Ecology and Evolutionary Biology Commons^™

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 …

Effects Of Mass Death On Community Structure And Ecosystem Function, Abby Kimpton Jones

Theses and Dissertations

Death and decomposition are natural processes that are generally well-understood. However, large events of death, such as mass mortality events (MMEs) are increasing in frequency and their impacts on the ecosystem are largely unknown. These events may have both bottom-up effects from increased nutrient input as well as top-down effects from loss of an ecological functional group by the affected population. Different functional MMEs may result in different top-down effects, creating cascading effects. In Chapter 1, I test the hypothesis that scavenger and herbivore simulated MMEs generate novel bottom-up and top-down effects. Results indicate that MMEs have a significant effect …

Parameter Estimation Using Nudging On The Logistic Growth Equation, Susan Rogowski

Biology and Medicine Through Mathematics Conference

No abstract provided.

Significance Of Autumn And Winter Food Consumption For Reproduction By Southern Beaufort Sea Polar Bears, Ursus Maritimus, Blaine D. Griffen, John P. Whiteman, Sariah Pullan

Biological Sciences Faculty Publications

Polar bears (Ursus maritimus) in the southern Beaufort Sea experience long annual periods when preferred seal prey are scarce or are unavailable. Consumption of bowhead whale (Balaena mysticetus) carcasses from native Alaskan subsistence hunting is increasingly common for onshore polar bears, yet the energetic consequences of this consumption remain unclear. We use data on bears captured repeatedly over periods that encompassed autumn and winter, combined with calculations, to show that adult female bears likely consume an average of at least 4 seal equivalents during both autumn and winter periods and that considerable variation in energy intake …

Contaminated Mycoscapes: Designing With Living Organisms, Maria Gutierrez, Elise Zilius

Architecture Senior Theses

The Anthropocene has stripped the planet of its resources, leaving behind an abundance of contamination. The built environment no longer meets the standards set by our turbulent planet. Humankind has lost the privilege of agency in design and construction. Construction methods have failed to evolve concurrently to the intense accumulation of waste; remaining firmly rooted in the materiality of the past, they have upheld architectural notions of stagnancy, cleanliness, and hygiene and ignore the rapidly changing conditions of the environment. This investigation uses contamination to fuel mycelial growth and construct emergent forms whilst executing remediation strategies for polluted sites of …

The Gut Microbiota Of A Wild American Black Bear (Ursus Americanus) Population, Sierra Gillman

All NMU Master's Theses

The gut microbiome (GMB), the mutualistic microbial communities located in the gastrointestinal tract (GIT), has co-evolved in vertebrates to perform micro-ecosystem services to facilitate physiological functions. Despite the key role of the GMB in host health, wildlife managers have been slow to consider the ramifications of anthropogenic pressures to wildlife-GMB diversity. For example, although diet is one of the most influential determinants of a host’s GMB, many wildlife agencies allow baiting with human-provisioned foods to facilitate the harvest of wildlife such as American black bear (Ursus americanus). Additionally, much of our knowledge of wildlife-GMB relationships is based on …

Effects Of A Neonicotinoid Insecticide On The Growth Of Honey Bee Gut Microbes, Macee Mitchell, Daniel Franzese, Taylor Morales, Shane Lucht, Jesse Steele, Jenifer Walke

2020 Symposium Posters

The gut microbiome plays an essential role in the overall health of organisms. However, the presence and abundance of these microbes may be altered by environmental factors, such as exposure to pesticides. The goals of this project were to understand 1) the prevalence of pesticide residues in honey bees in eastern Washington, and 2) the impact of pesticides to the honey bee gut microbiome. Accordingly, we tested bees from 24 hives among six sites across eastern Washington. High-performance liquid chromatography-mass spectrometry (HPLC-MS) was used to detect the presence and concentration of six commonly used agricultural pesticides: Carbaryl, Chlorpyrifos, Coumaphos, Cypermethrin, …

Diversity Analysis Of Soil Fungus Communities In Disturbed, Nursery, And Mature Forest Conditions, Dana Whitmore

All Master's Theses

Populations of soil fungi were examined in Derby Canyon Natives, Coeur d’Alene Forest Service nursery, Swamp Lake, and the Keechelus Lake wildlife overcrossing soils. All sampling sites were connected by their relation to the revegetation and native soil plug inoculation of the wildlife overpass. This study was an effort to describe soil fungi communities present on the overpass before plant introduction, those that plants would be bringing in their pots, and the fungi that could be introduced via soil plug transplantation. DNA was extracted from soil samples, then sequenced using next-generation sequencing methods, allowing for the analysis of species richness …

Bacterioplankton Biogeography Of The Mississippi River Basin, Jason Taylor Payne

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Bacterioplankton are important structural and functional components of river networks yet their biogeographical patterns in these systems are largely unknown. Using Illumina sequencing of the 16S rRNA gene we characterized variation in bacterioplankton community alpha diversity (within-sample richness of operational taxonomic units OTUs) and beta diversity (between-sample differences in composition) (1) along a 1 300-km downstream reach of the Mississippi River (2) over a range of temporal scales in the Lower Mississippi River (LMR) and (3) along cross-sectional transects repeated monthly for six months across the LMR floodplain. Particle-associated assemblages were richer in bacterial OTUs and more productive than free-living …

Understanding The Relationship Between Hosts And Their Microbiome, Boahemaa Adu-Oppong

