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2015

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Articles 1 - 30 of 96

Full-Text Articles in Other Ecology and Evolutionary Biology

Elevated Co2 Induced Changes In The Chemistry Of Quaking Aspen (Populus Tremuloides Michaux) Leaf Litter: Subsequent Mass Loss And Microbial Response In A Stream Ecosystem, Steven Rier, Nancy Tuchman, Robert Wetzel, James Teeri Dec 2015

Elevated Co2 Induced Changes In The Chemistry Of Quaking Aspen (Populus Tremuloides Michaux) Leaf Litter: Subsequent Mass Loss And Microbial Response In A Stream Ecosystem, Steven Rier, Nancy Tuchman, Robert Wetzel, James Teeri

Nancy Tuchman

No abstract provided.

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Linking Physiology And Biogeography: Disentangling The Constraints On The Distributions Of Ant Species, Lacy Danikas Chick Dec 2015

Linking Physiology And Biogeography: Disentangling The Constraints On The Distributions Of Ant Species, Lacy Danikas Chick

Doctoral Dissertations

Understanding the factors that limit the distribution of species is at the core of ecological and biogeographical research, and is critical if we are to predict the responses of key ecosystem components to ongoing climatic changes. My doctoral research seeks to provide an understanding of how thermal physiology influences species’ distributions and better define the mechanisms underlying geographic variation in biodiversity. By using natural temperature gradients (both elevational and latitudinal) and coupling controlled laboratory experiments with field observations and null modeling approaches, I was able to document the role of inter-specific variation in thermal physiology and, more interesting, inter-population variation …

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More Than Movement – Ant Seed Dispersal Inhibits Phytopathogenic Fungi, Charlene H. Gray Dec 2015

More Than Movement – Ant Seed Dispersal Inhibits Phytopathogenic Fungi, Charlene H. Gray

Biology Theses

Seed dispersal by ants is a cosmopolitan mutualism involving thousands of plant species. Ants gain a food reward (elaiosomes) from the plant seed, and ant-mediated plants gain several presumed benefits, including dispersal away from parent plants and placement in 'safe site' microhabitat. Higher plant germination and survival in ant nest soils has been attributed to higher levels of nutrients, aeration, and soil moisture than surrounding soils, but evidence in support of these benefits is inconsistent. Ants secrete anti-microbial compounds that inhibit microbial pathogens. I explore the possibility that ants transfer anti-microbial properties to the soil they inhabit, and there is …

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Plant Toxins Influence Diet Selection And Intestinal Parasites In A Specialist Herbivore, Marcella Rene Fremgen Dec 2015

Plant Toxins Influence Diet Selection And Intestinal Parasites In A Specialist Herbivore, Marcella Rene Fremgen

Boise State University Theses and Dissertations

Herbivores select plants and patches that generally maximize nutrient intake and minimize intake of plant secondary metabolites (PSMs). Protein is important for growth, reproduction and maintenance, but maximizing intake of protein is often limited by concentrations of PSMs that are potentially toxic to herbivores and energetically expensive to process. However, the consequences of ingesting PSM are often dose-dependent. At high doses, PSMs generally have negative physiological effects and are avoided, but some PSMs can be therapeutic against parasites at low doses and could therefore be selected. We used Greater Sage-grouse (Centrocercus urophasianus, hereafter, sage-grouse) to test how PSMs influence …

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A New Adaptive Landscape: Urbanization As A Strong Evolutionary Force, Lauren Christie Breza Dec 2015

A New Adaptive Landscape: Urbanization As A Strong Evolutionary Force, Lauren Christie Breza

Masters Theses

Urbanization is rapidly increasing as human population growth steadily grows, but there is little consensus of the ecological consequence of this population shift and almost no information of the evolutionary consequences for local biodiversity. Nearly two-thirds of the world’s population will live in city centers by 2050 with profound impacts on landscapes that can act as important agents of selection. This study aims to identify 1) the net effect of urbanization on species richness, 2) how phylogenetic diversity varies between urban and rural sites, and 3) the strength of urbanization as a selection pressure. First, a meta-analysis was conducted in …

