Life Sciences Commons^™

Incorporating Native Plants In Insectary Strips To Promote Insect Diversity And Below-Ground Beneficial Microbes In South Texas, Lindsey N. Richards

Theses and Dissertations

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Farm edges are generally the most undisturbed areas in a farm with diverse vegetation and can enhance agrobiodiversity and provide crucial food and shelter for wildlife, insects, and soil biota. Planting native wildflowers with the ability to reseed and withstand local climatic conditions for semi-permanent vegetation around farm edges or in between crops has potential to biologically control pests. To test this, we ran a two-year study and installed three different flowering insectary strips on a certified organic vegetable farm in South Texas during the winter season. The treatments were: 1) a commercially sourced 17-species native wildflower seed mix; 2) …

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First Ecological Characterization Of Whip Black Coral Assemblages (Hexacorallia: Antipatharia) In The Easter Island Ecoregion, Southeastern Pacific, Jan M. Tapia-Guerra, Cynthia M. Asorey, Erin E. Easton, Daniel Wagner, Matthias Gorny, Javier Sellanes

School of Earth, Environmental, and Marine Sciences Faculty Publications and Presentations

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One of the main priorities of marine scientific research is to provide practical information and guidance for biodiversity conservation and management. In this context, the identification of key and fragile habitat-forming species is particularly important. Despite their ecological importance, whip corals in the order Antipatharia remain poorly studied around the world, and especially in the South Pacific. During recent expeditions to explore mesophotic and deep benthic habitats around Rapa Nui (Easter Island), dense assemblages of whip black corals were observed in situ. We here report the first detailed description of the distribution and abundance of these black coral assemblages …

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Effects Of Patch Size, Fragmentation, And Invasive Species On Plant And Lepidoptera Communities In Southern Texas, James A. Stilley, Christopher A. Gabler

Biology Faculty Publications and Presentations

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Simple Summary

Human land use has removed habitats, separated habitats into small and disconnected fragments, and introduced foreign species, which all harm wildlife. South Texas is highly diverse and home to many endangered species, but human disturbance threatens its wildlife. In south Texas, we poorly understand how different aspects of human land use influence wildlife diversity and abundance. We studied this by surveying plants and butterflies in 24 habitat fragments in south Texas that differed in size, shape, type, and land use history. Human disturbance was extensive, and foreign and weedy species were dominant in most habitats. Habitat types had …

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Potential Ecological Impacts Of Climate Intervention By Reflecting Sunlight To Cool Earth, Phoebe L. Zarnetske, Jessica Gurevitch, Janet Franklin, Peter M. Groffman, Cheryl S. Harrison, Jessica J. Hellmann, Forrest M. Hoffman, Shan Kothari, Alan Robock, Simone Tilmes

School of Earth, Environmental, and Marine Sciences Faculty Publications and Presentations

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As the effects of anthropogenic climate change become more severe, several approaches for deliberate climate intervention to reduce or stabilize Earth’s surface temperature have been proposed. Solar radiation modification (SRM) is one potential approach to partially counteract anthropogenic warming by reflecting a small proportion of the incoming solar radiation to increase Earth’s albedo. While climate science research has focused on the predicted climate effects of SRM, almost no studies have investigated the impacts that SRM would have on ecological systems. The impacts and risks posed by SRM would vary by implementation scenario, anthropogenic climate effects, geographic region, and by ecosystem, …

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First Description Of Deep Benthic Habitats And Communities Of Oceanic Islands And Seamounts Of The Nazca Desventuradas Marine Park, Chile, Jan M. Tapia-Guerra, Ariadna Mecho, Erin E. Easton, María De Los Ángeles Gallardo, Matthias Gorny, Javier Sellanes

School of Earth, Environmental, and Marine Sciences Faculty Publications and Presentations

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Seamounts and oceanic islands of the Chilean Exclusive Economic Zone at the intersection of the Nazca and Salas y Gómez ridges lie within one of the least explored areas in the world. The sparse information available, mainly for seamounts outside Chilean jurisdiction and shallow-water fauna of the Desventuradas Islands, suggests that the area is a hotspot of endemism. This apparent uniqueness of the fauna motivated the creation of the large Nazca-Desventuradas Marine Park (NDMP, ~ 300,000 km2) around the small islands San Felix and San Ambrosio in 2015. We report for the first time a detailed description of benthic microhabitats …

