Life Sciences Commons^™

Productivity And Resistance To Weed Invasion In Four Prairie Biomass Feedstocks With Different Diversity, Jessica E. Abernathy, Dustin R. J. Graham, Mark E. Sherrard, Daryl D. Smith

Tallgrass Prairie Publications and Reports

High-diversity mixtures of native tallgrass prairie vegetation should be effective biomass feedstocks because of their high productivity and low input requirements. These diverse mixtures should also enhance several of the ecosystem services provided by the traditional monoculture feedstocks used for bioenergy. In this study, we compared biomass production, year-to-year variation in biomass production, and resistance to weed invasion in four prairie biomass feedstocks with different diversity: one species – a switchgrass monoculture; five species – a mix of C4 grasses; 16 species – a mix of grasses, forbs, and legumes; and 32 species – a mix of grasses, forbs, legumes, …

Zooplankton Biomass On The West Florida Shelf, July 2010 – August 2014, Kendra L. Daly

C-IMAGE data

Zooplankton have high temporal and spatial variability. Therefore, they need to be assessed before oil impact and regularly thereafter, to interpret what changes are causally related to oil spills. We surveyed plankton using bongo net tows and the USF SIPPER imaging system to evaluate the variation in plankton abundance on the west Florida shelf and the northern Gulf of Mexico. Seasonal CTD, chlorophyll, nutrient, and zooplankton abundance data from the northeastern Gulf of Mexico and the west Florida shelf. Developed new algorithms for data mining SIPPER (Shadow Imaging Particle Profiler and Evaluation Recorder) camera particle imaging data.

Atp Luminescence Assay As A Bioburden Estimator Of Biomass Accumulation In Caves, Janez Mulec, Andreea Oarga-Mulec

International Journal of Speleology

A commercially available adenosine triphosphate (ATP) detection system (Hygiena, USA), supported by cultivable microbial indicators, was used to estimate bioburden in different habitats in and outside show caves: air, water and solid surfaces. A strong positive correlation between ATP concentration expressed as Relative Light Units (RLU) and Colony-Forming-Units (CFU) was observed for swab samples from cave surfaces. In terms of ATP units, surfaces in a single cave system (Postojna Cave) varied considerably (240-1,258,800 RLU/ 20 cm²) and commonly exceeded the bioburden level of analogues on the surface (0-114,390 RLU/ 20 cm²). Cave sub-habitats were colonized by …

Do Active Canopy Sensors Measure Biomass Or Chlorophyll In Corn?, Matthew Meade, Daniel W. Barker, John E. Sawyer

John E. Sawyer

Vegetative indices from canopy sensors are currently being used as a tool to measure N deficiency in corn (Zea Mays L.). Symptoms of N deficiency include stunted growth (reduced biomass) and yellowing (reduced chlorophyll). It is unclear which sensor index is most useful. The objective was to determine if canopy sensor indices (NDVI and CHL) measure plant biomass or plant chlorophyll.

Home-Field Advantage? Evidence Of Local Adaptation Among Plants, Soil, And Arbuscular Mycorrhizal Fungi Through Meta-Analysis, Megan A. Rúa, Anita Antoninka, Pedro M. Antunes, V Bala Chaudhary, Catherine Gehring, Louis J. Lamit, Bridget J. Piculell, James D. Bever, Cathy Zabinski, James F. Meadow, Marc J. Lajeunesse, Brook G. Milligan, Justine Karst, Jason D. Hoeksema

Integrative Biology Faculty and Staff Publications

BACKGROUND: Local adaptation, the differential success of genotypes in their native versus foreign environment, arises from various evolutionary processes, but the importance of concurrent abiotic and biotic factors as drivers of local adaptation has only recently been investigated. Local adaptation to biotic interactions may be particularly important for plants, as they associate with microbial symbionts that can significantly affect their fitness and may enable rapid evolution. The arbuscular mycorrhizal (AM) symbiosis is ideal for investigations of local adaptation because it is globally widespread among most plant taxa and can significantly affect plant growth and fitness. Using meta-analysis on 1170 studies …

Zooplankton Dry Weight Biomass Data For The Northeastern Gulf Of Mexico And West Florida Shelf: June 2012 – August 2014, Kendra L. Daly

C-IMAGE data

This dataset contains zooplankton dry weight biomass calculated from samples collected during RV Weatherbird II and RV Bellows cruises from June 2012 to August 2014. Zooplankton was collected using towed bongo nets from the northeastern Gulf of Mexico and the west Florida shelf. The contents of the dataset are an assessment of the seasonal and interannual changes in zooplankton biomass after the Deepwater Horizon oil spill.

