Digital Commons Network^™

Preliminary Study In More Effective Utilization Of 87sr/86sr Analysis In The Field Of Forensic Anthropology, Samantha Powers

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

Isotopic analyses are gaining attention in the field of anthropology. The current utilization of strontium isotopes primarily focuses on residence and migration patterns of past populations extracting data from tooth enamel to indicate early-life residence This study aims to identify a skeletal feature to be set as a field standard in strontium analysis of modern remains when seeking end-of-life residence, the impact of diagenesis on modern remains, and to test the accuracy of the petrous as an alternative to tooth enamel.

The results of this research were unable to suggest such a standard but gathered helpful data to be used …

Challenges And Promises Of The Agricultural Sector In The West Today, Jordan J. Unger

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

The transition from hunter-gatherers to a sedentary, agrarian based society was a pivotal point in history, fundamentally altering humanity’s trajectory. Early human’s domestication of plants and animals paved the way for modern civilization and drastically changed the way we lived and interacted. With agriculture, humans could invest more time into other activities besides procuring food while simultaneously being able to support increasingly large communities of people. Villages, city-states and, ultimately, states were formed – helping give rise to more complex social structures.

Until recently, agriculture has been the main economic backbone of every civilization. In 1970 in the United States, …

Other Orchards, Sam B. Robison

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

Other Orchards is comprised of poems each suspect in their own way of those boundaries that might separate humans from nature, rural from urban, worker from scholar, or human from beast. Using the figure of the orchard, a kind of “false forest,” this collection studies the ways we map ourselves onto our work and the way work might inform an understanding of the self. Ultimately, these are poems that emerge from the seams of things—the shoulder of highway strewn with dead antelope, the feral apple tree lost to the woods, the farmer lost in their work, slowing becoming less and …

Conserving And Sharing Freshwater In The West, Kelsea Harris-Capuano

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

There are infinite stories to be told about water in the West. As an essential and finite resource, countries, states, tribal nations and neighbors must figure out how to manage this shared resource, whether for ecosystem sustainability, agricultural, household, or recreational use.

The Flathead Lake Biological Station in Polson, MT is one of the oldest active biological research stations in the United States. One of its former faculty, Dr. Mark Lorang, has been working on Flathead Lake’s erosion problem for over 30 years. As a result of seasonal lake level fluctuations controlled by the dam, erosion over the years has …

Rancher Perspectives On Livelihood Diversification Options In Montana's Blackfoot River Watershed, Sara N. Schmidt

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

The Blackfoot River watershed in Western Montana, like many rural landscapes across the Intermountain West, has faced a suite of economic, demographic, and social change over the last 40 years. Cattle ranching specifically, a principal land use in the Blackfoot watershed, has faced increasing socioeconomic challenges due to global competition, falling cattle prices, amenity migration, and climate change. Ranch livelihood diversification presents an opportunity to bolster the profitability of ranches in the watershed, while also supporting the well-being of rural communities and conserving the intact, ecologically-significant rangelands upon which ranching depends. The Blackfoot Challenge (BC) is a nonprofit community-based conservation …

The Mountain Home: Spatial And Optimal Foraging Assessments Of Hunter- Gatherer Mountain Landscape Use In The Beartooth Mountains, Montana, Scott William Dersam

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

Patterns of cultural mountain adaptations are recorded throughout the Western Cordillera of North America. They demonstrate prolonged and complex uses of these ecosystems over the Holocene. What behaviors or circumstances in the Early Holocene transitioned mountains from inhospitable to reliable territory? This research addresses this question in the Beartooth Mountains of the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem (GYE).

Foraging behaviors dictate hunter-gatherer mobility and habitation patterning. These behaviors are reflected in the spatial arrangement of archaeological activity areas and lithic tools in mountainous ecosystems. Energy-demanding ecosystems, require foraging behaviors and habitation strategies that conserve energy. I assert that to understand the emergence …

Body Temperature And Reproductive Effort In A Long-Lived Tropical Songbird, Holly R. Jackson

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

Heat production relative to dissipation rates have constrained reproductive effort and reduced fitness in short-lived, temperate birds. To determine whether heat constrains reproductive effort in long-lived taxa with low reproductive effort, we experimentally clipped plumage from tropical Gray-throated babblers (Stachyris nigriceps) to increase heat dissipation rates. Contrary to findings in short-lived species, we found no strong evidence of heat dissipation constraints on reproductive effort in our mid-elevation study. Clipped adults did not increase feeding rates compared to controls, but clipped females did spend more time incubating and brooding eggs and young. Increased time in the nest may reduce increased heat …

Feasibility And Acceptability Of Administering A Functional Cognitive-Communication Assessment To Individuals With Self-Reported Concussion, Mackenzie Ann Brown

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

Purpose: Individuals who experience ongoing symptoms after sustaining a mTBI may not receive the help they need because the deficits they endorse on self-report measures are not identified on current standardized cognitive assessments. The purpose of the current investigation is to determine how to better document ongoing cognitive-communication deficits and to characterize the nature of how these deficits impact daily life and communicative participation, using a multidimensional assessment protocol.

