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Full-Text Articles in Life Sciences
An Invasive Species Reduces Aquatic Insect Flux To Terrestrial Food Webs, Steven S. Merkley
An Invasive Species Reduces Aquatic Insect Flux To Terrestrial Food Webs, Steven S. Merkley
Theses and Dissertations
Although it is well documented how introduced species can negatively affect native species, we only poorly understand how they may alter ecosystem functions. We investigated how an invasive fish affected the flux of aquatic insects to terrestrial food webs using mesocosms in a desert spring ecosystem. We compared aquatic insect emergence between alternative community states with monocultures and polycultures of two native species of fish, least chub (Iotichthys phlegethontis) and Utah chub (Gila atraria) plus, introduced western mosquitofish (Gambusia affinis). We tested three hypotheses: (1) aquatic insect biomass will be greater than terrestrial insect …
Usage And Development Of Molecular Markers For Investigation Of The Population And Ecological Genetics Of Bromus Tectorum L., Keith R. Merrill
Usage And Development Of Molecular Markers For Investigation Of The Population And Ecological Genetics Of Bromus Tectorum L., Keith R. Merrill
Theses and Dissertations
This thesis includes two studies: The first examined patterns of neutral genetic diversity within Bromus tectorum L. across the IMW region, and uses patterns of microsatellite (SSR) genotype distribution to make inferences about the respective roles of adaptively significant genetic variation, adaptive phenotypic plasticity, and facultative outcrossing in the ongoing invasion and recent range expansion of B. tectorum. It has been previously demonstrated that, due to extremely low outcrossing rates, it is possible to characterize individual genotypes of this species using four SSR loci. We sampled 20 individuals from each of 96 B. tectorum populations (classified by region and …