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Effects Of Local And Landscape Processes On Animal Distribution And Abundance, Aaron David Flesch

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

Investigations of processes that drive animal distribution and abundance are often approached at one of two different scales and therefore focus on different processes. At local scales, animals are thought to select home ranges or territory patches in an ideal manner by occupying them in order of their fitness potential, but a variety of processes can decouple choices from their fitness consequences and create non-ideal patterns of distribution. At landscape scales, the spatial arrangement of habitat patches and their size and isolation are thought to influence distribution patterns because extinction probability declines with increasing patch area and colonization probability declines …

The Influence Of Exotic Plant Invasion On Native Bee Abundance And Demography, And The Pollination And Abundance Of Native Plants, Jennifer Palladini

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

Flowering plants and bees are fundamentally linked. Bees rely wholly on floral resources for food and many native plants rely on bees to assist in reproduction. Despite this fundamental connection, how plants and their bee pollinators influence one another's abundance remains unclear. Also unclear is how invasion by exotic flowering plants disrupts bee- native plant relationships. I examined how the invasive plant, Euphorbia esula (Euphorbiaceae) influenced the native annual forb, Clarkia pulchella (Onagraceae) by altering pollinator visitation (i.e., indirect effects) and through direct resource competition. I observed pollinator visitation and estimated the extent to which plant reproduction was limited by …

Using Landsat Imagery To Evaluate Landscape-Level Impacts Of Natural Gas Field Development: Tazovsky Penninsula, Russia, 1984-2007, Jesse Stevens Wallace

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

The Yamburg gas condensate field in northwestern Siberia sits atop the largest natural gas and petroleum basin in the world. Infrastructure related to the extraction and transport of natural gas is both geographically widespread, and has been shown to affect a much larger area than the immediate infrastructural footprint. Because field studies of the environmental impacts of development are often costly or unfeasible given the remoteness of these areas and access restrictions, the use of remote-sensing technologies is a valuable asset for assessing and quantifying disturbance over large areas. Freely available 30 meter resolution Landsat imagery from 1984 to 2007 …

Pryor Mountain Mustangs: On The Range Or On The Bring?, Monica Gokey

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

At the Pryor Mountain Wild Horse Range straddling the Montana-Wyoming border, the fate of a herd of mustangs rests with the Bureau of Land Management and local horse conservationists. Nationally, the two sides are generally pitted against each other in the ugly world of horse politics. But in the Pryors, advocates and government have forged a tenuous partnership. Both sides want to see healthy horses on healthy range. And there could hardly be a better herd to benefit from such a truce. The Pryor Mountain mustangs have a unique genetic heritage at stake. The horses are some of the last …

The Ecology Of Tick-Borne Relapsing Fever In Western North America, Tammi Lynne Johnson

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

In North America the primary cause of tick-borne relapsing fever (TBRF) is the spirochete Borrelia hermsii that is vectored by the tick Ornithodoros hermsi. Ecological investigations were combined with mathematical modeling and genetics to gain a clearer understanding of the interactions and mechanisms responsible for disease maintenance, distribution, and genetic diversity. The objectives of this research were to: 1) identify mammals associated with B. hermsii and O. hermsi by determining active infection and antibody presence, 2) develop a deterministic model to ascertain ecological and epidemiological parameters essential for disease persistence, 3) resolve the phylogeographic structure of B. hermsii and …

Asymmetry Of The Humerus: The Influence Of Handedness On The Deltoid Tuberosity And Possible Implications For Osteometric Sorting, Carrie Brady Legarde

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

The identification of individuals from commingled human remains can be a difficult task. Osteometric sorting is often utilized for these purposes since it sorts remains based on size. This research investigates whether asymmetry of the humerus is present, if it is due to an individual’s hand preference, and if this asymmetry can adversely affect the osteometric sorting method. The osteometric sorting formulae for pair-matching was used to classify individuals as asymmetric when elements were considered significantly different in size. Significant asymmetry was seen in multiple measurements and the asymmetry could be due to handedness. This relationship appeared more consistent with …

Amur Tiger Predation And Energetic Requirements In The Russian Far East: New Insights From Global Positioning System Collars, Clayton Steele Miller

