Digital Commons Network^™

Females Are Choosier In The Dark: Environment-Dependent Reliance On Courtship Components And Its Impact On Fitness, Aaron S. Rundus, Laura Sullivan-Beckers, Dustin J. Wilgers, Eileen Hebets

Eileen Hebets Publications

A broad understanding of multimodal courtship function necessitates knowledge of the potential information content of signal components, the efficacy of signal components in eliciting the appropriate receiver response, and the fitness consequences of mating decisions based upon various signal components. We present data addressing each of these requirements for the multimodal-signaling wolf spider, Schizocosa floridana Bryant. Using diet manipulations, we first demonstrate that both visual and seismic courtship signals are condition-dependent. Next, using high- and low-quantity diet individuals in mate choice trials across manipulated signaling environments, we demonstrate that the seismic signal is crucial for mating success and further show …

A Sticky Situation: Solifugids (Arachnida, Solifugae) Use Adhesive Organs On Their Pedipalps For Prey Capture, Rodrigo H. Willemart, Roger D. Santer, Andrew J. Spence, Eileen Hebets

Eileen Hebets Publications

Solifugids (Arachnida, Solifugae) have unique evertable adhesive organs on the tips of their pedipalps, named ‘suctorial’ or ‘palpal’ organs. Previous studies have shown that these organs enable solifugids to climb smooth glass-like surfaces and have hypothesized that these structures facilitate prey capture. Here, we use high-speed videography to demonstrate that the suctorial organs of Eremochelis bilobatus are its primary means of capturing insect prey. We also present calculations of the adhesive pressure exerted by these suctorial organs during real prey capture events.

Gordon Natural Area Tour - Guide, Kendra Mcmillin, Gerard Hertel

Gordon Natural Area-related Curricula Documents

No abstract provided.

Do Male Physiological Condition And Territory Quality Affect Female Choice In The Brown Anole, Anolis Sagrei?, Sarah P. Flanagan

Honors Theses

Female mate choice is an important component of sexual selection because traits that influence male mate preference, such as physiology, and proficiency in acquiring resources, are favored. In lizards, the importance of mate choice remains unclear as reported results from experiments are contradictory. In this study, I investigated whether male physiology and territory quality are important to female mate choice for male Brown Anoles, Anolis sagrei. I tested the hypotheses that female A. sagrei prefer males with greater physiological capacities, and prefer higher quality territories, regardless of male phenotype. To test these, male A. sagrei were first rated for …

Buffernomics: Assessing Willingness To Pay For Lake Conservation On North Pond And East Pond, Sophie D. Sarkar

Honors Theses

Hedonic property valuations in Maine have estimated that a one-meter decrease in water clarity can reduce shoreline property values by 4 to 16%. To avoid a loss on their lakefront investment, shoreline property owners have a particularly large incentive to conserve lake water quality. Nevertheless, while some shoreline residents voluntarily install vegetated buffers and actively participate in lake stewardship, others continue to ignore shoreline zoning laws at the expense of lake health. In this thesis, I examine the dichotomy of active and indifferent shoreline residents by analyzing the motivations that distinguish residents who are willing to pay (WTP) for and …

Zooplankton Of The Belgrade Lakes: The Influence Of Top-Down And Bottom-Up Forces In Family Abundance, Kimberly M. Bittler

Honors Theses

The purpose of this study was to assess the abundance and family diversity of zooplankton communities in the Belgrade Lakes, and to identify the broad scale and local variables that structure zooplankton communities in this region. The local effects of shoreline development and the presence of macrophyte patches were compared to larger scale variables, such as watershed wide residential development. Zooplankton are an intermediate link in the freshwater food web, and communities respond both to predation pressures as well as nutrient inputs. Shoreline development was expected to influence zooplankton densities by the increased nutrient inputs via erosion off developed sites …

Biomass Energy At Colby College, Rachel E. Baron

Honors Theses

In light of growing concern regarding the effects of global climate change, Colby College signed the American College and University Presidents’ Climate Commitment (ACUPCC) in 2008. Through this pledge, Colby has committed to reducing carbon emissions in its Climate Action Plan (IPCC 2007; CCAP 2010). The College seeks to be carbon neutral by 2015 (CCAP 2010). This will be accomplished through a variety of mechanisms, one of which includes the construction of a biomass facility to replace most of the oil currently used for heating (CCAP 2010).

