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Ecology and Evolutionary Biology Commons™
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Articles 1 - 30 of 30
Full-Text Articles in Ecology and Evolutionary Biology
Reducing Food Scarcity: The Benefits Of Urban Farming, S.A. Claudell, Emilio Mejia
Reducing Food Scarcity: The Benefits Of Urban Farming, S.A. Claudell, Emilio Mejia
Journal of Nonprofit Innovation
Urban farming can enhance the lives of communities and help reduce food scarcity. This paper presents a conceptual prototype of an efficient urban farming community that can be scaled for a single apartment building or an entire community across all global geoeconomics regions, including densely populated cities and rural, developing towns and communities. When deployed in coordination with smart crop choices, local farm support, and efficient transportation then the result isn’t just sustainability, but also increasing fresh produce accessibility, optimizing nutritional value, eliminating the use of ‘forever chemicals’, reducing transportation costs, and fostering global environmental benefits.
Imagine Doris, who is …
Protocol For An Agent-Based Model Of Recombination In Bacteria Playing A Public Goods Game, Isaiah Paolo A. Lee, Omar T. Eldakar, J. Peter Gogarten, Cheryl P. Andam
Protocol For An Agent-Based Model Of Recombination In Bacteria Playing A Public Goods Game, Isaiah Paolo A. Lee, Omar T. Eldakar, J. Peter Gogarten, Cheryl P. Andam
Biology Faculty Articles
Agent-based models are composed of individual agents coded for traits, such as cooperation and cheating, that interact in a virtual world based on defined rules. Here, we describe the use of an agent-based model of homologous recombination in bacteria playing a public goods game. We describe steps for software installation, setting model parameters, running and testing models, and visualization and statistical analysis. This protocol is useful in analyses of horizontal gene transfer, bacterial sociobiology, and game theory.
For complete details on the use and execution of this protocol, please refer to Lee et al.1
Assessing The Role Of The Microbiome, Parasite Infections, And Movement In Avian Health, Olivia N. Choi
Assessing The Role Of The Microbiome, Parasite Infections, And Movement In Avian Health, Olivia N. Choi
Electronic Theses and Dissertations
Avian health encompasses the physical, physiological, and behavioral well-being of birds. Assessing avian health is not only important for the conservation and management of wild birds and the recreational economy, but also for the management of infectious diseases that threaten public health and agriculture. Birds, comprising approximately 10,000 species and an estimated 50 billion individuals worldwide, are known to be involved in the spread of pathogens, some of which are zoonotic (from animals to humans), such as avian influenza and West Nile viruses. Individual measures of avian health may include physical measurements (e.g., body mass, wing length), pathogen infection status, …
Breaking Virulent: The Coincidental Evolution Of Virulence Factors In Bacteria., Rhiannon Emmanuelle Cecil
Breaking Virulent: The Coincidental Evolution Of Virulence Factors In Bacteria., Rhiannon Emmanuelle Cecil
Electronic Theses and Dissertations
Understanding how innocuous organisms can evolve to be pathogenic to humans is of increasing global concern. Further, understanding how existing pathogens may evolved to be more virulent is also vital to our ability to provide healthcare to people afflicted with diseases that promote chronic bacterial infections, such as cystic fibrosis. With the rise of antibiotic resistance in both bacteria and fungi it is paramount that new therapeutics are identified. Understanding what mutations occur that result in increased virulence in microbes can potentially provide new targets for antimicrobial drugs to combat antibiotic resistance. The Coincidental Evolution Hypothesis is a fundamental hypothesis …
Distinguishing Community Assembly Through Functional Redundancy Models., Sandra A. Tsiorintsoa, Sharon Bewick, Matthew Macauley
Distinguishing Community Assembly Through Functional Redundancy Models., Sandra A. Tsiorintsoa, Sharon Bewick, Matthew Macauley
Annual Symposium on Biomathematics and Ecology Education and Research
No abstract provided.
