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Variation In Body Composition In Deer Mice: The Biogeography And Ecophysiology Of Energy Allocation, Cole Joseph Wolf

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

Body composition, the percent of lean and fat mass, is a snapshot of an individual’s energetic state at a moment in time. Wild organisms should allocate energy to optimize fitness, so tracking changes in body composition provides a window into how priorities may shift throughout the year or across environments. While seasonal variation in body composition is wellcharacterized in systems such migrating birds (Scott et al. 1994) and hibernating mammals (Hellgren 1998), much less is known about how this trait varies across species ranges and thus how organisms modify their body composition and to meet local environmental challenges. For my …

Predicting Mountain Lion Resource Selection And Abundance In North America, William Connor O'Malley

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

The relationship between habitat quality and density is well documented in lower trophic levels but to what extent it can be extended to higher trophic levels is unknown. I tested the relationship between habitat quality, home-range size and density using a wide-ranging, well-studied, top carnivore, the mountain lion (Puma concolor). First, I created a second-order resource selection function (RSF) for mountain lions in their current North American range using GPS collar data from 476 individuals in 20 study sites and remotely-sensed landscape data. I used the RSF and home range estimates derived from collared animals to quantify mountain …

Monstrous Oil: Theorizing Petromodernity's Monsters, Madalynn Lee Madigar

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

Petroleum, a primary global energy resource, serves as a foundation of our contemporary society. However, the pervasive influence of oil as substance, commodity, and industry in our petromodern lives often goes unrecognized. In the present moment of biogeocultural crisis surrounding fossil fuels, recognizing and understanding our multifaceted engagements with petroleum is critical. This thesis contributes to the growing field of Petrocultural Studies by considering the conceptualization of petroleum through the associated tropes and figure of the monster. Through the petromonstrous, a term that encapsulates the massive scale, haunting effects, and human-other entanglements of petroleum, cultural attitudes and anxieties about oil …

Vibes: A Workflow For Annotating And Visualizing Viral Sequences Integrated Into Bacterial Genomes, Conner J. Copeland

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

Bacteriophages are viruses that infect bacteria. Many bacteriophages integrate their genomes into the bacterial chromosome and become prophages. Prophages may substantially burden or benefit host bacteria fitness, acting in some cases as parasites and in others as mutualists, and have been demonstrated to increase host virulence. The increasing ease of bacterial genome se- quencing provides an opportunity to deeply explore prophage prevalence and insertion sites. Here we present VIBES, a workflow intended to automate prophage annotation in complete bacterial genome sequences. VIBES provides additional context to prophage annotations by annotating bac- terial genes and viral proteins in user-provided bacterial and …

Seedy Business: Unveiling Fruit-Frugivore Interactions In Loango National Park, Gabon, Diandra Mary Lewis

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

Fruit-frugivore interactions within forest ecosystems are intricate and are critical determinants of community structure, function, and composition. Increasing anthropogenic impacts on biodiversity in general and forests in particular highlight the need to better understand these plant-animal relationships. This thesis focuses on connections between fruit-bearing plants and the animals that eat their fruits in a relatively undisturbed rainforest in Gabon. The work combines two studies: one scrutinising fruit trait clustering, and the other delving into the difference between using dispersers versus consumers in seed dispersal networks.

In chapter 1, we focused on fruit traits and how they group together in order …

Evaluating The Sensitivity Of Crustal Deformation To Bedrock Hydrology In A Mountain Watershed, Brett J. Oliver

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

We evaluate the sensitivity of Earth's elastic deformation to groundwater hydraulic diffusivity using coupled groundwater and elastic deformation models. Seasonal changes in terrestrial water storage cause deformation to the Earth’s crust and deeper interior that is within the observational capacity of GPS instruments. We couple finite difference groundwater simulations with geodetic forward models of crustal displacement to investigate the ability of geodetic deformation to constrain bedrock hydrologic properties. We use MODFLOW-2005 to simulate seasonal changes in groundwater flow and storage, and then use the LoadDef elastic deformation model to forward model surface displacement caused by the change in terrestrial water …