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Rare Occurrences Of Free-Living Bacteria Belonging To Sedimenticola From Subtidal Seagrass Beds Associated With The Lucinid Clam, Stewartia Floridana, Aaron M. Goemann Dec 2015

Rare Occurrences Of Free-Living Bacteria Belonging To Sedimenticola From Subtidal Seagrass Beds Associated With The Lucinid Clam, Stewartia Floridana, Aaron M. Goemann

Masters Theses

Lucinid clams and their sulfur-oxidizing endosymbionts comprise two compartments of a three-stage, biogeochemical relationship among the clams, seagrasses, and microbial communities in marine sediments. A population of the lucinid clam, Stewartia floridana, was sampled from a subtidal seagrass bed at Bokeelia Island Seaport in Florida to test the hypotheses: (1) S. floridana, like other lucinids, are more abundant in seagrass beds than bare sediments; (2) S. floridana gill microbiomes are dominated by one bacterial operational taxonomic unit (OTU) at a sequence similarity threshold level of 97% (a common cutoff for species level taxonomy) from 16S rRNA genes; …

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Demography And Disease Of The Rare Shrub Buckleya Distichophylla (Santalaceae) In Northeastern Tennessee, William Seth Ratliff Dec 2015

Demography And Disease Of The Rare Shrub Buckleya Distichophylla (Santalaceae) In Northeastern Tennessee, William Seth Ratliff

Undergraduate Honors Theses

Piratebush (Buckleya distichophylla (Nutt.) Torr.) is a rare, hemiparasitic shrub with the only extant populations in western North Carolina, northeastern Tennessee, and southwestern Virginia. The preferred natural hosts of piratebush, Carolina and eastern hemlocks, have seen sharp declines over the last decade due to the invasive hemlock woolly adelgid. Virginia pine, another important host of piratebush, is also susceptible to disease, specifically Cronartium appalachianum, a rust fungus for which piratebush is the secondary host. This study described and analyzed current demographic parameters of three Tennessee piratebush populations. Additionally, spatial patterns of disease and demographic characters were analyzed. These …

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Plant Community Responses To Invasive Shrub And Vine Removal In An Urban Park Woodland., Eric Richard Moore Dec 2015

Plant Community Responses To Invasive Shrub And Vine Removal In An Urban Park Woodland., Eric Richard Moore

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Counter to what some people think, urban areas can be biodiversity hotspots. Maintaining this biodiversity can be challenging, since exotic shrubs and vines block sunlight and threaten native plant regeneration. Since 2007, the Louisville Olmsted Parks Conservancy (LOPC) has spent $2 million on invasive plant management in Cherokee Park. Before the project began, long-term transects were established by the LOPC to collect baseline presence/absence data on 11 invasive plant species. In 2014, I revisited these transects and documented presence/absence data on the entire plant community. I found that four species (garlic mustard, winter creeper, Japanese honeysuckle, and English ivy) have …

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Materials Collected By The Southern Branch Of The Uc Africa Expedition With A Report On Previously Unpublished Plio-Pleistocene Fossil Localities, Tesla A. Monson, Marianne F. Brasil, Leslea J. Hlusko Nov 2015

Materials Collected By The Southern Branch Of The Uc Africa Expedition With A Report On Previously Unpublished Plio-Pleistocene Fossil Localities, Tesla A. Monson, Marianne F. Brasil, Leslea J. Hlusko

Anthropology Faculty and Staff Publications

From 1947 to 1948, paleontologists from the University of California Museum of Paleontology (UCMP), Charles Camp and Frank Peabody, led the southern branch of the University of California’s Africa Expedition. While in South Africa, Camp and Peabody collected thousands of specimens excavated from more than 70 sites, 40 of which make up the Plio-Pleistocene South African assemblage at the UCMP. Materials collected by researchers accompanying the expedition are held at numerous repositories on the University of California Berkeley campus including the UCMP, the Museum of Vertebrate Zoology (MVZ), the Phoebe A. Hearst Museum of Anthropology and the University of California’s …

