Digital Commons Network^™

From Creek To Ditch And Back Again: The History And Future Of Pattee Creek, Missoula, Montana, Carver Edward Butterfield

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

Pattee Creek was once a free-flowing stream that meandered across the Missoula Valley, but has been channelized, piped, and degraded by logging, mining, agriculture, and urbanization. This thesis used a mixed-method approach to examine the impact of human activities on the Pattee Creek watershed. Beginning with a historical overview, the story of how the creek has been utilized and why it was buried was told. An analysis of historical photos from 1937 to 2019 revealed drastic changes in the land cover of the watershed and the channel of lower Pattee Creek. Developed land increased dramatically, while open land decreased and …

Swimming Through Time: Ancient Dna Analysis Of Salmonid Remains At Housepit 54, Bridge River, British Columbia, Canada, Kara K. Fox

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

The application of ancient DNA (aDNA) analysis on archaeological faunal remains has proven successful in a variety of studies that have resulted in species identification and subsistence use at ancient village sites. Fisher-hunter-gatherer societies of the Pacific Northwest have depended heavily on seasonal salmon runs as a primary staple for foodstuffs and winter storage essentials. Determining which salmonid species were chosen provides a better understanding of ancient socio-economic strategies that impact food procurement and varying preferences of food items that can lead to resource access limitations. Ultimately, this thesis is a preliminary research project to establish the groundwork for successfully …

Gaba Transporter Loss-Of-Function Mutations In Pediatric Epilepsy: Neural Mechanisms And A Novel Fatty Acid Based Therapeutic Approach, Alessandra G. Jester

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

An increasing number of spontaneous mutations in the GABA transporter gene SLC6A1 (GAT-1) have been associated with pediatric epilepsy and neurodevelopmental disorders. The molecular mechanisms and impact of mutations on GABA homeostasis and neuronal circuit function are poorly understood. Furthermore, there are currently no validated therapeutic approaches to treat patients. A de novo mutation (S295L) in the GABA transporter gene SLC6A1 that was identified in a pediatric patient was introduced into a human cDNA construct, and mutant and wild-type transporters were expressed and studied in Xenopus oocytes by voltage clamp and radiolabeled GABA flux measurement. In addition, the effect of …

Impact Of Emotion Regulation On Prospective Memory, Hannes Heppner

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

Prospective memory necessitates the deliberate formation and timely execution of preplanned intentions. The degree of cognitive demand required is thought to be lower for focal compared to non-focal prospective memory cues. While negatively evocative focal cues have been shown to improve prospective memory performance, it is unclear if and to what extent the cognitive reappraisal of negative emotion impacts prospective memory performance. Cognitive reappraisal is often utilized to help individuals effortfully attenuate negative emotions and reduces the chronic burden on cognitive resources. In the present study, we hypothesized that more effective cognitive reappraisal is associated with better prospective memory performance. …

Niipáitapiiyssin: How Blackfeet Ways Of Knowing Impact Identity And Well-Being, Mikalen Running Fisher

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

This thesis explores the vital role of history, traditional knowledge, traditional ecological knowledge, artifacts, and language in shaping the identity and well-being of Indigenous communities. It emphasizes how these components are vital for the survival and growth of Indigenous cultures. Using the Blackfoot Confederacy as a case study, the research highlights the significance of these elements in maintaining cultural continuity and resilience. The analysis is grounded in literature authored from an Indigenous perspective, ensuring an authentic representation of the values and insights inherent in these communities. This work aims to bridge existing gaps in the literature by demonstrating the profound …

Iguanaland, Joshua Michael Moyar

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

The green iguana was introduced to the state of Florida in the 1960s. Since then, their populations have exploded, confounding scientists, animal control workers and private citizens in their attempts to eradicate them. While they’ve proven themselves to be nuisance animals — destroying yards and collapsing sidewalks — iguanas still have not conclusively caused ecological damage, meaning researchers can’t be sure that they’re truly invasive. Through this reptilian crisis, private iguana hunting services, like Harold Rondan’s Iguana Lifestyles, LLC, have taken off as a way to capitalize off of iguana carnage. Whether they’re shot, euthanized or even fried and eaten, …

Flyway Bottlenecks: Migratory Waterbirds Confront Diminishing Wetland Networks In Western North America, J. Patrick Donnelly

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

In the arid and semi-arid western U.S., migratory waterbirds (e.g., shorebirds, wading birds, and waterfowl) rely on wetland landscapes that function as nodes in broader continental habitat networks (e.g., flyways). Here, I integrate citizen science and GPS animal tracking technologies with satellite imagery and cloud computing to quantify the effects of climate and land use change on wetland ecosystems that sustain migratory waterbirds in the western U.S. Four decades of wetland surface water hydrology were first reconstructed from over 150,000 individual satellite images covering 3.1 million ha to track monthly changes in the extent and duration of wetland inundation. Results …