Ecosystem Phosphorus Nutrition: A Soil Process Investigation, Alanna Nicole Shaw

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

Many Earth System Models (ESMs) predict a plant fertilization effect associated with elevated atmospheric carbon dioxide (CO2) concentrations that may increase the capacity of the biosphere to store carbon, stabilizing or even reducing atmospheric CO2 concentrations. This could plausibly mitigate global climate change. However, this effect is only possible in the absence of other limiting factors, such as the availability of nutrients like phosphorus (P). Critical uncertainties remain in our understanding of the soil biogeochemical controls of terrestrial P availability including: the response of soil P recycling rates to global climate warming and extent to which occluded soil P is …

Evolution And Diversification Of The Novel Chlorophyll D-Based Photosynthetic Apparatus, Nikea Jonelle Ulrich

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

The origin of novel traits is an important evolutionary process that generates biological diversity. However, we rarely know the underlying mechanisms of diversification following the innovation of a novel trait. Over two billion years ago, the innovation of chlorophyll (Chl) abased photosynthesis by cyanobacteria sparked the oxygenation of Earth, setting the stage for the emergence of multicellular life. Chl a was subsequently acquired by diverse algae and plants, and in the process, these organisms diversified their light-harvesting systems to absorb a range of visible wavelengths (400-700 nm) (1). Due to the ancient origins of Chl a, however, it is difficult …

Impacts Of Climate And Wildfire On Western Larch Regeneration, Spencer T. Vieira

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

Fire plays a critical role in forests of the western United States (US), but as wildfire and climate deviate from historical patterns, increasing fire activity may significantly alter forest ecosystems. To understand the impacts of changing climate and wildfire activity on conifer forests, we studied the impact of wildfire and annual post-fire climate on western larch (Larix occidentalis) regeneration. We destructively sampled 1651 seedlings from 57 sites within 32 fires that burned at moderate or high severity from 2000-2015 in the northwestern US. Using dendrochronological methods, we estimated germination years of seedlings to calculate annual recruitment rates. We …

The Effects Of Weather On Facilitating The Intensification And Collapse Of Bark Beetle Outbreaks In Ponderosa Pine Forests Of The Northern Rocky Mountains And The Black Hills, Jordan T. Lestina

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

Bark beetles are a diverse family of insect herbivores, of which the most aggressive species can cause significant tree mortality, and are integral components of disturbance regimes in conifer dominated forests of North America. Recent drought events across the western U.S. have been broadly associated with the initiation of multiple bark beetle outbreaks in ponderosa pine forests during the last two decades. Changing weather conditions, such as those observed during the onset of drought, affect outbreak progression through their influence on bark beetle physiology and life history traits and the overall vigor and defensiveness of host trees. This study used …

Genetic And Environmental Contributions To Wolbachia-Induced Cytoplasmic Incompatibility, Kelley Van Vaerenberghe

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

Maternally-transmitted Wolbachia infect the cells of most insect species, but their frequencies in host populations vary. While much of their success can be attributed to their ability to manipulate host reproduction, these manipulations are context-dependent, varying due to several biotic and abiotic factors. Wolbachia’s most common manipulation, cytoplasmic incompatibility (CI), is a conditional sterility phenotype where male-female host compatibility depends on their infection status. Specifically, CI occurs when infected males produce modified sperm that cause increased embryonic lethality unless the female carries a similar infection. Rescuing their eggs from CI increases the relative fitness of infected females, promoting Wolbachia spread …

Modified Tlr7/8 Adjuvanted Liposomes For Improved Intranasal Delivery Of Subunit Vaccines, Elizabeth Brander Lorentz

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

Intranasal vaccines hold enormous potential for improving vaccine efficacy against respiratory pathogens by activating the mucosal immune system. The urgency for novel approaches in vaccine development is amplified by the recent COVID-19 pandemic. Most intranasal vaccines that were developed are either live-attenuated or inactivated vaccine candidates that demonstrated poor safety profiles. Protein-based subunit vaccines represent a safe and cost-effective alternative, but they are often weak immunogenically. TLR7/8 adjuvants such as INI-4001 have shown promise for enhancing the humoral and cellular immunogenicity of protein-based subunit vaccines. It is theorized that poor immunogenicity of intranasal protein subunit vaccines is due to low …

Genetic Sex Estimation From Aztatlán Sites In West Mexico, Ava Carolyn Godhardt

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

No abstract provided.

