Digital Commons Network^™

Why Saving Hawaii's Taro Means Losing Hawaiian Taro, Breana Milldrum

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

No abstract provided.

It’S Rooted In The Land: How Managing Natural Resources Leads Native American Tribes To Sovereignty, Nicky Ouellet

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

Tribal management of land and natural resources within the boundaries of Native American reservations is often superseded by state and federal policy. But control of land and resources is, ultimately, what makes a nation a nation. The three stories in this portfolio depict tribes establishing control of natural resources to various degrees of success. Chapter one is a narrative outlining the stories, my reportage and plans for publication. Chapter two: Members of the Northern Cheyenne seek to establish a medical marijuana program after the federal government relaxed enforcement of cannabis bans. Chapter three: An activist on the Fort Berthold reservation …

Impacts Of Recreational Aviation On Wildlife: The Physiological Stress Response In White-Tailed Deer (Odocoileus Virginianus) And Associated User Perceptions, Devin W. Landry

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

Recreational aviation on public lands may negatively impact wildlife. However, land-use decisions need to balance user need with wildlife impact. We know very little about 1) how back country airstrip use affects local wildlife, or 2) attitudes and perceptions of recreational pilots toward possible management actions. For my Master’s research, I investigated how aircraft activity influenced physiological measures of stress in white-tailed deer, while also modeling how psychometrics such as wildlife attitudes and place attachment predict the willingness of recreational pilots engage in impact-mitigating behaviors. I measured physiological stress through non-invasive sampling of stress hormones in fecal samples (fecal glucocorticoid …

Build-Up, Kate Lund

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

Build-up is based in an appreciation for quietude within the landscape that is interrupted by a sense of urgency and distress. The renderings, gestural drawings, and sculptural work are the result of allowing my studio process to mimic my analytical decision making and sensory observation as a wildland firefighter. The research investigates my work in relation to Romantic painters such as JMW Turner and Sublime philosophy, particularly Edmund Burke’s 1757 Sublime theory. Burke emphasized the emotional and psychological response to the Sublime experience of terror and awe. My research also discovers connections with contemporary artists, Robert Smithson, John Peña, and …

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 …

Density Management In Young Western Larch Stands: Tree Growth, Stand Yield, And Carbon Storage 54 Years After Thinning, Michael S. Schaedel

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

Long-term silvicultural experiments can be used to test novel ecological hypotheses and answer contemporary management questions that were not envisioned at study initiation. We used a 54-year old western larch precommercial thinning (PCT) study in northwest Montana to examine two sets of questions: (1) how different PCT regimes affect long-term stand yield and tree growth, and (2) how PCT affects total aboveground carbon (C) storage and distribution among C pools. The study has three target densities (494 trees ha^-1, 890 trees ha^-1, and 1680 trees ha^-1) and three numbers of entries to achieve those …

Adaptation On A Budget: How Vietnamese Innovators Are Trying To Design Their Way Out Of Climate Change, Shanti R. Johnson

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

In the rapidly developing Mekong Delta of Vietnam, young innovators are facing a challenge far greater than simply trying to catch up with the wealthier world. In a growing trend, the next generation of Vietnamese is acting under a common understanding: climate change is real, it’s here and the time to respond is growing short.

For over a decade, Southern Vietnam has consistently been ranked by international organizations like the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change as one of the most vulnerable places in the world to the impacts of climate change. That vulnerability is heightened by the fact that the …

Resin Duct Defenses In Ponderosa Pine During A Mountain Pine Beetle Outbreak: Genetic Effects, Mortality, And Relationships With Growth, Sean Pinnell

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

Despite formidable tree defenses against insect pests, including resin produced in resin ducts, bark beetles have recently caused extensive outbreaks in western North American forests. To date, our understanding of the extent to which resin duct defenses remain effective at the peak of an outbreak, the relative genetic vs. environmental controls on resin duct production, the degree to which drought reduces resin defenses in naturally occurring outbreaks, and whether and when defense production competes for resources with growth remains limited. Resolving these questions is relevant in the face of climate change, and increased risk of outbreaks. I took advantage of …

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 …

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 …

The Way Around: Walking Into Revolution, Nicholas T. Triolo

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

The Way Around: Walking into Revolution

Chairperson: Phil Condon

The Way Around investigates revolution through personal accounts of pilgrimage, ecopsychology, and activism. For ten years (2006-2016), I engaged in various forms of circular travel across the world to understand the true shape of revolution—its etymology, its use throughout history, and if revolution might be some universal inertia that drives us all forward.