Moose Abundance And Calf:Cow Ratios On The Blackfeet Indian Reservation And Glacier National Park, Landon Joel Magee

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

Many moose (Alces alces; Sikihtsisoo) populations across North America, especially along their southern range, are declining due to factors such as climate change, parasites and disease, predation, habitat loss and degradation, and overharvest. These declines highlight broader ecological concerns, as moose play a critical role as prey within their ecosystems. Despite their importance, data on crucial demographic parameters like abundance and age ratios are sparse for moose, complicating management efforts. Conventional monitoring methods, including radio-collaring, harvest data, public surveys, and aerial surveys, face significant logistical and financial challenges, and often fail to provide a comprehensive understanding of …

Traditional Chinese Medicine And The Argument For Future Application In The United States, Kylie Nicole Frohlich

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

No abstract provided.

Evaluation Of Silk Fibroin And Hylauronic Acid As Otic Drug Delivery System Additives; Investigation Of Silk Fibroins Responses To Enviromental Stimulii, Kolton Charles Sandau

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

The Serban lab has previously developed and reported on a single application drug delivery system for the treatment of otitis externa. Otitis externa also known as outer ear infections is a very common ailment that impacts large portions of both human and domestic animal populations. Typical treatment for otitis externa typically requires an extended dosing regimen over several days that is inconvenient and can lead to poor clinical outcomes due to poor patient compliance. Our delivery system employs a thixotropic gel to deliver a steady dose of medication over the duration of the infection.

Here we evaluated the reproducibility and …

A Tale Of Two Working Landscapes, Sage C. Sutcliffe

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

No abstract provided.

Csn-5: A Tumor's Friend Or Foe In The C. Elegans Germline?, Kellie C. Kuch

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

The COP9 signalosome is a highly conserved eukaryotic complex regulating protein degradation via deneddylation of Cullin-RING E3 ligases. CSN5, the COP9’s fifth component, contains the catalytically active domain for CSN deneddylation. The complex is inactive without CSN5; however, CSN5 engages in COP9-independent binding with several other proteins, typically promoting either destruction or stabilization of its partners. Many of its confirmed interaction partners are also implicated in tumorigenesis (prominent examples being p27 and p53) and a complex cancer interactome has been established for CSN5. Additionally, CSN5 overexpression has been documented in a staggering array of cancers of diverse origins. This discovery …

The Blackfeet Nation’S Bison Conservation Herd Management Plan, Brandon Kittson

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

This document is meant to act as a guide to understanding Bison reintroduction on the Blackfeet reservation and serve as a resource for bison management. This report and plan will: 1) review bison ecology and the history of reintroduction efforts on the reservation; 2) identify potential issues and barriers to successful reintroduction; 3) present a summary of current land policies and patterns of land use on the reservation; and 4) provide recommendations for dealing with those potential issues. Recommendations will be based on analyses of previous knowledge of bison and bison behavior.

Foreign Expert: A Memoir Manuscript, Jenny L. Rowe

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

This is a full memoir manuscript that I wrote for my MFA thesis, which is tentatively titled Foreign Expert. In this manuscript, we follow myself as narrator as I struggle to adapt to life in Beijing (prior to the pandemic) while also recovering from a recent divorce. The man I’d been married to for five years back in Iowa had become violently mentally ill, and though I’d been fortunate enough to remove myself from him, I quickly learned that being a foreign expert in China—my residential visa title—required more work than basic survival. By the end of my two years …

Foodway Comparions And Patterns Of Consumer Behavior: The Use Of Orphan And Salvage Archaeological Collections From Historic Missoula, Montana, Emily Thea Meick

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

The goal of this project is to better understand and test theories about consumer behavior and meat consumption through faunal remains using orphaned and salvaged historic archaeological collections from three sites across Missoula, Montana, from the 1860s through the 1920s. Previous research underscored the need for properly defined units of analysis that represent what was being purchased and consumed. Using a consumer behavior framework and meat quality index, as indicated by price and meat yield, foodways comparisons between a Euromerican household that maintained renters, occupants of a Chinese store, Joss House, and residential dwellings within Missoula’s Red-Light District, and enlisted …

An Endemic Issue: Malawi's Struggle To Prevent Childhood Malaria, Hailey A. Smalley

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

Malaria is one of the most prolific diseases in the world, generating hundreds of millions of cases and hundreds of thousands of deaths a year. In 2021, the World Health Organization initiated preliminary trials for the first malaria vaccine in three countries, including Malawi. This project explores the impact of the malaria vaccine on community perspectives and health outcomes related to malaria , describes ongoing challenges that health workers face when disseminating the vaccine, and explains how Malawi’s experience implementing the malaria vaccine reflects larger trends in international aid.