Three-Dimensional Visualization And Mechanical Assessment Of The Human Running Gait, John A. Leske Ii

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

This thesis had two goals; 1) the development of an anatomically accurate visualization tool capable of illustrating high-speed 3D kinematic data, and 2) to rigorously evaluate the accuracy and capacity of the visualization tool by measuring the joint moments, net extensor muscle forces, and effective mechanical advantage in a group of sprinters running across the range of human speeds. Our visualization tool successfully integrates these complexities, pinpointing a location within 1.3 mm in a volume of 0.87 m x 2.00 m x 1.98 m, and accurately reproduces the observed movement trajectories of the subject's anatomical landmarks. Our approach was successful …

Journeys To Destinations: Applying Big Data And Qualitative Gis To Understand Recreational Ecosystem Services And Visitor Decision-Making In Park And Protected Area Networks In Missoula, Mt, Peter J. Whitney

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

No abstract provided.

Causes Of Low Leaf-Shredding Insect Diversity In Neotropical Streams, Pavel Ernesto Garcia Soto

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

Biological diversity peaks in tropical regions followed by a steady decline towards the poles. It is a pattern in γ-diversity that sometimes explains latitudinal patterns in local assemblages (α) and their species turnover (β), which suggests that similar ecological mechanisms might be operating at different latitudes. However, not all taxa have more species towards the equator. Aquatic shredder insect richness peaks in temperate streams relative to tropical streams, where local aquatic shredder insect assemblages have low α-diversity. Three mechanisms have been proposed as factors structuring aquatic shredder insect assemblages in tropical streams, leading to shredder assemblages with low α-diversity, 1) …

Federal Funding Statutes And State-Federal Wildlife Authority: Did Congress Demonstrate A Preference For State Wildlife Management Authority With Pittman-Robertson And Dingell-Johnson?, James Vaughan Branch

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

The Federal Aid in Wildlife Restoration Act of 1937 now known as Pittman-Robertson and Federal Aid in Sport Fish Restoration Act of 1950 now known as Dingell-Johnson are federal statutes which stand as the original and perhaps most significant federal funding statutes supporting state wildlife conservation and management. Congress’s decision to pass these statutes may be argued to be a prima facie endorsement of state wildlife agencies (SWA) as the primary managers of wildlife since each statute dedicated substantial federal excise revenue to SWAs. We hypothesized we would find consistent evidence in favor of primary state management authority over wildlife. …

Supervised Cancer Rehabilitation: Applications For Utilizing Existing Cardiopulmonary Rehabilitation Facilities For Cancer Patients And Survivors, Nancy A. Condit

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

Currently, the NIH reports there are approximately 18 million Americans with a history of cancer. Cancer statistics are projected to rise to 22.1 million by 2030. In addition to cancer, cardiovascular diseases are globally the leading causes of mortality and morbidity. The body of research in this area clearly demonstrates that greater amounts of physical activity correspond with a lower risk of cancer recurrence and all-cause mortality, including cardiovascular disease (CVD). Exercise rehabilitation success in cancer patients, both during and after treatment, is limited by several barriers, including the lack of facilities, trained personnel and financial resources. In response to …

Perspectives Of Foster Parents And Former Foster Children Surrounding Emancipation And College Supports And Barriers, Ashlyn Maize Kincaid

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

The current study had two aims. The first aim was to explore and compare the perspectives of former foster youth and foster parents surrounding the emancipation process. The current study aimed to uncover what information is being shared with foster children when approaching the age of emancipation about life choices such as college, careers, housing, finances, and social support, as well as who is sharing this information and how accurate and helpful it is for the foster youth. Foster parents were asked questions pertaining to their level of training, knowledge of available resources, and experiences with transitioning foster children out …

