Life Sciences Commons^™

The Decline In Monarch Butterfly, Danaus Plexippus, Populations: An Example Of The Global Threat To Biodiversity, Olivia Sidoti

Honors Projects

Biodiversity encompasses the variety of all life on Earth and how these aspects of nature interact with each other. To have stable and abundant biodiversity, vast amounts of species and organisms are required within an ecosystem. As a result of the increase in negative impacts of human activities and behaviors on the health of nature, biodiversity has been decreasing. An example of the decrease in biodiversity is depicted by the recent decline of the monarch butterfly species. The monarch butterfly is an iconic North American insect that is experiencing a decline in its population due to threats such as deforestation, …

Pollinator Communities At The Onu Biological Sanctuary Relative To Midewin National Tallgrass Prairie, Stephanie Clark

Pence-Boyce STEM Student Scholarship

Many species of pollinators around the world have seen a population decline in recent years. Causes of these declines have been linked to several factors such as climate change, pesticide usage, and habitat loss. While previous Olivet Nazarene University research has analyzed the bee community at Midewin National Tallgrass Prairie and some of the savanna areas in Northeast Illinois surrounding Olivet, little is known about the new Swanberg Biological Sanctuary, owned by Olivet, or what butterflies are present in this region of Illinois. We utilized the 13 established transects throughout Midewin National Tallgrass Prairie as well as six new transects …

The Community Ecology Of Ants On The Cumberland Plateau And A Taxonomic Redescription Of The Genus Stenamma Westwood, 1839 (Hymenoptera: Formicidae: Myrmicinae) In A Southeastern Treatment, Zachary Brown

Theses and Dissertations

Grassland communities represent major biodiversity hotspots across the United States. Among these grassland types is the short-leaf pine savanna, a major historical habitat along the Cumberland Plateau. The Cumberland Plateau’s grasslands are under threat due to land use changes such as urbanization and land conversion to pasture and hardwood forests. This study seeks to better understand the community ecology of ants on the Cumberland Plateau using powerlines as a comparison to degraded and historic habitats. Ants have a preference between open sites and forested sites, a separation of 44.5% on a DCA. The Simpson diversity places the short-leaf pine savanna …

Diversity And Lifestyle In The Rotifera, Patrick D. Brown

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

Broad questions regarding community assembly and lifestyle evolution remain unanswered. To answer these questions I used rotifers, common primary consumers present in inland waters. Rotiferan presence in nearly all freshwaters makes them an ideal study system to address questions of metacommunity ecology. Additionally, rotifers possess diverse lifestyles, including sessile, swimming, colonial and solitary forms, allowing them to be used as models of lifestyle evolution. In Chapter 1, I address metacommunity ecology by focusing on inland waters of the Chihuahuan Desert as a study system and investigated rotifer community assembly therein through two published works, Brown et al., 2020 and 2021. …

Monitoring The Effects Of Poultry Waste On Fishes And Macroinvertebrates In The Sabine River, Karley R. Parker

Biology Theses

Freshwater is a vital resource that provides life and sustainability for almost all organisms on Earth. It is important to maintain its health and protect it from emerging pollutants that pose a threat to the organisms that use it. Pollution continues to threaten the well-being of the environment’s freshwater sources all around the world that could lead to damaging effects in the future. The Sabine River is a major freshwater resource in the east Texas and western Louisiana areas that provides a habitat for thousands of organisms as well as other domestic uses for humans. In 2019, a waste discharge …

Improving The Land Trust Model’S Impact On Environmental Conservation In Northern California, Peter Talbot

Master's Projects and Capstones

For years, the land trust sector of California and much of the United States has operated with a dollars and acres mentality that has prioritized fundraising as a result of acreage protected. Within California, nearly 5.8 million acres of land have been protected by 132 land trusts throughout the state. To accommodate for the diverse cross-section of land and the many needs of the population, land trusts take on numerous shapes and sizes. A unique aspect of this diversity is the rich agricultural and natural spaces found throughout the state. This mix of land and variety of land uses has …

