Digital Commons Network^™

River Otter (Lontra Canadensis) Distribution And Habitat Suitability In Nebraska, Nathan R. Bieber

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

River otters (Lontra Canadensis) were extirpated in Nebraska by the early 1900’s, but in 1986, the Nebraska Game and Parks Commission (NGPC) began reintroduction efforts. Following reintroductions, the otter was listed as a tier-1 at-risk species in Nebraska. With increasing otter populations, NGPC is evaluating a de-listing plan. In order to inform de-listing efforts, I surveyed Nebraska’s rivers documenting otter sign and used modeling techniques to estimate otter distribution and habitat suitability.

Otter sign surveys were conducted on the navigable rivers of Nebraska. Occupancy modeling techniques were used to examine patterns in otter detections. The best model incorporated distance …

Groundwater Declines Are Linked To Changes In Great Plains Stream Fish Assemblages, Joshuah S. Perkin, Keith B. Gido, Jeffrey A. Falke, Kurt D. Fausch, Harry Crockett, Eric R. Johnson, John Sanderson

United States Geological Survey: Staff Publications

Groundwater pumping for agriculture is a major driver causing declines of global freshwater ecosystems, yet the ecological consequences for stream fish assemblages are rarely quantified. We combined retrospective (1950–2010) and prospective (2011–2060) modeling approaches within a multiscale framework to predict change in Great Plains stream fish assemblages associated with groundwater pumping from the United States High Plains Aquifer. We modeled the relationship between the length of stream receiving water from the High Plains Aquifer and the occurrence of fishes characteristic of small and large streams in the western Great Plains at a regional scale and for six subwatersheds nested within …

Mapping The Variability Of Soil Quality Indicators In Natural Versus Agricultural Ecosystems, Mary G. Derting Miss

Scholars Week

Traditionally, Kentucky agriculture has focused on crop production and soil fertility while overlooking soil quality and its dependence on land management type. This research attempted to reveal the importance of land management types and their individual effects on physical soil quality indicators. The second objective of this study was to show the variance of physical soil quality indicators across different land managements by using layered maps. Such visual representation of the data along with statistical analysis also showed which soil quality parameters are more sensitive to change in land management type. Land management types included three undisturbed grassland and undisturbed …

Tungstate (Vi) Sorption On Hematite: An In Situ Atr-Ftir Probe On The Mechanism, Sudipta Rakshit, Bryan Sallman, Athénais Davantés, Grégory Lefèvre

Agricultural and Environmental Sciences Faculty Research

Owing to the suspected toxicity and carcinogenicity of tungstate (VI) oxyanions [i.e. mono tungstate and several polytungstate, generally represented by W (VI)], the environmental fate of W (VI) has been widely studied. Sorption is regarded as a major mechanism by which W (VI) species are retained in the solid/water interface. Iron (hydr)oxides have been considered important environmental sinks for W (VI) species. Here we report sorption mechanisms of W (VI) on a common iron oxide mineral-hematite under environmentally relevant solution properties using in situ attenuated total reflectance Fourier transform infrared (ATR-FTIR) spectroscopic probes. Initial W (VI) loadings varied from 10 …

Abrupt Ocean Anoxia During The Late Ordovician Mass Extinction Detected Using Uranium Isotopes Of Marine Carbonates, Rickey Bartlett, Maya Elrick, Yemane Asmerom, Viorel Atudorei

Earth and Planetary Sciences ETDs

The Ordovician witnessed an explosion in marine biodiversity punctuated by the first of the ‘big-5’ Phanerozoic mass extinctions, the Late Ordovician mass extinction (LOME). The LOME consists of two discrete pulses occurring at the beginning and end of the Hirnantian. Lithologic and geochemical evidence suggests widespread marine anoxia triggered the second LOME pulse; however, most of these redox proxies record local bottom water or porewater conditions rather than global seawater conditions. To evaluate global redox trends, we utilize uranium (U) isotopes and trace element geochemistry of marine carbonates as a global marine redox proxy.