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Roe Deer Summer Habitat Selection At Multiple Spatio-Temporal Scales In An Alpine Environment, Sara Mancinelli, Wibke Peters, Luigi Boitani, Mark Hebblewhite, Francesca Cagnacci Nov 2015

Roe Deer Summer Habitat Selection At Multiple Spatio-Temporal Scales In An Alpine Environment, Sara Mancinelli, Wibke Peters, Luigi Boitani, Mark Hebblewhite, Francesca Cagnacci

Wildlife Biology Faculty Publications

Habitat selection is a hierarchical process that may involve different patterns depending on the spatial and temporal scales of investigation. We studied habitat selection by European roe deer (Capreolus capreolus) in a very diverse environment in the Italian eastern Alps, during summer. We sampled both coarse-grained habitat variables (topographic variables, habitat types and cover) and fine-grained habitat variables (forage components of habitat) in used and available locations along the movement trajectories of 14 adult roe deer equipped with GPS telemetry collars. We used conventional logistic regression to assess roe deer habitat selection at the seasonal home range scale, …

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Generating Best Management Practices For Avian Conservation In A Land-Sparing Agriculture System, And The Habitat-Specific Survival Of A Priority Migrant, Jeffrey D. Ritterson Nov 2015

Generating Best Management Practices For Avian Conservation In A Land-Sparing Agriculture System, And The Habitat-Specific Survival Of A Priority Migrant, Jeffrey D. Ritterson

Masters Theses

A large amount of the world’s biodiversity is located in a disproportionately small amount of area, namely the tropics. Many of these areas are experiencing rapid landscape changes, mainly in the form of deforestation for agricultural practices. Current conservation efforts are focused on agricultural areas and their ability to provide habitat. The conservation value of a novel land-sparing agroforestry system, known as Integrated Open Canopy (IOC), was recently demonstrated on the study site when applied to coffee. IOC coffee supports forest species that are uncommon or absent in shade grown coffee. I generated best management practices for IOC farms relative …

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Regional Evolutionary Distinctiveness And Endangerment As A Means Of Prioritizing Protection Of Endangered Species, Emily K. Brantner Nov 2015

Regional Evolutionary Distinctiveness And Endangerment As A Means Of Prioritizing Protection Of Endangered Species, Emily K. Brantner

FIU Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Conservation is costly, and choices must be made about where to best allocate limited resources. I propose a regional evolutionary diversity and endangerment (RED-E) approach to prioritization of endangered species. It builds off of the evolutionary diversity and global endangerment (EDGE) approach, but will allow conservation agencies to focus their efforts on species in specific regions. I used the RED-E approach to prioritize mammal and bird species listed under the U.S. Endangered Species Act (ESA), as well as to make a ranking of species without ESA critical habitat (CH), as a practical application. Regional conservation approaches differ significantly from global …

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A Bat-Guano-Derived Δ15N And Δ13C Record Of Paleoenvironmental Change: Zidită Cave, Romania, Daniel Martin Cleary Oct 2015

A Bat-Guano-Derived Δ15N And Δ13C Record Of Paleoenvironmental Change: Zidită Cave, Romania, Daniel Martin Cleary

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Because nitrogen isotopes are fractionated along the soil-plant-insect-bat-guano pathway, it may be possible to reconstruct environmental and climatic changes reflected in the nitrogen isotopic composition of guano. A 1.5-m core of bat guano from Zidită Cave (western Romania) provides a record of climatic and anthropogenic influence on the regional nitrogen cycle and paleoenvironmental controls on nitrogen transforming processes. Increasing and decreasing trends of nitrogen isotopic composition (δ15N values) correspond well with changes in the influence of farming practices, deforestation, and forest expansion. These influences likely had a significant effect on the openness of the nitrogen cycle, resulting in …

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Métodos Cuantitativos Para La Conservación De Los Vertebrados, Michael J. Conroy, John P. Carroll, Juan Carlos Senar, Jeffrey J. Thompson Oct 2015