Bryophytes Of Goochland County, Virginia, Mikayla Quinn

Honors Theses

Bryophytes are non-vascular land plants that include mosses, liverworts, and hornworts. Although easier to overlook because of their smaller size, bryophytes are a fundamental part of the ecosystem. As such, maintaining record of their biodiversity is important. Yet, records of bryophyte species in Goochland County, VA were low compared to more thoroughly documented counties such as Prince Edward County. This study expands the documentation of bryophyte flora and presents a checklist of bryophyte species found Virginia’s Goochland County from 2020-2023. Fieldwork conducted at public and privately-owned properties throughout the county between January 2020 and March 2023 yielded 702 specimens that …

Molecular Biodiversity Of Foraminifera, Rabindra Thakur

Masters Theses

Foraminifera are a diverse clade of mostly shell-building single-celled organisms. Estimation of foraminiferal diversity is critical for understanding past and present climatic conditions, as they are highly sensitive to environmental perturbations. Biodiversity estimates of foraminifera began with the counting of test (i.e., shell) microfossils composed of calcium carbonate, as they are well preserved in sediment samples. However, this view has changed with molecular biodiversity estimates, which suggest that early-diverging single-chamber (i.e., "monothalamid") species that lack preservation ability are more diverse than anticipated. Although biodiversity estimates of foraminifera at the molecular level have changed our perceptions, they possess various challenges, especially …

Cutaneous Microbiome Of Red Fox (Vulpes Vulpes) Infected With Sarcoptic Mange (Sarcoptes Scabiei), Jacqueline C. Robidoux

Honors Theses and Capstones

Sarcoptic mange is a parasitic skin disease that affects countless mammals worldwide, including red foxes (Vulpes vulpes). The symptoms, such as hair loss, crusting, and the number of mites, vary between individual foxes. Sarcoptic mange damages the skin barrier, which in turn disrupts the biodiversity of bacteria in the microbiome. It is unknown what the biodiversity of bacteria is at each stage of the disease. This experiment will compare the microbiomes of different samples with and without mange; in hopes to reveal a connection between the different severities of sarcoptic mange and the biodiversity of bacteria and fungi …

Comparing Pollinator Communities: Onu’S Swanberg Sanctuary V. Midewin National Tallgrass Prairie, Stephanie Clark

Pence-Boyce STEM Student Scholarship

Pollinators play a key role in both ecosystem diversity and agricultural productivity [1]. Declines for pollinators have been seen across the globe and have been linked to agriculture and urbanization [2]. Several species in Illinois have declined so severely, they are now endangered or of significant conservation concern [1]. Past ONU students have collected data on the bees in Northeast IL. However, there is no data for what species are at the Sanctuary. This study will provide baseline data for future studies and by comparing with Midewin, a mature restoration, we can gain an understanding of distinctiveness.

Are Biodiverse Communities More Resistant To Invasion? A Case Study With Marine Fouling Communities, Taylor Robert Bruntil

Cal Poly Humboldt theses and projects

The theory of biotic resistance predicts that more diverse communities should be less susceptible to invasion by novel species, but given the opposing results of multiple observational and experimental studies in marine systems, it is unclear how changes in environmental conditions can affect invasion success in communities that differ in diversity. I used marine fouling communities to test how the diversity of the species present in an initial community (hereafter termed “resident species”) affected the establishment and growth of all species not present in the initial communities (hereafter termed “novel species”) at two locations at the Eureka Public Marina, in …

To Flee Or Not To Flee: How Range Dynamic Of Alpine Species Are Changing Through Time, Lian Noonan

WWU Graduate School Collection

In response to anthropogenic climate change, alpine floras in particular have been forecasted to shift their ranges upslope and north, yet recent analyses have shown otherwise. While a handful of floras have been found to track the trajectory of predictive models, most floristic elements have remained in their historical ranges despite a changing climate. Therefore, to improve the accuracy of models predicting range shifts, I address the following questions: (1) are mountain floras spatially structured through time; and (2) how are range dynamics of mountain floras changing through time. To address these questions, this study analyzed the herbarium records of …

