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Full-Text Articles in Life Sciences
Climate-Related Declines In Reproductive Output In A High-Elevation Population Of Ground Squirrels, Kayleigh Little
Climate-Related Declines In Reproductive Output In A High-Elevation Population Of Ground Squirrels, Kayleigh Little
Undergraduate Honors Theses
Beginning in the 1900s, changes in climate have resulted in an increase in global temperatures. This warming has driven behavioral and demographic changes within a multitude of species worldwide. Historically, small mammal populations have responded to changes in temperature by adjusting their geographic ranges. As temperatures rise, high-elevation populations may no longer be able to adjust as they have before. In this study, we evaluated possible effects of climate change on a high-elevation population of Belding’s ground squirrels (Urocitellus beldingi) at Tioga Pass in Northern California. We used local climate data and long-term population data from 1994 to …
Epidemiology And Impacts Of A Leaf Spot Disease In Veratrum Viride (Melanthiaceae), Leeah R. Sutton, Foster Levy
Epidemiology And Impacts Of A Leaf Spot Disease In Veratrum Viride (Melanthiaceae), Leeah R. Sutton, Foster Levy
Undergraduate Honors Theses
Fungal phytopathogens can cause disease epidemics in crops, weeds, and
populations of native plants. To investigate the impact of a foliar phytopathogen on the native herbaceous species, Veratrum viride, a demographic and disease assessment was carried out on two high elevation grassy bald populations on Roan Mountain, Tennessee. A leaf spot disease impacted all plants in both populations, causing widespread premature senescence of leaves and stems. Disease severity increased over the course of the growing season. Based on host disease symptoms and fungal conidia morphology, Pseudocercosporella sublineolata was shown to be the causal pathogen. A study of herbarium specimens …
Plant Functional Groups And Success In A Changing Environment: Modeling Physiological Niches Of Colorado Plateau Plants, Anne Thomas
Undergraduate Honors Theses
Quantifying the environmental and physiological niches of plant species is crucial to predicting their sensitivity to global change, and aggregating plant species by functional type is fundamental both to ecological theory and to the practicality of large-scale efforts to predict the consequences of global change. However, traditional functional types are not always predictive of individual species’ responses to change. Here, an inverse species distribution modeling approach is used to identify functionally similar species based on physiological niche in order to better anticipate the consequences of climate change on the Colorado Plateau, USA. The Colorado Plateau is a semiarid region particularly …