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

The IUCN Red List has classified all subspecies of tigers (Panthera tigris) as endangered with prey depletion being widely recognized as one of the primary drivers of tiger declines. Due to substantial energetic requirements, tigers can only survive and reproduce in areas with healthy prey populations. This may be particularly important for Amur tigers (P. t. altaica) in the Russian Far East, living at the northern limits and with the lowest prey densities of any tiger population. Few studies have been able to rigorously investigate annual prey requirements for any tiger population. We deployed Global Positioning System (GPS) collars on …

An Inquiry Into Eco-Labeling: The Promise Of Predator Friendly Certification (Pfc), Melissa Ellen Katherine Early

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

Agricultural landscapes play key roles in preserving biodiversity through habitat protection while providing ecosystem services necessary for rural livelihoods. There is a small, but growing movement among agricultural producers to live with nature rather than to dominate nature. Within this larger agriculture movement are efforts to live with predators rather than eliminating them through lethal means. This is reflective of the changing conversation around predators in the New West. Means of co-existence include livestock guardian animals, electric fencing, fladry, range rider patrols, rotational grazing, and lights etc. One grassroots effort in this area is Predator Friendly Certification (PFC). PFC is …

Core Selection By Wolf Packs In A Human-Dominated Landscape: A Case Study In The Mountains Of Southern Poland, Nathan Alan Owens

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

The wolf populations in Europe are mostly divided between the largely undeveloped countries of Eastern Europe, and the more developed Western European nations. Poland holds a special importance as a geographical link joining these populations into one contiguous population. The territories of two wolf packs in southwestern Poland were examined through the collection of scat data. Core areas were then defined using fixed-kernel density estimation techniques and 50% isopleths. Habitat variables were then compared between core plots and non-core plots. Scat marking of both packs resembled the Hot Spots pattern of marking proposed by Zub et al. (2003), rather than …

Multi-Scale Hydrogeomorphic Influences On Bull Trout Spawning Habitat In Snowmelt-Dominated Headwater Streams, Jared Robinson Bean

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

I investigated relationships between geomorphology, hydrogeology, and bull trout (Salvelinus confluentus) redd occurrence and density at multiple spatial scales in gravel-bed, pool-riffle, snowmelt dominated headwater streams of northwestern Montana. Subreach redd occurrence tended to be associated with the finest available textural facies. In subreach streambed sections hosting bull trout redds, redd density was significantly (at α=0.05) positively related to bankfull Shields stress (τ*bf, p=0.04) and bankfull Shields stress adjusted for grain stress only (τ**bf, p=0.02). In stream reaches hosting bull trout redds, reach-average redd density was significantly positively related to reach-average τ**bf (p=0.02) and reach-average streambed grain size (D16, p=0.01; …

Interplay Between Competition And Evolution In Invaded And Native Plant Communities, Daniel Atwater

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

The distributions and abundances of organisms are affected by ecological processes, such as competition, predation, and abiotic stress, and these processes can also produce rapid evolutionary change in plant communities. Although our understanding of ecological and evolutionary interactions is growing, so far little is known about how competition among plants interacts with evolution to shape communities. In my dissertation, I use species invasions to investigate the evolutionary and ecological consequences of plant interactions and their effects on plant community assembly.

In my first chapter, I investigated complex ecological interactions between Euphorbia esula, an invasive plant, and Balsamorrhiza sagittata, a native …

Ecological Causes Of Life History Variation Tested By Meta-Analysis, Comparison, And Experimental Approaches, Daniel Croft Barton

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

The ecological causes of life history variation among taxa and the arrangement of such variation along geographic gradients is enigmatic despite the proximity of life history traits to fitness and implications for understanding basic and applied population ecology. One classic explanation for the arrangement of avian life histories along a `slow-fast' gradient, where species at low latitudes have `slow' life history traits (low fecundity and mortality) and species at high latitudes have `fast' life history traits (high fecundity and mortality), is the increase in seasonality of resources with increasing latitude (Ashmole's hypothesis). Despite broad acceptance, this hypothesis has been supported …

The Whale And The World In Melville’S Moby-Dick: Early American Empire And Globalization, Zachary Michael Radford

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

Reading Moby-Dick; or, the Whale (1851), this study examines literary arguments regarding Melville’s capacity to appear prophetic through his written works in his predictions of the vast empire that America would one day become and the strategies which the country would employ to do so. In my introduction I assert that Melville is not a “Prophet,” but rather, he is a keenly analytical observer of the world around him as he recognized in America patterns of imperialism: structures he charted in his global voyages as a merchant and then a whaler. In his observations, he saw that America was not …

