Environmental Monitoring Commons^™

Incorporating Multi-Spectral Imaging Into Long-Term Upland Breeding Bird Monitoring, Kyle William Schumacher

Master's Theses

Quivira National Wildlife Refuge in Kansas, United States partnered with Fort Hays State University Hays, KS in 2014 to begin a collaborative research project that aimed to develop a long-term monitoring protocol guided by the Comprehensive Conservation Plan for the refuge published in 2013. This plan identified specific wildlife taxa underrepresented in management impact assessments throughout the property. As a result of this plan, surveys were established to monitor interactions between upland breeding birds and the vegetation community. I conducted point count surveys in 2016, 2017, and 2018 for 122 observation points across four transects. I measured seventeen vegetation variables …

Crop Height Estimation With Unmanned Aerial Vehicles, Carrick Detweiler, David Anthony, Sebastian Elbaum

School of Computing: Faculty Publications

An unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) can be configured for crop height estimation. In some examples, the UAV includes an aerial propulsion system, a laser scanner configured to face downwards while the UAV is in flight, and a control system. The laser scanner is configured to scan through a two-dimensional scan angle and is characterized by a maxi mum range. The control system causes the UAV to fly over an agricultural field and maintain, using the aerial propulsion system and the laser scanner, a distance between the UAV and a top of crops in the agricultural field to within a programmed …

Predicting Invasive Carp Habitat Suitability In The Minnesota River, Minnesota, Melissa Oubre

All Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Other Capstone Projects

Since the 1980's invasive carp have been expanding their range northward up the Mississippi River. Consisting of four species, grass carp (Ctenophaygodon idella), silver carp (Hypophthalmichthys molitrix), bighead carp (H. nobilis), and black carp (Mylopharyngodon piceus), these fish have the potential to naturalize and expand into large Mississippi River tributaries like the Minnesota River (MNR). Thus, understanding the likelihood of naturalization in these tributaries is vital in guiding prevention or mitigation efforts. This study evaluates the environmental suitability of the Minnesota River, the largest tributary to the Mississippi in Minnesota, for invasive carp. Environmental suitability for invasive carp is modeled …

The Efficacy Of Best Management Practices On Peak Discharge And Contaminant Loads In Agricultural Drainage Systems, Blue Earth River Watershed, South-Central Minnesota, Usa, Zach Hilgendorf

All Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Other Capstone Projects

Conversion of native land cover to row crop agriculture and anthropogenically modified hydrology, correlates with increases in peak discharge, annual discharge, sediment and nutrient loads in agricultural land-use dominated watersheds within the Mississippi River basin. This results in environmental issues related to turbidity, eutrophication-hypoxia, loss of biodiversity, natural resource degradation, reduction in tourism, and more. In no place is this more obvious than the ever-growing "Dead Zone" in the Gulf of Mexico. The Minnesota River basin, the largest tributary to the Mississippi River in Minnesota, is a disproportionately large contributor of sediment (~80-90%), nitrogen (~56%), and phosphorus (~45%) to the …

A Landscape Index Of Ecological Integrity To Inform Landscape Conservation, Kevin Mcgarigal, Brad Compton, Ethan Plunkett, Bill Deluca, Joanna Grand, Eduard Ene, Scott D. Jackson

Environmental Conservation Faculty Publication Series

Context: Conservation planning is increasingly using "coarse filters" based on the idea of conserving "nature's stage". One such approach is based on ecosystems and the concept of ecological integrity, although myriad ways exist to measure ecological integrity.

Objectives: To describe our ecosystem-based index of ecological integrity (IEI) and its derivative index of ecological impact (ecoIpmact), and illustrate their applications for conservation assessment and planning in the northeastern United States.

Methods: We characterized the biophysical setting of the landscape at the 30 m cell resolution using a parsimonious suite of settings variables. Based on these settings …

Responses Of Non-Native Earthworms To Experimental Eradication Of Garlic Mustard And Implications For Native Vegetation, Kristina A. Stinson, S. D. Frey, M. R. Jackson, E. Coates-Connor, M. Anthony, K. Martinez

Environmental Conservation Faculty Publication Series

Recent studies in invasion biology suggest that positive feedback among two or more introduced organisms facilitate establishment within a new range and drive changes in native plant communities. Here, we experimentally tested for relationships between native plants and two non‐native organisms invading forest habitats in North America: garlic mustard (Alliaria petiolata, Brassicaceae) and earthworms. In two forested sites, we compared understory vegetation and earthworm biomass in plots where garlic mustard was removed for three years, plots without garlic mustard invasion, and plots invaded by garlic mustard that was not removed. Earthworm biomass was highest in the plots with …