“Frozen”: Tonic Immobility And Posttraumatic Outcomes Among Survivors Of Sexual Assault, Nora Grace Halverson

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

Tonic immobility (TI), a temporary, involuntary state of paralysis marked by motor inhibition and vocal suppression, has been a well-documented occurrence among animals. Humans also experience TI, which has previously been referred to as trauma- or rape-induced paralysis and freezing. TI among survivors of sexual assault has been associated with greater PTSD and increased risk of depression. Existing studies have not adequately explored additional posttraumatic outcomes of TI beyond PTSD diagnostic criteria, nor has prior research sufficiently tested the mechanistic relationship between TI and PTSD. The objective of the current study was to integrate and expand upon prior research regarding …

Suppress Not: Examining The Relationship Between Prospection And Emotional Suppression In A Depressed Population, Chelsey M. Maxson

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

The aim of the present study was to elucidate the relationship between two transdiagnostic mechanisms of psychopathology: prospection (i.e., one’s ability to imagine the future), and emotional suppression, a maladaptive emotion regulation (ER) strategy. Specifically, we proposed that when individuals engage in emotional suppression, it interferes with prospection, which might then contribute to the development of depressive symptoms.

To assess the relationship between emotional suppression and prospection in individuals with depression we used an online experimental paradigm with an MTurk sample of 128 participants (64 depressed; 64 non-depressed) randomly assigned to one of two conditions: the depressed suppression induction condition …

Structural Properties Of The Interactions Between Cytochrome C And Cardiolipin, Ariel Kristine Frederick

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

The interaction between cytochrome c and cardiolipin is known to be essential for the onset of apoptosis: cytochrome c becomes competent for peroxidase activity due to the presence of reactive oxygen species and oxidizes cardiolipin, ultimately resulting in mitochondrial membrane pores that allow cytochrome c to escape into the cytosol and form the apoptosome complex. As such, understanding this reaction is critical to understanding the mechanisms of programmed cell death. Despite this, many components of this interaction are still under debate. Examples of this include which components of cytochrome c structure are responsible for the large differences in peroxidase activity …

Queering Adolescent Ecology: A Minority Stress-Informed Exploration Of Risk And Protective Factors Related To Anxiety Symptoms In Gender And Sexual Minority Adolescents, Kinsie Jean Dunham

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

Substantial epidemiological research (Talley et al., 2016; Burton et al., 2013; Institute of Medicine [IOM], 2011) indicates that gender and sexual minorities (GSM; non-cisgender and non-heterosexual, respectively) disproportionately experience health disparities, including anxiety disorders (e.g., panic disorder, generalized anxiety disorder, social anxiety disorder; Cochran et al., 2003; Gillman et al., 2001). Disparities in anxiety symptoms and disorders for GSM adults may begin to emerge in adolescence (Fish & Pasley, 2015; Needham, 2012; Ueno, 2010). In particular, GSM adolescents report higher rates of anxiety symptoms and anxiety disorders (Kosciw et al., 2014; Mutanski & Liu, 2013) than heterosexual, cisgender adolescents. Minority …

Evaluating The Relative Influence Of Soil Water Potential, Soil Moisture, And Vapor Pressure Deficit On Semi-Arid Vegetation Dynamics, Kayla R. Jamerson

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

Knowledge of vegetation’s response to soil water availability and atmospheric demand is critical to understanding the impact of climate change on semi-arid ecosystems. However, limited field-based research has been conducted to assess the relative importance of these drivers and previous research has simplified the assessment of soil water availability by relying on soil volumetric water content (VWC) as a primary control on plant growth, which, as opposed to soil water potential (Ψsoil), does not account for the effects of soil texture on plant available water. To address these gaps, we compared remotely sensed indicators of vegetation response to field based …

High-Frequency Observations Of Riverine Inorganic Carbon Variability Using In Situ Autonomous Sensors, Qipei Shangguan

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

Rivers and streams actively metabolize, emit, transport and store carbon of various forms received from terrestrial environments. Our current understanding of how rivers and streams contribute to the global carbon cycle remains limited, however, in part due to high temporal variability and complexity of inorganic carbon chemistry. In situ autonomous chemical sensors provide powerful tools to observe changes in rivers and streams and enable development of CO2-specific models to quantify riverine processes. In many aspects, our ability to utilize high-frequency sensor measurements remains limited.