Bulk carbonate samples were collected from …

Soil Microbial Biomass And Function Are Altered By 12 Years Of Crop Rotation, Marshall D. Mcdaniel, A. Stuart Grandy

Faculty Publications

Declines in plant diversity will likely reduce soil microbial biomass, alter microbial functions, and threaten the provisioning of soil ecosystem services. We examined whether increasing temporal plant biodiversity in agroecosystems (by rotating crops) can partially reverse these trends and enhance soil microbial biomass and function. We quantified seasonal patterns in soil microbial biomass, respiration rates, extracellular enzyme activity, and catabolic potential three times over one growing season in a 12-year crop rotation study at the W. K. Kellogg Biological Station LTER. Rotation treatments varied from one to five crops in a 3-year rotation cycle, but all soils were sampled under …

Whiting Events Off Southwest Florida: Remote Sensing And Field Observations, Jacqueline Long

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

“Whiting” is a term used to describe a sharply defined patch of water that contains high levels of suspended, fine-grained calcium carbonate (CaCO₃). These features are named for their bright (at times white) appearance when compared to surrounding waters, and have been found to occur globally, persisting for multiple consecutive days. Although whitings have been widely studied using chemical, biological, geological, and physical techniques, there has been little effort to document their spatio-temporal distributions in a systematic way, not to mention the lack of consensus on what generates whitings and allows them to persist for days to weeks …

Limiting Nutrient Contaminants From Agricultural Non-Point Sources: Nutrient Monitoring At Eku’S Meadowbrook Farm, Madison County, Kentucky, Walter S. Borowski, Jonathan M. Malzone

EKU Faculty and Staff Scholarship

Sources of contamination to U.S. waterways have largely shifted from industrial, point sources to agricultural and other non-point sources associated with common human activities. EKU’s Meadowbrook Farm explores best-practices in agriculture and animal husbandry that not only act to increase the efficiency of farm operations, but also to limit environmental effects such as the eutrophification of its neighboring watershed.

We recently started a collaboration with the Farm and the EKU Department of Agriculture, which are developing methods to sequester phosphorus and thus limit nutrient export to the adjacent Muddy Creek watershed. Our task is to quantify the amount of phosphorus …

Revised Scec Final Report On The New East Shoreline Strand Of The San Andreas Fault, Susanne U. Jänecke, Daniel K. Markowski

Geosciences Faculty Publications

This report consists of three parts: Original proposal (2011), provisional report (Janecke, 2013), and a final summary in the form of the MS thesis of Daniel Markowski (2016). The abstract herein is the abstract of Janecke's provisional report except that I updated the name of the fault to East Shoreline strand of the SAF. A different "Shoreline fault" is already in the Quaternary fault and fold database. See Markowski (2016) and Janecke et al. 2016 for additional updates.

Summary:

In 2013 Janecke submitted a provisional report to SCEC about our research along the newly identified East Shoreline strand of …

Seasonal Fecundity Is Not Related To Geographic Position Across A Species’ Global Range Despite A Central Peak In Abundance, Katharine J. Ruskin, Matthew A. Etterson, Thomas P. Hodgman, Alyssa C. Borowske, Jonathan B. Cohen, Chris S. Elphick, Christopher R. Field, Rebecca A. Kern, Erin King, Alison R. Kocek, Adrienne I. Kovach, Kathleen M. O’Brien, Nancy Pau, W. Gregory Shriver, Jennifer Walsh, Brian J. Olsen

United States Environmental Protection Agency: Publications

The range of a species is determined by the balance of its demographic rates across space. Population growth rates are widely hypothesized to be greatest at the geographic center of the species range, but indirect empirical support for this pattern using abundance as a proxy has been mixed, and demographic rates are rarely quantified on a large spatial scale. Therefore, the texture of how demographic rates of a species vary over its range remains an open question. We quantified seasonal fecundity of populations spanning the majority of the global range of a single species, the saltmarsh sparrow (Ammodramus caudacutus …