Conserving Montana's Sagebrush Highway: Long Distance Migration In Sage-Grouse, Rebecca Elizabeth Smith

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

Landscape conservation is the mechanism for conserving migratory wildlife in sagebrush ecosystems. We study further a greater sage-grouse (Centrocercus urophasianus; hereafter ‘sage-grouse’) population with the longest-known annual migration, a 240-km journey between summer range in north central Montana, USA, and Saskatchewan, Canada, to winter range north of the Missouri River. We learned more about grouse migration by asking: Do birds fly quickly through a corridor, or do they use stopover habitats within a larger migratory pathway? New GPS-tracking technology revealed that migrating grouse frequent stopover habitats along multiple routes that coalesce to form an integrated pathway. A month-long fall migration …

A Needs Assessment Of People Living With Hiv In Montana, Emily Olive Epperson

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

The purpose of this study was to assess the HIV testing, prevention, and treatment needs of people living in Montana who are infected with HIV. This study identified the demographic characteristics, the unmet needs, and the barriers to accessing assistance, prevention, and treatment services for people living with HIV in Montana. Qualitative data was collected in the form of focus group and key informant interviews and quantitative data was collected in the form of a questionnaire. The results of this assessment identified successful services that contribute to the improved mental, emotional, and physical health of people living with HIV including …

Effects Of Host Stored Resources On Bark Beetle-Fungal-Conifer Interactions, Eleanor Carol Lahr

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

Bark beetles and their associated fungi are among the greatest natural threats to conifers worldwide, but the degree to which host stored resources influence tree-beetle-fungal interactions has not been investigated. In western North America, the range of the mountain pine beetle (Dendroctonus ponderosae) has expanded from lower elevation Pinus contorta (lodgepole pine) forests into high elevation Pinus albicaulis (whitebark pine), a presumed superior host. I investigated whether stored resources in tree sapwood change after D. ponderosae attack, and whether this change relates to fungal colonization and beetle performance. I also studied how phloem and sapwood resources vary with elevation and …

Examination Of Scavenging Associated With Wolves, Jamie Bankaitis

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

Forensic anthropologists often confront external influences on a body, whether they are human, animal, or environmental. One of the major and most common confounding factors for forensic anthropologists is animal scavenging and the damage this inflicts on the skeleton. The types of scavengers present vary from region to region, and in the Northwest, large carnivores such as bears, mountain lions, and canids are abundant. These types of carnivores can not only inflict incredible trauma to a skeleton, they can also disperse the remains over very large areas, making it difficult for forensic teams to recover all of the skeletal elements …

Inference For High-Dimensional Doubly Multivariate Data Under General Conditions, John Zachary Hossler

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

With technological, research, and theoretical advancements, the amount of data being generated for analysis is growing rapidly. In many cases, the number of subjects may be small, but the number of measurements taken on each subject may be very large. Consider, for example, two groups of patients. The subjects in one group are diseased and the other subjects are not. Over 9,000 relative fluorescent unit (RFU) signals, measures of the presence and abundance of proteins, are collected in a microarray or protoarray from each subject. Typically these kind of data show marked skewness (departure from normality) which invalidates standard multivariate …

Restoring The "Shining Waters": Milltown, Montana And The History Of Superfund Implementation, David James Brooks

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

This dissertation is a case study of a dam removal and river restoration within the nation's largest Superfund site. In 1981, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency included Milltown Reservoir on its first list of Superfund sites. Superfund law capped two decades of the federal government's most aggressive environmental legislation. While tracking the national story of Superfund law, my story provides a local view of how individuals, organizations, and agencies shaped the Superfund process. After the EPA designated Milltown a national Superfund site, the environment itself, persistent work within the channels of public policy, and federally-mediated compromise helped restore some shine …

Sarah Palin, Conservative Feminism, And The Politics Of Family, Jasmine Rose Zink