Anthropogenic global climate change has been documented by many scientists, but was widely …

The One That Carries You Away: Essays, Blair S. Braverman

Honors Theses

What is environmental writing? Phil Condon, author and professor at the University of Montana's Environmental Writing Institute, defines it as any piece of writing in which an important factor is nonhuman—be it animal, place, weather, et cetera. At the same time, he acknowledges that the primary limitation of this definition is its lack of limitations; because humans are constantly interacting with—and affected by—the nonhuman, virtually any piece of writing could be considered environmental. The Association for the Study of Literature and the Environment (ASLE), the nation's predominant organization for the academic study of environmental writing, defines itself through its focus …

Structuring Expert Input For A Knowledge-Based Approach To Watershed Condition Assessment For The Northwest Forest Plan, Usa, Sean N. Gordon, Kirsten Gallo

Institute for Sustainable Solutions Publications and Presentations

Assessments of watershed condition for aquatic and riparian species often have to rely on expert opinion because of the complexity of establishing statistical relationships among the many factors involved. Such expert-based assessments can be difficult to document and apply consistently over time and space. We describe and reflect on the process of developing a computer-based decision support application from expert judgments for assessing aquatic and riparian conditions over the 100,000 km2 managed by the US federal government under the Northwest Forest Plan. The decision support system helped structure and document the assessment process and provided consistency and transparency to the …

A New Skeleton Of The Cryptoclidid Plesiosaur Tatenectes Laramiensis Reveals A Novel Body Shape Among Plesiosaurs, F. Robin O’Keefe, Hallie P. Street, Benjamin C. Wilhelm, Courtney D. Richards, Helen Zhu

Biological Sciences Faculty Research

Current knowledge of plesiosaurs of clade Cryptoclidia is constrained by a lack of fossils from outside the Oxford Clay deposits of England. Recent fieldwork in the Sundance Formation of the Bighorn Basin, Wyoming, has resulted in the recovery of significant new fossils of cryptoclidid plesiosaurs, including the small-bodied form Tatenectes laramiensis. A new partial skeleton of this taxon is reported here; it is the most complete and best-preserved example of the taxon found to date, comprising a complete dorsal vertebral series, many ribs and gastralia, and a complete pelvic girdle. This skeleton illuminates several unique features of the taxon, …

On The Origin Of Stories: Evolution, Cognition, And Fiction, Hope Hollocher, Agustín Fuentes, Charles H. Pence, Grant Ramsey, Daniel John Sportiello, Michelle M. Wirth

Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

Multicentury Fire And Forest Histories At 19 Sites In Utah And Eastern Nevada, Emily K. Heyerdahl, Peter M. Brown, Stanley G. Kitchen, Marc H. Weber

Aspen Bibliography

Our objective is to provide site-specific fire and forest histories from Utah and eastern Nevada that can be used for land management or additional research. We systematically sampled fire scars and tree-recruitment dates across broad gradients in elevation and forest type at 13 sites in Utah and 1 in eastern Nevada to characterize spatial and temporal variation in historical fire regimes as well as forest structure and composition. We collected similar data non-systematically at five additional sites in Utah. These 19 sites include a broad range of forest types (from pinyon-juniper woodlands to spruce-fir forests) and fire regime types. In …

Investigation Of A Pharmaceutical Compound With Artificial Streams: Effects Of The Antihistamine Cimetidine On Stream Ecosystem Function., Paul David Hoppe

Master's Theses

Pharmaceutical compounds have been widely detected in surface waters but their effects on stream ecosystems are unknown. Cimetidine (Tagamet®), a widely used H2 histamine antagonist has been detected in surface waters. To measure chronic effects of cimetidine on stream invertebrates, I conducted a long-term (83d) artificial-stream experiment. A range of cimetidine concentrations (0.07 μg L-1 to 70.0 μg L-1) were added to streams supporting populations of the amphipod Gammarus fasciatus and beetle Psephenus herricki. P. herricki individual growth rates were reduced in the presence of cimetidine, but G. fasciatus individual growth rates were not different among treatments. G. fasciatus size …

Stream Restoration In A Post-Agricultural System: Indirect Effects On Density And Secondary Production Of Aquatic Insects, Lyle Stanley Dandridge Jr

Master's Theses

Restoration of stream habitats, with the goal of increasing biodiversity through increasing habitat heterogeneity, has been an ongoing trend in recent decades. Current investigations suggest most of those projects fail to significantly influence ecological structure and function when evaluated in light of their affect on species richness. In order to assess the <&ldquo>success of restoration on a prairie stream in northern Illinois traditional metrics such as community composition and density were examined in addition to macroinvertebrate secondary production. Restoration of Nippersink Creek, McHenry County, Illinois was completed in 2000 and this study was conducted 8 years post-restoration. Benthic samples were …

Spring 2011, Nsu Oceanographic Center

Currents

No abstract provided.

Biology Department Newsletter, No.1, Sacred Heart University

Biology Newsletter

No abstract provided.

Exploring The Population Dynamics Of Wintering Bald Eagles Through Long-Term Data, Julie Beckstead, Alexandra N. Lagasse, Scott R. Robinson

Biology Faculty Scholarship

THE ECOLOGICAL QUESTION

How does a bald eagle population change over time at a winter migratory stopover and which factors influence its abundance?