A Complex Origin For The Kelso Dunes, Mojave National Preserve, California, Usa: A Case Study Using A Simple Geochemical Method With Global Applications, Daniel R. Muhs, Nicholas Lancaster, Gary L. Skipp

United States Geological Survey: Staff Publications

The Kelso Dune field in southern California is intriguing because although it is of limited areal extent (~100 km2), it has a wide variety of dune forms and contains many active dunes (~40 km2), which is unusual in the Mojave Desert. Studies over the past eight decades have concluded that the dunes are derived primarily from a single source, Mojave River alluvium, under a dominant, westerly-to-northwesterly wind regime. The majority of these studies did not, however, present data to support the Mojave River as the only source.We conducted mineralogical and geochemical studies ofmost of the 14 geomorphically defined dune groups …

Extinction Intensity, Selectivity And Their Combined Macroevolutionary Influence In The Fossil Record, Jonathan L. Payne, Andrew M. Bush, Ellen T. Chang, Noel A. Heim, Matthew L. Knope, Sara B. Pruss

Geosciences: Faculty Publications

The macroevolutionary effects of extinction derive from both intensity of taxonomic losses and selectivity of losses with respect to ecology, physiology and/or higher taxonomy. Increasingly, palaeontologists are using logistic regression to quantify extinction selectivity because the selectivity metric is independent of extinction intensity and multiple predictor variables can be assessed simultaneously. We illustrate the use of logistic regression with an analysis of physiological buffering capacity and extinction risk in the Phanerozoic marine fossil record. We propose the geometric mean of extinction intensity and selectivity as a metric for the influence of extinction events. The end-Permian mass extinction had the largest …

Lessons From The Past: Unfolding The Dynamics Among Climate, Balkan Landscapes, And Humans Over The Past Millennium, Charuta J. Kulkarni

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

The primary objective of this doctoral dissertation is to reconstruct the environmental history of the Central Balkans (Serbia) over the past millennium utilizing biological proxies (pollen, spores, and charcoal), geochemical signals through X-ray fluorescence (XRF), statistical analyses, and atomic mass spectrometry (AMS) ¹⁴C chronology. This dissertation establishes the first chronological framework for vegetation-landscape changes in Serbia and discusses the role of humans and climate as underlying processes.

Chapter 1 discusses the background and the nature of the research problem followed by the extensive literature review on the topic of the Holocene climate and paleoecology. The state of Holocene paleoecology …

A Novel Qtl Associated With Dwarf Bunt Resistance In Idaho 444 Winter Wheat, Jianli Chen, Mary J. Guttieri, Junli Zhang, David Hole, Edward Souza, Blair Goates

Green Canyon Environmental Research Area, Logan Utah

Dwarf bunt [Tilletia controversa J.G. Kühn [as ‘contraversa’], in Rabenhorst, Hedwigia 13: 188 (1874)] is a destructive disease of wheat (Triticum aestivum L.) that reduces grain yield and quality. A number of distinct genes conferring resistance to dwarf bunt have been used by breeding programs for nearly 100 years. However, few markers were identified that can be used in selection of dwarf bunt resistance. A recombinant inbred line (RIL) population derived from the bunt-resistant germplasm, Idaho 444 (IDO444), and the susceptible cultivar, Rio Blanco, was evaluated for phenotypic reaction to dwarf bunt inoculation in four trials in …

Vasoactivity And Vasoconstriction Changes In Cattle Related To Time Off Toxic Endophyte-Infected Tall Fescue, James L. Klotz, Glen E. Aiken, Jessica R. Bussard, Andrew P. Foote, David L. Harmon, Ben M. Goff, F. Neal Schrick, James R. Strickland

Plant and Soil Sciences Faculty Publications

Previous research has indicated that serotonergic and α-adrenergic receptors in peripheral vasculature are affected by exposure of cattle grazing toxic endophyte-infected (E+; Epichlöe coenophialia) tall fescue (Lolium arundinaceum). The objective of this experiment was to determine the period of time necessary for the vascular effects of ergot alkaloids to subside. Two experiments were conducted to investigate changes in vascular contractile response and vasoconstriction over time relative to removal from an ergot alkaloid-containing E+ tall fescue pasture. In Experiment 1, lateral saphenous vein biopsies were conducted on 21 predominantly Angus steers (357 ± 3 kg body weight) at …