Csi Botany: Dna Barcode “Fingerprints” Identify Cryptic Urban Flora, Luis R. Vega

Theses

As short genomic markers, DNA barcodes can play a role in conservation by identifying cryptic species and hybrids when morphological approaches fall short. Here we present our application of barcodes to the identities of two wetland taxa as part of an ongoing floristic inventory of Van Cortlandt Park (VCP), Bronx, NY. Previous barcode data by Marriott et al. (2018) identified the VCP lake water lily as the exotic Nymphaea alba, rather than the native N. odorata as historically described. In addition, cattails in the park were historically identified as the native Typha latifolia and the exotic T. angustifolia …

A Biodiversity Survey Of The Soil Crusts Of The Geographically Isolated San Nicholas Island, California, Usa And Description Of Species In Three Genera (Atlanticothix, Pycnacronema, Konicacronema) Previously Restricted To Brazil Using A Polyphasic Approach To Cyanobacterial Taxonomy, Brian Jusko

Masters Theses

San Nicholas Island, California, USA is a geographically-isolated island that experiences a semiarid climate and exhibits significant topographic and geologic diversity. Access to the island is restricted to the public and, as a result, only one previous study has been done on the algal biodiversity of its biological soil crusts. The previous study used morphology as the sole basis of species identification, and it was the aim of this study to corroborate and expand upon the results by including molecular data. Using 16S rRNA and 16S–23S ITS sequences and phylogenetic analyses, a diverse set of taxa were identified and are …

Comparison Of Botanical Composition Methods And Change Over Time In Kentucky Pastures, Echo Elizabeth Gotsick

Theses and Dissertations--Plant and Soil Sciences

Botanical composition of pastures has been measured with numerous methods over the last century, but there have been limited direct comparisons between methods. The objective of this study was to compare botanical composition methods, to determine the most accurate and efficient method, and to access pasture composition change over time. Six farms with two pastures each were monitored across the state of Kentucky. Sampling occurred fall 2020 through fall 2022, three times a year using the following methods: step point, visual estimation, occupancy grid, and point quadrat (used as a reference method). The occupancy grid showed the highest similarity to …

Macrolichen Inventory Of The Horse Mountain Botanical Area, Six Rivers National Forest, California, Usa, Sarah Norvell Conway

Cal Poly Humboldt theses and projects

Macrolichen diversity and community composition was determined for an area of high botanical interest in the Coast Ranges of Northern California – the Horse Mountain Botanical Area (HMBA) in Six Rivers National Forest. The Coast Ranges have been suggested to have high epiphytic macrolichen diversity, yet detailed site-specific macrolichen surveys are lacking for the area. Here we present comprehensive data on macrolichens of the HMBA integrated with environmental metadata at the landscape level. Twenty 0.4 ha sampling plots were positioned across the varying habitats of the HMBA and macrolichens were intensively sampled from all substrata. Out of 888 total collections, …

Fish Community Responses To Environmental And Anthropogenic Conditions In West Virginia, Katherine A. Adase

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports

While Appalachia is among the oldest region in the world, Central West Virginia watersheds have been impacted by anthropogenic stressors, including extractive mining and timber harvest industries, as well as urban development and agriculture, damns, fracking, mining, and land cover use. This study aims to understand how natural environmental and human altered gradients impact affect diversity of fish communities in streams and rivers throughout Central Appalachia. The first chapter aims to provide insights into the impact of the 2016 low head dam removals on taxonomic and functional fish communities in the West Fork River, West Virginia and the potential benefits …

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

Theses and Dissertations

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) …

Population Demography, Spatial Ecology, And Habitat Use Of The Florida Box Turtle (Terrapene Bauri) On A Barrier Island, Michael D. Mills

