Airborne Laser Scanning Across Multiple Forest Types In California, James Edward Lamping

Cal Poly Humboldt theses and projects

Science-based forest management requires quantitative information about forest attributes traditionally collected via sampled field plots in a forest inventory program. Remote sensing tools, such as active three-dimensional (3D) Light Detection and Ranging (lidar), are increasingly utilized to supplement and even replace field-based forest inventories. However, lidar remains cost prohibitive for smaller areas and repeat measurement, often limiting its use to single acquisitions of large contiguous areas. Recent advancements in unpiloted aerial systems (UAS), digital aerial photogrammetry (DAP) and high precision global positioning systems (HPGPS) have the potential to provide low-cost time and place flexible 3D data to support forest inventory …

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Changes In The Vertical Stratification Of Neotropical Nymphalidae At Forest Edges In Relation To Light And Temperature Conditions, Brian Koji Oye Jan 2021

Changes In The Vertical Stratification Of Neotropical Nymphalidae At Forest Edges In Relation To Light And Temperature Conditions, Brian Koji Oye

University of the Pacific Theses and Dissertations

The composition of neotropical fruit-feeding nymphalid butterflies assemblages often varies by location and stratum within a forest. Recent work has shown that vertical stratification in particular may serve as barrier to gene flow, indicating the potential role vertical stratification may play in evolution. At forest edges, the distinction between assemblages has been described to decrease, with species considered to be canopy specialists descending to the forest understory. The similarity in light conditions between the canopy and understory strata at edges or disturbed habitat is hypothesized to be responsible for this phenomenon. We conducted a study using standardized sampling to document …

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Ecological Repentance, Emmanuel Salem Jan 2021

Ecological Repentance, Emmanuel Salem

Williams Honors College, Honors Research Projects

In an age ripe with discovery and analysis regarding anthropogenic pollution and the resultant climate change, a causal ideological explanation is naturally sought. This paper seeks to delve deep into the Christian religion and its relationship to the current climate crisis, as well as discuss whether or not predictions and speculative assertions professed in the famous essay by Lynn White, Historical Roots of our Ecological Crisis, hold up when surveyed with a more critical and thorough evaluative lens. This conversation is undertaken under three core considerations: biblical cosmology, what has happened in the world of Christian bioethics since White’s time, …

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Measuring The Success Of A Coastal Sand Dune Restoration On Tybee Island: Plant Growth, Sand Accretion, And Implications For Management, Shannon Matzke Jan 2021

Measuring The Success Of A Coastal Sand Dune Restoration On Tybee Island: Plant Growth, Sand Accretion, And Implications For Management, Shannon Matzke

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Coastal communities are developing rapidly in the face of increased risks of sea level rise and hurricanes stemming from anthropogenic climate change. In the US, erosion is projected to cost $530 million/year in property loss, but beaches and dune systems can minimize these losses. Dunes are vital to coastal protection, particularly when they are colonized by native plant species that stabilize sand with their root systems and accumulate sand by trapping particles with their stems and leaves. Dune construction can be used as a nature-based solution to climate change, but more studies are needed to fully understand the best practices …

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