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University of Vermont

2016

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Articles 1 - 30 of 35

Full-Text Articles in Physical Sciences and Mathematics

Simulation Of The Effects Of Photodecay On Long-Term Litter Decay Using Daycent, Maosi Chen, William J. Parton, E. Carol Adair, Shinichi Asao, Melannie D. Hartman, Wei Gao Dec 2016

Simulation Of The Effects Of Photodecay On Long-Term Litter Decay Using Daycent, Maosi Chen, William J. Parton, E. Carol Adair, Shinichi Asao, Melannie D. Hartman, Wei Gao

Rubenstein School of Environment and Natural Resources Faculty Publications

Recent studies have found that solar ultraviolet (UV) radiation significantly shifts the mass loss and nitrogen dynamics of plant litter decomposition in semi-arid and arid ecosystems. In this study, we examined the role of photodegradation in litter decomposition by using the DayCent-UV biogeochemical model. DayCent-UV incorporated the following mechanisms related to UV radiation: (1) direct photolysis, (2) facilitation of microbial decomposition via production of labile materials, and (3) microbial inhibition effects. We also allowed maximum photodecay rate of the structural litter pool to vary with litter's initial lignin fraction in the model. We calibrated DayCent-UV with observed ecosystem variables (e.g., …

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Reducing Emissions From Agriculture To Meet The 2 °C Target, Eva Wollenberg, Meryl Richards, Pete Smith, Petr Havlík, Michael Obersteiner, Francesco N. Tubiello, Martin Herold, Pierre Gerber, Sarah Carter, Andrew Reisinger, Detlef P. Van Vuuren, Amy Dickie, Henry Neufeldt, Björn O. Sander, Reiner Wassmann, Rolf Sommer, James E. Amonette, Alessandra Falcucci, Mario Herrero, Carolyn Opio, Rosa Maria Roman-Cuesta, Elke Stehfest, Henk Westhoek, Ivan Ortiz-Monasterio, Tek Sapkota, Mariana C. Rufino, Philip K. Thornton, Louis Verchot, Paul C. West, Jean François Soussana, Tobias Baedeker Dec 2016

Reducing Emissions From Agriculture To Meet The 2 °C Target, Eva Wollenberg, Meryl Richards, Pete Smith, Petr Havlík, Michael Obersteiner, Francesco N. Tubiello, Martin Herold, Pierre Gerber, Sarah Carter, Andrew Reisinger, Detlef P. Van Vuuren, Amy Dickie, Henry Neufeldt, Björn O. Sander, Reiner Wassmann, Rolf Sommer, James E. Amonette, Alessandra Falcucci, Mario Herrero, Carolyn Opio, Rosa Maria Roman-Cuesta, Elke Stehfest, Henk Westhoek, Ivan Ortiz-Monasterio, Tek Sapkota, Mariana C. Rufino, Philip K. Thornton, Louis Verchot, Paul C. West, Jean François Soussana, Tobias Baedeker

Rubenstein School of Environment and Natural Resources Faculty Publications

More than 100 countries pledged to reduce agricultural greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions in the 2015 Paris Agreement of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change. Yet technical information about how much mitigation is needed in the sector vs. how much is feasible remains poor. We identify a preliminary global target for reducing emissions from agriculture of ~1 GtCO2e yr−1 by 2030 to limit warming in 2100 to 2 °C above pre-industrial levels. Yet plausible agricultural development pathways with mitigation cobenefits deliver only 21–40% of needed mitigation. The target indicates that more transformative technical and policy options will be needed, …

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Coupled Impacts Of Climate And Land Use Change Across A River-Lake Continuum: Insights From An Integrated Assessment Model Of Lake Champlain's Missisquoi Basin, 2000-2040, Asim Zia, Arne Bomblies, Andrew W. Schroth, Christopher Koliba, Peter D.F. Isles, Yushiou Tsai, Ibrahim N. Mohammed, Gabriela Bucini, Patrick J. Clemins, Scott Turnbull, Morgan Rodgers, Ahmed Hamed, Brian Beckage, Jonathan Winter Nov 2016

Coupled Impacts Of Climate And Land Use Change Across A River-Lake Continuum: Insights From An Integrated Assessment Model Of Lake Champlain's Missisquoi Basin, 2000-2040, Asim Zia, Arne Bomblies, Andrew W. Schroth, Christopher Koliba, Peter D.F. Isles, Yushiou Tsai, Ibrahim N. Mohammed, Gabriela Bucini, Patrick J. Clemins, Scott Turnbull, Morgan Rodgers, Ahmed Hamed, Brian Beckage, Jonathan Winter

