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Population Biology, Ecology, And Ecosystem Contributions Of The Eastern Oyster (Crassostrea Virginica) From Natural And Artificial Habitats In Tampa Bay, Florida, Michael Drexler

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

The objective of this project was to document the status of oysters, Crassostrea virginica, from non-reef habitats throughout Tampa Bay, Florida, and assess the ecosystem contributions of those populations relative to reef-dwelling oysters. The aspects of oyster ecology studied here include condition, prevalence and intensity of disease (Perkinsus marinus - dermo), reproductive activity (including stage, fecundity, and juvenile recruitment), adult oyster density, and the faunal community associated with the oysters.

The predominant source of variation was seasonal, with lesser contributions among sites, and in most cases, little or no effect of the habitat type. Oysters populations from each habitat …

A Multi-Methodological Study Of A Possible Syndemic Among Female Adult Flim Actresses, Candace Danielle Sibley

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Existing literature provides support for a possible syndemic among adult film actresses. Multiple studies emphasize that a combination of economic, social, and cultural issues work together in tandem to synergistically amplify HIV/STI risk in this vulnerable population. It is critical to acknowledge how the detrimental effects of the high prevalence of substance abuse, psychological distress, intimate partner violence, and childhood sexual abuse work together in a system to heighten HIV/STI risk among adult-film actresses. Additionally, issues including the retrogressive dynamic and unequal power and hegemony in the industry function as facilitators which lower the overall health profile of adult-film actresses. …

Dormant Ethnobotany: A Case Study Of Decline In Regional Plant Knowledge In The Bull Run Mountains Of Virginia, Susan Rene Leopold

Antioch University Dissertations & Theses

This dissertation introduces and applies the concept of dormant ethnobotany, a concept that helps explain the socio-economic, cultural and ecological aspects and implications of the transition away from active use of ethnobotanical knowledge and the factors that may lead to its re-emergence. Dormant ethnobotany is the study of relationships between people and plants that are inactive, but nonetheless still alive in memories, the historic record, and folklore and thereby capable of reemergence in support of the transition to a more sustainable society. The dissertation extends the field of ethnobotany from its current roots in the dynamic ethnobotany of indigenous peoples. …

From Source To Sink: An Isotopic Perspective On The Biogeochemical Relationship Between The Everglades And Florida Bay, Ana Maria Hoare

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Increasing human populations and activities in coastal areas have led to high nutrient loading and estuarine ecosystem decline. Natural hydrological patterns in South Florida have been drastically altered by changes in water management and land use practices. As a result Florida Bay has experienced a series of negative ecosystem effects including hypersalinity events, degradation of water quality, and harmful algal blooms and declines in upper trophic level populations. To remediate ecosystem decline in Florida's coastal ecosystems, the Comprehensive Everglades Restoration Plan proposes to restore a more natural hydrologic flow in the Everglades. It is expected hydrologic restoration efforts will change …

Notices

Contemporary Aesthetics (Journal Archive)

No abstract provided.

Seagrass Patch Dynamics In Areas Of Historical Loss In Tampa Bay, Fl, Usa, Kristen A. Kaufman

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

The study documents seagrass patch dynamics over large spatial extents in Tampa Bay, Florida. Using GIS techniques a set of fine scale seagrass maps was created within locations previously identified as "patchy" seagrass or areas of seagrass loss. Thirty randomly selected landscape windows of various extents were mapped for the years 2004, 2006, and 2008 by visualizing 0.3 m resolution color imagery on-screen at a digitizing scale of 1:500 using a minimum mapping unit of 1 m². Characteristics of seagrass patches and patterns of seagrass change were quantified using area-based and time interval metrics including total seagrass area, …

Robert Knight, Robert Knight, Margaret Devore

Voices from the Stream: An Environmental History of the St. Johns River

Robert Knight, leading expert and scientist working on protection of Florida springs and executive director of the Florida Springs Institute, interviewed by Margaret Devore on November 10, 2010.

A Contingent Valuation Of Tampa’S Urban Forest Resource, Alec Foster

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Urban forests provide environmental, social, and economic benefits to urban residents. These benefits are often overlooked when making spatial and financial distributive decisions in urban areas. The City of Tampa has demonstrated interest in its urban forest resource and estimated its extent and some of the benefits provided. Estimating economic values for benefits that have not been quantified can help to ensure that resources are distributed more efficiently. Five methods to estimate urban forest benefits in the City of Tampa are reviewed, with contingent valuation being the method chosen out of this review process. A mailed, dichotomous choice contingent valuation …