Métodos Cuantitativos Para La Conservación De Los Vertebrados, Michael J. Conroy, John P. Carroll, Juan Carlos Senar, Jeffrey J. Thompson

School of Natural Resources: Faculty Publications

Este libro es destinado para el uso por biólogos del campo y otras personas, incluso biólogos de campo en el futuro que podrían estar en un curso de la universidad y trabajando en estudios y conservación de animales. Nuestro objetivo es que los biólogos usen este libro como (haciendo apología a nuestro colega Evan Cooch) una “introducción suave” al campo de la ecología cuantitativa. Esperamos convencer a los lectores que los métodos y aproximaciones del libro no son solo para los matemáticos, estadísticos y programadores de computadoras, sino que de hecho son herramientas esenciales para practicar la conservación en el …

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An Invasive Grass And A Desert Adapted Rodent: Is There An Effect On Locomotory Performance And Is It Modified By Prior Experience Or Familiarization?, Camille D. Boag Oct 2015

An Invasive Grass And A Desert Adapted Rodent: Is There An Effect On Locomotory Performance And Is It Modified By Prior Experience Or Familiarization?, Camille D. Boag

Master's Theses

Kangaroo rats (Dipodomys spp.) are frequently characterized as keystone species for their role in altering soil characteristics, changing habitat structure through seed consumption and dispersal, and being important primary consumers in their ecosystem. They are arid adapted and known to forage in areas with sparse vegetation. Studies suggests densely vegetated habitat to be unsuitable for kangaroo rats because plants are an impediment to their locomotion and predator avoidance behaviors. This study focuses on an invasive grass, South African Veldt (Ehrharta calycina), that converts landscapes with sparse vegetation into dense grassland habitats, and the Lompoc kangaroo rat …

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Community Involvement To Address A Long-Standing Invasive Species Problem: Aspects Of Civic Ecology In Practice, Rebecca W. Dolan, Kelly Harris, Mark Adler Sep 2015

Community Involvement To Address A Long-Standing Invasive Species Problem: Aspects Of Civic Ecology In Practice, Rebecca W. Dolan, Kelly Harris, Mark Adler

Scholarship and Professional Work - LAS

Invasive non-native species (INS) are found in every city around the globe, but their impacts in urban settings as biological agents of visual pollution that block views of natural landscapes and disconnect citizens from nature are not as often addressed as comprehensively as their impacts in natural areas or agricultural settings. The multiple impacts of INS in cities make them ideal candidates for aspects of Civic Ecology Practice, where local environmental stewardship action is taken to enhance green infrastructure and community well-being in urban and other human-dominated systems. We present details of a community driven program focused on removal of …

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How Are Rare Species Maintained?: Reproductive Barriers Between Layia Jonesii, A Rare Serpentine Endemic, And L. Platyglossa, Natalie L. Rossington Sep 2015

How Are Rare Species Maintained?: Reproductive Barriers Between Layia Jonesii, A Rare Serpentine Endemic, And L. Platyglossa, Natalie L. Rossington

Master's Theses

Reproductive barriers are vital to generating new species as well as maintaining distinct species. Investigating reproductive barriers between closely related plant taxa helps us to understand how these barriers are maintained, particularly between rare and widespread relatives. Layia jonesii, a rare San Luis Obispo County serpentine endemic, and L. platyglossa, a common coastal species, co-occur on serpentine derived hillsides and are interfertile. At these locations, L. jonesii is isolated to dry soils near serpentine rock outcrops and L. platyglossa is located on slightly deeper grassland soils surrounding the rock outcrops. On hillsides where they co-occur, I observe two morphologically …

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Community Involvement To Address A Long-Standing Invasive Species Problem: Aspects Of Civic Ecology In Practice, Rebecca W. Dolan, Kelly Harris, Mark Adler Aug 2015

Community Involvement To Address A Long-Standing Invasive Species Problem: Aspects Of Civic Ecology In Practice, Rebecca W. Dolan, Kelly Harris, Mark Adler

