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Full-Text Articles in Ecology and Evolutionary Biology
The Influence Of Conservation Tillage And Conventional Tillage On Soil Bacterial Diversity In Southern Illinois, Nasser Syed
The Influence Of Conservation Tillage And Conventional Tillage On Soil Bacterial Diversity In Southern Illinois, Nasser Syed
Dissertations
Agriculture in the Midwest United States (Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Michigan, Minnesota, Ohio, and Wisconsin) is a critically important component of the United States economy and also for world exports of food grain. This is well reflected in the 2012 Census of Agriculture which showed that these states had a market value of crop and livestock products sold in excess of $80,000,000,000 (USDA, 2012). Within the U.S. the three Midwest states, Illinois, Iowa, and Minnesota are ranked 2nd, 3rd, and 4th for the economic value of crops sold. This economic value of agriculture in the Midwest encompasses not only corn, soybeans, …
The Ecology Of Nest Cavity Use By Arboreal Ants In The Brazilian Cerrado: Resource Availability, Nest Modification, And Trophic Interactions, Galen Priest
Dissertations
Arboreal ants in the Brazilian Cerrado rely on cavities in living trees as nest sites. These cavities are created by a community of, wood-boring beetles, which act as ecosystem engineers. Despite the importance of these cavities as a resource, little is known about their natural abundance and heterogeneity, how ants use and modify them as nest sites, and how this interaction between cavities and their ant occupants influences trophic interactions on cerrado trees. Here I use natural history observations and manipulative experiments to address these questions. In the first chapter I quantified the occurrence, heterogeneity, and use of beetle-created cavities …