Digital Commons Network^™

What Limits Fire? An Examination Of Driver's Of Burnt Area In Southern Africa, Sally Archibald, David P. Roy, Brian W. Van Wilgen, Robert J. Scholes

GSCE Faculty Publications

The factors controlling the extent of fire in Africa south of the equator were investigated using moderate resolution (500 m) satellite-derived burned area maps and spatial data on the environmental factors thought to affect burnt area. A random forest regression tree procedure was used to determine the relative importance of each factor in explaining the burned area fraction and to address hypotheses concerned with human and climatic influences on the drivers of burnt area. The model explained 68% of the variance in burnt area. Tree cover, rainfall in the previous 2 years, and rainfall seasonality were the most important predictors. …

Factors That Influence The Distribution Of Antibiotic Resistant Bacteria In The Mud River, Wv, Timothy Shaun Dotson

Theses, Dissertations and Capstones

Background: Prior studies of the Ohio and Mud Rivers have shown that fecal contamination alone does not explain the distribution of antibiotic resistant bacteria (ARB) in surface waters. The objectives of this study were to determine effects on the distribution of ARB in the Mud.

Methods: Water samples and physical parameters were collected twice per season in spring through fall at 12 sites on the Mud River. Aliquots were plated on R2A agar and R2A agar plus individual antibiotics for the enumeration of total cultivable bacteria, and cultivable bacteria resistant to ciprofloxacin, virginiamycin, or tetracycline respectively. The IDEXX Quanti-Tray/2000™ method …

Fire And Climate In The Inland Pacific Northwest: Integrating Science And Management, Rachel Clark

Joint Fire Science Program Briefs (2007-2012)

Climate is a vital force shaping much of life on Earth. People have long suspected a link between climate and susceptibility of forests to fire. But measuring such a relationship has been challenging without tools capable of taking into account climate, forest structure through space and time, and other variables. Managers and planners who make decisions to maintain forest health need an accurate understanding of how climate is linked to fire regimes, as well as tools to help them do it. Such tools would take complex information and allow it to be accessed in a straightforward and effective way. Don …

Beetles And Severe Fire: Who’S On First? A Century Of Disturbance In Colorado’S Subalpine Forests, Marjie Brown

Joint Fire Science Program Briefs (2007-2012)

Forests have evolved with and depend on natural cycles of wildfire, insect outbreaks, disease, and extreme weather for periodic rejuvenation. The subalpine forests of northwestern Colorado experienced an unusual sequence of disturbances in succession over the past 125 years. Severe wildfi res in 2002 were preceded by stand-replacing fi res a century before. These were followed by a record setting wind blowdown, subsequent salvage logging, and two separate bark beetle infestations. This study by University of Colorado researchers was the first to collectively analyze how a century of disturbances interacted with each other to shape ecosystem patterns and processes with …

The Cone Fire: A Chance Reckoning For Fuel Treatments, Lisa-Natalie Anjozian

Joint Fire Science Program Briefs (2007-2012)

In late September 2002, an accidental fire ignited on Blacks Mountain in the dry pine forest of the Cascade Range of northeastern California. The fire burned through the Blacks Mountain Experimental Forest where a large-scale, long-term study was already underway to test ecological responses to two different stand structures the scientists had created using various treatments: high diversity, with and without prescribed fire, and low diversity, with and without prescribed fire. The study was not originally designed to test the effects of severe wildfires. The Cone Fire created an opportunity to evaluate the effects of different treatments on tree survival …

Mountain-Prairie Region Fisheries Program Strategic Plan

United States Fish and Wildlife Service: Publications

This Mountain-Prairie Regional Fisheries Strategic Plan outlines where, within our Federal role, we will focus our efforts. It provides guidance to partners and the public about our priorities, mandates, and opportunities and to Congress and the Administration on future budgeting decisions.

