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Articles 1 - 13 of 13

Full-Text Articles in Biodiversity

Eat Your Invasives: A Practical And Historical Analysis Of Foraging For Invasive Foods, Grace Hartman Dec 2022

Eat Your Invasives: A Practical And Historical Analysis Of Foraging For Invasive Foods, Grace Hartman

Honors Projects

This paper discusses both the historical and modern role of foraging and why people may decide to forage, as well as barriers new foragers may face and how they can be overcome. Furthermore, the paper discusses how foraging for invasive species can be used as a method of conservation and how simple foraging can be encouraged for this reason.


Diversity Of Bacteriophage In Burkholderia Species, Abigail Price Apr 2022

Diversity Of Bacteriophage In Burkholderia Species, Abigail Price

Honors Projects

Bacteriophages are viruses that infect and replicate within bacteria and offer the potential of a therapeutic alternative to chronic infections that do not respond to antibiotic-based therapies. B. vietnamiensis is one of a number of Burkholderia species involved with chronic drug resistant infections in the lungs of individuals with compromised respiratory systems, as found in those with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease and, most especially, are of particular significance in patients with cystic fibrosis. The diversity of the Burkholderia species is explored by using online databases and looking at bacteriophage or phage-encoding viruses found in B. vietnamiensis. The open reading frames …


Assessing Environmental Factors That Influence Cyanobacterial Blooms In Skinn Lake, Kloe Atwood Apr 2022

Assessing Environmental Factors That Influence Cyanobacterial Blooms In Skinn Lake, Kloe Atwood

Honors Projects

Global lakes are experiencing an increase in toxic algal blooms that can be damaging to the environment. These blooms are caused by cyanobacteria, specifically a species called Planktothrix. Skinn Lake, in Ohio, is a location of a cyanobacterial bloom that is mainly populated by Planktothrix rubescens. This lake was further examined to identify the major toxin-producing bacteria and identify environmental microbes surrounding the bloom. When the data was examined it was found that the microbiomes of the lake greatly differed between the winter (bloom) months and the summer (non-bloom) months. This difference can be viewed within the nutrient analysis from …


The Mangroves Of Costa Rica, Kylie Stewart Feb 2020

The Mangroves Of Costa Rica, Kylie Stewart

Honors Projects

Mangroves are a type of coastal vegetation present in the intertidal zone of tropical and subtropical climates. This paper explores the mangroves of Costa Rica, their significance, and various strategies the country utilizes in order to protect mangrove forests. Several books and articles about mangroves and conservationism are examined to explain why mangrove forests are vital to a coastline’s health and growth. The scholarly topic pertains to mangroves located in the United States and Costa Rica along with methods used to maintain the wildlife that live within them. The concept of ecotourism will be explored and how mangrove forests are …


Predator Water Balance Alters Intraguild Predation In A Streamsidefood Web, Israel L. Leinbach, Kevin E. Mccluney, John L. Sabo Jan 2019

Predator Water Balance Alters Intraguild Predation In A Streamsidefood Web, Israel L. Leinbach, Kevin E. Mccluney, John L. Sabo

Biological Sciences Faculty Publications

Previous work suggests that animal water balance can influence trophic interactions, with predators increasing their consumption of water-laden prey to meet water demands.But it is unclear how the need for water interacts with the need for energy to drive trophic interactions under shifting conditions. Using manipulative field experiments, we show that water balance influences the effects of top predators on prey with contrasting ratios of water and energy, altering the frequency of intraguild predation. Water-stressed top predators (large spiders) negatively affect water-laden basal prey (crickets), especially male prey with higher water content, whereas alleviation of water limitation causes top predators …


Saving The Planet Begins With Saving The Coral Reefs, Marla Maconochie Dec 2017

Saving The Planet Begins With Saving The Coral Reefs, Marla Maconochie

Honors Projects

This honors project uses a children’s book format to aid in explaining the importance of saving the coral reefs. This book will be informing the younger generations about important, yet complicated issues at hand in a way that they can understand and relate to. The book explains how coral reefs are important for oxygen production, biodiversity, research opportunities, protection of coastal environments and for the economy. The children’s book explains how human activities and natural stressors can impact coral survivorship. The book explains how overfishing allows for excessive algal growth that smothers corals and tackles how coral bleaching occurs and …


Urbanization Alters Communities Of Flying Arthropods In Parks And Gardens Of A Medium-Sized City, Edward Lagucki, Justin D. Burdine, Kevin E. Mccluney Sep 2017

Urbanization Alters Communities Of Flying Arthropods In Parks And Gardens Of A Medium-Sized City, Edward Lagucki, Justin D. Burdine, Kevin E. Mccluney

Biological Sciences Faculty Publications

Urbanization transforms undeveloped landscapes into built environments, causing changes in communities and ecological processes. Flying arthropods play important roles in these processes as pollinators, decomposers, and predators, and can be important in structuring food webs. The goal of this study was to identify associations between urbanization and the composition of communities of flying (and floating) arthropods within gardens and parks in a medium-sized mesic city. We predicted that flying arthropod abundance and diversity would respond strongly to percent impervious surface and distance to city center, measurements of urbanization. Flying arthropods were sampled from 30 gardens and parks along an urbanization …