Rebecca W. Dolan

Invasive non-native species (INS) are found in every city around the globe, but their impacts in urban settings as biological agents of visual pollution that block views of natural landscapes and disconnect citizens from nature are not as often addressed as comprehensively as their impacts in natural areas or agricultural settings. The multiple impacts of INS in cities make them ideal candidates for aspects of Civic Ecology Practice, where local environmental stewardship action is taken to enhance green infrastructure and community well-being in urban and other human-dominated systems. We present details of a community driven program focused on removal of …

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Natural Variation In Malarial Infection And Immune Investment In A Migratory Songbird, And The Effects Of Infection On Flight Performance, Laura Rooney Aug 2015

Natural Variation In Malarial Infection And Immune Investment In A Migratory Songbird, And The Effects Of Infection On Flight Performance, Laura Rooney

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

Endurance flight and immune defense are energetically costly activities for birds, and there may be a trade-off between migration and immune investment. Avian blood parasites consume host resources, which may decrease a bird’s resource pool so that endurance flight and immune defense may not be possible simultaneously. I developed a molecular method to detect and quantify blood parasite infection in migrating yellow-rumped warblers (Setophaga coronata), and measured immune activity. I assessed the impact of infection on endurance flight performance and refueling in captive birds. Infection status was not related to age or sex, or timing of migration, and …

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Suitability Of Great South Bay, New York To Blooms Of Pfiesteria Piscicida And P. Shumwayae Prior To Superstorm Sandy, October 29, 2012, Pawel Tomasz Zablocki Aug 2015

Suitability Of Great South Bay, New York To Blooms Of Pfiesteria Piscicida And P. Shumwayae Prior To Superstorm Sandy, October 29, 2012, Pawel Tomasz Zablocki

Theses and Dissertations

Pfiesteria piscicida and P. shumwayae are toxic dinoflagellates implicated in massive fish kills in North Carolina and Maryland during 1990s. A set of physical, chemica l, and biological factors influence population dynamics of these organisms. This study employs i nformation gathered from relevant literature on temperature, salinity, dissolved oxygen, pH, turbulent mixing, and dissolved nutrients, bacteria, algae, microzooplankton, mesozooplankton, bivalve m ollusks, finfish, and other toxic dinoflagellates, which influence Pfiesteria population dynamics. The research focused on whether conditions in the Great South Bay, Long Island, New York were suitable to blooms of Pfiesteria species prior to the passage of superstorm …

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Speciation In Western North America: Lomatium As An Example Of Diversification And Convergent Evolution, Edgar M. Sosa, Lauren Polito, Mckayla Stevens, Donald H. Mansfield, James F. Smith (Mentor) Aug 2015

Speciation In Western North America: Lomatium As An Example Of Diversification And Convergent Evolution, Edgar M. Sosa, Lauren Polito, Mckayla Stevens, Donald H. Mansfield, James F. Smith (Mentor)

Idaho Conference on Undergraduate Research

Species delimitations and understanding the processes that drive speciation are essential to nearly all aspects of human endeavor. Determining species boundaries traditionally used morphology. Phylogenetic analyses based on DNA sequence data provide a means to resolve species boundaries, as well as test hypotheses regarding the evolutionary processes. Numerous species radiations have occurred in Western North America. Among these are several plant groups such as Astragalus, Artemisia, and Lomatium. Recent phylogenetic analyses of Lomatium and related genera have demonstrated that many of the morphological characters used to delimit taxa have arisen multiple times and that most taxa are para- …

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Movement, Habitat Selection, And Survival Of Female Wood Ducks (Aix Sponsa) And Ducklings At Long Point, Ontario., Matthew E. Dyson Aug 2015

Movement, Habitat Selection, And Survival Of Female Wood Ducks (Aix Sponsa) And Ducklings At Long Point, Ontario., Matthew E. Dyson