College of Engineering and Mathematical Sciences Faculty Publications

Global climate change (GCC) is projected to bring higher-intensity precipitation and higher-variability temperature regimes to the Northeastern United States. The interactive effects of GCC with anthropogenic land use and land cover changes (LULCCs) are unknown for watershed level hydrological dynamics and nutrient fluxes to freshwater lakes. Increased nutrient fluxes can promote harmful algal blooms, also exacerbated by warmer water temperatures due to GCC. To address the complex interactions of climate, land and humans, we developed a cascading integrated assessment model to test the impacts of GCC and LULCC on the hydrological regime, water temperature, water quality, bloom duration and severity …

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Coupled Impacts Of Climate And Land Use Change Across A River-Lake Continuum: Insights From An Integrated Assessment Model Of Lake Champlain's Missisquoi Basin, 2000-2040, Asim Zia, Arne Bomblies, Andrew W. Schroth, Christopher Koliba, Peter D.F. Isles, Yushiou Tsai, Ibrahim N. Mohammed, Gabriela Bucini, Patrick J. Clemins, Scott Turnbull, Morgan Rodgers, Ahmed Hamed, Brian Beckage, Jonathan Winter, Carol Adair, Gillian L. Galford, Donna Rizzo, Judith Van Houten Nov 2016

Coupled Impacts Of Climate And Land Use Change Across A River-Lake Continuum: Insights From An Integrated Assessment Model Of Lake Champlain's Missisquoi Basin, 2000-2040, Asim Zia, Arne Bomblies, Andrew W. Schroth, Christopher Koliba, Peter D.F. Isles, Yushiou Tsai, Ibrahim N. Mohammed, Gabriela Bucini, Patrick J. Clemins, Scott Turnbull, Morgan Rodgers, Ahmed Hamed, Brian Beckage, Jonathan Winter, Carol Adair, Gillian L. Galford, Donna Rizzo, Judith Van Houten

Rubenstein School of Environment and Natural Resources Faculty Publications

Global climate change (GCC) is projected to bring higher-intensity precipitation and higher-variability temperature regimes to the Northeastern United States. The interactive effects of GCC with anthropogenic land use and land cover changes (LULCCs) are unknown for watershed level hydrological dynamics and nutrient fluxes to freshwater lakes. Increased nutrient fluxes can promote harmful algal blooms, also exacerbated by warmer water temperatures due to GCC. To address the complex interactions of climate, land and humans, we developed a cascading integrated assessment model to test the impacts of GCC and LULCC on the hydrological regime, water temperature, water quality, bloom duration and severity …

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Influence Of Topography And Human Activity On Apparent In Situ 10be-Derived Erosion Rates In Yunnan, Sw China, Amanda H. Schmidt, Thomas B. Neilson, Paul R. Bierman, Dylan H. Rood, William B. Ouimet, Veronica Sosa Gonzalez Nov 2016

Influence Of Topography And Human Activity On Apparent In Situ 10be-Derived Erosion Rates In Yunnan, Sw China, Amanda H. Schmidt, Thomas B. Neilson, Paul R. Bierman, Dylan H. Rood, William B. Ouimet, Veronica Sosa Gonzalez

College of Arts and Sciences Faculty Publications

In order to understand better if and where erosion rates calculated using in situ 10Be are affected by contemporary changes in land use and attendant deep regolith erosion, we calculated erosion rates using measurements of in situ 10Be in quartz from 52 samples of river sediment collected from three tributaries of the Mekong River (median basin areaD46.5 km2). Erosion rates range from 12 to 209mm kyr-1 with an area-weighted mean of 117±49mm kyr-1 (1 standard deviation) and median of 74mm kyr-1.We observed a decrease in the relative influence of human activity from our steepest and least altered watershed in the …

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A Stochastic Model For Landscape Patterns Of Biodiversity, Jayme A. Prevedello, Nicholas J. Gotelli, Jean Paul Metzger Nov 2016

A Stochastic Model For Landscape Patterns Of Biodiversity, Jayme A. Prevedello, Nicholas J. Gotelli, Jean Paul Metzger

College of Arts and Sciences Faculty Publications

Many factors have been proposed to affect biodiversity patterns across landscapes, including patch area, patch isolation, edge distances, and matrix quality, but existing models emphasize only one or two of these factors at a time. Here we introduce a synthetic but simple individual-based model that generates realistic patterns of species richness and density as a function of landscape structure. In this model, we simulated the stochastic placement of home ranges in landscapes, thus combining features of existing random placement and mid-domain effect models. As such, the model allows investigation of whether and how geometric constraints on home range placement of …