Field/Museum: Poems + Studies, Em Bober

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

Field/Museum: Poems + Studies is a collection interested in curation—collecting, containing, protecting, preserving, and displaying. Each set of poems becomes its own exhibition, employing experimental form and detail studies to preserve the work. Mortality, masculinity, ethics of the museum space, the concept of wildness, science, and family dynamics are scrutinized and studied throughout.

Readers learn that the author’s uncle worked at the Field Museum of Chicago throughout her childhood; so began her intimate relationship with the museum space—a deep fascination with the task of exhibiting. Later in the collection, readers are guided into the field—into a series of place poems …

No Worries, It’S Fine, Lexie E. Loader

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

In my MFA exhibition, no worries, it’s fine, I depict seemingly mundane objects and places in my paintings to explore underlying themes of the bittersweet. They contain both painful memories and sweet moments, and their complexity gives them authenticity. To only explore the one would be dishonest, as the bitter and the sweet are forever intertwined.

Bittersweet is tied to longing…longing for someone you love when they are not present, for better circumstances while accepting where you are. Longing can propel us forward, one step at a time. It gives us the hope that when we experience pain, the pendulum …

Better Understanding The Barred Owl, Adam Lee Potts

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

This thesis research presents an analysis of barred owl nest site selection in an understudied region of their expanded range. The barred owl has dramatically expanded its range westwards over the last 150 years, prompting multiple conflicting reinterpretations of their species account. Hypotheses of range expansion are reviewed to provide context for this study’s research. This study gathers empirical data on nest site selection in the mixed conifer forests of Montana’s Seeley-Swan and Mission Valleys. Eight barred owl nests were located following extensive territory surveys. Field measurements of tree height and diameter using USFS Forest Inventory and Analysis (FIA) plot …

Bearing Witness: Ancient Dna Analysis And The Dynamics Of Food Procurement In A Historic Missoula Chinese Community, Sarah Elizabeth Grenfell

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

In 2019, construction of a brewery called Cranky Sam Public House in downtown Missoula, Montana provided an unexpected opportunity to recover and preserve late nineteenth and early twentieth century archaeological evidence of a Missoula neighborhood that included a Chinese temple, a Chinese store, and dwellings with Chinese residents. The area, like many urban landscapes in the American West, also included a restricted, or red-light district. Teams of volunteer University of Montana graduate and undergraduate students conducted on-the-spot salvage archaeology monitoring and were able to recover a sample of artifacts and ecofacts from this once-bustling part of Missoula. The objectives of …

Genomic And Phenotypic Insights Into The Mechanisms Of Adaptation In High-Elevation Deer Mice, Keely R. Corder

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

The study of adaptation to extreme environments offers a lens to explore the fundamental processes of evolution. Organisms living in challenging conditions, such as high elevation, must evolve a suite of physiological and genetic adaptations to survive and thrive. However, our understanding of the mechanisms underlying such adaptations and the processes driving their evolution remains incomplete. This dissertation aims to expand our knowledge of adaptive evolution in extreme environments by integrating genomic, phenotypic, and demographic data in the North American deer mouse (Peromyscus maniculatus), a model system for high-altitude adaptation. The dissertation addresses three main gaps in knowledge: (1) the …

Brat Olympics, Caroline Ganci Patterson

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

brat olympics is an exploration of feminine disgust, apprehension, and disorientation contextualized through interpersonal relationships and societal shapeshifting. It pays particular attention to gender performance, surburban queerness, and strangerness. The manuscript plays on the history of the bildungsroman, but instead of one consistent singular timeline, it provides three separate attempts at a characterization of a life. These disparate approaches to a singular life’s characterization stress the mundanity of documentation.