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

Nest box programs provide additional nesting opportunities for wood ducks throughout their breeding range. The purpose of my research was to understand habitat use and survival of wood ducks produced from nest boxes during the brood-rearing period. I used radio-telemetry to monitor female wood ducks and ducklings to 30 days post-hatch. Females showed the greatest selection for swamp, scrub-shrub, and emergent marsh habitats, and used emergent marsh most. Female survival was high (0.90, 95% CI = 0.81 – 1.0). Conversely, brood survival (0.47, 95% CI = 0.33 - 0.69) and duckling survival (0.18, 95% CI = 0.14 – 0.22) were …

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Ecology And Morphology Of The Late Miocene Musk Deer, Longirostromeryx Wellsi (Artiodactyla: Moschidae: Blastomerycinae), Katheryn Y. C. Chen Aug 2015

Ecology And Morphology Of The Late Miocene Musk Deer, Longirostromeryx Wellsi (Artiodactyla: Moschidae: Blastomerycinae), Katheryn Y. C. Chen

Department of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

Longirostromeryx wellsi, one of the latest surviving members of the extinct clade Blastomerycinae (Artiodactyla: Moschidae), possesses highly derived craniodental morphology that deviates from typical musk deer form. Previous work suggests that the unique anatomy of L. wellsi represents adaptations for occupying open savannas. To test this hypothesis I conduct principal components analysis on five postcranial bones of L. wellsi, comparing them to that of several extant ruminant artiodactyls, which are divided among seven habitat categories. These elements are also compared with the postcrania of other blastomerycines. These analyses indicate that L. wellsi anatomy is most similar to that of other …

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Conservation Planning In A Changing World, Austin Walker Milt Aug 2015

Conservation Planning In A Changing World, Austin Walker Milt

Doctoral Dissertations

As a science and practice dedicated to preventing, stopping, and reversing negative effects on nature, conservation is constantly faced with new challenges. Combine this fact with the rise of large, freely available datasets and computational power, and the result is a need to advance the methods and conceptual approach to conservation planning. In my dissertation I present novel methods and address research questions that aim to keep conservation science and practice relevant and effective in a changing world. This picture of continual change is illustrated in Chapter 1, in which I explore how the ongoing collection of observations of rare …

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Sediment Loss Of Santa Rosa Island Slopes: An Erosional Study, Michael Perez Aug 2015

Sediment Loss Of Santa Rosa Island Slopes: An Erosional Study, Michael Perez

STAR Program Research Presentations

Ranching began on Santa Rosa Island in the 1840’s, consequently introducing nonnative megafauna that put novel selective grazing pressures on endemic plant species. Their movement patterns also altered sediment integrity as the land was denuded of any stabilizing vegetation. Dense groves of island oak (Q. tomentella) are known to aid in sediment deposition and retention. The groves also function to collect water during periods of intense fog that are common to the island. This experiment sought to quantify the volume of sediment that has been lost on a south facing slope in the middle of the island that …

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Radiocarbon Isotopic Classification Of Deep Tropical Forest Soils, Brooke Butler, Karis J. Mcfarlane, Jennifer Pett-Ridge, Katherine A. Heckman Aug 2015

Radiocarbon Isotopic Classification Of Deep Tropical Forest Soils, Brooke Butler, Karis J. Mcfarlane, Jennifer Pett-Ridge, Katherine A. Heckman

STAR Program Research Presentations

Tropical forest soils have an important role in global carbon (C) stocks. Small changes in the cycling of C could drastically affect atmospheric carbon dioxide (CO2) concentrations and active cycling of carbon in a forest community. Currently, little is understood of how tropical forest soils will respond to the increasing global temperatures. To examine the effects of warming/ drought on losses of older versus younger soil C pools, we implemented radiocarbon (14C) isotopic characterization of various soil plot samples and depths from the Luquillo Experimental Forest, Puerto Rico. 14C was measured using Accelerated Mass Spectrometry (AMS) from catalytically condensed carbon …

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An Investigation Of The Effect Of Malathion On Adaptive Plasticity Of Pseudacris Sierra, Michael Jonathan Maples Aug 2015