Method: A multiple case study design was selected to comprehensively document the cognitive-linguistic functioning of multiple individuals with concussion. Five participants completed one session over a telehealth platform that included four …

Mark My Words: The Linguistic Complexity Of The Journal Of Personality And Social Psychology Abstracts And Subsequent Citations, Alivia Lauren Zubrod

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

Through language, scientific communication can positively impact the progression and advancement of science. Given the value of scientific communication, it is important to explore what factors might be associated with influential scientific communication. Surprisingly, relatively little research has examined the linguistic properties of influential scientific communication. In effort to overcome this gap in the literature, I used integrative complexity, a well-validated linguistic variable, to assess the relation between article abstracts and subsequent number of citations from one of the most highly-cited social psychology journals (Journal of Personality and Social Psychology). In an analysis of over 1.4 million words from 9,884 …

The Request Is Not Compatible: Competing Frames Of Public Lands Discourse In The Lolo Peak Ski Resort Controversy, Philip A. Sharp

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

Sharp, Philip, A., M.A., Spring 2022

Communication Studies

ABSTRACT

The Request Is Not Compatible: Competing Frames of Public Lands Discourse in the Lolo Peak Ski Resort Controversy

Co-Chair (in absentia): Steve Schwarze Co-Chair: Joel Iverson

In mid-2003, the United States Forest Service (USFS) received a pre-application for a Special Use Permit to build and operate an all-season ski resort on public lands near Missoula, Montana. The ensuing public deliberation over the possible use of protected lands for outdoor commercial recreational purposes provides a site of rhetorical inquiry. In this rhetorical criticism I analyze and evaluate arguments presented by the USFS, …

Epistemoligical Uncertainty And Political Ideology: Exploring The Relationship Between Temporal Threats And Ideology, James Donald Mcfarland

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

Research in motivation suggests that individuals are highly attuned to perceived risk and danger and tend to form groups (physical and ideological) on the basis of the threats they collectively share with like-minded others. These initial stages of threat detection and evaluation are often found to occur through subtle environmental cues. This study examined the relationship between feelings of uneasiness and political ideology through the framing of temporal cues (e.g., past- vs. future-tense). Participants (n = 181) were recruited through Amazon’s Mechanical Turk (MTurk) and were randomly assigned a short vignette about a relatable life experience (e.g., purchasing a car). …

Bridging The Gap: Where Indigenous Knowledge And Western Science Come Together To Shape Environmental Stewardship, Bowman Leigh

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

In the era of climate change, humans are grappling with how to ensure that natural resources exist into the future. For millennia, Indigenous people have actively managed the environment, drawing upon deep connections to the land passed down through generations. The Western worldview, on the other hand, sees humans as separate from nature — an attitude that has led to many of the environmental crises we see today.

This portfolio examines places and programs where Western science and Indigenous knowledge (IK) or traditional ecological knowledge (TEK) come together to shape environmental stewardship. Western science and IK/TEK are inherently different ways …

Damming Paradise: Public Power, Free Enterprise, And Tribal Sovereignty In The Mountain West In The Twentieth Century, Jacob T. Schmidt

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

“Damming Paradise” examines the transformation of the political economy of the Mountain West through the development of hydropower over the course of the twentieth century. Beginning with early attempts to regulate electricity marketing and dam construction, this thesis traces the development of a conservation paradigm which insisted upon full development of water resources and public ownership of hydropower facilities. The author then follows that development through the New Deal and Post War eras, focusing particular attention on the Kerr Dam (now Seli’š Ksanka Qlispe’ Dam) and Hungry Horse Dam on Montana’s Flathead River. “Damming Paradise” then examines the attempt to …

Catch My Drift? Perceptions And Experiences Of Pesticide Contamination Of Organic Crops In Montana, Sarah Rodgers

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

Pesticide drift and inadvertent contamination pose particular risks to organic production. Some organic producers have lost their crops, certification, and/or organic markets because of contamination events. Through this thesis research, I explain the perceptions and experiences that certified organic farmers in Montana have about drift and inadvertent pesticide contamination. I conducted semi-structured interviews with eleven certified organic farmers from various regions of Montana. Along with one-on-one interviews with organic farmers, interviews with industry and regulatory officials were conducted to better understand the policies and procedures that control what happens when drift occurs at the state level. Industry and regulatory official …