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Estimating Economic Losses To Tourism In Africa From The Illegal Killing Of Elephants, Robin Naidoo, Brendan Fisher, Andrea Manica, Andrew Balmford Nov 2016

Estimating Economic Losses To Tourism In Africa From The Illegal Killing Of Elephants, Robin Naidoo, Brendan Fisher, Andrea Manica, Andrew Balmford

Rubenstein School of Environment and Natural Resources Faculty Publications

Recent surveys suggest tens of thousands of elephants are being poached annually across Africa, putting the two species at risk across much of their range. Although the financial motivations for ivory poaching are clear, the economic benefits of elephant conservation are poorly understood. We use Bayesian statistical modelling of tourist visits to protected areas, to quantify the lost economic benefits that poached elephants would have delivered to African countries via tourism. Our results show these figures are substantial (∼USD $25 million annually), and that the lost benefits exceed the anti-poaching costs necessary to stop elephant declines across the continent's savannah …

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Disaggregating The Evidence Linking Biodiversity And Ecosystem Services, Taylor H. Ricketts, Keri B. Watson, Insu Koh, Alicia M. Ellis, Charles C. Nicholson, Stephen Posner, Leif L. Richardson, Laura J. Sonter Oct 2016

Disaggregating The Evidence Linking Biodiversity And Ecosystem Services, Taylor H. Ricketts, Keri B. Watson, Insu Koh, Alicia M. Ellis, Charles C. Nicholson, Stephen Posner, Leif L. Richardson, Laura J. Sonter

Rubenstein School of Environment and Natural Resources Faculty Publications

Ecosystem services (ES) are an increasingly popular policy framework for connecting biodiversity with human well-being. These efforts typically assume that biodiversity and ES covary, but the relationship between them remains remarkably unclear. Here we analyse >500 recent papers and show that reported relationships differ among ES, methods of measuring biodiversity and ES, and three different approaches to linking them (spatial correlations, management comparisons and functional experiments). For spatial correlations, biodiversity relates more strongly to measures of ES supply than to resulting human benefits. For management comparisons, biodiversity of â € service providers' predicts ES more often than biodiversity of functionally …

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Climatic Warming Destabilizes Forest Ant Communities, Sarah E. Diamond, Lauren M. Nichols, Shannon L. Pelini, Clint A. Penick, Grace W. Barber, Sara Helms Cahan, Robert R. Dunn, Aaron M. Ellison, Nathan J. Sanders, Nicholas J. Gotelli Oct 2016

Climatic Warming Destabilizes Forest Ant Communities, Sarah E. Diamond, Lauren M. Nichols, Shannon L. Pelini, Clint A. Penick, Grace W. Barber, Sara Helms Cahan, Robert R. Dunn, Aaron M. Ellison, Nathan J. Sanders, Nicholas J. Gotelli

College of Arts and Sciences Faculty Publications

How will ecological communities change in response to climate warming? Direct effects of temperature and indirect cascading effects of species interactions are already altering the structure of local communities, but the dynamics of community change are still poorly understood. We explore the cumulative effects of warming on the dynamics and turnover of forest ant communities that were warmed as part of a 5-year climate manipulation experiment at two sites in eastern North America. At the community level, warming consistently increased occupancy of nests and decreased extinction and nest abandonment. This consistency was largely driven by strong responses of a subset …

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Variation Of Organic Matter Quantity And Quality In Streams At Critical Zone Observatory Watersheds, Matthew P. Miller, Elizabeth W. Boyer, Diane M. Mcknight, Michael G. Brown, Rachel S. Gabor, Carolyn T. Hunsaker, Lidiia Iavorivska, Shreeram Inamdar, Dale W. Johnson, Louis A. Kaplan, Henry Lin, William H. Mcdowell, Julia N. Perdrial Oct 2016

Variation Of Organic Matter Quantity And Quality In Streams At Critical Zone Observatory Watersheds, Matthew P. Miller, Elizabeth W. Boyer, Diane M. Mcknight, Michael G. Brown, Rachel S. Gabor, Carolyn T. Hunsaker, Lidiia Iavorivska, Shreeram Inamdar, Dale W. Johnson, Louis A. Kaplan, Henry Lin, William H. Mcdowell, Julia N. Perdrial