Connecting The Nebraska Water Quality Index To The Aquatic Microbial Community Of The North Platte River Basin, Nebraska, Paula R. Guastello
Connecting The Nebraska Water Quality Index To The Aquatic Microbial Community Of The North Platte River Basin, Nebraska, Paula R. Guastello
School of Natural Resources: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research
The Nebraska Water Quality Index, under development by the Nebraska Department of Environment and Energy, summarizes in a single value eight environmental parameters that have been monitored in Nebraska for nearly 20 years. Water quality parameters including those used in the Nebraska Water Quality Index have been shown in previous studies to impact bacterial growth. As such, this index has the potential to correlate with the freshwater microbial community. Here, I relate the Nebraska Water Quality Index to microbial community composition and structure using 16S rRNA gene amplicon sequence data collected from the North Platte River Basin, Nebraska. This index …
Tracing Evolution Of Gene Transfer Agents Using Comparative Genomics, Roman Kogay
Tracing Evolution Of Gene Transfer Agents Using Comparative Genomics, Roman Kogay
Dartmouth College Ph.D Dissertations
The accumulating evidence suggest that viruses and their components can be domesticated by their hosts, equipping them with convenient molecular toolkits for various functions. One of such domesticated system is Gene Transfer Agents (GTAs) that are produced by some bacteria and archaea. GTAs morphologically resemble small phage-like particles and contain random fragments of their host genome. They are produced only by a small fraction of the microbial population and are released through a lysis of the host cell. Bioinformatic analyses suggest that GTAs are especially abundant in the taxonomic class of Alphaproteobacteria, where they are vertically inherited and evolve …
Organic Carbon Decay Mediated By Mesopelagic Microbial Communities, Noah Jonathan Craft
Organic Carbon Decay Mediated By Mesopelagic Microbial Communities, Noah Jonathan Craft
OES Theses and Dissertations
Substantial remineralization of organic carbon occurs in the mesopelagic zone (i.e., the biological pump), the efficiency of which is responsible for the oceans’ capacity to store carbon originally derived from the atmosphere. To better understand how a substrate’s composition influences its degradation by mesopelagic microbial communities, we added treatments made of live algal cells, dead particulate organic carbon and dissolved organic carbon from 14C-labeled algal cultures to mesopelagic water collected in-situ. Each incubation took place in the laboratory over a period of months, during which PO14C, DO14C, ATP, prokaryote abundances and biochemical fractions were measured. …
Evolution Of Overlapping Reading Frames In Virus Genomes, Laura Muñoz Baena
Evolution Of Overlapping Reading Frames In Virus Genomes, Laura Muñoz Baena
Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository
Viruses are formidable pathogens that represent the majority of biological entities in our planet, and their genomes are a source of interesting enigmas. One feature in which virus genomes are usually rich, is the presence of overlapping reading frames (OvRFs) — portions of the genome where the same nucleotide sequence encodes more than one protein. OvRFs are hypothesized to be used by viruses to encode proteins more compactly and to regulate transcription. In addition, OvRFs might be a source of gene novelty, facilitating the creation of new open reading frames (ORF) within the transcriptional context of existing ones.