ECOLOGICAL CONTENT

Bald eagle biology, conservation biology, endangered species, population ecology, and migration ecology (stopover)

WHAT STUDENTS DO

Guided Approach: Students will generate questions about bald eagle numbers influenced by weather and food availability. Students will then use graphing software (JMP or Excel) to compile the data in a graphical form to answer their questions.

Open-ended Approach: Students will generate their own hypotheses of interest from the larger bald eagle data set. This approach is encouraged for …

The Importance Of Disease And Behavior In Mammalian Ecology And Behavior, Christopher R. Collins

Legacy Theses & Dissertations (2009 - 2024)

Causes of mortality reflect the evolutionary forces shaping the physiology and behavior of species. To evaluate the relative importance of these in North American Mammals I compared published data from 69 populations across 27 species. Of the known causes, humans are the main cause of mortality (51.8%), followed by natural causes (48.5%), with predation being the largest natural cause. Populations in remote areas experienced higher hunting mortality, and those closer to human populations suffered increased vehicle collision. Predation mortality was negatively correlated with body mass.

Biogeographic Consequences Of Historic And Contemporary Climate Change In Boreal Forest Birds, Joel Ralston

Legacy Theses & Dissertations (2009 - 2024)

In this dissertation, I combine ecological niche models (ENMs), which can be extrapolated through time to predict historic and future changes in species distributions, with mitochondrial and nuclear genetic markers to study the biogeographic consequences of historic and contemporary climate change on boreal forest birds, and in particular Blackpoll Warbler.

Blanding's Turtle (Emydoidea Blandingii) In Saratoga County, New York : Survey Methods, Spatial Ecology And Conservation, Andrea Chaloux

Legacy Theses & Dissertations (2009 - 2024)

In 2003, a small, isolated population of the New York State Threatened Blanding's Turtle (Emydoidea blandingii) was documented in Saratoga County, New York, between the main range and eastern range of the species, approximately 120 km from the nearest known population. The location of the population and its occupancy of a protected preserve in an area experiencing heavy development pressure prompted the need for an immediate conservation-focused study. Building upon work of New York State Department of Environmental Conservation staff from 2003-2006, a trapping (2007-2008) and radio-telemetry (2007-2009) study was conducted with the following objectives: 1) inform survey protocol recommendations …

Evaluation Of A Biopesticide Against Invasive Species For Native Species Restoration, Denise Ann Mayer

Legacy Theses & Dissertations (2009 - 2024)

Since their introduction in the 1980s, dreissenid mussels (Dreissena polymorpha and D. rostriformis bugensis) rapidly spread throughout North America and have had severe impacts on the ecology of freshwater ecosystems. A project was initiated in the early 1990s at the New York State Museum's Field Research Laboratory to discover and develop natural products to control industrial biofouling by dreissenid mussels. A strain of Pseudomonas fluorescens (Pf-CL145A), isolated from the sediment of a North American river, was found to be effective at killing dreissenids. The strain was patented for this use.

Darwin's Other Idea : Sexual Selection, Gender And Violence, Robert Samuel Moschgat

Legacy Theses & Dissertations (2009 - 2024)

This dissertation provides an empirical exploration of Darwin's theory of sexual selection, which views the male propensity to engage in short term mating strategies--sexual promiscuity and violence--as the result of sexual selection. Within an environmental context, biological father and mother household presence are expected to inhibit the initiation of short-term mating strategies and increase parental investment--paternal and maternal attachments, supervision, and protection. Whereas, structural disadvantage--living in poverty and in dangerous neighborhoods--is predicted to increase the initiation of a short-term mating strategies and compromise the parents' ability to protect their children and by weakening paternal and maternal attachments, thereby increasing the …

Floristic And Environmental Characteristics Of Sub-Boreal Peatlands Of Minnesota And Western Wisconsin, Kevin Douglas Clement

All Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Other Capstone Projects

Peatland communities in the sub-boreal region of Minnesota and western Wisconsin were characterized by floristic composition, structure and environmental characteristics to determine the natural variation among peatland communities in the region and their shared associations with the boreal and temperate peatlands of North America. Floristic classification revealed five, distinct peatland community types, identified as Sphagnum Bogs, Herbaceous Fens, Forested Fens, Rich/Calcareous Fens and Phalaris anrundinacea dominated peatlands. Differences among sub-boreal peatlands largely reflected changes in the significant indicator and dominant plant species identified, which were found to exhibit high fidelities to a particular peatland community type. Floristic variations among sub-boreal …

A New Species Of Marsupial Frog (Anura: Hemiphractidae: Gastrotheca) From The Río Abiseo National Park In Peru, Edgar Lehr, Alessandro Catenazzi