College of Arts and Sciences Faculty Publications

The quantity and chemical composition of dissolved organic matter (DOM) in surface waters influence ecosystem processes and anthropogenic use of freshwater. However, despite the importance of understanding spatial and temporal patterns in DOM, measures of DOM quality are not routinely included as part of large-scale ecosystem monitoring programs and variations in analytical procedures can introduce artifacts. In this study, we used consistent sampling and analytical methods to meet the objective of defining variability in DOM quantity and quality and other measures of water quality in streamflow issuing from small forested watersheds located within five Critical Zone Observatory sites representing contrasting …

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Opportunities For Biodiversity Gains Under The World's Largest Reforestation Programme, Fangyuan Hua, Xiaoyang Wang, Xinlei Zheng, Brendan Fisher, Lin Wang, Jianguo Zhu, Ya Tang, Douglas W. Yu, David S. Wilcove Sep 2016

Opportunities For Biodiversity Gains Under The World's Largest Reforestation Programme, Fangyuan Hua, Xiaoyang Wang, Xinlei Zheng, Brendan Fisher, Lin Wang, Jianguo Zhu, Ya Tang, Douglas W. Yu, David S. Wilcove

Rubenstein School of Environment and Natural Resources Faculty Publications

Reforestation is a critical means of addressing the environmental and social problems of deforestation. China's Grain-for-Green Program (GFGP) is the world's largest reforestation scheme. Here we provide the first nationwide assessment of the tree composition of GFGP forests and the first combined ecological and economic study aimed at understanding GFGP's biodiversity implications. Across China, GFGP forests are overwhelmingly monocultures or compositionally simple mixed forests. Focusing on birds and bees in Sichuan Province, we find that GFGP reforestation results in modest gains (via mixed forest) and losses (via monocultures) of bird diversity, along with major losses of bee diversity. Moreover, all …

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Zirconium-Catalyzed Alkene Hydrophosphination And Dehydrocoupling With An Air-Stable, Fluorescent Primary Phosphine, Christine A. Bange, Neil T. Mucha, Morgan E. Cousins, Abigail C. Gehsmann, Anna Singer, Taylor Truax, Lee J. Higham Sep 2016

Zirconium-Catalyzed Alkene Hydrophosphination And Dehydrocoupling With An Air-Stable, Fluorescent Primary Phosphine, Christine A. Bange, Neil T. Mucha, Morgan E. Cousins, Abigail C. Gehsmann, Anna Singer, Taylor Truax, Lee J. Higham

College of Arts and Sciences Faculty Publications

Zirconium-catalyzed alkene hydrophosphination and dehydrocoupling with an air-stable, fluorescent primary phosphine 8-[(4-phosphino)phenyl]-4,4-dimethyl-1,3,5,7-tetramethyl-2,6-diethyl- 4-bora-3a,4a-diaza-s-indacene furnishes fluorescent phosphine products. Hydrophosphination of the fluorescent phosphine produces products with a complete selectivity for the secondary product. A key intermediate in catalysis, a zirconium phosphido compound, was isolated.

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Multiple Post-Domestication Origins Of Kabuli Chickpea Through Allelic Variation In A Diversification-Associated Transcription Factor, R. Varma Penmetsa, Noelia Carrasquilla-Garcia, Emily M. Bergmann, Lisa Vance, Brenna Castro, Mulualem T. Kassa, Birinchi K. Sarma, Subhojit Datta, Andrew D. Farmer, Jong Min Baek, Clarice J. Coyne, Rajeev K. Varshney, Eric J.B. Von Wettberg, Douglas R. Cook Sep 2016

Multiple Post-Domestication Origins Of Kabuli Chickpea Through Allelic Variation In A Diversification-Associated Transcription Factor, R. Varma Penmetsa, Noelia Carrasquilla-Garcia, Emily M. Bergmann, Lisa Vance, Brenna Castro, Mulualem T. Kassa, Birinchi K. Sarma, Subhojit Datta, Andrew D. Farmer, Jong Min Baek, Clarice J. Coyne, Rajeev K. Varshney, Eric J.B. Von Wettberg, Douglas R. Cook

College of Agriculture and Life Sciences Faculty Publications

Chickpea (Cicer arietinum) is among the founder crops domesticated in the Fertile Crescent. One of two major forms of chickpea, the so-called kabuli type, has white flowers and light-colored seed coats, properties not known to exist in the wild progenitor. The origin of the kabuli form has been enigmatic. We genotyped a collection of wild and cultivated chickpea genotypes with 538 single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) and examined patterns of molecular diversity relative to geographical sources and market types. In addition, we examined sequence and expression variation in candidate anthocyanin biosynthetic pathway genes. A reduction in genetic diversity and extensive genetic …