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Turtles are one the most threatened vertebrate groups in the world due to anthropogenic threats such as habitat loss and overexploitation. In addition to occupying a range that has been vulnerable to major habitat loss, the Florida box turtle (Terrapene bauri) is particularly at risk of overexploitation due to its popularity in the pet trade. Sanibel Island is a barrier island in southwest Florida that has experienced major habitat loss and is the site of a recent poaching event. In response to these threats, studies of both the population demography and spatial ecology were conducted on Sanibel’s Florida box turtle …

Biodiversity And Foraging Preferences Of Bee Communities At Pinnacles National Park Over Time, Abigail M. E. Lehner

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Spring 1920 to Summer 2023

Bees are considered to be the most important animal pollinator, providing billions of dollars in pollination services each year. Despite their importance in both natural and agricultural settings, the status of most native bees is unknown. Native bees are subject to a variety of threats including habitat loss, pesticide use, and climate change. Yet, monitoring programs have been implemented in few natural areas. Pinnacles National Park, PNP, in California is one of the only natural areas to have a large historical dataset on bees across decades with surveys conducted in 1996, 1997, 1998, 1999, 2002, 2011, and 2012. These surveys …

Hidden Mechanisms Of Climate Impacts In Western Forests: Integrating Theory And Observation For Climate Adaptation, Sara J. Germain

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Spring 1920 to Summer 2023

Fire, insects, and disease are necessary components of forest ecosystems. Yet, climate change is intensifying these tree stressors and creating new interactions that threaten forest survival. This dissertation combined field observations with statistical predictions of changing disturbances in western forests to identify 1) how conventional models may underestimate future forest loss, and 2) how positive relationships between trees may be exploited by managers to prevent forest loss.

In Chapter II, I tested whether increasingly extreme weather with climate change increases Pacific yew extinction risk. I found that conventional modeling methods underestimated local extinction risk because trees were adapted to a …

Distribution Of Carrion-Associated Beetles And Their Phoretic Mites Along An Urban-Rural Gradient In Northeast Alabama, Kennedy Norris

Theses

Global insect decline has been linked to urbanization, most notably by habitat fragmentation. These insects perform important ecological functions such as pollination, managing pests, and decomposing carrion to recycle nutrients back into the environment. Despite the importance of nutrient recycling behavior displayed by carrion-associated beetles, little research has been done on them in the southeastern US. Previous studies have found a relationship between urbanization, less favorable environmental conditions, carrion availability, and decreased insect diversity. However, no studies have been conducted in the southeastern United States on the relationship of these beetles to their environment despite having the highest rates of …

Molecular And Morphological Investigations Of Grouper (Serranidae) Biodiversity In Saudi Arabia, Mohammad Saeed Al Jazza Alqahtani

Theses and Dissertations

Chapter 1: The seas surrounding the Arabian Peninsula, which represent the northernmost portion of the Indian Ocean, are considered to have the highest aquatic biodiversity among the worlds marine regions. Seas that surround the Arabian Peninsula include the Red Sea, the Gulf of Aden, the Arabian Sea, the Gulf of Oman, and the Arabian Gulf. In aggregate, this area harbors a large number of endemic and more widespread marine species, including fishes, echinoderms, and corals.

There are unique challenges involved in grouper species identification in the Arabian region including ‘familiar’ Arabic species designations that are not standardized in the Arabic …

Effects Of Forest Restoration On The Recovery Of Dead Wood, Associated Arthropods, And Insect-Mediated Wood Decomposition, Estefania Fernandez Barrancos

Dissertations

Dead wood represents 8% of terrestrial carbon stocks and is an important source of habitat and food for decomposer and non-decomposer arthropods. However, anthropogenic disturbance reduces the amount of dead wood, putting at risk the presence of a habitat that is essential for many arthropods and other organisms that rely on it for food and shelter. Forest restoration aims to assist the recovery of ecosystems that have been damaged or destroyed and could be a means to recover both dead wood and its associated arthropod communities. This doctoral dissertation lies at the intersection of climate change, biodiversity loss and ecological …

Life After Death – Does Carcass Biodiversity Scale With Carcass Body Size?, Troy Warfield