Exposure And Exposure Modeling, Karen F. Gaines, T. E. Chow, S. A. Dyer

Faculty Research & Creative Activity

Exposure to contaminants in the environment is quantified through the ecological risk assessment (ERA) process which provides a framework for the development and implementation of environmental management decisions. The ERA uses available toxicological and ecological information to estimate the probability of occurrence for a specified undesired ecological event or endpoint. The level for these endpoints depends on the objectives and the constraints imposed upon the risk assessment process; therefore, multiple endpoints at different scales may be necessary. ERAs Ecotoxicology | Exposure and Exposure Assessment 1527Author's personal copy often rely on the link between these undesired endpoints to a threshold of …

Scale-Dependent Habitat Use By Fall Migratory Birds: Vegetation Architecture, Floristics, And Geographic Consistency, Jill L. Deppe, John T. Rotenberry

Faculty Research & Creative Activity

Animal habitat selection is a central focus of ecology and conservation biology. Understanding habitat associations in migratory animals is particularly complicated because individuals have variable habitat requirements during the annual cycle, across their geographic range, along migratory routes, and at multiple spatial scales. We studied habitat associations of 16 fall Nearctic–Neotropical migratory land birds at two spatial scales at a stopover site along the northern Yucatan coast to examine scale-dependent habitat use, identify proximate cues shaping birds' distributions, and evaluate similarities in habitat use between our tropical stopover site and temperate sites. We addressed scale-dependent habitat associations in two ways, …

What Is A Humane Wildlife Control Service?, John Griffin, Lori Thiele, Pamela Lough, Janet Snyder, Maggie Brasted, John Hadidian

Wildlife Population Management Collection

In May 2007, The Humane Society of the United States launched a for-fee business called Humane Wildlife Servicessm to engage in wildlife control jobs in the Washington, D.C. metro area. We had several purposes in launching this service. First, we felt it necessary to offer a service to customers in our home base area that allowed them to choose a wildlife removal company that did not trap and relocate, or trap and kill, animals. Second, we wished to directly experience and test the operational and conceptual challenges associated with this sort of service. Third, we wished to develop a model …

The Dynamic Evolutionary History Of The Bananaquit (Coereba Flaveola) In The Caribbean Revealed By A Multigene Analysis, Eva Bellemain, Eldredge Bermingham, Robert Ricklefs

Biology Department Faculty Works

BackgroundThe bananaquit (Coereba flaveola) is a small nectivorous and frugivorous emberizine bird (order Passeriformes) that is an abundant resident throughout the Caribbean region. We used multi-gene analyses to investigate the evolutionary history of this species throughout its distribution in the West Indies and in South and Middle America. We sequenced six mitochondrial genes (3744 base pairs) and three nuclear genes (2049 base pairs) for forty-four bananaquits and three outgroup species. We infer the ancestral area of the present-day bananaquit populations, report on the species' phylogenetic, biogeographic and evolutionary history, and propose scenarios for its diversification and range expansion.ResultsPhylogenetic concordance between …

Discrete Return Lidar-Based Prediction Of Leaf Area Index In Two Conifer Forests, Jennifer L. R. Jensen, Karen S. Humes, Lee A. Vierling, Andrew T. Hudak

United States Department of Agriculture, Forest Service / University of Nebraska-Lincoln: Faculty Publications

Leaf area index (LAI) is a key forest structural characteristic that serves as a primary control for exchanges of mass and energy within a vegetated ecosystem. Most previous attempts to estimate LAI from remotely sensed data have relied on empirical relationships between field-measured observations and various spectral vegetation indices (SVIs) derived from optical imagery or the inversion of canopy radiative transfer models. However, as biomass within an ecosystem increases, accurate LAI estimates are difficult to quantify. Here we use lidar data in conjunction with SPOT5-derived spectral vegetation indices (SVIs) to examine the extent to which integration of both lidar and …

Ua37/2 Faculty Personal Papers Small Collections, Wku Archives

WKU Archives Collection Inventories

Small donations from individual faculty and staff members. These are generally one or two items housed in a single folder. Papers range from gradebooks and syllabi to funeral cards and obituaries. The existing records are arranged in alphabetical order by donor surname. Future donations will be arranged in the order in which they are received.