This multinarrative approach satirizes the ideal of the singular confessional, and presents a discursive approach to the way we choose to build our worlds. Building off the works of the New …

Repatriation And A Biological Profile Of Indigenous Remains Of West Texas, Haley P. Rebardi

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

The Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act (NAGPRA) was created in response to the injustice, mishandling, looting, and trafficking of Native American remains and cultural artifacts. However, even with the latest amendment in December of 2023, there are still gray areas in the context and language. Notably, an issue with NAGPRA is the act only includes institutions and organizations that receive and are supported by Federal funding. Consequently, the act does not cover private collections. The main concern in these contexts is the lack of communication, awareness, and/or permission with and from descendant tribes or potential descendants when it …

Complexities Of Companionship: Exploring The Human-Dog Relationship Through Mtdna Analysis Of Bridge River Canine Remains, Seth Warnick

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

Dogs (Canis lupus familiaris) hold an unquantifiable level of cultural influence and companionship across swathes of societies all over the globe. While dogs are genetically very distinct from Homo sapiens, throughout human history the two organisms have spread across the world together and have biologically gone through similar selective, social, and environmental constraints. Today the biological makeup of dog breeds is incredibly diverse, however, the archaeological record and genetic research has provided insight into the humble beginnings of a relationship between humans and dogs that has transcended the fabric of emerging civilization itself. Located on the Northwest interior plateau, Bridge …

Siksikaitsitapi Returning The Gaze On Human & Wildlife Interactions, Celina C. Gray

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

In Niitawahsii–our home territory, the ecoregion of the Siksikaitsitapi–Blackfoot Confederacy, a Traditional Ecological Knowledge Application (TEKA) for socio-ecological research was developed. Aawaaahsskataiks–elders and extant literature identified a need to develop shared understanding regarding strong connections to wildlife niksokowaiks–relatives, through Siksikaitsitapi Traditional Ecological Knowledge (S-TEK). Multistage chain referral sampling, semi-structured interviews and grounded theory coding & analysis from Western science, i.e. Napikowaiks–non-natives’ research methods, were adjusted like to align with kipaitapiwahsinnooni–the Blackfoot paradigm of traditional knowledge; and more generally, Indigenous Research Methods. The result was a rigorous qualitative human-dimension of wildlife research TEKA; for use by Siksikaitsitapi and others interested in …

Integrating Western Science And Indigenous Knowledge For Just Practices In Conservation, Cierra Lea Keith

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

No abstract provided.

Motivating Math Students Through Socratic Pedagogy, Leslie Berg

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

This study investigated the impact of implementing the Socratic method in teaching logarithms on the motivation levels of high school Algebra 2 students. Drawing on foundational research by Hirsch and Pfeil (2012), the research involves two classes totaling 28 students, with surveys administered before and after the Socratic lessons to gauge motivation, engagement, and participation levels. The meticulously designed four-day lesson plans employ cooperative dialogue and critical inquiry to foster student understanding of logarithmic concepts. With the teacher serving as a facilitator and students actively participating in the learning process, the study aimed to replicate and build upon previous findings, …

Effectiveness Of An Evolution-Based Serious Game On Motivation And Achievement Of Secondary-Level Science Students, Bradford John Fruechte

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

Getting students to engage with schoolwork is not always an easy task. Lessons that have elements of games (gamified lessons) and serious games (those created for education) have the potential to increase motivation, which may also improve learning outcomes. But research has found mixed results on the achievement effects of educational games, and not enough research has shown the effectiveness of educational games on evolution-related topics specifically (Bjoerner & Hansen, 2010). This study aimed to implement a game that revolves around the mechanisms of evolution and evaluated that game’s effects on secondary-level students’ motivation and learning. Four middle school life …

Where And When The Antelope Play: Drivers Of Pronghorn Distribution And Demography Across Space And Through Time, Molly Cutler Mcdevitt

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

In this dissertation, I aim to (i) advance the understanding of pronghorn ecology and population responses to environmental variability, and (ii) test analytical tools linking environmental habitat factors to demographic processes. In doing so, I answer the following questions: How should we expect pronghorn demographic rates to vary from year to year? How do environmental conditions influence pronghorn survival? How do long-term impacts from environmental conditions directly affect pronghorn demographic trends like survival or abundance? Do environmental conditions influence pronghorn density and distribution in the same way? If not, how do they differ? Finally, in an increasingly changing landscape, what …

Rangeland Soil Seed Bank Dynamics: Soil Property Relationships, Patterns Across A Degradation Gradient, And Responses To Shrub Management, Ryan Willis Richard Schroeder

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

Rangeland ecosystems are globally important for their ecosystem service delivery, however, they are experiencing several threats pushing systems across ecological states. Thus, creative science-based management is imperative to maintain ecosystem sustainability and improve ecosystem service delivery. Soil seed banks – the living seeds in the soil profile and on the soil surface – and their soil-seed-plant interactions are one area of inquiry that could help guide science-based management efforts when it comes to rangeland community assembly and ecological restoration.

In this dissertation, I investigated rangeland soil-seed-plant interactions in New Mexico, USA. In Chapter 1, I worked with an expert group …