Depositional Model Of A Late Cretaceous Dinosaur Fossil Concentration, Lance Formation, Summer Rose Weeks

Loma Linda University Electronic Theses, Dissertations & Projects

A large Maastrichtian, nearly monospecific bonebed in the Lance Formation in eastern Wyoming has yielded 13,000 bones and fragments since 1996. Though excavation of the site continues, little is known of the circumstances and processes of deposition. This study aims to provide a depositional model for the bonebed. To accomplish this task we utilized 1D facies analysis of surrounding units and 3D analysis of the bonebed. The nature of the outcrop limited facies analysis to 1D. Four measured stratigraphic sections, each containing the bonebed unit, were taken and used in facies analysis. In addition, laterally continuous units were observed and …

Molecular Comparison Of Cattle Fever Ticks From Native And Introduced Ranges, With Insights Into Optimal Search Areas For Classical Biological Control Agents, John A. Goolsby, F. D. Guerrero, John F. Gaskin, K. G. Bendele, P. Azhahianambi, D. Amalin, M. Flores-Cruz, J. Kashefi, Alexis Racelis

School of Earth, Environmental, & Marine Sciences Faculty Publications

Cattle fever ticks, the southern cattle tick, Rhipicephalus microplus (Canestrini), and cattle tick, Rhipicephalus annulatus (Say), are livestock pests endemic to Mexico and invasive along the Texas-Mexico border. Resistance to acaricide, alternate wildlife hosts, and pathogenic landscape-forming weeds present challenges for sustainable eradication of this pest in the U.S. Classical biological control is being explored as a strategy to control cattle fever ticks, especially on alternate hosts such as nilgai antelope, Boselaphus tragocamelus (Pallas), and white-tailed deer, Odocoileus virginianus (Zimmermann). Molecular genetic tools were used to compare populations of cattle fever ticks from native and introduced ranges to provide insights …

Bulletin No. 42: The Mamacoke Conservation Area, Glenn Dreyer, Robert Askins, Scott Peterson

Bulletins

No abstract provided.

Influence Of Resource Availability On Juniperus Virginiana Expansion In A Forest–Prairie Ecotone, A. C. Ganguli, D. M. Engle, P. M. Mayer, L. F. Salo

United States Environmental Protection Agency: Publications

Woody plant expansion into grasslands and savannas is a global concern. Rapid expansion of Juniperus virginiana, a tree native to North America, has profound ecological consequences. We used transplanted J. virginiana seedlings to investigate the role of resource availability on J. virginiana expansion following the removal of fire, the factor historically limiting range expansion of this fire-intolerant species. We evaluated J. virginiana seedling survival and seedling growth, two important phases in woody plant expansion, relative to two below ground resource factors, plant-available soil water (soil clay content, an index of plant-available soil water) and plant-available nitrogen (PAN), and an above …

The Role Of Organic Matter In The Fate And Transport Of Antibiotic Resistance, Metals, And Nutrients In The Karst Of Northwest Arkansas, Victor Lee Roland Ii

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Organic matter (OM) in the environment acts as a nutrient, but may also act as a transport vector for harmful chemical compounds and bacteria. Acetate is a labile form of OM produced during fermentation in anaerobic lagoons used to store animal fecal-waste from concentrated animal feeding operations (CAFOs). Dry and liquid fertilizers from CAFOs pose a threat to groundwater by introducing excessive amounts of nutrients (e.g. OM, nitrate and ammonia), metals, and antibiotic compounds. In the epikarst of Northern Arkansas in the Buffalo River watershed additional input of labile dissolved organic carbon (DOC) from liquid CAFO waste-fertilizers was hypothesized to …

Resilience And Heterogeneity Following Fire In The Nebraska Sandhills, Jack R. Arterburn