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Limited Role Of Character Displacement In The Coexistence Of Congeneric Anelosimus Spiders In A Madagascan Montane Forest, Ingi Agnarsson, Nicholas J. Gotelli, Diego Agostini, Matjaž Kuntner Aug 2016

Limited Role Of Character Displacement In The Coexistence Of Congeneric Anelosimus Spiders In A Madagascan Montane Forest, Ingi Agnarsson, Nicholas J. Gotelli, Diego Agostini, Matjaž Kuntner

College of Arts and Sciences Faculty Publications

Evolutionary and ecological theory predicts that closely related and similar species should coexist infrequently because speciation is more likely to occur allopatrically than sympatrically, and because co-occurring species with similar traits may compete for limited resources, leading to competitive exclusion or character displacement. Here we study the unusual coexistence of 10 similar congeneric species of Anelosimus spiders within a small forest fragment in Madagascar. We asked if these species radiated in sympatry or allopatry, and if there was evidence for local-scale character displacement in body size and other species-level traits. We sampled ∼ 350 colonies (6346 individuals) along a 2800 …

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Changing Forests-Changing Streams: Riparian Forest Stand Development And Ecosystem Function In Temperate Headwaters, Dana R. Warren, William S. Keeton, Peter M. Kiffney, Matthew J. Kaylor, Heather A. Bechtold, John Magee Aug 2016

Changing Forests-Changing Streams: Riparian Forest Stand Development And Ecosystem Function In Temperate Headwaters, Dana R. Warren, William S. Keeton, Peter M. Kiffney, Matthew J. Kaylor, Heather A. Bechtold, John Magee

Rubenstein School of Environment and Natural Resources Faculty Publications

Light availability influences temperature, primary production, nutrient dynamics, and secondary production in aquatic ecosystems. In forested freshwater ecosystems, shading by streamside (riparian) vegetation is a dominant control on light flux and represents an important interaction at the aquatic-terrestrial interface. Changes in forest structure over time, particularly tree mortality processes that gradually increase light penetration through maturing forest canopies, are likely to influence stream light fluxes and associated ecosystem functions. We provide a set of conceptual models describing how stream light dynamics change with the development of complex canopy structure and how changes in light availability are likely to affect stream …

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Pyrogenic Fuels Produced By Savanna Trees Can Engineer Humid Savannas, William J. Platt, Darin P. Ellair, Jean M. Huffman, Stephen E. Potts, Brian Beckage Aug 2016

Pyrogenic Fuels Produced By Savanna Trees Can Engineer Humid Savannas, William J. Platt, Darin P. Ellair, Jean M. Huffman, Stephen E. Potts, Brian Beckage

College of Agriculture and Life Sciences Faculty Publications

Natural fires ignited by lightning strikes following droughts frequently are posited as the ecological mechanism maintaining discontinuous tree cover and grass-dominated ground layers in savannas. Such fires, however, may not reliably maintain humid savannas. We propose that savanna trees producing pyrogenic shed leaves might engineer fire characteristics, affecting ground-layer plants in ways that maintain humid savannas. We explored our hypothesis in a high-rainfall, frequently burned pine savanna in which the dominant tree, longleaf pine (Pinus palustris), produces resinous needles that become highly flammable when shed and dried. We postulated that pyrogenic needles should have much greater influence on fire characteristics …

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Conjoint Analysis Of Farmers' Response To Conservation Incentives, David Conner, Jennifer Miller, Asim Zia, Qingbin Wang, Heather Darby Jul 2016

Conjoint Analysis Of Farmers' Response To Conservation Incentives, David Conner, Jennifer Miller, Asim Zia, Qingbin Wang, Heather Darby

College of Agriculture and Life Sciences Faculty Publications

Environmental degradation threatens the long term resiliency of the US food and farming system. While USDA has provided conservation incentives for the adoption of best management practices (BMPs), only a small percentage of farms have participated in such conservation programs. This study uses conjoint analysis to examine Vermont farmers' underlying preferences and willingness-to-accept (WTA) incentives for three common BMPs. Based on the results of this survey, we hypothesize that federal cost share programs' payments are below preferred incentive levels and that less familiar and more complex BMPs require a higher payment. Our implications focus on strategies to test these hypotheses …

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Challenges In Catalytic Hydrophosphination, Christine A. Bange, Rory Waterman Jul 2016

