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Chromosome Number Evolution, Phylogeography, And The Effects Of Climate Change On Species Distributions In Polyploid Plant Systems, Courtney H. Babin

LSU New Orleans Theses and Dissertations

Polyploidy, a term used to describe organisms with cells having more than two paired sets of chromosomes, is a significant driver of diversification among land plants. Over a century of research has advanced our understanding of polyploidization in some taxa, but polyploid organisms remain understudied. In this dissertation, I investigate chromosome number evolution, phylogeographic structure, genetic differentiation, and the effects of climate change on ploidy level distribution using polyploid plant systems. In the first chapter, I inferred a molecular phylogeny of Allium, an economically important genus that includes cultivated crops and ornamentals, to investigate evolutionary transitions in chromosome number …

Latitudinal Variance In The Drivers And Pacing Of Warmth During Mid-Pleistocene Mis 31 In The Antarctic Zone Of The Southern Ocean, Jonathan P. Warnock, Brendan T. Reilly, Maureen E. Raymo, Michael E. Weber, Victoria Peck, Trevor Williams, Linda Armbrecht, Ian Bailey, Stefanie Brachfeld, Zhiheng Du, Gerson Fauth, Marga M. García, Anna Glüder, Michelle Guitard, Marcus Gutjahr, Sidney Hemming, Iván Hernández-Almeida, Freida S. Hoem, Ji Hwan Hwang, Mutsumi Iizuka, Yuji Kato, Bridget Lee, Yasmina M. Martos, Suzanne O’Connell, Lara F. Pérez, Thomas A. Ronge, Osamu Seki, Lisa Tauxe, Shubham Tripathi, Xufeng Zheng, Joseph Stoner, Reed P. Scherer

Department of Earth and Environmental Studies Faculty Scholarship and Creative Works

Early Pleistocene Marine Isotope Stage (MIS)-31 (1.081–1.062 Ma) is a unique interval of extreme global warming, including evidence of a West Antarctic Ice Sheet (WAIS) collapse. Here we present a new 1,000-year resolution, spanning 1.110–1.030 Ma, diatom-based reconstruction of primary productivity, relative sea surface temperature changes, sea-ice proximity/open ocean conditions and diatom species absolute abundances during MIS-31, from the Scotia Sea (59°S) using deep-sea sediments collected during International Ocean Discovery Program (IODP) Expedition 382. The lower Jaramillo magnetic reversal (base of C1r.1n, 1.071 Ma) provides a robust and independent time-stratigraphic marker to correlate records from other drill cores in the …

Chihuahuan Desert Rock Pool Community Assemblages: Patterns Of Taxonomic Diversity, Joseph Lee Mcdaniel

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

As climate change continues to become more prevalent, increasing temperatures and altering precipitation patterns will disrupt the environmental balance of ecosystems and spark the imminent threat of a 6th mass extinction event. Many researchers believe this has already begun, as losses for numerous taxonomic clades have been well documented; however, the loss of invertebrates is still unknown and may be much more severe than those of other animal clades. A significant factor contributing to the shortfall of invertebrate biodiversity loss is rooted in the lack of understanding of the diversity and distribution of these animals. There is still much to …

Optimization Techniques For Soil Organic Carbon Prediction Using Mid-Infrared Spectroscopy, Minerva J. Dorantes

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Resource-efficient techniques for accurate soil carbon estimation are necessary to satisfy the increasing demand for spatiotemporal data. In the last thirty years, mid-infrared (MIR) soil spectroscopy has developed as an accurate, rapid, cost-effective, and non-destructive technique for soil organic carbon (SOC) analysis. In soil spectroscopy, a calibration model relates spectral data to a corresponding measured soil property and is subsequently used to predict this value from new spectral data. Various optimization techniques have been used to improve the statistical performance of calibrations; however, there is little consensus on the conditions that make these techniques effective. The objectives of this research …

Flood Hazard Index Application In Arid Catchments: Case Of The Taguenit Wadi Watershed, Lakhssas, Morocco, Mustapha Ikirri, Farid Faik, Fatima Zahra Echogdali, Isabel Margarida Horta Ribeiro Antunes, Mohamed Abioui, Kamal Abdelrahman, Mohammed S. Fnais, Abderrahmane Wanaim, Mouna Id-Belqas, Said Boutaleb, Kochappi Sathyan Sajinkumar, Adolfo Quesada-Román

Michigan Tech Publications, Part 1

During the last decade, climate change has generated extreme rainfall events triggering flash floods in short periods worldwide. The delimitation of flood zones by detailed mapping generally makes it possible to avoid human and economic losses, especially in regions at high risk of flooding. The Taguenit basin, located in southern Morocco, is a particular case. The mapping of the flood zones of this basin by the method of the Flood Hazard Index (FHI) in a GIS geographic information systems environment was based on the multi-criteria analysis, taking into consideration the seven parameters influencing these extreme phenomena, namely rainfall, slope, flow …

Climate Change Around The World, Per Krusell, Anthony A. Smith Jr.

