Digital Commons Network^™

Landscape To Local: A Multi-Scale Evaluation Of Voluntary Efforts To Reduce Fragmentation And Enhance Management Of Rangelands For Sage-Grouse, Joseph Tyler Smith

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

For imperiled species, the hierarchical nature of habitat selection suggests the need for a hierarchical approach to conservation: address threats to persistence operating at broad scales on populations before focusing on the quality of patches or availability of particular resources used by individuals. We apply this approach to conservation and management of habitat for greater sage-grouse (Centrocercus urophasianus) in the eastern portion of their range where cropland conversion continues to fragment sagebrush grasslands. Using locations of active leks in portions of Montana, Wyoming, North Dakota, and South Dakota as spatial indices of populations, we found sage-grouse distribution was highly sensitive …

The Effects Wild Fires Have On Skeletal Remains, Paula Eileen Specht

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

No abstract provided.

Methyl-Cpg Binding Proteins Mediate Octopaminergic Regulation Of Complex Behavioral Traits, Tarun Gupta

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

An organism’s survivability in the natural world is contingent to its ability to respond rapidly and appropriately to various cues and challenges in its physical and social environment. The dynamicity of various environmental and social factors necessitates plasticity in morphological, physiological and behavioral systems – both at the level of an individual organism and that of a species. For more than century, natural selection of existing genetic variation in populations has helped us understand such plasticity across generations. However, recent years have seen a re-emergence of somewhat contentious quasi-Lamarckian framework with which organisms can reliably transmit acquired traits to subsequent …

Ecological And Physiological Influences On Altricial Bird Growth And Development, Riccardo Ton

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

Rates of embryonic and post-natal growth vary extensively among species and geographic space. This variation is well represented in songbird offspring from different latitudes and can strongly influence organismal quality and fitness. However, environmental and evolutionary causes and consequences of variation in embryonic and post-natal growth remain unclear. Here we experimentally show in the field that, within the constraints imposed by physiological trade-offs, warmer incubation temperatures shortened embryonic period length among nine species of songbirds from two latitudes. Yet, the magnitude of the response varied and species-specific reaction norms of embryonic reduction in response to our treatment positively correlated with …

Political Ecology Of Cordyceps In The Garhwal Himalaya Of Northern India, Laura Bess Caplins

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

In the Garhwal, Indian Himalaya, rural mountain people labor to piece together their livelihoods in an ever changing world. One particular group, the Bhotiya (an ethnically and culturally distinct tribal group) were historically engaged in seasonal migration (i.e. transhumance) to take advantage of scarce mountain resources and trade relations with Tibet. This livelihood practice has all but disappeared; however, today one way the Bhotiya are adapting to these changing circumstances is by engaging in the collection and sale of a valuable alpine medicinal fungus locally known as keera jari, and commonly called the caterpillar fungus or cordyceps (Ophiocordyceps sinensis). The …

Experiences Of American Indians In Natural Resource Degree Programs, Ruth Ann Swaney

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

American Indians are a demographic who has been historically excluded from higher education and are still underrepresented, especially in the field of natural resources. The purpose of this research is to examine the educational experiences of American Indians in such programs. With respect to factors that may influence educational experiences, special attention was focused on the effect of traditional culture on their learning and the impact of the educational frameworks in their degree programs. The research design was guided by two research paradigms: indigenous research methodologies and hermeneutics. Thirty individuals stories and experiences were explored through the use of in-depth …

Determining The Barriers To And Opportunities For Community Involvement In The Management Of The Nanda Devi Biosphere Reserve, Uttarakhand, India, Trisha Singh

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

Today’s global political environment places a high value on social equality and economic well- being. In this climate, emphasizing biodiversity conservation over socio-economic development through exclusionary methods of habitat protection has become ethically questioned and politically dangerous. The goal of this research was to understand the barriers and opportunities for local involvement in the management of the Nanda Devi Biosphere Reserve in Uttarakhand, India. We attempted to understand the feasibility of local community involvement in the management of the NDBR from the perspective of policy-making organizations and that of the local communities.