To characterize …
Sympatric Soil Microbe Interactions Between Streptomyces And Fusarium Isolates, Lehren A. Olk-Szost
Sympatric Soil Microbe Interactions Between Streptomyces And Fusarium Isolates, Lehren A. Olk-Szost
All NMU Master's Theses
Interkingdom interactions between soil bacteria and fungi may play a critical role in occurrence of disease suppressive soils, yet our understanding of these interactions remains limited. Streptomyces are well-known producers of antimicrobial compounds important to medicine and agriculture. Production of these secondary metabolites is often mediated by quorum sensing. Most Streptomyces research occurs in single species experiments, yet new metabolites have been discovered in interspecies co-culture experiments. Interspecies, intergenic, and interkingdom co-culture research will likely reveal many valuable compounds, and strengthen our understanding of complex ecological interactions in soil microbiomes. Interactions between sympatric Streptomyces and Fusarium isolates from disease suppressive …
Characterization Of Antimicrobial Properties Of Excrement And Functional Microbiome Of Black Vultures (Coragyps Atratus), Bridgette Gray
Characterization Of Antimicrobial Properties Of Excrement And Functional Microbiome Of Black Vultures (Coragyps Atratus), Bridgette Gray
Theses
Black vultures, Coragyps atratus, are obligate scavenging birds that consume and dispose of decaying carcasses and carrion. They fulfill a key ecological niche in the environments in which they live. It has been observed that these vultures sometimes excrete bodily waste onto their legs. This adaptive behavior could help aid them in controlling bacteria and other microbes they encounter while stepping into a carcass to eat. This study directly examined the antimicrobial properties of the excrement of black vultures across various bacterial species utilizing a zone of inhibition test and a nematode species utilizing a survival assay. The black vulture …
Considerations For The Use Of Mycorrhizal Fungi Inoculants In Coal Mine Reclamation And Reforestation In Appalachia: A Guide Of Best Practices And Management Recommendations, Cole Hansen Reistrup
Considerations For The Use Of Mycorrhizal Fungi Inoculants In Coal Mine Reclamation And Reforestation In Appalachia: A Guide Of Best Practices And Management Recommendations, Cole Hansen Reistrup
Master's Projects and Capstones
Nearly all terrestrial plants form symbiotic relationships with mycorrhizal fungi. These beneficial soil microbes support plant health by increasing plants’ access to nutrients and water, protecting them from pathogens, improving soil properties, and more. A challenge to restoring forests on coal mined land in Appalachia is that mine soils are often degraded in a number of ways, including lacking mycorrhizal fungi, which makes mine soils difficult for trees to grow upon. Substantial improvements to coal mine reforestation success have been made since the development of the Forestry Reclamation Approach in 2005 that provides guidelines for how to create a suitable …
Eco-Interoception: What Plants, Fungi And Protista Have Taught My Body, Sara Riley Dotterer
Eco-Interoception: What Plants, Fungi And Protista Have Taught My Body, Sara Riley Dotterer
Art Theses and Dissertations
To me, ecology is the relational, full-body awareness that I am made up of and deeply connected to everything around me; and for better or worse, this is reciprocal. I form ecotones, an ecological transitional zone between two ecosystems, with the world around me. I use this ecotonal lens to blur binaries and dissolve boundaries between me and the world “outside my body.” During my Masters of Fine Arts at Southern Methodist University, I have continuously explored and represented the lives of various more-than-human species outside of my body, including plants, fungi and protista through an ecotonal lens. Although these …
Mechanistic Examination Of Protist-Mediated Plant Growth Through The Comparative Development Of Medicago Truncatula, Shane Connolly
Mechanistic Examination Of Protist-Mediated Plant Growth Through The Comparative Development Of Medicago Truncatula, Shane Connolly
University Scholar Projects