Characterization Of Unidentified Viruses From Florida, Jessie L. Dyer

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Public Health and clinical laboratories occasionally obtain viral isolates that cannot be typed by routine methods. Therefore, the sequence-independent, single primer amplification (SISPA) technique was adapted to rapidly identify and characterize viral isolates of unknown etiology. A panel of known (West Nile virus and St. Louis encephalitis virus) and unknown viral isolates (environmental samples collected in Florida) were used to develop and refine the SISPA technique. Selectivity for viral genomic sequences was obtained through enriching viral particles by centrifugation, removal of cellular debris by filtration and removal of host genomic material by benzonase application. The SISPA method successfully amplified the …

Clinical Decision-Making In Aphasia Therapy: A Survey Of Perceived Levels Of Evidence For Common Treatment Approaches, Erin T. Rowe

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

The past three decades have produced a surge of interest in the role of evidence-based practice (EBP) in the clinical decision-making of speech-language pathologists and other healthcare professionals in delivering optimally effective patient care. A review of the literature revealed several studies investigating potential barriers to EBP implementation and attitudes toward EBP. However, few studies have been designed to probe what treatment approaches to neurogenic communication disorders clinicians are currently implementing and the rationales behind their use. Furthermore, a review of the literature failed to reveal any surveys designed to probe the correlation between what clinicians perceive to be evidence …

Religion And Regionalism: Congregants, Culture And City-County Consolidation In Louisville, Kentucky, Joshua D. Ambrosius

Political Science Faculty Publications

Literature on religious involvement in public affairs typically examines the national scene, particularly public opinion and political behavior in presidential elections. Few scholars examine religious actors in urban politics and policymaking. Those who do study local politics emphasize morality policy and ignore issues of metropolitan governance and institutional design, central concerns of the urban politics field. This dissertation fills that gap by studying Louisville, Kentucky, site of the first large-scale city-county consolidation since 1969. I ask: does religion affect how people vote in a consolidation referendum and shape their opinions about merged government? I employ a survey instrument (N=807), collected …

Human-Wildlife Conflict Across Urbanization Gradients: Spatial, Social, And Ecological Factors, Amanda H. Gilleland

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

As suburban and exurban residential developments continue to multiply in urban areas, they encroach on wildlife habitats leading to increased human-wildlife interactions. The animals involved in direct conflict with homeowners are often relocated or exterminated by the homeowners. Often the homeowners contact state licensed wildlife trappers to eliminate the problem animal. In this study I examined how landscape, ecological, and social factors influence the incidence of human-wildlife conflict of thirty two residential areas in the Tampa, Florida metropolitan area. These residential areas, totaling over 300 km2, are part of the urban development gradient representing a range of urban land use …

Editing Eden, Frank Hutchins, Patrick C. Wilson

University of Nebraska Press: Sample Books and Chapters

Recent scholarship on the Amazon has challenged depictions of the region that emphasize its natural exuberance or represent its residents as historically isolated peoples stoically resisting challenges from powerful global forces. The contributors to this volume follow this lead by situating the discussion of the Amazon and its inhabitants at the intersections of identity politics, debates about socioeconomic sovereignty, and processes of place making. Editing Eden focuses on case studies from Amazonian Brazil, Colombia, and Ecuador regarding the themes of indigeneity, community making, development politics, and the transcendence of indigenous/nonindigenous divides. Portraits of the Amazon emerge through an analysis of …

Toward A Strategy For The Conservation And Protection Of The World’S Temperate Grasslands, William D. Henwood

Great Plains Research: A Journal of Natural and Social Sciences (through 2013)

Temperate grasslands are one of the world’s great biomes and were once home to some of the largest assemblages of wildlife the earth has ever known. Today these grasslands are considered the most altered terrestrial ecosystem on the planet and are recognized as the most endangered ecosystem on most continents. While species and habitat declines continue, temperate grasslands have the lowest level of protection of the world’s 14 biomes. With only 4% of the biome under protected status, considerable effort will be required to increase this level of protection. Several international bodies have suggested that achieving at least a 10% …

Toward An Applied Anthropology Of Gis: Spatial Analysis Of Adolescent Childbearing In Hillsborough And Pinellas Counties, Florida, Kathleen I. Maes

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

This work investigates births to white, African American and Hispanic adolescents in Hillsborough and Pinellas Counties, Florida, from 1992 to 1997 in two age groups - 13 to 17 year-olds and 18 to 19 year-olds - using spatial statistical techniques along with key informant interviews to provide insights into the utility of the research findings. The research developed a method for estimating the adolescent population in inter-census years, which was used to determine denominators for calculating teen birth rates. It also developed a composite deprivation index using socioeconomic indicators at the census block group level. The index provided context for …

Assessing The Effectiveness Of The Roaring Branch Bmp Retrofit Using Macroinvertebrate Bioassessment, James L. Banning