Challenges In Catalytic Hydrophosphination, Christine A. Bange, Rory Waterman

College of Arts and Sciences Faculty Publications

Despite significant advances, metal-catalyzed hydrophosphination has ample room for discovery, growth, and development. Many of the key successes in metal-catalyzed hydrophosphination over the last decade have indicated what is needed and what is yet to come. Reactivity that is absent from the literature also speaks to the challenges in catalytic hydrophosphination. This Concept article discusses and highlights recent developments that address the ongoing challenges, and identifies areas in metal-catalyzed hydrophosphination that are underdeveloped. Advances in product selectivity, catalyst design, and both unsaturated and phosphine substrates illustrate the ongoing development of the field. Like all catalytic transformations, the benefits are realized …

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Farmer Perceptions Of Climate Change: Associations With Observed Temperature And Precipitation Trends, Irrigation, And Climate Beliefs, Meredith T. Niles, Nathaniel D. Mueller Jul 2016

Farmer Perceptions Of Climate Change: Associations With Observed Temperature And Precipitation Trends, Irrigation, And Climate Beliefs, Meredith T. Niles, Nathaniel D. Mueller

College of Agriculture and Life Sciences Faculty Publications

How individuals perceive climate change is linked to whether individuals support climate policies and whether they alter their own climate-related behaviors, yet climate perceptions may be influenced by many factors beyond local shifts in weather. Infrastructure designed to control or regulate natural resources may serve as an important lens through which people experience climate, and thus may influence perceptions. Likewise, perceptions may be influenced by personal beliefs about climate change and whether it is human-induced. Here we examine farmer perceptions of historical climate change, how perceptions are related to observed trends in regional climate, how perceptions are related to the …

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Local Adaptation Or Foreign Advantage? Effective Use Of A Single-Test Site Common Garden To Evaluate Adaptation Across Ecological Scales, Eric J.B. Von Wettberg, Edward Marques, Courtney J. Murren Jul 2016

Local Adaptation Or Foreign Advantage? Effective Use Of A Single-Test Site Common Garden To Evaluate Adaptation Across Ecological Scales, Eric J.B. Von Wettberg, Edward Marques, Courtney J. Murren

College of Agriculture and Life Sciences Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

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Endangered Right Whales Enhance Primary Productivity In The Bay Of Fundy, Joe Roman, John Nevins, Mark Altabet, Heather Koopman, James Mccarthy Jun 2016

Endangered Right Whales Enhance Primary Productivity In The Bay Of Fundy, Joe Roman, John Nevins, Mark Altabet, Heather Koopman, James Mccarthy

Rubenstein School of Environment and Natural Resources Faculty Publications

This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited. Marine mammals have recently been documented as important facilitators of rapid and efficient nutrient recycling in coastal and offshore waters. Whales enhance phytoplankton nutrition by releasing fecal plumes near the surface after feeding and by migrating from highly productive, high-latitude feeding areas to low-latitude nutrient-poor calving areas. In this study, we measured NH4 + and PO4 3- release rates from the feces of North Atlantic right …

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Surface Permeability Of Natural And Engineered Porous Building Materials, David Grover, Cabot R. Savidge, Laura Townsend, Odanis Rosario, Liang Bo Hu, Donna M. Rizzo, Mandar M. Dewoolkar Jun 2016

Surface Permeability Of Natural And Engineered Porous Building Materials, David Grover, Cabot R. Savidge, Laura Townsend, Odanis Rosario, Liang Bo Hu, Donna M. Rizzo, Mandar M. Dewoolkar

College of Engineering and Mathematical Sciences Faculty Publications

Characterization of surface gas permeability measurements on a variety of natural and engineered building materials using two relatively new, non-destructive surface permeameters is presented. Surface gas permeability measurements were consistent for both laboratory and field applications and correlated well with bulk gas permeability measurements. This research indicates that surface permeability measurements could provide reliable estimates of bulk gas permeability; and due to the non-destructive nature and relative sampling ease of both surface gas permeability tools, it is possible to quantify the range of the spatial autocorrelation, heterogeneity, and anisotropy in porous building materials and their degree of degradation from weathering.