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

Female politicians are heavily constrained by discourses that prescribe masculine values as natural, yet at times they draw on societal expectations of femininity that allow them to utilize such discourses to their advantage. Motherhood, a feminine yet powerful role, provides such an opportunity. Capitalizing on this acceptable avenue of female power, women have strategically relied on maternal appeals since they first entered public life, often to challenge patriarchal social structures. Utilizing Lakoff‘s (2002) concept of the nation-as-family metaphor and informed by the pervasive myth of the traditional family, this analysis explores the consequences of Sarah Palin‘s use of maternal appeals …

Spectral Identification Of Wild Rice (Zizania Palustris L.) Using Indigenous Knowledge And Landsat Multispectral Data, Michael Wassegijig Price

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

Landsat-7 ETM+ (SLC-off) multispectral satellite imagery was tested to identify and delineate natural stands of wild rice (Zizania palustris L.) from other aquatic vegetation growing on area lakes of the Leech Lake Native American reservation in northern Minnesota. Leech Lake is located within the Mississippi River Headwaters drainage ecosystem and contains some of the largest natural stands of wild rice in the country. Local indigenous knowledge; in this case, the knowledge of Ojibwe tribal elders who have traditionally harvested wild rice by canoe for centuries, was utilized to build training data polygons for a supervised classification. By testing several supervised …

Assessing The Role Of Shame And Honor During The Alta Conflict, Michael T. Bremmer

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

For nearly a century the Sami peoples of Norway were subject to colonial policies of assimilation and integration. According to historians of the Sami, colonial processes stigmatized Sami individuals and the Sami culture, producing feelings of shame. The concept of shame, for both individuals and groups, centers on experiencing fear, pain, and/or uneasiness, and requires a judging audience. Honor is about individuals transcending self-interest and the need for individuals and groups to acquire self-esteem for that purpose; it also requires a judging audience. Concepts of shame and honor played an important role during the Alta conflict; a watershed moment in …

Anomalous Wave Dispersion In The Cyclohexanedione-Bromate Chemical Oscillator, Ryan Boger

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

A modified six-variable Oregonator model presented here successfully reproduces a significant portion of the behavior observed in the Ferroin-catalyzed cyclohexanedione variant of the Belousov-Zhabotinsky (CHD-BZ) reaction. The phenomena of anomalous velocity dispersion (in which following waves may catch up to, rather than fall behind an initial excitation wave), wave-stacking, and backfiring have been successfully reproduced numerically as resulting from non-monotonic [Br-] decay to the steady state in the wake of an excitation pulse. The non-monotonic decay is seen as a "dip" in [Br-] following the passage of a chemical wave. This dip in [Br-] decay curve allows a following wave …

Effects Of Lithology, Structure And Stratigraphy On Surface Water Specific Electrical Conductance; South Fork Of The Flathead River, Montana, Melissa A. Brickl

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

In the South Fork watershed of the Flathead River the two main determinants of electrical conductivity appear to be lithology and structure (faults). Limestone and dolomite produce high electrical conductivities (150 to 300 mS•cm-1), shale medium conductivities (70-150 mS•cm-1) and quartz, siltite, argillite low conductivities (0 to 70 mS•cm-1). Conductivity measurements from tributaries of the South Fork ranged from 40 to 290 mS•cm-1. South Fork River conductivity values ranged from 132 to 198 mS•cm-1. Longitudinally, the South Fork Rivers’ electrical conductivity values exhibited diurnal fluxes, but overall decreased with distance from the headwaters. In general, electrical conductivity was greater ( …

Influence Of Positive Expectancies And Adaptive Goal Investment On Relationship Abuse, Geniel H. Armstrong

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

According to the Bureau of Justice Statistics 21.5% of women and 3.6% of men were identified as victims of intimate partner violence (IPV) between 2001 and 2005 (Catalano, 2007). However, it is likely that these are underestimated rates due to un-reported incidents of IPV. A national survey conducted by the Centers for Disease Control and prevention found that 35.6% of women and 28.5% of men reported having experienced rape, physical violence, and/or stalking by an intimate partner at some time in their life (Black, Basile, Breiding, Smith, Walters et al., 2011). Several attempts have been made to address the problem …

Tracking Release Of Reservoir Sediment Contaminated By Heavy Metal Mining Waste: A Study Of Large-Scale Dam Removal At Milltown, Montana, Katrina Louise Garcia

