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Full-Text Articles in Life Sciences

The Influence Of Local Immigration And Extinction Of Species On Spatial Heterogeneity Of Vegetation In Semi-Natural Grasslands In Japan, Taisuke Yasuda, Masae Shiyomi, T. Egawa, K. Sei, R. Ishikawa, S. Takahashi Jun 2023

The Influence Of Local Immigration And Extinction Of Species On Spatial Heterogeneity Of Vegetation In Semi-Natural Grasslands In Japan, Taisuke Yasuda, Masae Shiyomi, T. Egawa, K. Sei, R. Ishikawa, S. Takahashi

IGC Proceedings (1997-2023)

Spatiotemporal variation in the local immigration and extinction of species in a community may form and change the spatial heterogeneity (SH) of vegetation but few studies have evaluated the influences of these processes on SH. SH often occurs in grassland grazed by cattle and sheep. Understanding the formation and dynamics of SH is important because SH profoundly affects local and regional ecological processes. We propose a new way to quantify the effect of the local immigration and extinction of species on SH, and try to clarify the influence of the processes on SH


Machine Kinship: The Impossible Duet, Diana Sanchez Jun 2023

Machine Kinship: The Impossible Duet, Diana Sanchez

Masters Theses

Machine Kinship: The impossible duet What does it mean to vanish from earth when you are the last of your kind? In 1987 the Kauai OO was recorded singing his final song. It was meant to be a duet, but as the last of his kind his song hangs in the air, unanswered. The other half of the duet is forever lost. Built to sing at dawn, birds must wake up earlier to hear each other before human chaos interferes. So here, it is always almost sunrise. As a parallel past-future response, the last birdsong was fed into a machine …


Ecological Boundaries And Constraints On Viable Eco-Evolutionary Pathways, Kyle E. Coblentz, John P. Delong May 2023

Ecological Boundaries And Constraints On Viable Eco-Evolutionary Pathways, Kyle E. Coblentz, John P. Delong

School of Biological Sciences: Faculty Publications

Evolutionary dynamics are subject to constraints ranging from limitations on what is physically possible to limitations on the pathways that evolution can take. One set of evolutionary constraints, known as ‘demographic constraints’, constrain what can occur evolutionarily due to the demographic or dynamical consequences of evolution leading to conditions that make populations susceptible to extinction. These demographic constraints can limit the strength of selection or the rates of environmental change populations can experience while remaining extant and the trait values a population can express. Here we further hypothesize that the population demographic and dynamic consequences of evolution also can constrain …


Ecological Boundaries And Constraints On Viable Eco-Evolutionary Pathways, Kyle E. Coblentz, John P. Delong Mar 2023

Ecological Boundaries And Constraints On Viable Eco-Evolutionary Pathways, Kyle E. Coblentz, John P. Delong

School of Biological Sciences: Faculty Publications

Evolutionary dynamics are subject to constraints ranging from limitations on what is physically possible to limitations on the pathways that evolution can take. One set of evolutionary constraints, known as ‘demographic constraints’, constrain what can occur evolutionarily due to the demographic or dynamical consequences of evolution leading to conditions that make populations susceptible to extinction. These demographic constraints can limit the strength of selection or the rates of environmental change populations can experience while remaining extant and the trait values a population can express. Here we further hypothesize that the population demographic and dynamic consequences of evolution also can constrain …


Land Use History And The Build-Up And Decline Of Species Richness In Scandinavian Semi-Natural Grasslands, O. Eriksson, S. A. O. Cousins, R. Lindborg Jan 2023

Land Use History And The Build-Up And Decline Of Species Richness In Scandinavian Semi-Natural Grasslands, O. Eriksson, S. A. O. Cousins, R. Lindborg

IGC Proceedings (1997-2023)

Scandinavian semi-natural grasslands have an exceptionally high small-scale species richness. In the past, these grasslands covered extensive areas but they have declined drastically during the last century. How species richness of semi-natural grasslands was built up during history, and how species respond to land use change, are discussed. The agricultural expansion from the late Iron Age was associated with increasing grassland extent and spatial predictability, resulting in accumulation of species at small spatial scales. Although few species directly depend on management, the specific composition of these grasslands is a product of haymaking and grazing. Grassland fragmentation initially has small effects …


Ecological Boundaries And Constraints On Viable Eco-Evolutionary Pathways [Pre-Print], Kyle E. Coblentz, John Delong Jan 2023