Protists are known to increase plant growth through two main mechanisms: the microbial loop and the alteration of the root microbiome. The microbial loop is a nutrient recycling method in which protists provide inorganic nitrogen ions to the plant. Alteration of root microbiome leads to the removal of plant pathogens and shifting communities towards plant growth-promoting bacteria (PGPB). This study aimed to elicit which mechanism could produce the largest boost in shoot weight for Medicago truncatula. A series of microcosm experiments were explored in which M. truncatula was grown with variable microbiome structures to allow for mechanism differentiation. The …
Causes And Consequences Of Lasr Mutant Selection In Pseudomonas Aeruginosa Populations, Dallas L. Mould
Causes And Consequences Of Lasr Mutant Selection In Pseudomonas Aeruginosa Populations, Dallas L. Mould
Dartmouth College Ph.D Dissertations
Change is the only constant in life, and these changes, though random in nature, can have consequences. Quorum sensing is heterogeneous in phenotype and prone to negative selection. In P. aeruginosa, the regulator LasR is frequently non-functional in phylogenetically diverse isolates. Through repeated experimental evolution and mathematical modeling, we show that differences in growth enable lasR mutant evolutionary success and this requires a system enabling metabolic choices, known as carbon catabolite repression (or catabolite repression). The differences in catabolite repression between wild type and lasR mutants enable altered metabolite preferences, and the resulting differences in metabolic states enable intraspecies …
The Response Of Microcystis And The Microbiome To Exogenous Hydrogen Peroxide, Bryan A. Puma
The Response Of Microcystis And The Microbiome To Exogenous Hydrogen Peroxide, Bryan A. Puma
Masters Theses, 2020-current
Microcystis spp. produce prolific annual blooms in freshwater systems worldwide. The success of these blooms depends heavily on the Microcystis spp. overcoming environmental factors such as oxidative stress caused by reactive oxygen species (ROS) like hydrogen peroxide. Most Microcystis genomes do not contain many genes for responding to oxidative stress, including those that encode the enzyme catalase. Other cyanobacteria such as Prochlorococcus that also lack hydrogen peroxide degrading enzymes have been shown to benefit from partnerships with heterotrophic bacteria. Microcystis spp. may also receive similar benefits from heterotrophic bacteria in the phycosphere. To test this hypothesis, we examined the …
Impacts Of Bacterial Evolution On Host Lethality In Drosophila, Andrew Preston
Impacts Of Bacterial Evolution On Host Lethality In Drosophila, Andrew Preston
College of Arts & Sciences Senior Honors Theses
Evolution is the process by which species change their genetic traits, such as the pathogenicity of bacteria, over time in response to changes in their environment. Although the genetic mechanisms underlying many evolutionary processes have been revealed, it is still not well understood how opportunistic pathogens, such as Pseudomonas aeruginosa, become virulent. The overall goal of this thesis is to test the Coincidental Evolution Hypothesis, which proposes that the virulence of opportunistic pathogens evolves coincidentally as a by-product of their interaction with their natural predators. I hypothesized that the virulence of ancestral Pseudomonas aeruginosa changes over time if it co-evolves …
Effect Of Temperature On The Microbiome Of A Laboratory Reared Colony Of Haemaphysalis Longicornis Ticks, Brianna Mitchell
Effect Of Temperature On The Microbiome Of A Laboratory Reared Colony Of Haemaphysalis Longicornis Ticks, Brianna Mitchell
Poster Presentations
Honors research poster.
Haemaphysalis longicornis is a species of tick native to eastern Asia, including eastern China, Japan, eastern Russia, and Korea. To date, it has invaded and has now established its existence in Australia, New Zealand, and several of the Pacific Islands. This species of tick has recently been introduced to the United States, having a confirmed sighting in November 2017 on a sheep farm in New Jersey and since establishing populations in 18 states along the east coast and Appalachia. Based on the existing locations of H. longicornis in its native regions, as well as in the United …
Effect Of Temperature On The Microbiome Of A Laboratory-Reared Colony Of Haemaphysalis Longicornis Ticks, Brianna L. Mitchell
Effect Of Temperature On The Microbiome Of A Laboratory-Reared Colony Of Haemaphysalis Longicornis Ticks, Brianna L. Mitchell
Honors Theses