Cowles Foundation Discussion Papers

The economic effects of climate change vary across both time and space. To study these effects, this paper builds a global economy-climate model featuring a high degree of geographic resolution. Carbon emissions from the use of energy in production increase the Earth's (average) temperature and local, or regional, temperatures respond more or less sensitively to this increase. Each of the approximately 19,000 regions makes optimal consumption-savings and energy-use decisions as its climate (or regional temperature) and, consequently, its productivity change over time. The relationship between regional temperature and regional productivity has an inverted U-shape, calibrated so that the high-resolution model …

Wildfire Risk In Mountain West States, 2017-2021, Olivia K. Cheche, Corryn Richardson, Zachary Billot, Miguel Soriano Ralston, Vanessa Booth, Caitlin J. Saladino, William E. Brown Jr.

Environment

This fact sheet examines data on wildfire destruction in the Mountain West states of Arizona, Colorado, Nevada, New Mexico, and Utah. The original report from the Insurance Information Institute presents findings on percent of properties at risk of wildfire destruction, the number of wildfires by state, and numbers of acres burned per state.

Impact Of Warming On Aquatic Body Sizes Explained By Metabolic Scaling From Microbes To Macrofauna, Curtis Deutsch, Justin L. Penn, Wilco C.E.P. Verberk, Keisuke Inomura, Martin Georg Endress, Jonathan L. Payne

Graduate School of Oceanography Faculty Publications

Rising temperatures are associated with reduced body size in many marine species, but the biological cause and generality of the phenomenon is debated. We derive a predictive model for body size responses to temperature and oxygen (O2) changes based on thermal and geometric constraints on organismal O2 supply and demand across the size spectrum. The model reproduces three key aspects of the observed patterns of intergenerational size reductions measured in laboratory warming experiments of diverse aquatic ectotherms (i.e., the “temperature-size rule” [TSR]). First, the interspecific mean and variability of the TSR is predicted from species' temperature sensitivities of hypoxia tolerance, …

Dossier: The Hunger Plan: The Holocaust, Resource Scarcity, And Preventing Genocide In A Changing Climate, Emily Sample

Genocide Studies and Prevention: An International Journal

Nazi leadership sought to exploit the biological fear of starvation and scapegoat the Jewish population and other “useless eaters” for taking more than their fair share. The Nazis utilized and hyperbolized well-known prejudices against Jewish people, and entrenched narratives of Jewish parasitism as a threat to current and future German lives. In this analysis, food scarcity was one of several reasons for the Holocaust, and the first step to seeking Lebensraum for pure Germans to live to the highest international standard. This article will focus on different aspects of the complex antisemitic rhetoric surrounding issues of resource scarcity, including Hitler’s …

Analysis Of Hawk Mountain Sanctuary Observation Data From 1976 Through 2021, Dale E. Parson

Computer Science and Information Technology Faculty

The primary objective is to correlate climate change data to changes in raptor observations at the Hawk Mountain Sanctuary in northern Berks County, Pennsylvania. Additional objectives include uncovering trends in climate observations at Hawk Mountain's North Lookout and the Allentown Airport throughout the observation period, and to examine trends in raptor observation properties independent of climate changes.

From Soils To Streams: Connecting Terrestrial Carbon Transformation, Chemical Weathering, And Solute Export Across Hydrological Regimes, Alejandro Flores, Katie Murenbeeld

Geosciences Faculty Publications and Presentations

Soil biota generates carbon that exports vertically to the atmosphere (CO₂) and transports laterally to streams and rivers (dissolved organic and inorganic carbon, DOC and DIC). These processes, together with chemical weathering, vary with flow paths across hydrological regimes; yet an integrated understanding of these interactive processes is still lacking. Here we ask: How and to what extent do subsurface carbon transformation, chemical weathering, and solute export differ across hydrological and subsurface structure regimes? We address this question using a hillslope reactive transport model calibrated using soil CO₂ and water chemistry data from Fitch, a temperate forest …

Wooster Magazine: Summer 2022, Caitlin Paynich Stanowick

Wooster Magazine: 2021-2030

The summer 2022 issue of Wooster magazine celebrates the return of the Senior Research Symposium, highlighting seniors whose Independent Study research propelled them toward their next steps in their careers and graduate work. It also features research in climate anxiety by Susan Clayton, professor of psychology, that is drawing international attention. More than 30 years of students participated in a physics experiment with a pile of beads that has real-world applications in to avalanches, landslides, and even traffic patterns. The feature details how it works, alumni who participated, and how students and Professor Susan Lehman plan to uncover new data. …