Carbon Cycling At The Landscape Scale: The Effect Of Changes In Climate And Fire Frequency On Age Distribution, Stand Structure, And Net Ecosystem Production., Michael G. Ryan, Daniel M. Kashian, Erica A.H. Smithwick, William H. Romme, Monica G. Turner, Daniel B. Tinker

Joint Fire Science Program Research Project Reports

Understanding the interactions between climate, fire and forest characteristics-- and how carbon dynamics are affected by these factors--remains an important challenge in ecology. As the size and severity of fires in the western US continues to increase (Westerling et al. 2006), it has become increasingly important to understand carbon dynamics in response to fire. In this study, we investigated these key interactions in the landscape of Yellowstone National Park (YNP). We asked how initial post-fire heterogeneity in forest structure (especially tree density and stand age) controls carbon dynamics over the full life cycle of individual forest stands, and how climate-mediated …

Proceedings Of The 120th Annual Meeting Of The Iowa Academy Of Science [Program, 2008], Iowa Academy Of Science

Iowa Academy of Science Documents

Contents:

Welcome from the President --- 3
Program Summary /Timeline --- 4
General Session Presentations --- 6
Symposia Presentations --- 9
Special Events --- 12
Iowa Junior Academy of Science --- 13
Senior Poster Program --- 14
Awards Luncheon --- 18
President's Banquet --- 18
IAS Annual Business Meeting --- 19
ESTA Awards Banquet --- 19
Field Trips --- 20
Section Meeting Programs and Oral Presentations (Alphabetical by Section) --- 22
Second Annual IAS Picnic Program --- 28
Abstracts (by Section) --- 29
Author Index --- 53

Paleontology, Geography, And Biochemistry Of The Pratum Mammoth, Western Oregon, Stacie J. Cearley

Undergraduate Honors Theses

In August of 1967 remains of a mammoth were discovered in a peat bog in Pratum, a small farming community near Salem, Oregon. Two molars were found in conjunction with a tusk, femur, and partial pelvis. While mammoths finds are fairly common in the area, detailed paleontological analysis has rarely been attempted on such finds. The goals of this project are to analyze the Pratum mammoth in terms of the geographic and geologic context of the find, conduct stable isotope biochemical analyses of the bones and tusk, and morphometric analysis of the remains. Morphometric analysis of the find has determined …

"Broadening The Coverage Of Biodiversity Assessments" , Ben Collen, Mala Ram, Nadia Dewhurst, Viola Clausnitzer, Vincent Kalkman, Neil Cumberlidge, Jonathan Em Baillie

Journal Articles

No abstract provided.

A Global Assessment Of Freshwater Crab Diversity , Darren Cj Yeo, Pkl Ng, Neil Cumberlidge, Celio Magalhães, Savel Regan Daniels Phd, Martha R. Campos

Journal Articles

No abstract provided.

A History Of The Biology Department, Omer R. Larson

UND Departmental Histories

This departmental history was written on the occasion of the UND Quasquicentennial in 2008.

Kentucky Water Resources Research Institute Annual Technical Report Fy 2007, Kentucky Water Resources Research Institute, University Of Kentucky

KWRRI Annual Technical Reports (USGS’s 104b Grant Program)

The 2007 Annual Technical Report for Kentucky consolidates reporting requirements of the Section 104(b) base grant award into a single document that includes: 1) a synopsis of each student research enhancement project conducted during the period, 2) citations for related publications, reports, and presentations, 3) a description of information transfer activities, 4) a summary of student support during the reporting period, and 5) notable awards and achievements during the year.