An Investigation Of The Effect Of Malathion On Adaptive Plasticity Of Pseudacris Sierra, Michael Jonathan Maples

Master's Theses

This thesis is composed of two chapters. Chapter one reviews what is known about adaptive plasticity in response to predators, describes the physiological systems involved in such plasticity, and outlines the evolutionary consequences of adaptive plasticity. Chapter two describes a scientific experiment that investigates how malathion may impact adaptive plasticity in the Sierran Treefrog, Pseudacris sierra. Anuran tadpoles suffer high mortality rates due to predation. In response to strong selective forces relating to these high predation rates, tadpoles evolved the ability to adaptively respond to predators through morphological and behavioral plasticity. The morphological and behavioral responses are varied and depend …

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Resolving Relationships At The Animal-Fungal Divergence: A Molecular Phylogenetic Approach For Understanding The Ecology And Evolution Of The Protist Trichomycetes, Nicole K. Reynolds Aug 2015

Resolving Relationships At The Animal-Fungal Divergence: A Molecular Phylogenetic Approach For Understanding The Ecology And Evolution Of The Protist Trichomycetes, Nicole K. Reynolds

Boise State University Theses and Dissertations

The Ichthyosporea (= Mesomycetozoea) is a relatively understudied class of unicellular symbionts that molecular phylogenies have placed at the divergence of animals and fungi. Subsumed in this class are the cosmopolitan families Eccrinidae and Amoebidiidae (referred to as “protist trichos” or “trichos” herein), which are considered obligate commensal endobionts of various arthropods, including marine, freshwater and terrestrial hosts. Once thought to be members of the fungal class Trichomycetes due to their hyphal-like growth form and ecological similarity, molecular evidence has necessitated reclassification. However, evolutionary relationships within and between them are still unclear as the number of taxa sampled and/or the …

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Latitudinal Variation In Thermal Tolerance And Preference Of Fundulus Notatus And F. Olivaceus: Implications For Temperature Mediated Reproductive Isolation, Laura Kristin Stewart Aug 2015

Latitudinal Variation In Thermal Tolerance And Preference Of Fundulus Notatus And F. Olivaceus: Implications For Temperature Mediated Reproductive Isolation, Laura Kristin Stewart

Master's Theses

Temperature is one of the most pervasive and influential abiotic factors affecting the life histories of fish, regulating a host of physiological processes and influencing behavioral thermoregulation. Fundulus notatus, the blackstripe topminnow, and F. olivaceus, the blackspotted topminnow, are widely distributed species located in drainages along the northern part of Gulf of Mexico (30°N latitude) and as far north as southern Illinois (39°N latitude). However, F. notatus has a much broader range reaching up into the Great Lakes (43°N latitude). Due to their broad geographical range, these populations inhabit a wide range of thermal regimes, thus …

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Assessment Of Disturbance Effects Of An Existing Wind Energy Facility On Greater Prairie-Chicken (Tympanuchus Cupido Pinnatus) Breeding Season Ecology In The Sandhills Of Nebraska, Jocelyn O. Harrison Jul 2015

Assessment Of Disturbance Effects Of An Existing Wind Energy Facility On Greater Prairie-Chicken (Tympanuchus Cupido Pinnatus) Breeding Season Ecology In The Sandhills Of Nebraska, Jocelyn O. Harrison

School of Natural Resources: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

Recent wind energy development in the Great Plains of North America has given rise to concerns of potential impacts on the greater prairie-chicken (Tympanuchus cupido pinnatus). Recent studies in fragmented landscapes have suggested greater prairie-chickens may avoid wind facilities, which may lead to habitat loss and negative impacts on reproduction and survival. But, it is unknown if there is a similar effect in contiguous grass landscapes. Thus, we investigated the effect of a pre-existing, 36-turbine wind energy facility on greater prairie-chicken nesting, brood-rearing, and spatial ecology in the Nebraska Sandhills. We captured and marked 78 female greater prairie-chickens …

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