Ecological Boundaries And Constraints On Viable Eco-Evolutionary Pathways [Pre-Print], Kyle E. Coblentz, John Delong

School of Biological Sciences: Faculty Publications

Evolutionary dynamics are subject to constraints ranging from limitations on what is physically possible to limitations on the pathways that evolution can take. One set of evolutionary constraints, known as ‘demographic constraints’, constrain what can occur evolutionarily due to the population demographic or population dynamical consequences of evolution leading to conditions that make populations susceptible to extinction. These demographic constraints can limit the strength of selection or rates of environmental change populations can experience while remaining extant and the trait values a population can express. Here we further hypothesize that the population demographic and population dynamical consequences of evolution also …


The Effect Of Blue Mussel (Mytilus Edulis) Extinction On Ecosystem Function In The Gulf Of Maine Rocky Intertidal, Sophia K. Montague Jan 2023

The Effect Of Blue Mussel (Mytilus Edulis) Extinction On Ecosystem Function In The Gulf Of Maine Rocky Intertidal, Sophia K. Montague

Honors Theses

Stressors associated with climate change including thermal stress and ocean acidification inhibit the growth and reproduction of many species, including the ecologically and economically important blue mussel species in the Gulf of Maine (GOM). Established scaling relationships between mussel size, abundance, and water filtration suggests that the decline of mussels will stunt GOM water filtration. This change in the rate of water filtration could have large effects on the abundance of phytoplankton, abundance of invertebrate larvae, abundance of nutrients and organic material, food web stability, and biodiversity. Overall, this thesis explores the effect of blue mussel (Mytilus edulis) …


Rhetorics Of Species Revivalism And Biotechnology – A Roundtable Dialogue, Eva Kasprzycka, Charlotte Wrigley, Adam Searle, Richard Twine Jan 2023

Rhetorics Of Species Revivalism And Biotechnology – A Roundtable Dialogue, Eva Kasprzycka, Charlotte Wrigley, Adam Searle, Richard Twine

Animal Studies Journal

This informal dialogue contextualises and explores contemporary practices of nonhuman animal gene-modification in de-extinction projects. Looking at recent developments in biotechnology’s role in de-extinction sciences and industries, these interdisciplinary scholars scrutinise the neoliberal impetus driving ‘species revivalism’ in the wake of the Capitalocene. Critical examinations of species integrity, cryo-preservation, techno-optimism, rewilding initiatives and projects aimed at restoring extinct animals such as the woolly mammoth and bucardo are used to map some of the necessary restructuring of conservation policies and enterprises that could secure viably sustainable – and just – futures for nonhuman animals at risk of extinction. The authors question …


Sites Of Cultural Production In Response To Mass Extinction, Stephanie S. Turner, Evamarie Lindahl, Tara Nicholson Jan 2023

Sites Of Cultural Production In Response To Mass Extinction, Stephanie S. Turner, Evamarie Lindahl, Tara Nicholson

Animal Studies Journal

This conversation, mediated by Tara Nicholson, considers Stephanie Turner and EvaMarie Lindahl’s research in cultural representations of extinction and investigations of more-than-human forms of storytelling through an art historical lens. In response to Lori Gruen’s classification, extinction is a distinctive loss of ‘animal cultures’. It is more than biodiversity destruction or a static inventory of a species’ death. Nonhuman ways of building bonds, reproducing, teaching offspring, constructing homes and mourning the dead, are all systems of knowledge lost in extinction (Gruen et al. 2017). This conversation offers compassionate ways of bearing witness to species destruction and a space for empathy …


Economies Of Extinction: Animals, Labour, And Inheritance In The Longleaf Pine Forests Of The Us South, Nathaniel Otjen Jan 2023

Economies Of Extinction: Animals, Labour, And Inheritance In The Longleaf Pine Forests Of The Us South, Nathaniel Otjen

Animal Studies Journal

Despite mounting critiques, extinction continues to be framed as a unidirectional problem where humans, through acts of negligence and intent, lead nonhuman species to their demise. In addition to universalizing the actors and processes involved, unidirectional approaches overlook the ways nonhuman beings participate in the extinction of others and the ways extinction continues to impact multispecies communities long after the violent event or the death of an endling. With its focus on how nonhuman animals experience and navigate violence, the field of critical animal studies can illustrate how nonhuman animals contribute to extinction events and how extinction unfolds across distinct …