The journey begins in 2006, where I travel around the world for a year. I weave together discoveries of place and planet with a 500-year historical account of human circumnavigation. Returning to Portland, Oregon, I’m introduced to …

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.

Improving Mental Health Care For Transgender Consumers: Providers’ Attitudes, Knowledge, And Resources, Hillary Gleason

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

Transgender individuals may present for treatment with a variety of mental health needs, both related and peripheral to their gender identity and expression. Compounding stigma and other life stressors elevate mental health risks in transgender communities, and the barriers to mental health services are manifold. As such, the current research study was designed to determine the competency of mental health care providers to address the unique needs of transgender consumers. Online surveys gauged mental health providers’ knowledge of transgender issues, implicit and explicit transphobic attitudes, as well as treatment decisions with transgender and cisgender consumers; moreover, workplace resources and infrastructure …

The Next Billion: Lessons In Off-Grid Electricity Development From The Global South, Peter Mcdonough

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

Today about a third of the world’s population has no access to electricity, and another third has only limited access. Driven by the push for development on one hand and the reality of climate change on the other, a combination of for-profit companies, NGOs, missions, and aid organizations is looking for the silver bullet to sustainable electricity development. In order to understand the challenges facing off-grid electricity projects I used recent literature in the form of peer-reviewed journals, agency reports, news articles, and technical documents; stakeholder interviews; and on-site observations in selected case studies in Nepal, India, and Tanzania. In …

Toward An Ontology Of Exhaustion: On The Affective Structures Of Masculinity In The American Oilfield, John W. Jepsen

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

What is the significance of the oil encounter in the lives of men living and working in the modern oilfields of the United States? Engaging with both literary examples of the lives of men in the Interior West and the personal experiences and reflections of the author, this essay seeks to examine the connections between ideology and place as it works to shape the identity and affect of men in America's oilfields, ultimately ending in them identifying with the very resources their activities seek to exploit and exhaust. Utilizing Theodore Adorno's Minima Moralia as its moral touchstone, this essay works …

A Spark That Starts The Fire: Climate Change In The American West, Nathaniel Hegyi

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

Climate change is a large, unwieldy, global phenomenon that acts like a spark in a dry field. A slight rise in the global temperature weakens the Gulf Stream and sends the East Coast into a deep freeze. A slight dip in the global temperature, caused by a volcanic eruption, alters weather patterns and dumps record amounts of rain in Southeast Asia. The three stories in this portfolio depict how climate change can alter the landscape and people of the American West. Chapter one is a narrative summarizing these stories, my reporting process, and publication plans. Chapter two is an embedded …

Kinematic Constraints On Tectonics Of The Northern Basin And Range, Dylan Schmeelk

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

We derive surface velocities relative to North America, using data from 1989 through 2014 in the interior northwest, to investigate kinematics from the Snake River Plain (SRP) to the Canadian border. The Centennial Tectonic Belt (CTB) exhibits similarities to the main Basin and Range Province (BRP) that suggest the CTB is an extension of the BRP, including range and fault orientation, increasing velocity magnitudes westward, and a distinct high rate of strain across the Madison Range. Calculations of fault spreading rates and orientations from geodetic data show that several faults are more active than previously assumed when compared to seismic …

Better Talking Heads: Concerning Fuller "Experience" In Environmental Philosophy, Christina Bovinette

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

Through this project, I demonstrate how professional environmental ethics is constrained by, what I call, a rationalist bias and I offer a different approach to environmental questions in the face of this observation. Intellectual life depends on material conditions and our necessary physical ties to Earth. I suggest that an emphasis on our physical connections with the planet can benefit professional environmental ethics. I draw from some feminist understandings to discuss the advantages of a professional environmental ethics that respects and integrates experiences outside of rational deliberation. I attempt to bring my discussion of experience, environmental ethics, and some feminist …

Evaluation Of Social Preferences For Woody Biomass Energy In The Us Mountain West, Robert Marshall Campbell

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

There are substantial opportunities for mechanized thinning treatments to reduce the likelihood of severe and damaging wildfires and improve forest health in the public forests of the Western US. These treatments could also produce woody biomass that can be used to generate renewable energy and displace fossil fuels. Although woody biomass energy is often not financially competitive with fossil fuels, financial analysis alone is an incomplete method of comparison because of the significant negative environmental externalities imposed by the burning of fossil fuels, and potential positive externalities associated with woody biomass energy generation. It is possible that when non-market costs …