A Reynolds Number Based Sampling Technique For 3-D Vector Fields In Computational Fluid Dynamic Environments, Trent James Schweitzer

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

Effective visualization of unsteady, time-dependent vector fields in a virtual environment is not a trivial task. This is due to the fact that most visualization techniques require the user to have a prior understanding of how the vector field will behave to set the parameters used to create the visualization. In this thesis we will take air flow data from a computational fluid dynamic simulations to calculate the amount of turbulence (represented as Reynolds numbers) to identify regions of interest. We then calculate wind pathlines that will intersect with these points sampled from these regions. We address the issue of …

Alternative Splicing Regulates The Innate Immune Response To Viral Infection, Luke A. White

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

Rift Valley fever virus (RVFV) is a mosquito-borne RNA virus that infects humans and livestock in sub-Saharan Africa and the Arabian peninsula, causing disease ranging from a mild flu-like illness to liver damage, blindness, hemorrhagic fever, death, and, especially in livestock animals, high rates of abortive pregnancies. There is no approved vaccine for RVFV, and as a disease with a high rate of spread that causes severe illness, it is listed as a Category A pathogen by the USA CDC. A better understanding of RVFV’s molecular virology will be instrumental to combating RVFV as climate change causes its mosquito host …

New Interdisciplinary Research At 48pa551: Land Tenure And Subsistence Strategies Among Middle Holocene Rocky Mountain Hunter-Gatherers, Ethan Patrick Ryan

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

This dissertation studies land tenure and resource procurement strategies among Middle Holocene hunter-gatherers in the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem (GYE). The research provides a better understanding of a stratified archaeological site on the eastern flank of the Yellowstone Plateau, 48PA551, a crucial location for winter resource procurement. Geophysical survey, collection’s research, obsidian sourcing, and stable isotope analysis are all used to test theoretical models of social conditions and hunting strategies during the harsh winters of the mountainous environment of northwest Wyoming. Site 48PA551 has already proven to contain evidence for a unique Middle Archaic adaptive strategy, being one of the only …

Combined Effects Of Temperature And Heavy Metals On The Performance Of The Giant Salmonfly., James Frakes, Amanda Andreas, Benjamin P. Colman, Aurthur Woods

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

In many freshwater ecosystems, communities of aquatic insects are facing the combined stresses of warmer waters due to climate change and increased exposure to heavy metal toxicants. Although each stressor may threaten aquatic insects independently, they also likely interact in important ways to affect insect physiology and performance. Here we investigate this potential interaction using two populations of aquatic nymphs of the giant salmonfly, Pteronarcys californica, collected from adjacent rivers in Montana: naïve individuals from Rock Creek, a relatively pristine stream, and individuals from the Upper Clark Fork River, which has a history of heavy metal pollution and higher …

And The Busy World Is Hushed, Emily Elizabeth Collins

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

No abstract provided.

Gigi, Helen Wesley Kapp

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

Francis’s grandpa taught her how to wrestle alligators. By the time Francis was sixteen, she could hold her own, but all it takes is one gator. Just one gator who almost gets the best of you, and suddenly you’ve got a dead animal; somebody’s getting stitches; you’re getting haunted by the ghost of the alligator you just killed; and your mom’s making you move to Charleston to attend a swanky prep school where the kids don’t wrestle gators, but surviving the gossip is even harder.

Are Risk Attitudes And Rainfall Variability Determinants Of Diversification? Evidence From Rondonia, Brazil, Brenna Swinger

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

Risk exposure and management are inherent to smallholder farmers. One of the risks they face is climate change. Climate change decreases rainfall, increases frequency of drought, adds heat stress to crops from higher temperatures, and leads to higher rainfall variability. The threat of rainfall variability causes higher production in some years and lower in others. Even if the average income remains the same, people’s welfare is reduced by the variability and the size of the loss will depend on their attitudes towards risk.

Diversification is one adaption strategy that may help reduce climate risk. Diversified farmers produce multiple types of …

Where Should Conservation Draw The Line And When Should It Push Forward, Jessica L. Mejia

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

No abstract provided.