Assessing The Limitations And Capabilities Of Lidar And Landsat 8 To Estimate The Aboveground Vegetation Biomass And Cover In A Rangeland Ecosystem Using A Machine Learning Algorithm, Shital Dhakal

Boise State University Theses and Dissertations

Remote sensing based quantification of semiarid rangeland vegetation provides the large scale observations required for monitoring native plant distribution, estimating fuel loads, modeling climate and hydrological dynamics, and measuring carbon storage. Fine scale 3-dimensional vertical structural information from airborne lidar and improved signal to noise ratio and radiometric resolution of recent satellite imagery provide opportunities for refined measurements of vegetation structure.

In this study, we leverage a large number of time series Landsat 8 vegetation indices and lidar point cloud - based vegetation metrics with ground validation for scaling aboveground shrub and herb biomass and cover from small scale plot …

Innovative Development Of The Octopus (Cf) Tetricus Fishery In Western Australia, Anthony M. Hart, Stephen C. Leporati, Ross Marriott, D. V. Murphy

Fisheries research reports

In 2010 the broad-scale introduction of a new gear type, the trigger trap, saw a 260% (33 t in 2009 to 119 t in 2010) increase in octopus landings in the Western Australian Developmental Octopus Fishery (DOF). Deployed in waters previously unfished by the DOF, initial catches demonstrated that trigger traps were more efficient and captured a different component of the population, compared to open-ended shelter pots traditionally used in the fishery. This shift caused a surge of interest in commercial octopus fishing.

Lentic And Lotic Habitats As Templets For Fungal Communities: Traits, Adaptations, And Their Significance To Litter Decomposition Within Freshwater Ecosystems, Kevin A. Kuehn

Faculty Publications

Decomposition of plant matter is a key ecosystem process and considerable research has examined plant litter decay processes in freshwater habitats. Fungi are common inhabitants of the decomposer microbial community and representatives of all major fungal phyla have been identified within freshwater systems. Development and application of quantitative methods over the last several decades have firmly established that fungi are central players in the decomposition of plant litter in freshwaters and are important mediators of energy and nutrient transfer to higher trophic levels. Despite the critical roles that fungi play in carbon and nutrient cycling in freshwater ecosystems, there are …

Biological Lignocellulose Solubilization: Comparative Evaluation Of Biocatalysts And Enhancement Via Cotreatment, Julie M. D. Paye, Anna Guseva, Sarah K. Hammer, Erica Gjersing

Dartmouth Scholarship

Feedstock recalcitrance is the most important barrier impeding cost-effective production of cellulosic biofuels. Pioneer commercial cellulosic ethanol facilities employ thermochemical pretreatment and addition of fungal cellulase, reflecting the main research emphasis in the field. However, it has been suggested that it may be possible to process cellulosic biomass without thermochemical pretreatment using thermophilic, cellulolytic bacteria. To further explore this idea, we examine the ability of various biocatalysts to solubilize autoclaved but otherwise unpretreated cellulosic biomass under controlled but not industrial conditions.

16. A Comparison Of Soil Biodiversity In Restored Prairie Plots And Agricultural Fields At A Biomass Production Farm In Southeastern Minnesota, Bruno Borsari, Neal Mundahl, Malcolm Vidrine

North American Prairie Conference Proceedings

Communities of soil-dwelling organisms contribute to soil fertility and nutrient cycling, but conventional farming practices can disturb and reduce these communities. In southeastern Minnesota, some farmers are planting simplified prairie vegetation to produce biomass fuels. Our study was designed to assess the species abundance and diversity of soil invertebrates in plantings of mixed grasses only (MG) and mixed grasses with forbs (MGF) that were planted for use as a biomass fuel source on a farm in southeastern Minnesota in 2007. Abundance and diversity of soil invertebrates also were examined in soils of corn (Zea mays L.) fields grown on the …

Comparing Tree‐Ring And Permanent Plot Estimates Of Aboveground Net Primary Production In Three Eastern U.S. Forests, Alex Dye, Audrey Barker Plotkin, Daniel Bishop, Neil Pederson, Benjamin Poulter, Amy Hessl

Faculty & Staff Scholarship

Forests account for a large portion of sequestered carbon, much of which is stored as wood in trees. The rate of carbon accumulation in aboveground plant material, or aboveground net primary productivity (aNPP), quantifies annual to decadal variations in forest carbon sequestration. Permanent plots are often used to estimate aNPP but are usually not annually resolved and take many years to develop a long data set. Tree rings are a unique and infrequently used source for measuring aNPP, and benefit from fine spatial (individual trees) and temporal (annual) resolution. Because of this precision, tree rings are complementary to permanent plots …