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

The Nebraska Sandhills grassland is an expansive, semi-arid ecosystem characterized by vegetation-stabilized rolling sand dunes. The Sandhills grassland is managed for livestock production by seeking to minimizing disturbances, such as fire, that increase bare ground. The increase in bare ground following fire has contributed to the fear of fire leading to the emergence of a mobile sand dune state. We tracked vegetation response following a growing season wildfire that occurred during extreme drought conditions. In wildfire and drought conditions are when one would expect resilience to be overcome leading to a lack of vegetation recovery and a transition to a …

South Padre Island Beach Management: Assessment Of Dune Restoration, Shelby Rose Bessette

Theses and Dissertations

Dune restoration is a common method of increasing coastal resilience. A dune restoration program was initiated by the City of South Padre Island, TX in 2010 consisting primarily of plantings of Sea Oats, Uniola paniculata, and Bitter Panicum, Panicum amarum and has continued approximately annually thereafter. These restoration efforts were evaluated in this study by comparing dune ecological structure and function among reference sites and restoration plots ranging in age from 2 to 5 years. Plant and animal communities were examined using a combination of quadrat sampling, funnel traps, pit-falls and sweep nets. Soil organic content and soil electric …

Do Limestone Quarries Act As “Engineered Sinkholes”? Analysis Of Exfiltration Of Groundwater From Limestone Quarries In The Boone Formation, Ozark Physiographic Province, Arkansas, Usa, Noel Turner

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Limestone quarries are a source of construction materials that are utilized in our everyday lives. Karst landscapes cover up to 15 percent of the Earth’s surface, and limestone quarries are found in these environmentally sensitive regions where groundwater and surface-water interactions are dynamic and complex. Several studies have provided conceptual models of groundwater flow to and out of quarries. The goal of this research was to describe the geochemistry of water exfiltration from limestone quarries in karst regions via joints, fractures, faulting, or karst features and to determine if limestone quarries are “engineered sinkholes”; that is to say: did quarries, …

Three-Dimensional Geologic Modeling And Groundwater Flow Modeling Above A Co2 Sequestration Test Site, Erin Carlock, Eric W. Peterson, David H. Malone

Faculty Publications - Geography, Geology, and the Environment

As temperatures rise and climate change becomes an increasingly important issue, geologic carbon dioxide (CO2) sequestration is a viable solution for reducing greenhouse gas emissions. Subsurface 3-D modeling and groundwater flow modeling were completed as a component of a CO2 sequestration feasibility study in the city of Decatur, Illinois. The Decatur Archer Daniels Midland Company Ethanol Plant (ADM) serves as the injection site for a CO2 sequestration project within a deep saline reservoir. Petrel was successfully used to model the glacial deposits in the area. The 3-D geologic model shows the Peoria Silt, Wedron Formation, and Cahokia Formation at the …

Evaluating The Influences Of Karst Hydrogeology On Freshwater Harmful Algal Blooms In Kentucky Lakes, Robert T. Schaefer

Masters Theses & Specialist Projects

A problem exists in Nolin River Lake and Rough River Lake in Kentucky, due to the increasing prevalence of cyanobacterial-based harmful algal blooms (CyanoHABs) and the threats they pose to local communities. These lakes were developed as artificial reservoirs from embankment. Further complicating the issue, the lakes are located within a heavily karstified region and there exists no plan or method currently for monitoring or managing CyanoHABs in a karst region with regard to groundwater inputs to the lake systems or their tributaries. A mixture of techniques and analysis methods was used to determine the best way to monitor and …

Determining Groundwater Sources And Ages Via Isotope Geochemistry In Big Sky, Montana, Thomson Connie

Graduate Theses & Non-Theses

The Big Sky ski resort area in southwestern Montana is experiencing exponential growth in both development and population. Concerns have arisen over the quantity of good-quality groundwater in the region, and whether there is a large enough reserve to support the growing demand. In light of already-documented water-level decreases, and domestic wells needing to be deepened or replaced, the Montana Department of Natural Resources and Conservation (DNRC) enlisted the Montana Bureau of Mines and Geology's Ground Water Investigation Program to perform an assessment of groundwater availability and quality in the region, and define groundwater supply sources.