Biological Sciences Undergraduate Honors Theses

Mammals play a large role in the ecosystems where some, especially large-bodied mammals, act as ecosystem engineers. Mammal carcasses, particularly those of large body mass act as a temporary island of dense nutrients that support other organisms, including other mammal species, for an extended period. Research in this field currently focuses on the link between mammal carcass size and nutrient availably or on non-mammalian size and biodiversity, but little is available on the correlation between mammal carcass size and its influence on ecosystem biodiversity. Here we ask, does the available biomass (i.e., body size) of the carcass affect its role …

The Consequences Of Climate Change For Native Bee Assemblages, Melanie R. Kazenel

Biology ETDs

Recent declines in terrestrial arthropod biodiversity highlight the need to pinpoint which taxa and ecosystem services are most threatened, and why. But, for most of the world’s ~20,000 bee species, we lack robust evidence of population trends, and the role of climate change remains surprisingly little studied. I used long-term bee monitoring data from the Sevilleta Long-Term Ecological Research Program (Socorro, NM, USA), along with complementary experimental and observational data, to examine how climate relates to bee abundance and diversity patterns over time and space, and to identify the traits that govern bees’ climate sensitivities.

Historical And Future Role Of Wilmar Palm Oil In Deforestation Of Indonesian Borneo, Sam Coroniti Iii

Senior Theses

Borneo is one of the most biologically diverse locations on Earth, with thousands of endemic and rare species forming unique and intricate relationships throughout the ecosystems. Orangutans, elephants, leopards, tigers, rhinos, and many more species call this island their home, although population levels for all of the mentioned species have been in seriously decline over recent decades. The loss of primary rainforest that provides the most critical habitat for these species has occurred at the highest rate that has ever been seen on Earth, leading to extreme land conversion and greenhouse gas producing operations. The primary driver of these actions …

Manipulating Species Diversity: Environmental Impacts In Row Crop, Livestock, And Grassland Agroecosystems, Alayna A. Jacobs

Theses and Dissertations--Plant and Soil Sciences

The diversity of living species in an agroecosystem affects both natural resources and agricultural production efficiency. The rise of managed plant monocultures has allowed agricultural yields to increase over time. However, simplifying agroecosystems affects the capacity of the system to sustainably provide clean air, water, and productive soils essential for continued food and fiber production. This dissertation manipulates species diversity in row crop and forage agroecosystems prevalent in the Eastern United States and tracks the associated environmental and agricultural production consequences.

In row crop agroecosystems, increasing plant diversity with winter cover crops has been suggested as a strategy to increase …

Environmental Effects On Constructed Wetland Microbial Diversity And Function In The Context Of Wastewater Management, Sandrine Grandmont-Lemire

Cal Poly Humboldt theses and projects

Microbial communities play a crucial role in ecosystems, yet we know little about how microbial diversity influences ecosystem functioning. An important gap in our understanding is how environmental change affects microbial Biodiversity-Ecosystem Function relationships (BEF). These complex interactions between microbial biodiversity and ecosystem function can influence major biogeochemical processes, such as the nitrogen cycle in wetland ecosystems, which play an important role in managing wastewater. To address the effect of biodiversity on function, my study investigates the BEF relationships between microbial diversity and the function in terms of ammonia removal from wastewater at the Arcata Wastewater Treatment Facility (AWTF) both …

A Flora Of Coyote Ridge And Flat, Inyo County, California, Martin Purdy

CGU Theses & Dissertations

California’s Sierra Nevada mountain range contains a disproportionate share of the state’s plant diversity and is one of the most floristically diverse regions of its size in the United States. The high Sierra Nevada, in particular, has been identified as an important center of species richness and endemism within California. Anthropogenic climate warming is expected to disproportionately affect mountain ecosystems, and models have predicted serious habitat contraction and extirpation for many alpine plant taxa. A specimen-based inventory of the vascular and non-vascular plants of Coyote Ridge and Flat was conducted to establish baseline data for one such sensitive alpine and …