Key findings highlight barriers to community participation at …

Close Call With Nonexistence: A Memoir, Jeff Gailus

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

Fred Eduard Gailus was born on April 26, 1944, in Memelland, a place that no longer exists. It was a tiny sliver of Germandom on the far eastern edge of Hitler’s outsized German Reich. When the Soviet Red Army swept through on their way to Berlin, to end World War Two and the reign of terror perpetrated by the German people, the homeland of my father’s ancestors was wiped off the map forever. Thanks to the courage and tenacity of his mother, Fred survived the largest forced migration in human history to marry young and raise a family of four …

Conservation Genetics On The Frontline, Kenneth W. Rand

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

Conservation genetics stands out as an effective tool for discovering and monitoring rare, endangered or invasive populations of plants and animals. Particularly when compared to traditional search and capture methods, it provides more holistic studies to preserve the disappearing biodiversity of the American West and the world.

Three stories highlight the work done to preserve biodiversity through the use of conservation genetics:

1. Trout Rescue: A new hope for westslope cutthroat in Montana How to save a disappearing westslope cutthroat trout through genetic rescue by adding genetic diversity to ensuring future survival in increasingly warming waters more harm than good. …

Spatio-Temporal Analysis Of Ungulate Browsing On Willow (Salix Spp.) Communities Within The Northern Range Of Yellowstone, Donald L. Belile Jr.

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

Variation in ungulate browsing intensity on willow (Salix spp.) communities across Yellowstone’s northern range has been attributed to various biophysical factors including climate, topography, and predators. These studies were conducted without a long-term browsing dataset; they lacked a spatially extensive sampling design, and did not include dynamic snow characteristics known to affect ungulate mobility, habitat selection, and foraging strategies. We therefore focused on snow, an extreme landscape level disturbance that places nutritional stress on ungulates during the winter when most browsing on shrubs occurs. We applied a non-destructive sampling method by consecutively recording whether stem leaders were browsed between …

Human Shields And Redistribution Of Prey Species Complicate The Utility Of Protected Areas As Ecological Baselines, Wesley Sarmento

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

A key goal of protected areas is the conservation of biodiversity, an aim that garners increasing public support through positive experiences. Increasing visitation, however, can come at the cost of reduced ecological integrity. A fundamental conundrum is that if parks are to serve as our most pristine places, then we must understand how our presence alters species interactions. Species redistributing closer to people is of growing management concern both in and out of national parks because of 1) human safety, 2) animal health, and 3) ecological consequences. Across parks drivers of distributional change are often dissimilar, and include movement to …

Cyber-Victimization And Delinquency: A General Strain Perspective, Ian D. Greenwood

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

This study examines juvenile delinquency and cyber-victimization from a general strain perspective. General strain theory provides a model where strain is experienced through the (1) loss of something valued, (2) the presentation of noxious stimuli, or (3) the inability to achieve valued goals. As a coping mechanism for strain, some juveniles react through criminal or delinquent behavior. This thesis predicts that cyber-victimization increases the likelihood of physical fighting, weapon-carrying, and truancy at school. Using the 2013 National Crime Victimization Survey: School Crime Supplement, the hypotheses are analyzed using multivariate logistic regression models that include other known correlates of delinquency. Marginal …

An Evaluation Of The Effectiveness Of Eukaryotic Dna Extraction From Burial Soil Samples, Ariane Thomas

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

DNA is a valuable resource as a unique identifier of physical characteristics at both the population and individual levels. Due to a variety of factors that contribute to genetic decay, forensic and bioarchaeological investigators have limited outlets in which to extract viable DNA after most of a body’s organic materials have fully decomposed. This preliminary research focused on extracting DNA from the soil surrounding buried Sus scrofa domesticus cadavers to confirm the presence of viable and analyzable DNA. After a decomposition period of five months in Montana, soils were collected at incremental distances above the remains and sequenced to identify …

Positive Interactions In Temperate And Tropical Alpine Plant Communities: The Role Of Facilitation In Species-Specific Interactions, Invasion, And Landscape-Scale Distribution, Nicole Hupp

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

No abstract provided.

Ecology Of The Alluvial Aquifer Of The Nyack Floodplain On The Middle Fork Of The Flathead River, Montana, Amanda Gay Delvecchia

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

The pristine Nyack Floodplain on the Middle Fork of the Flathead River in Northwestern Montana contains an expansive alluvial aquifer that is extremely limited in organic carbon, yet supports abundant and diverse hyporheic stoneflies. My dissertation focused broadly on how these large consumers persist in such an oligotrophic system. In particular, I studied the ecological role of methane dynamics.