Improved Bulk Density Of Bamboo Pellets As Biomass For Energy Production, Zhijia Liu, Bingbing Mi, Zehui Jiang, Benhua Fei, Zhiyong Cai, Xing'e Liu

USDA Forest Service / UNL Faculty Publications

To the best of our knowledge, there is the lack of sufficient information concerning bamboo pellets. In the preliminary research, bamboo pellets showed a low bulk density which could not meet requirement of Pellet Fuels Institute Standard Specification for Residential/Commercial Densified (PFI). To improve its bulk density, pellets were manufactured using mixtures of bamboo and pine particles and the properties were investigated. It was found that adding pine particles to bamboo particles was an effective way to improve bulk density of bamboo pellets. When adding 40% pine particles to bamboo particles, bulk density of pellets increased from 0.54 …

Ecosystem Services Of Woody Crop Production Systems, Ronald S. Zalesny Jr., John A. Stanturf, Emile S. Gardiner, James H. Perdue, Timothy M. Young, David R. Coyle, William L. Headlee, Gary S. Bañuelos, Amir Hass

USDA Forest Service / UNL Faculty Publications

Short-rotation woody crops are an integral component of regional and national energy portfolios, as well as providing essential ecosystem services such as biomass supplies, carbon sinks, clean water, and healthy soils. We review recent USDA Forest Service Research and Development efforts from the USDA Biomass Research Centers on the provisioning of these ecosystem services from woody crop production systems. For biomass, we highlight productivity and yield potential, pest susceptibility, and bioenergy siting applications. We describe carbon storage in aboveground woody biomass and studies assessing the provision of clean and plentiful water. Soil protection and wildlife habitat are also mentioned, in …

Plant Biomass: Insights From Imaging Cell Walls Using Molecular Probes, Utku Avci

Turkish Journal of Botany

Cell walls are an important and growing subject of research in plant biology. In the last decade, there has been an increasing interest in using cell walls as feedstock for the production of second generation biofuels. This has resulted in an expansion in the number of cell wall studies and has highlighted the need for a better understanding of cell wall structure and function. Cell walls are composed of polymers with complex and dynamic structures that vary between cell types and developmental stages as well as between taxonomic groups of plants. To address the diversity of glycans that form the …

Evaluation Of Alkaline- And Fungal-Assisted Wet Storage Of Energycane Bagasse, Jing Cao

LSU Master's Theses

Lignocellulosic biomass is a promising renewable resource for the production of biofuels and biochemicals. Energycane is considered a lignocellulosic biomass characterized by its high fiber content and cold tolerance. It can be planted on marginal land and does not need to compete with the food supply. Wet storage in combination with sodium hydroxide (NaOH) or white-rot fungi was applied to energycane bagasse to preserve the lignocellulosic polymeric sugars (cellulose and hemicellulose) during short-term storage (60 days) and to make them accessible for conversion into biofuels and biochemicals. Alkaline-assisted wet storage was successful in preserving the biomass by minimizing microbial degradation, …

Long-Term Impacts Of Fuel Treatments On Tree Growth And Aboveground Biomass Accumulation In Ponderosa Pine Forests Of The Northern Rocky Mountains, Kate A. Clyatt

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

In western North America, many low-elevation, dry forest types historically experienced frequent, low-severity fires. However, European settlement and fire suppression policies have contributed to over a century of fire exclusion, substantially altering forest structure and composition. There is considerable interest in restoring fire resilient characteristics to these forests through fuel reduction treatments. One limitation of current research on the impacts of fuel treatments is treatment longevity, as few studies have been able to quantify long-term responses to commonly applied treatments. This research evaluated tree growth and aboveground biomass responses 23 years after treatment in two silvicultural installations with different underburning …

Seasonal Variation Of Fish And Macroinvertebrate Biomass Spectra In Southern West Virginia Streams, Andrew J. Kirk

Theses and Dissertations

The biomass size spectrum - the power-law scaling relationship between average individual size and total biomass - has often been studied in lake and marine ecosystems, but rarely in lotic systems. The objective of this study was to test for characteristic biomass spectra in small temperate streams. Seasonal fish and macroinvertebrate data, including population abundance and biomass estimates, were collected in three wadeable, southern West Virginia streams from October 2013 to May 2015. Fish abundances were estimated with 3-pass electrofishing (depletion) surveys and individuals were weighed in the field. Macroinvertebrates were collected with a Hess sampler and returned to the …