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Environmental Forcing On Zooplankton Distribution In The Coastal Waters Of The Galápagos Islands: Spatial And Seasonal Patterns In The Copepod Community Structure, Diego F. Figueroa

School of Earth, Environmental, and Marine Sciences Faculty Publications and Presentations

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The oceanographic setting of the Galápagos Archipelago results in a spatially diverse marine environment suitable for a variety of species with different climatic requirements. The goal of this study is to demonstrate that the community of zooplankton in the Galápagos is highly structured by regional differences in productivity patterns and advective sources. Results are mostly based on biodiversity patterns of the copepod community collected over the Galápagos shelf between 2004 and 2006. Two contrasting marine environments were observed: a nutrientrich upwelling system with a shallow mixed layer and a diatom-dominated phytoplankton community in the west, and a non-upwelling system with …

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Rivfishtime: A Global Database Of Fish Time-Series As A Currency For Global Change Ecology Research In Riverine Systems, Lise Comte, Juan Carvajal-Quintero, Pablo A. Tedesco, Ulrich Brose, Tibor Erős, Ana F. Filipe, Marie-Josée Fortin, Katie Irving, Claire Jacquet, Christopher M. Taylor

Biology Faculty Publications and Presentations

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Motivation

We compiled a global database of long-term riverine fish surveys from 46 regional and national monitoring programmes and from individual academic research efforts, with which numerous basic and applied questions in ecology and global change research can be explored. Such spatially and temporally extensive datasets have been lacking for freshwater systems in comparison to terrestrial ones.

Main types of variables contained

The database includes 11,386 time-series of riverine fish community catch data, including 646,270 species-specific abundance records, together with metadata related to the geographical location and sampling methodology of each time-series.

Spatial location and grain

The database contains 11,072 …

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Additions To Philippine Slender Skinks Of The Brachymeles Bonitae Complex (Reptilia: Squamata: Scincidae) Iv: Resurrection And Redescription Of Brachymeles Burksi, Cameron D. Siler, Elyse S. Freitas, Jennifer A. Sheridan, Stephanie N. Maguire, Drew R. Davis, Jessa L. Watters, Kai Wang, Arvin C. Diesmos, Rafe M. Brown

School of Earth, Environmental, and Marine Sciences Faculty Publications and Presentations

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The diversity of Philippine amphibians and reptiles has increased over the last few decades, in part due to re-evaluation of species formerly believed to be widespread. Many of these investigations of widespread species have uncovered multiple closely related cryptic lineages comprising species complexes, each restricted to individual Pleistocene Aggregate Island Complexes (PAICs). One group in particular for which widespread cryptic diversity has been common is the clade of Philippine skinks of the genus Brachymeles. Recent phylogenetic studies of the formerly recognized widespread species Brachymeles bonitae have indicated that this species is actually a complex distributed across several major PAICs and …

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Unexplored Diversity Of The Mesophotic Echinoderm Fauna Of The Easter Island Ecoregion, Ariadna Mecho, Erin E. Easton, Javier Sellanes, Matthias Gorny, Christopher Mah

School of Earth, Environmental, and Marine Sciences Faculty Publications and Presentations

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The Easter Island ecoregion (EIE) is one of the most remote marine areas of the world and encompasses a vast and fragile ecosystem including oceanic islands and seamounts. In January 2014 and March 2016, a remotely operated vehicle was used to explore a subsurface peak off Easter Island (27.23°S, 109.48°W) and a seamount (26.92°S, 110.26°W), respectively located 10 km southwest and 98 km west of the island. More than 950 echinoderms were observed in the 5 h of video recorded during the seven dives conducted at depths between ~ 160 and 280 m. The communities of echinoderms observed at these …

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Arthropod Abundance And Diversity In Street Trees Of South Texas, Usa, Alexis Racelis, Ann T. Vacek, Carol Goolsby, John Brush, John A. Goolsby

Biology Faculty Publications and Presentations

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In urban areas, street trees provide a variety of ecological services, including biodiversity conservation. In this study we examined arthropod diversity on native and non-native street trees sampled during the fall of 2010 and spring of 2011 in McAllen, Texas, one of the most rapidly growing urban areas in the country. Eighty-eight street trees were sampled by removing arthropods from the lower canopy foliage using a hand held vacuum. Arthropods were collected into nylon bags, identified to order, and counted by morphospecies. Overall, street trees supported a significant and diverse population of arthropods: a total of 1,971 arthropods were collected, …

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