Confidence Judgments In A Simultaneous Task Using Sprague Dawley Rats (Rattus Norvegicus), Jessica K. Kumm

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

In the present experiment, metacognitive confidence judgments were measured in the Sprague-dawley rats using a simultaneous discrimination task. Performance on two types of trials were compared: Forced and Choice. For Forced trials, subjects were required to classify a range of eight tones as either a “long” or “short” tone with the four longest frequency durations comprising the “long” tone category and the four shortest frequency tones comprising the “short” tone duration category. The Choice trials were identical to the Forced trials with the exception that a bailout response was also available, allowing the subject to advance to the next trial …

A Comparison Of Course Quality Surveiy Results From Students On Gender Balanced And Gender Imbalanced Field Courses At Nols, Alexandra M. Alway

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

There is an extensive database of literature about diversity in outdoor Environmental Education and any of the studies focus on NOLS specifically. Several studies have investigated the impact of course composition in terms of gender as well as socioeconomic diversity; however, the research studies about course composition and gender were limited to differences between single gender and coed groups. The role of gender ratios on coed groups has not been widely researched. This study was designed to fill this gap in the research literature. Using course quality survey data, results showed that the student responses were significantly different between gender …

Polymer Nanoparticles In Electrokinetic Chromatography, Jesse Samuel Hyslop

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

Electrokinetic chromatography (EKC) is a prevalent analytical separation technique first introduced by Terabe et al. in 1984. EKC is a modification of capillary electrophoresis in which analytes are separated via selective interactions between analytes and an ionic pseudostationary phase (PSP) dispersed in the background electrolyte (BGE) buffer which fills the capillary. Application of an electric field of several hundred volts per cm on the capillary induces electroosmotic flow (EOF) of the BGE and mobility of the PSP. Various ionic PSPs are capable of fast, selective, and efficient analytical separations.

Extreme Hybrid Growth, Genomic Imprinting, The Large X Effect, And The Drivers Of Speciation In Mammals, Thomas David Brekke

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

Mammalian hybrids often show abnormal growth, indicating that developmental inviability may play an important role in mammalian speciation. Yet it is unclear if this recurrent phenotype reflects a common genetic basis. Here I describe patterns of hybrid inviability between two closely related species of dwarf hamsters, Phodopus campbelli and P. sungorus. Using genetic crosses, I found extreme parent-of-origin dependent growth in hybrid embryos and placentas. Abnormal growth in hybrid mammals has been empirically linked to genomic imprinting, the parent-specific silencing of a single allele that occurs in many genes involved in regulating embryonic growth. Epigenetic disruptions of genomic imprinting activate …

School Supports For Lgbtq Students: Counteracting The Dangers Of The Closet, Lauri Mae Lindquist

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

Researchers have reported that being proud and open about one’s sexual and/or gender identity is related to fewer negative psychological outcomes. However, this process of identity development is often impeded by environmental factors, such as minority stress. Through his minority stress hypothesis, Meyer (2003) suggests that suggests that living in a society that is intolerant of central features of the self (e.g., sexual orientation and gender identity) increases the level of stress in individuals with minority statuses. These environmental stressors are consistently shown by research to account for the disproportionate amount of negative psychological and academic outcomes experienced by sexual …

Effect Of Fluid Temperature And Volume On Thermoregulation In The Heat, Michelle M. Johannsen

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

The link between thermoregulation, hydration status, and exercise performance in hot humid environments is controversial. The purpose of this study was to evaluate the effects of volume and temperature of ingested fluid on hydration status, thermoregulation and exercise performance. Recreationally active males (N=11, 24.7±5.9 years; VO₂max=58.2±6.0 mL/kg/min) completed two 3-hour intermittent exercise trials in the heat (31^o WBGT=35.5°C with 50% humidity). Participants consumed either 1 mL/kg body weight (BW) of room temperature water (35.5°C; ROOM) or 0.5 mL/kg of an ice slurry mixture (~0°C; COLD) every ten minutes throughout the trials in a randomized crossover design. Subjects …

Core Zones, Livestock And Population Ecology Of Argali In Mongolia’S Gobi Steppe, Lars Stefan Ekernas

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

Core zones are established to reduce anthropogenic disturbance under the assumption that they protect biodiversity, yet this assumption has rarely been tested. In Central Asia, increasing livestock density threatens 70% of large mammals including in protected areas where livestock often constitute ~95% of ungulate biomass. A resulting conundrum is that local pastoralists are both key threats and crucial allies to conservation. Core zones, which reduce disturbance in small areas of important habitat, offer a potential solution to support wildlife and indigenous livelihoods. For my dissertation, I capitalize on a manipulation spanning 12 years to evaluate wild argali sheep (Ovis ammon) …