Evaluating The Management And Consequences Of Hybridization Between Nonnative Rainbow Trout And Native Westslope Cutthroat Trout, Anthony James Dangora

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

The introduction of nonnative fish is a major driver in the decline of native fish species. Nonnative rainbow trout (Oncorhynchus mykiss; RBT) introduced into the native range of westslope cutthroat trout (O. clarkii lewisi; WCT) have led to the introgressive hybridization between these two species. This widespread hybridization is a primary threat to the long-term persistence of WCT as it can cause population-level genomic extinction. Since there are no set management solutions for hybridization, there is a need to evaluate the different conservation approaches to ensure the persistence of WCT populations. Additionally, beyond propagule pressure, the array of drivers that …

The Contrasting Physiological Mechanisms Of Two Distinct Migratory Strategies, Joely Gabriel Desimone

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

Migration allows animals to use resources that vary in time and space. The predictability of this resource variation underlies different migratory strategies. Obligate migrants, with predictable movements, use resources that covary with the seasonal phenology of temperature or rainfall patterns. Facultative migrants, with unpredictable timing and destination of movements, rely on unpredictably variable resources. In this dissertation I explore the physiological changes birds undergo in preparation for obligate vs. facultative migratory flight. Hormones facilitate rapid organismal responses to environmental and internal information, making them an ideal physiological system to understand mechanisms controlling migratory behavior. I focus on corticosterone (CORT), a …

Kid Gloves, Anne North Kolle

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

Kid Gloves is an excerpt from a novel in progress that follows the lives of three generations of women—Dorothy, Lydia, and Maisie—and explores the privileges and traumas they hold onto and pass down. The novel takes place in wealthy Baltimore society in the week leading up to Maisie’s debutante ball, but it is interspersed with stories from the past that inform the lives of the three women today.

Re-Modeling The Interior: Spatial Methods And Policy Revisions To Improve Inventory And Designation Of Blm’S Areas Of Critical Environmental Concern, Amy H. Katz

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

The Bureau of Land Management (BLM) manages a vast amount of public land in the western United States, most of which they currently manage for multiple uses. Specific conservation and management of these lands could mitigate climate change impacts and contribute to the global initiative to conserve 30 percent of lands and waters by 2030. Particularly, the agency can achieve this through more effective administration of Areas of Critical Environmental Concern (ACEC), a designation that is prioritized under the Federal Land Policy and Management Act (FLPMA). To do so requires updated regulations that set clear parameters around inventory and designation, …

In The Landscape Of Her Life, Susan M. Sinitiere

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

To reconcile perceptions of female expectations in light of realistic outcomes, the idealized domestic space where formality and dilapidation coexist with botanicals is the aesthetic of the autobiographical context of Seeds Once Sown. The ‘home’ melds together an acknowledgement of matriarchal influence that formed my identity as a homemaker and mother, but also serves as a place of independent contemplation on a mid-life passage through a seasonal change of life, now separate from domestic adherences.

Spermatogenesis Molecular Evolution In Murine Rodents, Emily Emiko Konishi Kopania

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

Reproductive traits are fascinating from an evolutionary perspective because they are necessary for individuals to produce offspring and increase their evolutionary fitness. Given the essentiality of reproduction to fitness, genes involved in reproduction may be expected to be highly conserved. However, some genes involved in reproduction evolve very rapidly, including many spermatogenesis genes. This rapid evolution may result from intense sexual selection acting on reproductive traits, particularly in species where females mate multiply thus creating the potential for sperm competition. In addition to sexual selection, other evolutionary forces may shape rapid spermatogenesis evolution, including genomic conflict and relaxed pleiotropic constraint …

Spatial Behavior, Foraging, And Population Dynamics Of A Subarctic Ungulate, Elizabeth (Libby) Parr Williamson Ehlers

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

The concept of density-dependence is foundational to our understanding of the ecology and management of large herbivores. As the abundance of large herbivores increases, competition for high-quality resources increases and animals select for lower-quality foods potentially resulting in reduced vital rates that cause declines in population growth. What remains unclear is how foraging at finer scales, like the ‘bite’, translates to demography. This is difficult because it’s challenging to scale bite-level foraging to population-levels. I test the fine-scale foraging mechanisms of density dependence in a large subarctic herbivore, Barrenground caribou (Rangifer tarandus granti). The nutritional landscape for arctic herbivores is …

Invasive Earthworms In The Crown Of The Continent System And Implications For Land Management, Meghan Elizabeth Scott

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

The United States contains invasive earthworms originating from Europe and Asia; the majority are European lumbricids. Direct introduction occurs primarily through human activity and, once established, earthworm populations are difficult to address. When exotic earthworms engage in bioturbation, they negatively alter subterranean food webs and nutrient cycling by disrupting soil layering systems. The most prominent form of physical alteration is the change and removal of the topmost organic layer. This disruption is associated with altered nitrogen and carbon cycling, as well as altered forest floor plant communities.

The Crown of the Continent ecosystem is located in southwestern Alberta, southeastern British …