Mule Deer Population Dynamics In Space And Time: Ecological Modeling Tools For Managing Ungulates, Mark A. Hurley

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

Ecologists aim to understand and predict the effect of management actions on population dynamics of animals, a difficult task in highly variable environments. Mule deer (Odocoileus hemionus) occupy such variable environments and display volatile population dynamics, providing a challenging management scenario. I first investigate the ecological drivers of overwinter juvenile survival, the most variable life stage in this ungulate. I tested for both direct and indirect effects of spring and fall phenology on winter survival of 2,315 mule deer fawns from 1998 – 2011 across a wide range of environmental conditions in Idaho, USA. I showed that early winter precipitation …

Issues Of Ethics Training In Turkish Counselor Education As Associated With Accreditation, Certification, And Licensure, Umut Arslan

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

The purpose of this study was to investigate qualifications of ethics training in counselor education programs in Turkey associated with accreditation, certification, and licensure. The survey data were collected from 251 Turkish counseling students to examine differences in ethical judgments between freshmen and seniors. This survey was based on the counselor ethical practice and belief survey by Gibson and Pope (1993) regarding Turkish counseling ethical codes and sources of ethics information. I used chi-square analyses to analyze the Turkish data. Statistically significant differences were found between university seniors and freshmen in items that related to dual relationships, multicultural counseling, competency, …

Development Of Replication-Competent Vsv-Based Vaccines For Protection Against Hantaviruses, Joshua Ovila Marceau

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

This study looks at the effects of the position and numbers of foreign immunogens in the vesicular stomatitis virus (VSV) genome on vector attenuation and vaccine efficacy. To generate the recombinant vaccine vectors, a VSV Indiana strain was modified by removing the native VSV glycoprotein and replacing it with one or two foreign glycoproteins; one derived from the filovirus Zaire ebolavirus (ZEBOVgp) and the other from the hantavirus Andes virus (ANDVgpc). Two monovalent (rVSVΔG-ANDVgpc and rVSVΔG-ZEBOVgp) and two bivalent (rVSVΔG-ANDVgpc-ZEBOVgp and rVSVΔG-ZEBOVgp-ANDVgpc recombinant vectors were compared. All vectors were attenuated in cell culture and in immunocompetent hamsters when compared to …

Predicting Climate-Induced Impacts On Seasonal Stream Temperatures In The Crown Of The Continent Ecosystem, Leslie Anne Jones

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

Changes in seasonal climate patterns are altering thermal distributions of freshwater ecosystems worldwide. The Crown of the Continent Ecosystem is one of the most biologically diverse ecosystems in North America, spanning northwestern Montana, USA, Alberta and British Columbia, Canada. The fluvial landscape consists of pristine freshwater habitats that provide strongholds for many aquatic species. My dissertation work provides the first broad scale analysis of seasonal climate effects on spatiotemporal patterns of stream temperature in the Crown of the Continent, and a multi-scalar analysis of potential impacts to bull trout (Salvelinius confluentus) populations, the most stenothermic cold-water fish in the northern …

The Acceptability Of Using Moodgym To Treat Depression In Adolescents: A Pilot Study, Jaime Rebekah Long

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

Depression rates are high among adolescents, yet most young people do not receive treatment. Alternatives to in-person treatment are needed which are cost-effective and widely accessible. Teens use technology at high rates, but innovative methods of online treatment have not been widely researched in the United States. MoodGYM is a free, internet-based program designed to prevent depression in adolescents which has shown promise in research studies in Australia. To date, no studies with MoodGYM have been published in the United States. This pilot study was designed to evaluate the acceptability of usage of MoodGYM at home by adolescents to treat …

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 …

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 …

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 …

Mechanisms And Consiqences Of Lysosomal Membrane Permeabilization Following Exposure To Bioactive Particles, Forrest Connell Jessop

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

Exposure to bioactive environmental particles and engineered nanoparticles are a significant public health concern. Inhalation of bioactive particles can result in chronic inflammation, which drives tissue remodeling and fibrosis. Furthermore, chronic inflammation can increase individual susceptibility to other diseases including cancer and autoimmune diseases. The macrophage is the critical cell in particle clearance following exposure, and is central to the inflammatory responses and tissue remodeling. Phagocytosed bioactive particles within macrophages cause cytotoxicity and activation of the NLRP3 inflammasome, outcomes that are both essential to inflammation and disease development. However, mechanisms that regulate NLRP3 inflammasome activity and cytotoxicity have not fully …