Haemaphysalis longicornis ticks are invasive to the United States with potential to transmit several tick-borne pathogens that are native to the United States. Based on existing locations of H. longicornis in its native regions in Asia, as well as its invasive populations that are established in the United States, several geographic range prediction models have been produced to help understand future range expansion and distribution of this invasive tick in North America. Unfortunately, these models do not all agree and there is uncertainty associated with the potential geographic range expansion of H. longicornis ticks in North America. Climate can affect …
An Ecological Perspective Of American Rodent-Borne Orthohantavirus Surveillance, Nathaniel Mull
An Ecological Perspective Of American Rodent-Borne Orthohantavirus Surveillance, Nathaniel Mull
Graduate Theses and Dissertations
Orthohantaviruses are a global group of viruses found primarily in rodents, though several viruses have also been found in shrews and moles. Many rodent-borne orthohantaviruses are capable of causing one of several diseases in humans, and the mortality associated with these diseases ranges from < 0.1% - 50% depending on the specific etiological virus. In North and South America, orthohantavirus research was ignited by an outbreak of severe disease in the Four Corners region of the United States in 1993. However, despite the discovery of over 20 orthohantaviruses in the Americas, our understanding of orthohantavirus ecology and virus-host dynamics in this region is still limited, and orthohantavirus surveillance is generally restricted in scope to select regions and small portions of host distributional ranges. In Chapter I, I present a literature review on the current understanding of American rodent-borne orthohantavirus ecology. This review focused on under-studied orthohantaviruses, addressing gaps in knowledge by extrapolating information from well-studied orthohantaviruses, general rodent ecology, and occassionally from Eurasian orthohantavirus-host ecology. There were several key conclusions generated from this review that warrant further research: 1) the large number of putative orthohantaviruses and gaps in orthohantavirus evolution necessitate further surveillance and characterization, 2) orthohantavirus traits differ and are more generalizable based on host taxonomy rather than geography, and 3) orthohantavirus host species are disproportionately found in grasslands and disturbed habitats. In Chapter II, I present a prioritized list of rodent species to target for orthohantavirus surveillance based on predictive modeling using machine learning. Probable orthohantavirus hosts were predicted based on traits of known orthohantavirus hosts using two different types of evidence: RT-PCR and virus isolation. Predicted host distributions were also mapped to identify geographic hotspots to spatially guide future surveillance efforts. In Chapter III, I present a framework for understanding and predicting orthohantavirus traits based on reservoir host phylogeny, as opposed to the traditional geographic dichotomy used to group orthohantaviruses. This framework establishes three distinct orthohantavirus groups: murid-borne orthohantaviruses, arvicoline-borne orthohantaviruses, and non-arvicoline cricetid-borne orthohantaviruses, which differ in several key traits, including the human disease they cause, transmission routes, and virus-host fidelity. In Chapter IV, I compare rodent communities and orthohantavirus prevalence among grassland management regimes. Sites that were periodically burned had high rodent diversity and a high proportion of grassland species. However, rodent seroprevalence for orthohantavirus was also highest in burned sites, representing a trade-off in habitat management outcomes. The high seroprevalence in burned sites is likely due to the robust populations supported by the high quality habitat resulting from prescribed burning. In Chapters V and VI, I describe Ozark virus and Sager Creek virus, two novel orthohantaviruses discovered from specimens collected during Chapter IV. Both chapters report full genome sequences of the respective viruses and compare both nucleotide and protein phylogenies with related orthohantaviruses. Additionally in Chapter VI, I support the genetic analyses with molecular and ecological characterizations, including seasonal fluctuations in host abundance, correlates of prevalence, evidence of virus shedding, and information on host cell susceptibility to Sager Creek virus.