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Using benthic macroinvertebrates to measure stream health has been widely used and accepted around the world. Macroinvertebrates are resident monitors of chronic impairment in a stream since they are relatively sessile and most commonly respond to disturbance by drift but can recolonize a restored stream reach very quickly. This study tested the effectiveness of macroinvertebrate metrics developed through the Rapid Bioassessment Protocol (RBP) to detect changes in stream integrity as the result of placement of a best management practice (BMP), installed on a tributary of Roaring Branch, located in Columbus, Georgia. The BMP was designed to attenuate flow to reduce …

Non-Calanoid Copepods At The Bermuda Atlantic Time-Series Study (Bats) Station: Community Structure And Ecology, 1995-1999, Hussain Ali Al-Mutairi

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Zooplankton were sampled on a monthly basis at the Bermuda Atlantic Time-series Study (BATS) site from January 1995 to December 1999. Samples were collected using a 1-m², 200 µm mesh net. The net sampled the water column in an oblique manner from the surface to a mean depth of 200 m. One day and one night tow from each cruise was examined microscopically to determine the community structure of the non-calanoid copepods. In addition, a three year set of nighttime samples were examined taken by 0.5-m², 20 and 35 µm mesh nets (1995-1996 and 1997, respectively) towed obliquely to 150 …

Redefining The Dust Bowl Region Via Popular Perception And Geotechnology, Jess C. Porter, G. Allen Finchum

Great Plains Research: A Journal of Natural and Social Sciences (through 2013)

The Dust Bowl is a historical vernacular region that has been delimited by a diverse group of academics, literary authors, and popular cultural voices. However, the general public’s perception of the Dust Bowl region has not been mapped and analyzed. This research queried residents of 93 Great Plains counties in order to ascertain their perceptions and knowledge of the vernacular Dust Bowl region. Analysis of the responses via the application of geographic information system mapping reveals striking differences between respondents of varying age and place of residence. Findings suggest that spatial understanding of the Dust Bowl phenomena is eroding among …

An Environmental Biography Of Bde Ihanke-Lake Andes: History, Science, And Sovereignty Converge With Tribal, State, And Federal Power On The Yankton Sioux Reservation In South Dakota, 1858–1959, David Nesheim

Department of History: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

Lake Andes sits at the center of the Yankton Sioux Reservation in south-central South Dakota and might be described as a prairie pothole, except it encompasses nearly 5,000 acres when full of water, stretching twelve miles long by a mile to a mile and a half wide in a quasi-crescent shape. Originally carved out by a receding glacier during the Wisconsin glaciations, for its entire history the lake has gone dry during low precipitation -- a cycle interrupted after the Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA) commissioned several artesian wells beginning in 1896. As the lake expanded, the U.S. Fish Commission …

Population Genetics Of Antarctic Seals, Caitlin Curtis

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

I developed and tested a protocol for determining the sex of individual pinnipeds using the sex-chromosome specific genes ZFX and ZFY. I screened a total of 368 seals (168 crabeater, Lobodon carcinophagus; 159 Weddell, Leptonychotes weddellii; and 41 Ross, Ommatophoca rossii) of known or unknown sex and compared the molecular sex to the sex assigned at the time of collection in the Ross and Amundsen seas, Antarctica. Discrepancies ranged from 0.0% - 6.7% among species. It is unclear, however, if mis-assignment of sex occurred in situ or in the laboratory. It also is possible, however, that …

Evaluating Dissolved Oxygen Regimes Along A Gradient Of Human Disturbance For Lotic Systems In West-Central Florida, Daniel G. Hammond

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Land uses dominated by human activity can have a significant effect on ecological processes. In Florida, oxygen depletion is the most common impairment in lake, stream, and coastal water bodies. The continual growth and development in Florida, along with a conversion to more human intense land uses warrants study and discussion on impacts to dissolved oxygen regimes along a gradient of human disturbance. This research study is designed to identify observable trends in dissolved oxygen regimes along a gradient of increasing human intensity.

Twenty-six stations in the Tampa Bay area were selected to represent lotic systems in west-central Florida. Data …

A Rational Choice Approach To Professional Crime Using A Meta-Synthesis Of The Qualitative Literature, Douglas J. Wholl

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Since the early 18th century, rational choice models have been applied extensively to criminological research, theory, and policy in an effort to understand crime and criminality. Over the past few decades, the rational choice perspective has attempted to integrate theoretical concepts, operational measures, and research findings from contemporary studies within the psychology, sociology and criminology disciplines, which have attempted to re-operationalize what was already conceptualized in the expected utility model (i.e., individuals choose to engage in criminal activity if the expected utility of crime exceeds that of all other behavioral options) by incorporating additional factors (e.g., a broader range of …

Darwin's Contemplative Vision, Douglas E. Christie

Theological Studies Faculty Works

No abstract provided.