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Limits Of Agricultural Greenhouse Gas Calculators To Predict Soil N2O And Ch4 Fluxes In Tropical Agriculture, Meryl Richards, Ruth Metzel, Ngonidzashe Chirinda, Proyuth Ly, George Nyamadzawo, Quynh Duong Vu, Andreas De Neergaard, Myles Oelofse, Eva Wollenberg, Emma Keller, Daniella Malin, Jørgen E. Olesen, Jonathan Hillier, Todd S. Rosenstock May 2016

Limits Of Agricultural Greenhouse Gas Calculators To Predict Soil N2O And Ch4 Fluxes In Tropical Agriculture, Meryl Richards, Ruth Metzel, Ngonidzashe Chirinda, Proyuth Ly, George Nyamadzawo, Quynh Duong Vu, Andreas De Neergaard, Myles Oelofse, Eva Wollenberg, Emma Keller, Daniella Malin, Jørgen E. Olesen, Jonathan Hillier, Todd S. Rosenstock

Rubenstein School of Environment and Natural Resources Faculty Publications

Demand for tools to rapidly assess greenhouse gas impacts from policy and technological change in the agricultural sector has catalyzed the development of ' GHG calculators'-simple accounting approaches that use a mix of emission factors and empirical models to calculate GHG emissions with minimal input data. GHG calculators, however, rely on models calibrated from measurements conducted overwhelmingly under temperate, developed country conditions. Here we show that GHG calculators may poorly estimate emissions in tropical developing countries by comparing calculator predictions against measurements from Africa, Asia, and Latin America. Estimates based on GHG calculators were greater than measurements in 70% of …

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Tracking Climate Change Through The Spatiotemporal Dynamics Of The Teletherms, The Statistically Hottest And Coldest Days Of The Year, Peter Sheridan Dodds, Lewis Mitchell, Andrew J. Reagan, Christopher M. Danforth May 2016

Tracking Climate Change Through The Spatiotemporal Dynamics Of The Teletherms, The Statistically Hottest And Coldest Days Of The Year, Peter Sheridan Dodds, Lewis Mitchell, Andrew J. Reagan, Christopher M. Danforth

College of Engineering and Mathematical Sciences Faculty Publications

Instabilities and long term shifts in seasons, whether induced by natural drivers or human activities, pose great disruptive threats to ecological, agricultural, and social systems. Here, we propose, measure, and explore two fundamental markers of location-sensitive seasonal variations: the Summer and Winter Teletherms - the on-average annual dates of the hottest and coldest days of the year. We analyse daily temperature extremes recorded at 1218 stations across the contiguous United States from 1853-2012, and observe large regional variation with the Summer Teletherm falling up to 90 days after the Summer Solstice, and 50 days for the Winter Teletherm after the …

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Species Interactions And Random Dispersal Rather Than Habitat Filtering Drive Community Assembly During Early Plant Succession, Werner Ulrich, Markus Klemens Zaplata, Susanne Winter, Wolfgang Schaaf, Anton Fischer, Santiago Soliveres, Nicholas J. Gotelli May 2016

Species Interactions And Random Dispersal Rather Than Habitat Filtering Drive Community Assembly During Early Plant Succession, Werner Ulrich, Markus Klemens Zaplata, Susanne Winter, Wolfgang Schaaf, Anton Fischer, Santiago Soliveres, Nicholas J. Gotelli

College of Arts and Sciences Faculty Publications

Theory on plant succession predicts a temporal increase in the complexity of spatial community structure and of competitive interactions: initially random occurrences of early colonising species shift towards spatially and competitively structured plant associations in later successional stages. Here we use long-term data on early plant succession in a German post mining area to disentangle the importance of random colonisation, habitat filtering, and competition on the temporal and spatial development of plant community structure. We used species co-occurrence analysis and a recently developed method for assessing competitive strength and hierarchies (transitive versus intransitive competitive orders) in multispecies communities. We found …

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Do Insect Outbreaks Reduce The Severity Of Subsequent Forest Fires?, Garrett W. Meigs, Harold S.J. Zald, John L. Campbell, William S. Keeton, Robert E. Kennedy Apr 2016

Do Insect Outbreaks Reduce The Severity Of Subsequent Forest Fires?, Garrett W. Meigs, Harold S.J. Zald, John L. Campbell, William S. Keeton, Robert E. Kennedy

Rubenstein School of Environment and Natural Resources Faculty Publications

Understanding the causes and consequences of rapid environmental change is an essential scientific frontier, particularly given the threat of climate- and land use-induced changes in disturbance regimes. In western North America, recent widespread insect outbreaks and wildfires have sparked acute concerns about potential insect-fire interactions. Although previous research shows that insect activity typically does not increase wildfire likelihood, key uncertainties remain regarding insect effects on wildfire severity (i.e., ecological impact). Recent assessments indicate that outbreak severity and burn severity are not strongly associated, but these studies have been limited to specific insect or fire events. Here, we present a regional …