Variation In Arthropod Hydration Across Us Cities With Distinct Climate, Kevin E. Mccluney, Justin D. Burdine, Steven D. Frank Jan 2017

Variation In Arthropod Hydration Across Us Cities With Distinct Climate, Kevin E. Mccluney, Justin D. Burdine, Steven D. Frank

Biological Sciences Faculty Publications

Increasing evidence suggests that altered environmental conditions within cities (e.g. temperature) can have strong effects on the biology and ecology of animals. Moreover, multiple abiotic (e.g. soil moisture, distributions of water bodies) and biotic factors (e.g. plant and animal communities) may be more similar among cities in distinct climate regions as compared to outside cities. But the mechanisms behind these patterns are unclear. We suggest that animal physiological condition responds to urbanization and may become more similar with urbanization among cities. As a first attempt at assessing this possibility, we measured hydration (water content) of field-collected arthropods, across variation in …


The Influence Of Beached Harmful Algal Blooms On Terrestrial Arthropods On The Shore Of Lake Erie, Nadejda Mirochnitchenko, Kevin E. Mccluney May 2016

The Influence Of Beached Harmful Algal Blooms On Terrestrial Arthropods On The Shore Of Lake Erie, Nadejda Mirochnitchenko, Kevin E. Mccluney

Honors Projects

Marine primary inputs, such as sea wrack and algae, offer a great niche for insects and other animals to exploit. The existence of a similar niche on the coast of lakes has received less attention. To complicate matters, many freshwater systems are seeing increases in proliferation of toxic and non-toxic cyanobacteria blooms. This study examined patterns in lake shore terrestrial arthropod abundance, diversity, and community composition across gradients of beached algae, with varying toxicity. We detected water microcystin effects on arthropod richness in survey three, beached material effects on Shannon’s Diversity in survey two, and water microcystin effects on the …


Sensitivity And Tolerance Of Riparian Arthropod Communities To Altered Water Resources Along A Drying River, Kevin E. Mccluney, John L. Sabo Oct 2014

Sensitivity And Tolerance Of Riparian Arthropod Communities To Altered Water Resources Along A Drying River, Kevin E. Mccluney, John L. Sabo

Biological Sciences Faculty Publications

Rivers around the world are drying with increasing frequency, but little is known about effects on terrestrial animal communities. Previous research along the San Pedro River in southeastern AZ, USA, suggests that changes in the availability of water resources associated with river drying lead to changes in predator abundance, community composition, diversity, and abundance of particular taxa of arthropods, but these observations have not yet been tested manipulatively.


Water As A Trophic Currency In Dryland Food Webs, Daniel C. Allen, Kevin E. Mccluney, Stephen R. Elser, John L. Sabo Dec 2013

Water As A Trophic Currency In Dryland Food Webs, Daniel C. Allen, Kevin E. Mccluney, Stephen R. Elser, John L. Sabo

Biological Sciences Faculty Publications

Water is essential for life on Earth, yet little is known about how water acts as a trophic currency, a unit of value in determining species interactions in terrestrial food webs. We tested the relative importance of groundwater and surface water in riparian food webs by manipulating their availability in dryland floodplains. Primary consumers (crickets) increased in abundance in response to added surface water and groundwater (contained in moist leaves), and predators (spiders and lizards) increased in abundance in response to added surface water, in spite of the presence of a river, an abundant water source. Moreover, the relative magnitude …


Tracing Water Sources Of Terrestrial Animal Populations With Stable Isotopes: Laboratory Tests With Crickets And Spiders, Kevin E. Mccluney, John L. Sabo Dec 2010

Tracing Water Sources Of Terrestrial Animal Populations With Stable Isotopes: Laboratory Tests With Crickets And Spiders, Kevin E. Mccluney, John L. Sabo

Biological Sciences Faculty Publications

Fluxes of carbon, nitrogen, and water between ecosystem components and organisms have great impacts across levels of biological organization. Although much progress has been made in tracing carbon and nitrogen, difficulty remains in tracing water sources from the ecosystem to animals and among animals (the ‘‘water web’’). Naturally occurring, nonradioactive isotopes of hydrogen and oxygen in water provide a potential method for tracing water sources. However, using this approach for terrestrial animals is complicated by a change in water isotopes within the body due to differences in activity of heavy and light isotopes during cuticular and transpiratory water losses. Here …


Water Availability Directly Determines Per Capita Consumption At Two Trophic Levels, Kevin E. Mccluney, John L. Sabo Jan 2009

Water Availability Directly Determines Per Capita Consumption At Two Trophic Levels, Kevin E. Mccluney, John L. Sabo

Biological Sciences Faculty Publications

Community ecology has long focused on energy and nutrients as currencies of species interactions. Evidence from physiological ecology and recent studies suggest that in terrestrial systems, water may influence animal behavior and global patterns of species richness. Despite these observations, water has received little attention as a currency directly influencing animal species interactions. Here, we show that the per capita interaction strength between predatory wolf spiders and their primary prey, field crickets, is strong (0.266) when predators and prey are maintained in ambient dry conditions, but is near zero (0.001) when water is provided ad libitum. Moreover, crickets consume 31-fold …