Purpose And Satisfaction Of Activities In Rural Communities Using Ecological Momentary Assessment, Jennifer Lauren Wong

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

Individuals’ wellbeing have been investigated through one of two primary perspectives, hedonic or eudaimonic. The hedonic perspective has focused on studying happiness and considers individuals’ maximization of their pleasurable moments as the pathway to happiness (Henderson & Knight, 2012). The eudaimonic perspective suggests that people should live a life of virtue and that actualizing their potential is the pathway to wellbeing (Henderson & Knight, 2012). Both perspectives have used retrospective recall to investigate individuals’ wellbeing. This method has given researchers a better understanding of individuals’ overall wellbeing, but is unable to describe their wellbeing as it varies throughout the day. …

Beautiful, Battered Lands: Making Peace With Place From The Rust Belt To Appalachia, Katherine Leary

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

No abstract provided.

The Western Stemmed Point Tradition: Evolutionary Perspectives On Cultural Change In Projectile Points During The Pleistocene-Holocene Transition, Lindsay D. Scott

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

In this thesis I analyze the cultural techniques of Paleoindians in North America by examining the diversification and fusion of stemmed projectile point traditions using an evolutionary analysis. The Western Stemmed Point tradition has an extensive regional and temporal distribution throughout the Intermountain West and High Plains during the Paleoindian period. In an effort to determine how stemmed projectile point technologies relate to each other, I applied a phylogenetic approach to construct heritable patterns of projectile point histories. By measuring the physical traits of those points and using a macro-evolutionary theoretical approach, changes in artifact form can be acquired and …

A Qualitative Analysis Of Belonging In Communities Of Practice: Exploring Transformative Organizational Elements Within The Choral Arts, Aubrielle J. Holly

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

A qualitative analysis was conducted with a community choir as an exemplar of a community of practice. Semi-structured, collaborative interviews with eighteen of the choir’s members and eleven hours of field observation were conducted. The socialization process was briefly examined and discussed as it informed membership experiences in the choir. Four research questions were proposed to examine the ways in which the defining characteristics of communities of practice were communicatively enacted within the choral context. The construct of belonging was examined as an addition to Wenger’s (1998) communities of practice framework. Data analysis followed the grounded theory methodology of Strauss …

Crossing The Line: Navigating A Polluted Transboundary Watershed, Celia T. Tobin

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

Montana’s Lake Koocanusa sits at the end of a river system that drains Canada’s most productive coal country. Today, the waters of the massive lake contain a mineral called selenium, a poorly understood byproduct of mine waste. This summer, the U.S. federal government will be in a position to declare that the selenium in the lake puts Canada in violation of its international treaty with the U.S. The Montana government, however, is preparing to argue otherwise through its own water analysis. The disagreement has U.S. ecologists frustrated with the state’s position, saying they won’t practice science that is slave to …

The Sacrificial Ram, Charles Ebbers

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

Every January and February, Montana and other western states auction tags to hunt big horn sheep, moose, mountain goats, bears and other big game species to the highest bidder, at a series of hunting shows in Nevada. Some states call them “governor’s tags,” while others like Montana call them auction tags.

The purpose of the auctions is to raise funds for state conservation programs meant to keep wildlife populations healthy. In Montana, the funds raised are species specific, meaning that the proceeds from a bighorn sheep tag must be used to help bighorn sheep. Yet, the revenue from these tags …

A Review Of Natural And Engineered Enzymes Involved In Bioethanol Production, Ines Cuesta Urena

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

Alternative petroleum-derived fuels, such as biofuels, is another form to decrease the dependence of non-renewable energy. The most promising alternative energy is cellulosic ethanol because of the abundance of cellulose and the overall lack of concern for the food-versus-fuel dilemma.

In order to produce ethanol from cellulosic materials, pretreatment is required to “open” the lignocellulosic matrix and make cellulose more susceptible to enzymatic degradation. Enzymatic hydrolysis of lignocellulose is an important area of research due to the absence of negative effects in downstream processes in comparison with acid hydrolysis. Both natural enzymes and engineered enzymes can be used in the …

Sport Related Concussion Knowledge In Youth Female Soccer Players And Their Parents In Missoula, Seth A. Lindauer

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

No abstract provided.