Arts & Sciences Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Microbes are bountiful and associated with every animal and plant kingdom. Furthermore, microbes can alter host phenotype, development, health and functioning. However, this is not a one-way interaction, hosts can structure microbial communities by changing the environment to be suitable for certain microbial species. Several studies have characterized microbial communities associated with hosts to answer two2 main questions in ecology: who’s there, and what are they doing? However, two questions from the field of community ecology are often ignored (1) what forces are structuring the microbial communities (how was the community formed) and (2) how stable are these communities. Vellend …

Microbial Community Richness Distinguishes Shark Species Microbiomes In South Florida, Rachael Cassandra Karns

HCNSO Student Theses and Dissertations

The microbiome (microbial community) of individuals is crucial when characterizing and understanding processes that are required for organism function and survival. Microbial organisms, which make up an individual’s microbiome, can be linked to disease or function of the host organism. In humans, individuals differ substantially in their microbiome compositions in various areas of the body. The cause of much of the composition diversity is yet unexplained, however, it is speculated that habitat, diet, and early exposure to microbes could be altering the microbiomes of individuals (Human Microbiome Project Consortium, 2012b, 2012a). To date, only one study has reported on microbiome …

Controls On Benthic Microbial Community Structure And Assembly In A Karstic Coastal Wetland, Nicholas O. Schulte

FIU Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The assembly mechanisms underlying microbial community abundance, biotic interactions, and diversity over space and time are unresolved, particularly in benthic microbial mats distributed along environmental gradients. Experimental enrichment of nutrient-limited microbial mats from the Florida Everglades along a nutrient subsidy-salinity stress gradient stimulated autotrophic and heterotrophic metabolism, growth, and diversity independent of autotroph-heterotroph interactions across treatments and space. These results suggest spatial segregation of autotrophic and heterotrophic components within mats. Considering only the diatom component of Everglades mats over space and time, the subsidy-stress gradient controlled diatom compositional turnover at broad spatial scales while environmental and dispersal-based processes structured diatom …

Diversity And Activity Of Roseobacters And Roseophage, Charles Ryan Budinoff

Doctoral Dissertations

Bacteria of the Roseobacter lineage are dominant bacterioplankton in coastal systems and contribute significantly to secondary production in oceanic environments. Generalities of Roseobacter ecology, diversity, and distributions are known, but the intraspecific differences between species and their dynamics over short temporal periods is not well understood. Bacteriophage that infect Roseobacters (‘roseophage’) have the potential to shunt secondary production into the dissolved carbon pool and through the process of infection alter Roseobacter physiology. Despite their significance, little effort was made prior to the onset of this study to characterize roseophage. Using culture dependent and independent approaches, I describe the diversity and …

Bacterial Community Structure Of Contrasting Soils Underlying Bornean Rain Forests: Inferences From Microarray And Next-Generation Sequencing Methods, Sabrina E. Russo, Ryan Legge, Karrie A. Weber, Eoin L. Brodie, Katherine C. Goldfarb, Andrew K. Benson, Sylvester Tan

School of Biological Sciences: Faculty Publications

Soil microbial diversity is vast, and we lack even basic understanding of how this diversity is distributed ecologically. Using pyrosequencing and microarray methods, we quantified the structure of bacterial communities in two contrasting soils underlying Bornean rain forest (clay and sandy loam) that differ markedly in soil properties, aboveground tree flora, and leaf litter decomposition rates. We found significant soil-related taxonomic and phylogenetic differences between communities that, due to their proximity, are independent of climate. Bacterial communities showed distinct compositional and taxon-abundance distributions that were significantly correlated with the structure of the overlying tree community. Richness of bacteria was greater …

Gravesoil Microbial Community Structure During Carcass Decomposition, Amy E. Maile

Department of Entomology: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

Dead bodies placed on soil represent unique challenges for investigators. Although processes in soils can be used to estimate postmortem interval, we know very little about how carcasses and insects affect gravesoil microbial communities.

To address this, the current project was composed of two experiments. Experiment one was conducted to investigate the effect of surface type on carcass decomposition and evaluate soil ecology methods. Experiment two was conducted to investigate the presence of an insect population (Lucilia sericata Meigen) on gravesoil microbial communities. Both experiments were conducted in a laboratory setting using freshly killed mouse carcasses. Mouse carcasses were …

Ecology And Relationships Of Rhabdias Spp. (Nematoda: Rhabdiasidae) From North American Amphibians And Reptiles, Gabriel J. Langford

School of Biological Sciences: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

Lungworms of the cosmopolitan genus Rhabdias (Nematoda: Rhabdiasidae) are among the most common parasites of amphibians and squamate reptiles. The life cycles, life histories, host specificities, and evolutionary relationships of Rhabdias spp. were studied through examination of their free-living and parasitic stages in amphibians and reptiles. This study found free-living development of anuran lungworms was primarily limited to heterogonic reproduction, whereas snake lungworms primarily reproduced homogonically. Infective anuran lungworms penetrated the skin of frogs and toads; in contrast, snake lungworms penetrated snake esophageal tissue during per os infections. Our molecular phylogeny strongly supported separate clades for anuran and snake lungworms, …

Ecological Study Of The Effects Of Strip Mining On The Microbiology Of Streams, Ralph H. Weaver, Harry D. Nash

KWRRI Research Reports

The microflora of Cane Branch of Beaver Creek in McCreary County, Kentucky, which drains an area that was strip-mined between 1955 and 1959, was studied and compared with that of Helton Branch which drains a comparable area where there has been no mining. Differences include: the establishment of Ferrcbacillus ferrooxidans, for which procedures were developed for direct colony isolation from the stream; fewer saprophytic bacteria; more numerous and more diversified filamentous and unicellular fungi; and characteristic differences in algal flora. Representatives of 42 genera of filamentous fungi were identified. Of these, 21 were isolated only from Cane Branch. Representatives of …