Life Sciences Commons^™

Characterization Of Urban Wetland Vegetation And Management Practices, Megan Anne Larson

Graduate Dissertations and Theses

Urban wetlands are important ecosystems that moderate flooding risks and improve water quality. Vegetation is a key component of urban wetlands; plants promote sedimentation, play critical roles in biogeochemical cycling, and provide food and habitats for other organisms. My research focuses on the standing vegetation and seed banks of urban wetland plant communities. Urban wetlands in south-central New York had a higher percent cover of invasive species in the standing vegetation and significantly lower species richness; however, native species were also common in urban flora. These sites had a high percentage of obligate wetland species, and most closely resembled emergent …

Functional Variation In The Mitochondrial Genome Of The Yeast Saccharomyces Cerevisiae, John F. Wolters

Graduate Dissertations and Theses

Mitochondrial haplotypes contribute to functional diversity in natural populations. Uniparental inheritance makes it difficult to characterize the genetic architecture of mitochondrially driven phenotypes. In this work I explored the natural diversity of mitochondrial genomes in the yeast Saccharomyces cerevisiae. Few complete mitochondrial genomes were available for S. cerevisiae owing to challenges in high-throughput sequencing. I developed sequencing strategies using new technologies to generate complete high quality yeast mitochondrial genomes. Comparisons of 100 complete yeast mitochondrial genomes demonstrated extensive variation between populations in coding sequences and variable introns.

I demonstrated that these mitochondrial variants directly caused growth differences in strains with …

Nitrogen Biogeochemistry In Binghamton, Ny, A Medium-Sized Urban Ecosystem, Stephanie Craig

Graduate Dissertations and Theses

Humans have altered nitrogen (N) cycling on a global scale, and elevated nitrogen levels are characteristic of urban ecosystems. The major reasons that N is higher in cities include imports of food, fuel and fertilizer. High N export from both point- and nonpoint-sources is common in large cities. While N cycling has been studied in large urban areas, less is known about its cycling in medium-sized cities, such as Binghamton, N.Y. We found that point-source N exported from the Binghamton-Johnson City Wastewater Treatment Plant (B-JC WWTP) was greater than nonpoint-source N exported from eight urban streams to the Susquehanna River, …