This dissertation aims to improve our understanding of inorganic carbon cycling through sensor technology and numerical …

Investigating Changes In Er-To-Golgi Protein Transport Following A Short Calcium Pulse: Roles Of Alg-2 And Peflin, Alaa Mohammed Yosri Shaheen

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

The ER-Golgi interface is a very dynamic environment that involves the movement of protein-loaded vesicles forward and backward. The movement of COPII-coated vesicles from the ER to the Golgi is the initial step in the movement of secreted, organellar, and cell surface proteins toward their final destinations. Many factors can regulate this step, including cytosolic calcium increases. In this study, we examined the effect of a transient calcium pulse on recruitment to ER exit sites of cargo proteins for ER export, the calcium-sensitive regulatory proteins apoptosis-linked gene 2 (ALG-2) and peflin, and the COPII outer coat subunits Sec31A and Sec13. …

Fundamental Investigation On Anion Binding Employing The Hydrogen Bond Enhanced Halogen Bond, Jiyu Sun

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

Noncovalent interactions play a critical role in chemistry and biochemistry. Understanding how to modulate closely situated noncovalent interactions is of utmost importance in the design of functional materials, supramolecular assemblies, pharmaceuticals, and catalysts. Over the past two decades, there has been a significant surge in research and applications on halogen bonds, driven by their exceptional properties such as high directionality and unique tunability when compared to hydrogen bonds. Taking inspiration from nature and other synthetic anion-binding receptors that effectively employ multiple noncovalent interactions in a concerted manner, we have developed an innovative preorganization strategy termed the "Hydrogen Bond Enhanced Halogen …

An Investigation Of Cardiovascular Health Of Wildland Firefighters And Impact Of Temperature On Occupational Injuries Among Workers, Md Zahid Hasan

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

Cardiovascular events are the leading cause of on-the-job mortality among wildland firefighters (WFFs). Health screening programs play an important role in assuring the safety of workers in this arduous duty occupation. Some research has highlighted acute health effects in this worker population, but little is known about the impact of long-term, repeated exposures. To fill this gap, my dissertation investigated cardiovascular health status of wildland firefighters and explored the association of their work history (days assigned on fire) to the subclinical risks factors of cardiovascular health. My 1st study compared the subclinical risk factors of cardiovascular health of wildland firefighters …

Leveraging Hydrogen Bond Enhanced Halogen Bonding For Higher-Order Anion Helix Formation In Foldamers, Eric Arno John

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

The ubiquity of folding in biopolymers to induce critical functions like information storage, signal transduction, catalysis, and selective binding has inspired chemists to create synthetic analogs called “foldamers” as materials which emulate and complement the remarkable complexity observed in nature. The ingenuity of chemists has yielded unique methodologies to induce secondary structure (folding) for diverse applications in materials science, medicine, and nanotechnology.

Anion foldamers are a specific class of foldamers engineered to recognize and specifically bind anions through noncovalent interactions. Using anions to induce folding has unique challenges. Anions have diverse topologies, pH dependence, and high free energies of solvation …

Predicting Gene Flow Corridors And Wildlife Health Using Landscape Genomics And Non-Invasive Metagenomic Monitoring: Investigation Of Elk (Cervus Canadensis) In The Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem, Samuel B. Pannoni

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

This work develops and applies novel methods for metagenomic and landscape genomic (LSG) investigation of wildlife populations, specifically in Rocky Mountain elk (Cervus canadensis) in the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem (GYE). Host fecal microbiomes facilitate and reflect interactions between the host and its environment. We conducted metagenomic surveys and developed a machinelearning classifier for microbiomes that provided new insights into elk-microbiome biogeography, and the impact of fecal microbiomes on host health and the ecology of elk-wolf (Canis lupus) predation. In the microbiome study, we found strong evidence for multiple management-relevant factors structuring elk microbiomes including body fat percentage, sex, age, and …