Long‑Term Adaptation To Galactose As A Sole Carbon Source Selects For Mutations Outside The Canonical Gal Pathway, Artemiza A. Martínez, Andrew Conboy, Sean Buskirk, Daniel A. Marad, Gregory I. Lang
Long‑Term Adaptation To Galactose As A Sole Carbon Source Selects For Mutations Outside The Canonical Gal Pathway, Artemiza A. Martínez, Andrew Conboy, Sean Buskirk, Daniel A. Marad, Gregory I. Lang
Biology Faculty Publications
Galactose is a secondary fermentable sugar that requires specific regulatory and structural genes for its assimilation, which are under catabolite repression by glucose. When glucose is absent, the catabolic repression is attenuated, and the structural GAL genes are fully activated. In Saccharomyces cerevisiae, the GAL pathway is under selection in environments where galactose is present. However, it is unclear the adaptive strategies in response to long-term propagation in galactose as a sole carbon source in laboratory evolution experiments. Here, we performed a 4,000-generation evolution experiment using 48 diploid Saccharomyces cerevisiae populations to study adaptation in galactose. We show that fitness …
From Micro To Macro: Examining Potential Microbiome Mediated Influences On Human Growth And Health Outcomes Through Breastfeeding And Antibiotic Exposures, Nicole K. Phillips
From Micro To Macro: Examining Potential Microbiome Mediated Influences On Human Growth And Health Outcomes Through Breastfeeding And Antibiotic Exposures, Nicole K. Phillips
Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository
Human microbiome research has rapidly developed over the past two decades yet absent from most research is the composition and dynamics of microbiomes within human populations. Given the limitations in longitudinal studies which requires decades of repeated microbe taxonomic testing of a population sample, an alternative option is to examine microbiomes and their influences via proxies using pre-existing health datasets. This research demonstrates preliminary associations between presumed disrupted and supportive microbiomes dynamics proxied by antibiotic and breastmilk exposure respectively. Using health record data across the life span from approximately 500,000 U.K. participants, this research demonstrates variable altered growth and health …
Under Ice Photosynthetic Primary Production And Dark Carbon Fixation In A Temperate Freshwater System, Vanessa Cubillos Tellez
Under Ice Photosynthetic Primary Production And Dark Carbon Fixation In A Temperate Freshwater System, Vanessa Cubillos Tellez
Dissertations, Master's Theses and Master's Reports
Ice-covered lakes are vulnerable to environmental change, especially those in the Northern Hemisphere where ice cover is rapidly declining due to global warming. These changes can alter metabolic processes and disrupt carbon cycling driven by primary producers who form the base of the food chain and are key to sustaining ecosystem function. Photosynthetic primary production and dark carbon fixation under the ice in the Keweenaw Waterway, a temperate freshwater system that is ice-covered for ~3 months out of the year, were studied using a carbon isotopic labeling (14C-bicarbonate) technique. Water samples were collected weekly during ice cover and monthly during …
Comparison Of Groundwater Chemistry And Associated Biodiversity Of Sulfidic Karst Habitats In Southcentral Kentucky, Kendall Wheeler
Comparison Of Groundwater Chemistry And Associated Biodiversity Of Sulfidic Karst Habitats In Southcentral Kentucky, Kendall Wheeler
Mahurin Honors College Capstone Experience/Thesis Projects
In most ecosystems, primary production is conducted by plants or photosynthetic microbes; however, extremophilic sulfur-oxidizing bacteria can use hydrogen sulfide gas (H2S) as an electron donor to produce metabolic energy in a type of metabolism called chemoautotrophy. These ecosystems are a prominent feature of some karst landscapes, and two have been observed in the Mammoth Cave system, Sulphur River in Parker Cave and Marianne’s Pass in Mammoth Cave National Park respectively.