Balancing Urban Biodiversity Needs And Resident Preferences For Vacant Lot Management, Christine C. Rega-Brodsky, Charles H. Nilon, Paige S. Warren

Environmental Conservation Faculty Publication Series

Urban vacant lots are often a contentious feature in cities, seen as overgrown, messy eyesores that plague neighborhoods. We propose a shift in this perception to locations of urban potential, because vacant lots may serve as informal greenspaces that maximize urban biodiversity while satisfying residents’ preferences for their design and use. Our goal was to assess what kind of vacant lots are ecologically valuable by assessing their biotic contents and residents’ preferences within a variety of settings. We surveyed 150 vacant lots throughout Baltimore, Maryland for their plant and bird communities, classified the lot’s setting within the urban matrix, and …

Gis Data: Essex County, Virginia Shoreline Inventory, Marcia Berman, Karinna Nunez, Sharon Killeen, Tamia Rudnicky, Julie G. Bradshaw, Jessica Hendricks, David Stanhope, Carl Hershner

Data

No abstract provided.

Section: 01 Line Frame: 01 Aug27-17: Aerial Imagery Acquired To Monitor The Distribution And Abundance Of Submerged Aquatic Vegetation In Chesapeake Bay And Coastal Bays, R. J. Orth, David J. Wilcox, Jennifer R. Whiting, Anna K. Kenne, Erica R. Smith

Data

Multispectral aerial imagery acquired in 2017 to monitor the distribution and abundance of submerged aquatic vegetation in Chesapeake Bay and coastal bays.

Gis Data: New Kent County, Virginia Tidal Marsh Inventory, Marcia Berman, Karinna Nunez, Sharon Killeen, Tamia Rudnicky, Julie G. Bradshaw, Jessica Hendricks, Carl Hershner

Data

No abstract provided.

The Role Of Environmental Filtering In Structuring Appalachian Tree Communities: Topographic Influences On Functional Diversity Are Mediated Through Soil Characteristics, Julia I. Chapman, Ryan W. Mcewan

Biology Faculty Publications

Identifying the drivers of community assembly has long been a central goal in ecology, and the development of functional diversity indices has provided a new way of detecting the influence of environmental gradients on biotic communities. For an old-growth Appalachian forest, we used path analysis to understand how patterns of tree functional diversity relate to topography and soil gradients and to determine whether topographic effects are mediated through soil chemistry. All of our path models supported the idea of environmental filtering: stressful areas (high elevation, low soil moisture, low soil nutrients) were occupied by communities of low functional diversity, which …

Kentucky River Watershed Watch: Summary Of 2017 Sampling Results, Kentucky Water Resources Research Institute

Kentucky River Watershed Watch

No abstract provided.

Persistence Of Stream Restoration With Large Wood, Redwood National And State Parks, California, Diedra L. Rodriguez

Cal Poly Humboldt theses and projects

The conservation and recovery of anadromous salmonids (Oncorhynchus sp.) depend on stream restoration and protection of freshwater habitats. In-stream large wood dictates channel morphology, increases retention of terrestrial inputs such as organic matter, nutrients and sediment, and enhances the quality of fish habitat. Historic land use/land cover changes have resulted in aquatic systems devoid of large wood. Restoration by placement of large wood jams is intended to restore physical and biological processes. An important question for scientists and restoration managers, in addition to the initial effectiveness of restoration, is the persistence and fate of large wood installations. In this …

A Land Use Regression Model For Explaining Spatial Variation In Air Pollution Levels Using A Wind Sector Based Approach, Owen Naughton, Aoife Donnelly, Paul Nolan, Francesco Pilla, Bruce Misstear, Brian Broderick

Articles

Estimating pollutant concentrations at a local and regional scale is essential for good ambient air quality information in environmental and health policy decision making. Here we present a land use regression (LUR) modelling methodology that exploits the high temporal resolution of fixed-site monitoring (FSM) to produce viable air quality maps. The methodology partitions concentration time series from a national FSM network into wind-dependent sectors or “wedges”. A LUR model is derived using predictor variables calculated within the directional wind sectors, and compared against the long-term average concentrations within each sector. This study demonstrates the value of incorporating the relative position …