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Thermal Reactionomes Reveal Divergent Responses To Thermal Extremes In Warm And Cool-Climate Ant Species, John Stanton-Geddes, Andrew Nguyen, Lacy Chick, James Vincent, Mahesh Vangala, Robert R. Dunn, Aaron M. Ellison, Nathan J. Sanders, Nicholas J. Gotelli, Sara Helms Cahan Mar 2016

Thermal Reactionomes Reveal Divergent Responses To Thermal Extremes In Warm And Cool-Climate Ant Species, John Stanton-Geddes, Andrew Nguyen, Lacy Chick, James Vincent, Mahesh Vangala, Robert R. Dunn, Aaron M. Ellison, Nathan J. Sanders, Nicholas J. Gotelli, Sara Helms Cahan

College of Arts and Sciences Faculty Publications

Background: The distributions of species and their responses to climate change are in part determined by their thermal tolerances. However, little is known about how thermal tolerance evolves. To test whether evolutionary extension of thermal limits is accomplished through enhanced cellular stress response (enhanced response), constitutively elevated expression of protective genes (genetic assimilation) or a shift from damage resistance to passive mechanisms of thermal stability (tolerance), we conducted an analysis of the reactionome: the reaction norm for all genes in an organism's transcriptome measured across an experimental gradient. We characterized thermal reactionomes of two common ant species in the eastern …

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The Moral Basis For Conservation - Reflections On Dickman Et Al., Douglas Sheil, Jane Cohen, Carol J.Pierce Colfer, David Price, Rajindra Puri, Manuel Ruiz-Perez, Yulia Sugandi, Paul Vedeld, Eva Wollenberg, Yurdi Yasmi Mar 2016

The Moral Basis For Conservation - Reflections On Dickman Et Al., Douglas Sheil, Jane Cohen, Carol J.Pierce Colfer, David Price, Rajindra Puri, Manuel Ruiz-Perez, Yulia Sugandi, Paul Vedeld, Eva Wollenberg, Yurdi Yasmi

Rubenstein School of Environment and Natural Resources Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

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Salinity Adaptation And The Contribution Of Parental Environmental Effects In Medicago Truncatula, Ken S. Moriuchi, Maren L. Friesen, Matilde A. Cordeiro, Mounawer Badri, Wendy T. Vu, Bradley J. Main, Mohamed Elarbi Aouani, Sergey V. Nuzhdin, Sharon Y. Strauss, Eric J.B. Von Wettberg Mar 2016

Salinity Adaptation And The Contribution Of Parental Environmental Effects In Medicago Truncatula, Ken S. Moriuchi, Maren L. Friesen, Matilde A. Cordeiro, Mounawer Badri, Wendy T. Vu, Bradley J. Main, Mohamed Elarbi Aouani, Sergey V. Nuzhdin, Sharon Y. Strauss, Eric J.B. Von Wettberg

College of Agriculture and Life Sciences Faculty Publications

This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited. High soil salinity negatively influences plant growth and yield. Some taxa have evolved mechanisms for avoiding or tolerating elevated soil salinity, which can be modulated by the environment experienced by parents or offspring. We tested the contribution of the parental and offspring environments on salinity adaptation and their potential underlying mechanisms. In a two-generation greenhouse experiment, we factorially manipulated salinity concentrations for genotypes of Medicago truncatula …

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Predicting Flow Reversals In A Computational Fluid Dynamics Simulated Thermosyphon Using Data Assimilation, Andrew J. Reagan, Yves Dubief, Peter Sheridan Dodds, Christopher M. Danforth Feb 2016

Predicting Flow Reversals In A Computational Fluid Dynamics Simulated Thermosyphon Using Data Assimilation, Andrew J. Reagan, Yves Dubief, Peter Sheridan Dodds, Christopher M. Danforth

College of Engineering and Mathematical Sciences Faculty Publications

A thermal convection loop is a annular chamber filled with water, heated on the bottom half and cooled on the top half. With sufficiently large forcing of heat, the direction of fluid flow in the loop oscillates chaotically, dynamics analogous to the Earth's weather. As is the case for state-of-the-art weather models, we only observe the statistics over a small region of state space, making prediction difficult. To overcome this challenge, data assimilation (DA) methods, and specifically ensemble methods, use the computational model itself to estimate the uncertainty of the model to optimally combine these observations into an initial condition …

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