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Full-Text Articles in Physical Sciences and Mathematics
Steps Toward Butternut (Juglans Cinerea L.) Restoration, Sunshine L. Brosi
Steps Toward Butternut (Juglans Cinerea L.) Restoration, Sunshine L. Brosi
Doctoral Dissertations
Butternut (Juglans cinerea L.), a lesser-known relative of black walnut (Juglans nigra L.), is a native tree species beneficial for wildlife, valuable for timber, and part of the great diversity of species in the eastern forests of North America. Populations of butternut are being devastated by butternut canker disease, caused by the fungus Sirococcus clavigignenti-juglandacearum (V.M.G. Nair, Kostichka, & Kuntz), which is thought to be introduced to North America. The disease causes multiple branch and stem cankers that eventually girdle trees. Small population sizes, lack of sprouting, and shade intolerance exacerbates the disease and results in permanent losses of butternut …
Spatiotemporal Dynamics In A Lower Montane Tropical Rainforest, Robert Michael Lawton
Spatiotemporal Dynamics In A Lower Montane Tropical Rainforest, Robert Michael Lawton
Doctoral Dissertations
Disturbance in a forest’s canopy, whether caused by treefall, limbfall, landslide, or fire determines not only the distribution of well-lit patches at any given time, but also the ways in which the forest changes over time. In this dissertation, I use a 25 year record of treefall gap formation find a novel and highly patterned process of forest disturbance and regeneration, providing a local mechanism by examining the factors that influence the likelihood of treefall. I then develop a stochastic cellular automaton for disturbance and regeneration based on the analysis of this long term data set and illustrate the potential …
Optimal Control Of Species Augmentation Conservation Strategies, Erin Nicole Bodine
Optimal Control Of Species Augmentation Conservation Strategies, Erin Nicole Bodine
Doctoral Dissertations
Species augmentation is a method of reducing species loss via augmenting declining or threatened populations with individuals from captive-bred or stable, wild populations. In this dissertation, species augmentation is analyzed in an optimal control setting to determine the optimal augmentation strategies given various constraints and settings. In each setting, we consider the effects on both the target/endangered population and a reserve population from which the individuals translocated in the augmentation are harvested. Four different optimal control formulations are explored. The first two optimal control formulations model the underlying population dynamics with a system of ordinary differential equations. Each of these …