A Bacterial Metapopulation Adapts Locally To Phage Predation Despite Global Dispersal, Victor Kunin, Shaomei He, Falk Warnecke, S. Brook Peterson, Hector Garcia Martin, Matthew Haynes, Natalia Ivanova, Linda Blackall, Mya Breitbart, Forest Rohwer, Katherine Mcmahon, Philip Hugenholtz

Marine Science Faculty Publications

Using a combination of bacterial and phage-targeted metagenomics, we analyzed two geographically remote sludge bioreactors enriched in a single bacterial species Candidatus Accumulibacter phosphatis (CAP). We inferred unrestricted global movement of this species and identified aquatic ecosystems as the primary environmental reservoirs facilitating dispersal. Highly related and geographically remote CAP strains differed principally in genomic regions encoding phage defense mechanisms. We found that CAP populations were high density, clonal, and nonrecombining, providing natural targets for “kill-the-winner” phage predation. Community expression analysis demonstrated that phages were consistently active in the bioreactor community. Genomic signatures linking CAP to past phage exposures were …

Semantic Provenance For Escience: Managing The Deluge Of Scientific Data, Satya S. Sahoo, Amit P. Sheth, Cory Andrew Henson

Kno.e.sis Publications

Provenance information in eScience is metadata that's critical to effectively manage the exponentially increasing volumes of scientific data from industrial-scale experiment protocols. Semantic provenance, based on domain-specific provenance ontologies, lets software applications unambiguously interpret data in the correct context. The semantic provenance framework for eScience data comprises expressive provenance information and domain-specific provenance ontologies and applies this information to data management. The authors' "two degrees of separation" approach advocates the creation of high-quality provenance information using specialized services. In contrast to workflow engines generating provenance information as a core functionality, the specialized provenance services are integrated into a scientific workflow …

Zero-Sum, The Niche,And Metacommunities: Long-Term Dynamics Of Community Assembly, S.K. Morgan Ernest, J. H. Brown, K. M. Thibault, Ethan P. White, J. R. Goheen

Biology Faculty Publications

Recent models of community assembly, structure, and dynamics have incorporated, to varying degrees, three mechanistic processes: resource limitation and interspecific competition, niche requirements of species, and exchanges between a local community and a regional species pool. Synthesizing 30 years of data from an intensively studied desert rodent community, we show that all of these processes, separately and in combination, have influenced the structural organization of this community and affected its dynamical response to both natural environmental changes and experimental perturbations. In addition, our analyses suggest that zero-sum constraints, niche differences, and metacommunity processes are inextricably linked in the ways that …

Influence Of Seed Source On Vegetative And Reproductive Performance Of Three Common Prairie Grasses Common In Grassland Restoration, Matt Burmeister

Masters Theses

Though tallgrass prairie once covered 250 million acres of the midwestem U.S, now less than one percent· of this original area is left. In recent years the restoration and reconstruction of tallgrass prairie has become more popular throughout the prairie region. There is evidence that local and distant populations may both be practical seed sources for ecological restoration projects. To address this basic issue in restoration, I tested the how performance of three grass species from different locations was affected by the distance from the restored area. Three species, Andropogon gerardii, Sorghastrum nutans and Panicum virgatum, of perennial grasses common …

A Unique Old-Growth Ponderosa Pine Forest In Northern Arizona, Scott R. Abella

Public Policy and Leadership Faculty Research

Old-growth ponderosa pine (Pinus ponderosa) forests are uncommon in the Southwest, and only one oldgrowth forest (the Gus Pearson Natural Area [GPNA]) has been researched in the ponderosa pine belt surrounding the city of Flagstaff in northern Arizona. The purpose of this study was to measure soil characteristics, current and pre-Euro-American settlement (1885) tree structure, and understory plant composition in a 6-ha remnant old-growth forest on volcanic, red cinder soils. Soil bulk density was extremely low (0.21 Mg/m3) in this forest because of high volumetric contents of cinders >2 mm diameter. As a result, volumetric soil moisture, organic C, and …

Effects Of Agricultural Conservation Practices On Fish And Wildlife Volume 2, Stuart R. Gagnon, Joseph R. Makuch, Cassandra Y. Harper