Ecological Dynamics Of Livebottom Ledges And Artificial Reefs On The Inner Central West Florida Shelf, Jennifer Maria Dupont

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

The West Florida Shelf (WFS) is one of the largest and most diversely-used continental shelf/slope systems in the world. The presence of paleoshorelines and scarped hardbottom outcrops (up to 4 m in relief) along the inner shelf (10-30 m depth) provide important habitat for a variety of infaunal, epifaunal, and fish assemblages that contribute to the productivity of the region. This dissertation will present a comprehensive overview of the geological, physical, and chemical settings of the inner West Florida Shelf, with particular focus on biological and ecological community dynamics of epibenthic macroinvertebrates, algae, and fish assemblages. Baseline and comparative data …

Rio Bravo: A Journal Of Borderlands 2009 V.1 No.2

Rio Bravo: A Journal of the Borderlands

AIDS, Diabetes and Lung Cancer Mortality at the Northern Mexican Border - 1979-1997 / Tim A. Clary -- Shock to the System - Latino Political Trust, Pre- and Post- 9-11 / Diana Evans, Joseph Stewart Jr., Robert D. Wrinkle, and James P. Wenzel -- The Regional Institutionalization of the Texas Rio Grande Valley / Baltazar Arispe y Acevedo, Jr. -- La escritura como terapia de rehabilitación para personas con discapacidad psiquiátrica / Alma Silvia Rodriguez -- Espacio Fronterizo: La Tijuana de Santitos y Peregrinos en Aztlán / Sergio M. Martinez -- El tema de la identidad en La muerte me …

Beyond Stewardship: Toward An Agapeic Environmental Ethic, Christopher J. Vena

Dissertations (1934 -)

This dissertation is a work in theological anthropology and environmental philosophy. It seeks to provide a conceptual framework for a Christian environmental ethic rooted in love.

The heart of the crisis of ecological degradation is found in human attitudes and behaviors. In the late 1960's it was suggested that Christianity was a key source of the problem because it promoted the idea of human "dominion" over creation. This spurred a variety of responses designed to show that Christian faith was compatible with environmental care. A key theme emerging from this debate was the image of humans as Stewards of God's …

Living With Stress: Neighborhood Disadvantage, Social Capital, And Depression, John Porter Lillis

All ETDs from UAB

This study's objective was to determine the effects of personal and neighborhood stressors on depressive symptomology for community dwelling adults aged 65 and over. The psychosocial resource model was employed as social capital is hypothesized to be a resource and play a mediating role in the effect of both types of stressors on depressive symptomology. Individual level data utilized came from the UAB Study of Aging (N = 919) and the neighborhood level data came from the 2000 Decennial Census. Logistic regression analysis determined that neighborhood stressors had no direct or indirect effect on depressive symptomology. This analysis did show …

Stoking A White Backlash: Race, Violence, And Yellow Journalism In Omaha, 1919, Nicolas Swiercek

James A. Rawley Graduate Conference in the Humanities

The “Red Summer of 1919” marked the nadir of interracial violence that characterized urban America during the post-World War I era. Of the more than twenty-five cities that experienced so-called “race riots” that year, Omaha, Nebraska on 28 September 1919 witnessed a vigilante mob of white youth and adults numbering in the thousands destroy the county courthouse, attempt to lynch Omaha’s mayor, and brutally execute an African American man named William Brown. The violence in Omaha and places as disparate as Chicago, Washington, D.C., and Longview, Texas occurred in communities coping with dramatic internal migrations, urban spatial tension, job competition, …

Impact Of West Nile Virus On The Natural History Of St. Louis Encephalitis Virus In Florida, Christy L. Ottendorfer

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

The emergence of West Nile virus (WNV) has raised important questions about the capacity of the public health infrastructure to implement surveillance and control programs for WNV and other emerging or re-emerging arboviruses in the United States. Florida's mild climate supports year round enzootic transmission of WNV, St. Louis encephalitis virus (SLEV), and Eastern Equine Encephalitis virus (EEEV). It is unknown what effect the establishment of WNV (in 2001) will have on SLEV transmission in Florida, where these closely related flaviviruses share amplifying hosts, habitats, and vectors.

An Arbovirus Isolation Network was formed to obtain and characterize arbovirus strains collected …

Introduction To Ecological Landscaping: A Holistic Description And Framework To Guide The Study And Management Of Urban Landscape Parcels, Loren B. Byrne, Parwinder Grewal

Arts & Sciences Faculty Publications

Urbanized ecosystems and urban human populations are expanding around the world causing many negative environmental effects. A challenge for achieving sustainable urban social ecological systems is understanding how urbanized landscapes can be designed and managed to minimize negative outcomes. To this end, an interdisciplinary Ecological Landscaping conference was organized to examine the interacting sociocultural and ecological causes and consequences of landscaping practices and products. This special issue of Cities and the Environment contains a diverse set of articles arising from that conference. In this introductory paper, we describe the meaning of ecological landscaping and a new conceptual framework that helps …