Landscape Scale Spectral-Temporal Modelling Of Bamboo-Dominated Forest Succession Within The Atlantic Forest Of Southern Brazil, Clara Greig

Theses and Dissertations (Comprehensive)

Tropical and subtropical ecosystems have become vulnerable to biological invasion (i.e., bamboo) due to human induced forest fragmentation. Bamboo ecological processes have been found to impede forest development, resulting in a state of arrested succession, which has been found to significantly reduce biodiversity, thus contributing to biotic homogenization. In this study we use a semi-empirical approach to develop a community-level spatially explicit ecological process model (hybrid model) using a time-series of Landsat imagery to describe single-landscape scale ecological processes of a pervasive bamboo species (Merostachys skvortzovii) found throughout the Araucaria forest, a critically threatened subtype of Atlantic forest …

High Frequency Temperature Variability Reduces The Risk Of Coral Bleaching, Aryan Safaie, Nyssa J. Silbiger, Timothy R. Mcclanahan, Geno Pawlak, Daniel J. Barshis, James L. Hench, Gareth J. Williams, Kristen A. Davis

Biological Sciences Faculty Publications

Coral bleaching is the detrimental expulsion of algal symbionts from their cnidarian hosts, and predominantly occurs when corals are exposed to thermal stress. The incidence and severity of bleaching is often spatially heterogeneous within reef-scales (km), and is therefore not predictable using conventional remote sensing products. Here, we systematically assess the relationship between in situ measurements of 20 environmental variables, along with seven remotely sensed SST thermal stress metrics, and 81 observed bleaching events at coral reef locations spanning five major reef regions globally. We find that high-frequency temperature variability (i.e., daily temperature range) was the most influential factor in …

Assessing Spatio-Temporal Patterns Of Forest Decline Across A Diverse Landscape In The Klamath Mountains Using A 28-Year Landsat Time-Series Analysis, Drew S. Bost

Cal Poly Humboldt theses and projects

Rates of tree mortality in California and the Pacific Northwest have greatly increased in recent years, driven largely by pest and pathogen outbreaks as well as the effects of hotter, warmer droughts. While there have been a multitude of regional-scale assessments of mortality and forest decline, landscape-level studies are necessary to better identify forests that are most vulnerable to decline and to anticipate future changes. This need is particularly notable in the remote and little-studied mountains of northwest California, which are renowned for their diverse, heterogeneous vegetation types. A recent observation of elevated levels of Shasta red fir (Abies …

Water Quality Trends Following Anomalous Phosphorus Inputs To Grand Bay, Mississippi, Usa, Marcus W. Beck, Kimberly Cressman, Cher Griffin, Jane Caffrey

Gulf and Caribbean Research

Grand Bay National Estuarine Research Reserve (GBNERR) is a 7500 ha protected area in Jackson County, MS. In 2005, a levee breach at a fertilizer manufacturing facility released highly acidic and phosphate—rich wastewater into the reserve. A second spill occurred in September 2012 following Hurricane Isaac. We used orthophosphate (PO₄^3-) concentrations to categorize the 2 events, post— events, and non—impact periods between the 2 spills. We examined spatial and temporal patterns in nutrients, chlorophyll, pH, and other parameters within and between monitoring stations. After the first event, pH at the Bangs Lake water quality station decreased to …

Analysis Of Ambient Particulate Concentration Near A Coal Storage Pile, Jennifer Wittenburg

Dissertations and Theses @ UNI

Fugitive dust sources such as aggregate storage piles contribute significantly to the total suspended particulate levels in the ambient air. Particulate levels are monitored and regulated by the Environmental Protection Agency to protect public health and welfare. This study monitored particulate concentrations in the ambient air near a coal storage pile. Air samplers and weather stations were placed at two locations, one to the north of the pile and one to the south of the pile, and were used to collect particulate and weather related data.

The data were analyzed to determine the origin of the particulate and to identify …

Resource Assessment Report Western Australian Sea Cucumber Resource, Anthony M. Hart, D. V. Murphy, N Caputi, Alexander Hesp, E. A. Fisher

WA Marine Stewardship Council report series

This document provides a cumulative description and assessment of the Sea Cucumber Resource and all of the fishing activities (i.e. fisheries / fishing sectors) affecting this resource in Western Australia (WA). The overall resource comprises two main species (sandfish Holothuria scabra and redfish Actinopyga echinites), and few minor species that inhabit the tropical shallow continental shelf waters of the North Coast Bioregion.