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Full-Text Articles in Life Sciences

Sea Surface Temperature Rises Shift Migration Patterns Due To Ecosystem Changes, Alexia Skrbic, Hesham El-Askary Dec 2016

Sea Surface Temperature Rises Shift Migration Patterns Due To Ecosystem Changes, Alexia Skrbic, Hesham El-Askary

Student Scholar Symposium Abstracts and Posters

The continuing climate change is negatively impacting ecosystems, specifically oceans which are declining and food webs are being altered by the increase of greenhouse gases. The increase of the carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases is increasing sea surface temperature of the world’s oceans. Certain organisms lower on the food chain like phytoplankton and zooplankton are directly affected by the warming which alters how they process nutrients and their productivity. The limited amount of these primary producers in the oceans and specifically the location they inhabit directly affects all the organisms above them on the food chain. Several marine animals …


Irrigated And Rainfed Crops Zea Mays L. (Maize) And Glycine Max (Soybean) Acting As A Source Or Sink For Atmospheric Warming At Mead, Nebraska, Jane A. Okalebo Dr., Kenneth G. Hubbard, Andy Suyker May 2016

Irrigated And Rainfed Crops Zea Mays L. (Maize) And Glycine Max (Soybean) Acting As A Source Or Sink For Atmospheric Warming At Mead, Nebraska, Jane A. Okalebo Dr., Kenneth G. Hubbard, Andy Suyker

Conference on Applied Statistics in Agriculture

Land Use and Land Cover Change (LULCC) influence the climate at a global and local scale. Using long term microclimate data (2002-2009, 2011-2012) from the Carbon Sequestration Project (CSP), Mead, NE, this study examines how crop selection and water management can mitigate heat in the atmosphere. Mitigation of global warming is dependent on the management of crop lands, and the amount and timing of rainfall during the growing season. Rainfed crops were found to heat the passing air. The irrigated maize crop was able to mitigate 20 to 62% of the sensible heat (H) compared to the rainfed maize counterpart, …


Body Size Distributions Signal A Regime Shift In A Lake Ecosystem, Trisha L. Spanbauer, Craig R. Allen, David G. Angeler, Tarsha Eason, Sherilyn C. Fritz, Ahjond S. Garmestani, Kirsty L. Nash, Jeffery R. Stone, Craig A. Stow, Shana M. Sundstrom Jan 2016

Body Size Distributions Signal A Regime Shift In A Lake Ecosystem, Trisha L. Spanbauer, Craig R. Allen, David G. Angeler, Tarsha Eason, Sherilyn C. Fritz, Ahjond S. Garmestani, Kirsty L. Nash, Jeffery R. Stone, Craig A. Stow, Shana M. Sundstrom

Nebraska Cooperative Fish and Wildlife Research Unit: Staff Publications

Communities of organisms, from mammals to microorganisms, have discontinuous distributions of body size. This pattern of size structuring is a conservative trait of community organization and is a product of processes that occur at multiple spatial and temporal scales. In this study, we assessed whether body size patterns serve as an indicator of a threshold between alternative regimes. Over the past 7000 years, the biological communities of Foy Lake (Montana, USA) have undergone a major regime shift owing to climate change. We used a palaeoecological record of diatom communities to estimate diatom sizes, and then analysed the discontinuous distribution of …


Assessing The Impacts Of Climate Change On The Surface Temperature Of Inland Lakes In Michigan, Kaitlin Reinl Jan 2016

Assessing The Impacts Of Climate Change On The Surface Temperature Of Inland Lakes In Michigan, Kaitlin Reinl

Dissertations, Master's Theses and Master's Reports

The aim of this study was to validate and apply a lake model for predicting the susceptibility of small inland lakes in Michigan to changes in thermal regime and increased cyanobacteria growth as a result of future climate conditions. The Freshwater Lake Model was selected, tested for sensitivity to various inputs, and validated through comparison to observed conditions. The sensitivity analysis showed that the lake model was most sensitive to solar radiation, air temperature, and air humidity. Comparison of predicted climate data with observed conditions revealed highly variable climate model error. The lake model validation was conducted using 10 lakes …