United States Department of Agriculture-Agricultural Research Service / University of Nebraska-Lincoln: Faculty Publications

This bibliography, in two volumes, is part of a multi-volume set developed by the Water Quality Information Center at the National Agricultural Library in support of the United States Department of Agriculture’s Conservation Effects Assessment Project (CEAP). The bibliography is a guide to recent scientific literature covering effects of agricultural conservation practices on fish and wildlife. The citations listed here provide information on how conservation programs and practices designed to improve fish and wildlife habitat, as well as those intended for other purposes, e.g., water quality improvement, affect various aquatic and terrestrial fauna.

Uncertainty In Environmental Decision Making: Issues, Challenges And Future Directions, H. R. Maier, J. C. Ascough, M. Wattenbach, C. S. Renschler, W. B. Labiosa, J. K. Ravalico

United States Department of Agriculture-Agricultural Research Service / University of Nebraska-Lincoln: Faculty Publications

There has been an increase in the use of formal approaches to environmental management. Jakeman and Letcher (2003) and Jakeman et al. (2006) have demonstrated the importance of integrated models as a means of assessing the response of environmental systems to proposed enlargement options. Gunderson and Holling (2000), Cowie and Borrett (2005), Curtis et al. (2005) and Pahl-Wostl (2005) have highlighted the need for the incorporation of social and institutional aspects into decision-making processes.

Challenges Of In Situ Conservation Of Crop Wild Relatives, Vernon Hilton Heywood

Turkish Journal of Botany

Crop wild relatives (CWRs) will gain in importance as changing climates put both traditional and advanced cultivars under increasing stress, leading to a need for plant breeding to produce new varieties able to grow under the new climate regimes. Traditionally, the approach to the conservation of CWRs has been ex situ - the collection and maintenance of seed accessions in national, regional, and international germplasm banks, supplemented by field genebanks for species with recalcitrant seeds. More recently the need to maintain CWRs in their natural habitats (in situ) has been advocated. This is very different from on-farm conservation of traditional …

Whooping Crane Collisions With Power Lines: An Issue Paper, Thomas V. Stehn, Tom Wassenich

Proceedings of the North American Crane Workshop

Collision with power lines is the greatest source of mortality for fledged whooping cranes (Grus americana) in the Aransas-Wood Buffalo population (AWBP) that migrate between the Northwest Territories, Canada to the Texas coast. This paper compiles 45 documented whooping crane mortalities from power line strikes in North America and provides known information on crane / power line interactions. A map of the AWBP whooping crane migration corridor was derived with 100 and 200-mile wide corridors delineated showing the location of known mortalities. Recommendations are provided to try to reduce this major threat facing whooping cranes.

The Leaning Object: April 2008, John C. Owens

Leading Object

Perspectives, Newly-opened center allows for closer examination of quilts, McVey named director of Vet Center, Lodl named assistant dean of UNL extension, Ag lending, Navy give Richard Hahn a dual career, Celebration of Success marks CASNR enrollment growth, Follow-up study shows cost of turning switchgrass to ethanol,UNL celebrates launch of eXtension, Four receive OEA Awards, Author addresses children and nature, Kudo Award given to Adams, UAAD award given

Shading Facilitates Sessile Invertebrate Dominance In The Rocky Subtidal Gulf Of Maine, Ron J. Etter, Robert J. Miller

Biology Faculty Publication Series

Dramatic shifts in community composition occur between vertical and horizontal rocky surfaces in subtidal environments worldwide, yet the forces mediating this transition are poorly understood. Vertical rock walls are often covered by lush, diverse communities of sessile suspension-feeding invertebrates, while adjacent horizontal substrates are dominated by algae, or corals in the tropics. Multiple factors, including light, sedimentation, water flow, and predation have been proposed to explain this pattern, but experimental tests of these hypotheses are lacking. We manipulated light level and predation to test whether variation in these mechanisms could be responsible for the shift in composition of sessile communities …