Scholarship

We describe a new species of Gastrotheca from the Río Abiseo National Park of the San Martín Region in the Andes of northern Peru. The description is based on a series of 29 specimens that were collected between 1989 and 1999 at two localities (Pampa del Cuy, Alpamachay) in the wet puna of the national park between 3380 and 3470 m elevation. The new species has a snout–vent length of 46.9–57.7 mm (53.5 ± 3.0) in females (n = 21), and 35.3–43.8 mm (41.6 ± 3.2) in males (n  =  6). In life, the dorsum is pale grayish brown with …

Wolves, Canis Lupus, Carry And Cache The Collars Of Radio-Collared White-Tailed Deer, Odocoileus Virginianus, They Killed, Michael E. Nelson, L. David Mech

United States Geological Survey, Northern Prairie Wildlife Research Center: Publications

Wolves (Canis lupus) in northeastern Minnesota cached six radio-collars (four in winter, two in spring-summer) of 202 radio-collared White-tailed Deer (Odocoileus virginianus) they killed or consumed from 1975 to 2010. A Wolf bedded on top of one collar cached in snow. We found one collar each at a Wolf den and Wolf rendezvous site, 2.5 km and 0.5 km respectively, from each deer’s previous locations.

Invasion Of Hurricane-Disturbed Scrub Communities On Barrier Islands In Mississippi: A Battle Between Native And Non-Native Ecosystem Engineers, Christine Annette Bertz

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Some communities may resist invasion because they are dominated by ecosystem engineers. If these dominant species are removed by some catastrophic disturbance, they can be replaced by invasive species that will dramatically alter the ecosystem in a way that may prevent its recovery. I tested several hypotheses related to this idea within barrier island scrub communities dominated by Florida rosemary (Ceratiola ericoides Michx.). Hurricanes represent a major source of disturbance to coastal Florida rosemary communities, and individual rosemary shrubs in three populations recently impacted by major hurricanes were not protected from the storm surge at higher elevation. Unlike inland populations …

Effects Of Tornado Damage, Prescribed Fire, And Salvage Logging On Oak (Quercus Spp.) Saplings In Upland Oak Forests In Northern Mississippi, Jeffery B. Cannon

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

After European colonization and extensive logging folloby long periods of fire suppression, oak dominated forests, woodlands, and savannahs are being replaced by an unprecedented forest ecosystem. In Mississippi, these new forest systems are dominated in the mid- and understory by mesophytic species such as red maple (Acer rubrum L.) and sweetgum (Liquidambar styraciflua L.). Partial thinning of trees folloby prescribed fire can regenerate oaks in managed timber stands. A severe tornado occurred on a monitored oak stand in northern Mississippi. Of the damaged plots, some were treated with either prescribed fire or salvage logging or were left alone. I examined …

Exploring Patterns Of Genetic Diversity Of A Malagasy Ant Species: Anochetus Madagascarensis, Nicole Annette Lewis

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Madagascar is extremely diverse and imperiled. Close to 90% of all land dwelling species are endemic to Madagascar (plants, reptiles, mammals and amphibians). Understanding patterns of genetic diversity for species can aid in better conservation efforts. In this study, I focus on the endemic Malagasy ant species, Anochetus madagascarensis. By employing a broad geographic sample of this species from throughout its distribution and a multilocus genetic data set, I explored population structure and historical factors that affected these patterns. I tested hypotheses proposed to be responsible for generating population structure, and by extension the process of speciation in Madagascar, including …

Ectomycorrhizal Fungal Succession In A Native Monterey Pine Forest And Its Potential Influence Upon Forest Population Dynamics, Kristopher Jordan Hennig

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Ectomycorrhizal fungi are plant symbionts influential to the growth and survival of many plant species found within forest ecosystems throughout the globe. The succession of ectomycorrhizal communities during forest maturation has been observed in a number of systems; however, though it is generally assumed that this process is important for forest dynamics, we do not fully understand the causes of succession and whether it strongly influences metrics of plant population dynamics such as population growth rates or size class structure. I studied a secondary successional chronosequence to test the hypothesis that ectomycorrhizal fungal succession occurs within a native Monterey pine …

An Ecosystem-Scale Model For The Spread Of A Host-Specific Forest Pathogen In The Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem, Jaclyn A. Hatala, Michael C. Dietze, Robert L. Crabtree, Katherine Kendall, Diana Six, Paul R. Moorcroft

Ecosystem and Conservation Sciences Faculty Publications

The introduction of nonnative pathogens is altering the scale, magnitude, and persistence of forest disturbance regimes in the western United States. In the high-altitude whitebark pine (Pinus albicaulis) forests of the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem (GYE), white pine blister rust (Cronartium ribicola) is an introduced fungal pathogen that is now the principal cause of tree mortality in many locations. Although blister rust eradication has failed in the past, there is nonetheless substantial interest in monitoring the disease and its rate of progression in order to predict the future impact of forest disturbances within this critical ecosystem.

This …