Sulfidic water is ubiquitous in southcentral Kentucky and is strongly associated with hydrocarbon deposits. This oil boom of the 1880s in this region predates most environmental regulation and records …
Host-Microbe Interactions In Non-Native Estuarine Anemones: Biogeography And Temperature, Parker K. Lund
Host-Microbe Interactions In Non-Native Estuarine Anemones: Biogeography And Temperature, Parker K. Lund
Cal Poly Humboldt theses and projects
Non-native species are increasing in prevalence around the world, resulting in negative economic and ecological impacts. However, the broad distributions of non-native species also offer a system for investigating the response of host-associated microbial communities to environmental factors across a range of ecological scales. At the broadest scale, I investigated the geography of microbial communities in the non-native estuarine anemone Diadumene lineata on the west coast of the United States of America. Across latitudes, microbial community composition was very similar and displayed a high percentage of Klebsiella spp. at all sites. However, the communities in California tended to exhibit higher …
Proposing An Rna Interference (Rnai)-Based Treatment For Human Immunodeficiency Virus (Hiv) By Analyzing The Post-Transcriptional Gene Targeting Of Sars-Cov-2, Hepatitis C Virus, And A549 Lung Cancer Cells, Arjun Jagdeesh
Undergraduate Research Posters
Human Immunodeficiency Virus (HIV) is a retrovirus that infects CD4+ T cell lymphocytes in humans, leading to the development of Acquired Immunodeficiency Syndrome (AIDS) if left untreated. While current treatment methods, including antiretroviral combination treatments, effectively limit HIV replication, HIV can evade these treatments due to its high mutation rate. Long-term antiretroviral treatment can also be toxic to patients, meaning patients would benefit from a new mechanism of HIV treatment. RNA interference (RNAi) is an antiviral pathway found in mammals, plants, and insects that involves a small-interfering RNA that is incorporated into a protein complex called the RNA-induced Silencing Complex …
Microbial Communities In The Guana Tolomato Matanzas National Estuarine Research Reserve: An Assessment Of The Responses Of Spartina Alterniflora Epiphytes To Nitrogen Enrichment, And A Characterization Of Benthic Cyanobacterial Diversity, Anne C. Hurley
UNF Graduate Theses and Dissertations
Elevated nitrogen and phosphorus inputs from anthropogenic sources, which can lead to significant increases in algal biomass and changes in algal community composition, poses a serious threat to estuarine ecosystems worldwide. While numerous studies have addressed the impacts of nutrient enrichment on epiphytic algae in seagrass habitats, few have investigated potential nutrient-driven changes to epiphytes on emergent salt marsh plants, such as Spartina alterniflora. Epiphytic microalgae on S. alterniflora play an important role in food availability in salt marsh ecosystems, and epiphytic nitrogen-fixing cyanobacteria also provide an important source of nitrogen for salt marsh consumers. The first study included …
Fine-Scale Genetic Structure In Rhizosphere Microbial Communities Associated With Chamaecrista Fasciculata (Fabaceae), Mahboubeh Hosseinalizadeh Nobarinezhad, Lisa E. Wallace
Fine-Scale Genetic Structure In Rhizosphere Microbial Communities Associated With Chamaecrista Fasciculata (Fabaceae), Mahboubeh Hosseinalizadeh Nobarinezhad, Lisa E. Wallace
Biological Sciences Faculty Publications
Soil microbiota of the rhizosphere are an important extension of the plant phenotype because they impact the health and fitness of host plants. The composition of these communities is expected to differ among host plants due to influence by host genotype. Given that many plant populations exhibit fine-scale genetic structure (SGS), associated microbial communities may also exhibit SGS. In this study, we tested this hypothesis using Chamaecrista fasciculata, a legume species that has previously been determined to have significant SGS. We collected genetic data from prokaryotic and fungal rhizosphere communities in association with 70 plants in an area of …
Soil And Compost Tea: A New Restoration Technique?, Carol E. Day
Soil And Compost Tea: A New Restoration Technique?, Carol E. Day
Master's Theses and Doctoral Dissertations
Historically, prairie restorations have lacked the plant diversity seen in remnant prairies. Most restoration practices focus on reestablishing the plant community but overlook the soil microbial community even though microbes are critical to habitat functioning. Developing techniques that increase soil microbes in prairie restorations is critical to ensuring diverse restored habitats. We compared how microbial communities differed between remnant and restored prairie sites. We also investigated if soil and compost teas could be used to reintroduce microbes to restored prairie soil and if the teas affected native plant establishment. We found significant differences in the levels of bacterial taxa between …
Editorial: New Frontiers In The Application Of Stable Isotopes To Ecological And Ecophysiological Research, Keith A. Hobson, John P. Whiteman, Seth D. Newsome
Editorial: New Frontiers In The Application Of Stable Isotopes To Ecological And Ecophysiological Research, Keith A. Hobson, John P. Whiteman, Seth D. Newsome
Biological Sciences Faculty Publications
No abstract provided.