The geology in the …

Dental Microwear Variation In Teleoceras Fossiger (Rhinocerotidae) From The Miocene (Hemphillian) Of Kansas, With Consideration Of Masticatory Processes And Enamel Microstructure, Kelsie Abrams

Master's Theses or Doctor of Nursing Practice

Dental microwear analysis is the study of microscopic features on the surfaces of teeth, and is used to reconstruct and analyze diet in extinct and extant animals. Microwear analysis on ungulates is typically conducted on the paracone or protoconid of the second molar, as these cusps are usually the first point of contact between upper and lower teeth during the chewing stroke. However, the exact method of mastication varies in different groups of ungulates, and the influence of mastication on the location and production of microwear features has been studied very little. Additionally, the role of highly specialized enamel microstructure …

Reconstructing The Paleoecology And Biogeography Of Rhinoceroses (Mammalia: Rhinocerotidae) In The Great Plains Of North America, Leading Up To Their Extinction In The Early Pliocene, Bian Wang

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

Members of the family Rhinocerotidae first appeared in the middle Eocene and were one of most successful mammal groups of the Oligocene and Miocene in North America. Their extinction in the early Pliocene has been attributed to several causes, including cooling climate, an expansion of C₄ grasslands, and faunal turnover favoring high-crowned, open habitat-adapted mammalian taxa. This study tests whether the extinction of North American rhinoceroses in the Great Plains was abrupt or gradual by examining changes in their paleogeographic distribution in a series of time-slices through the Barstovian, Clarendonian, and Hemphillian North American land-mammal ages. It further examines …

Discipline-Based Planetary Education Research And Computational Fluid Dynamics Analysis Of Mars, Filis Coba

Physics Theses & Dissertations

This thesis originates from the testing and implementation of an IRB-approved interactive animation designed to help students understand what causes The Reasons For The Seasons (RFTS) on Earth. Results from the testing indicated a small improvement in student understanding after exposure to the animation. Next, using the 3-D mapping tool Google Earth, students explored seasons and other planetary features on Mercury, Venus, the Moon and Mars through IRB-approved interactive tours which were developed and tested for astronomy education. Results from the tests indicated that there were statistically significant learning gains (p-value < 0.05) after students interacted with the tours compared to those who did not. The development of the tours inspired a geophysics study of the possibility of former plate motion (or plate tectonics) on Mars. A 2-D finite element convection model for the mantle of Mars was designed and solved using COMSOL Multiphysics 5.1, to investigate whether or not thermal gradients in a Mars-sized planet could cause vigorous upper mantle convection, consistent with plate tectonic processes. Results from this project indicated that stable convection could occur in the interior of a Mars-like planet assuming the presence of sufficiently high thermal gradients at about 0.8 times the mantle temperature of Earth. The convective patterns resembled hot upwelling and cool downwelling which may be similar to subduction-like features. Furthermore, increasing the temperature of the hot boundaries resulted in faster, more rigorous convective motions and a hotter average temperature.

Reevaluating The Geologic Formations Of The Upper Coastal Plain In Chesterfield County, South Carolina, Bradley Aaron Fitzwater

OES Theses and Dissertations

Data from a new geological map of the Patrick, S.C. 7.5 minute quadrangle (1:24,000) and detailed descriptions of two cores collected nearby (Middendorf and Cheraw, S.C.) permit improved interpretation of the geology of this portion of the Carolina Sandhills. Geologic mapping incorporated analyses of outcrops with LiDAR data, soil survey maps, ground-penetrating radar transects, and hand auger borings. Micro- and macrofossil identification and optically-stimulated luminescence (OSL) dating provided age control.

Four distinct mappable units occur throughout the Patrick quadrangle. Resting unconformably on schist of the Paleozoic Persimmons Fork Formation, the Cretaceous Middendorf Formation is more than 85.3 m thick and …