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

The removal of Milltown Dam at the confluence of the Clark Fork and Blackfoot rivers, near Missoula, Montana, caused an elevation in heavy metals concentration in downstream sediment. The primary source of contamination came from base metal extraction mining waste which had collected in reservoir sediments for more than a century. Health and environmental concerns associated with high concentrations of arsenic and copper in the sediment and nearby groundwater prompted the removal of the dam and its toxic sediments. Milltown Dam was breached on March 28, 2008. Fine-grain (<63 µm) bed sediment was collected between May 3 and August 21, 2008, over a 254-km stretch in the Clark Fork River downstream of the dam and analyzed for concentrations of heavy metals (As, Cd, Cr, Cu, Pb, Zn and Hg). The highest metals concentration occurred in early May, before the peak in stream discharge began transporting massive amounts of sediment. Metals concentration peaked at 290 ppm As, 8 ppm Cd, 2200 ppm Cu, 180 ppm Pb, 2400 ppm Zn, and 2 ppm Hg. Dam removal did not affect Cr, but the other metals were enriched well above background conditions: As was 42x higher and Cu was 103x higher in the lower CFR than its tributaries. Elevated metals concentration extended over the entire study area, decreasing exponentially with distance downstream and returning to near pre-breach conditions by the end of the study period. Supplemental data from the USGS for suspended-sediment was combined with bed sediment results to track the source, sequence and transport mechanisms of sediment release. Contaminants in the sediment acted as tracers, showing that heavily contaminated, fine-grain sediment was translated downstream immediately after dam removal, then nearly two months later the bulk of the sediment was rapidly dispersed during maximum stream discharge and diluted by uncontaminated bank sediment.

Classifying Emotion Using Streaming Of Physiological Correlates Of Emotion, Nathan J. Elmore

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

The ability for a computer to recognize emotions would have many uses. In the field of human-computer interaction, it would be useful if computers could sense if a user is frustrated and offer help (Lisetti & Nasoz, 2002), or it could be used in cars to predict stress or road rage (Nasoz, Lisetti, & Vasilakos, 2010). Also, it has uses in the medical field with emotional therapy or monitoring patients (Rebenitsch, Owen, Brohil, Biocca, & Ferydiansyah, 2010). Emotion recognition is a complex subject that combines psychology and computer science, but it is not a new problem. When the question was …

Integrating Regional Arts In The Interior Design Curriculum At Great Falls College Montana State University, Julie B. Myers

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

Myers, Julie, M.A., Summer 2012 Master of Arts in Fine Arts Integrating Regional Arts into the Interior Design Curriculum at Great Falls College Montana State University Chairperson: Randy Bolton, Ph.D. Ideas explored in the Creative Pulse included the 8 Studio Habits of Mind from Studio Thinking and various approaches to teaching based on theories that humans have multiple types of intelligences and learning styles. The topic of play as a way to learn was also explored. This project was designed to increase creativity and personal motivation for the two-year college interior design student. A series of Regional Arts Enrichment Segments …

An Analysis Of Retention Factors In Undergraduate Degree Programs In Science, Technology, Engineering, And Mathematics, Mike H. Johnson

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

This mixed-methodological study explored the factors that predict a student's likelihood to complete an undergraduate program in a STEM discipline at one campus reliant upon that mission. Offered in response to a national imperative for the U.S. to compete globally, researchers contend educators must better prepare a STEM foundation and inspire STEM careers. This study employed a quantitative and qualitative approach to (a) identify key indicators of success for students entering a STEM discipline, (b) determine that living in the residence hall had an impact on success, and (c) identify quantifiable drop-out rationale for students who did not complete their …

Brucellosis Transmission Between Wildlife And Livestock In The Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem: Inferences From Dna Genotyping, Michael Patrick O'Brien

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

Brucellosis transmission between wildlife species and cattle in the greater Yellowstone ecosystem has been difficult to assess because the causative agent Brucella abortus bacteria is extremely difficult to isolate for DNA genotyping. We examined transmission of B. abortus between bison, elk, and cattle using nine variable-number tandem repeat (VNTR) markers on DNA from 98 isolates of B. abortus recovered from elk, bison, and cattle. All specimens were from geographically distinct populations in Idaho, Montana, and Wyoming. A haplotype network consisting of 54 individual haplogroups was generated from these isolates using Network v4.61. Network assessments of genetic relatedness among Brucella isolates …