Biological Hydrogen Gas Production From Food Waste As A Sustainable Fuel For Future Transportation, Pitiporn Asvapathanagul, Leanne Deocampo, Nicholas Banuelos

Mineta Transportation Institute

In the global search for the right alternative energy sources for a more sustainable future, hydrogen production has stood out as a strong contender. Hydrogen gas (H2) is well-known as one of the cleanest and most sustainable energy sources, one that mainly yields only water vapor as a byproduct. Additionally, H2 generates triple the amount of energy compared to hydrocarbon fuels. H2 can be synthesized from several technologies, but currently only 1% of H2 production is generated from biomass. Biological H2 production generated from anaerobic digestion is a fraction of the 1%. This study aims to enhance biological H2 production …

Design Disciplines In The Age Of Climate Change: Systemic Views On Current And Potential Roles, Håkan Edeholt, Jomy Joseph

DRS Biennial Conference Series

After working several years with industrial design as a tool for the kind of radical systemic change, climate change arguably requires; it now seems timely to discuss the systemic obstacles that make such a shift so hard to implement. Much at odds with current discourse, the article defends current design disciplinary skills by focusing on the tension between what designers tend to do for sustaining the present system vs. what designers could do to support transition to a radically different system and why the latter is so hard to achieve but still so urgently required. With the overarching question – …

Equitable, Affordable And Climate-Cognizant Housing Construction, Shelby D. Green

Arkansas Law Review

In this Article, I recount some of the history of unwise and improvident land use policy and practices that have led to gross inequities and to the climate-exposed state, not only in terms of where people were assigned spaces to live, but how. I go on to suggest that communities should be designed with intent, with regard for the threats of climate change as well as accessibility to those historically excluded.

Designing Narrative-Based Interfaces For Collective Action: A Case Study Using Amazon, Climate Change, And Consumer Behavior, Catherine Parnell

Dartmouth College Undergraduate Theses

Climate change is the most pressing issue facing future generations. Amongst expanses of the population there is a lack of collective action on environmental issues, as there is a large gap between awareness and behavior change. This study suggests persuasive design that utilizes a narrative framing as a solution to reduce barriers to engaging in issues of collective action. Through extensive need-finding studies to understand target users, this thesis uses online-shopping via Amazon as a context for arguing that narrative can support actionable change in behavior. The technical artifact resulting from this research is a developed chrome extension and web …

Emissions Baseline Report For The Agriculture Sector In Western Australia, Mandy Curnow, Christophe D'Abbadie, Robert French, Jackie Bucat, Dario Stefanelli, Neil Lantzke, Valeria Almeida Lima, Jess Austen, Lee Chester, Kate Pritchett, Millie Brady, Dylan Bennett

Climate Science Published Reports

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change Sixth Assessment Report found that climate impacts are appearing earlier and are more severe than expected. The world faces multiple unavoidable climate hazards over the next two decades with global warming of 1.5ºC and accelerated action is required to avoid mortality and loss of biodiversity and infrastructure.

Achieving Climate Resilience requires both climate adaptation and mitigation of Greenhouse Gases which are accelerating climate change. Western Australia is committed to building resilience of the agriculture industry and as part of that is focussed on reducing greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions at both an industry and government …

Information Sources, Perceived Personal Experience, And Climate Change Beliefs, Sonny Rosenthal

Research Collection College of Integrative Studies

This study proposes and tests a model of serial mediation based on the norm activation model and value-belief-norm theory. It argues that beliefs about climate change are related to perceived personal experience, which is related to the use of different information sources. Structural equation modeling of survey data from 1084 adult residents of Singapore found mixed support for three hypotheses. Results showed that perceived personal experience of climate change was related to the use of traditional media (β = 0.20), social media (β = 0.16), and interpersonal sources (β = 0.13), but not institutional sources. Perceived personal experience of climate …

Climate Change Impacts And Projections For The Greater Boston Area: Findings Of The Greater Boston Research Advisory Group Report, Ellen Douglas, Paul Kirshen

School for the Environment General Publications

During the writing of the inaugural Boston Research Advisory Group (BRAG) report both NASA and NOAA announced that 2015 was the warmest year on record, beating the previous record set in 2014, by 0.29 °F. Just five years later (during the writing of this report), NASA announced that 2020 had tied 2016 for the warmest year, breaking the previous record by a stunning 1.84 °F, and that the last seven years have been the warmest seven-year period on record.

These observations support the assertion made in the sixth and most recent assessment by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change , …

Modeling The Impact Of Climate Change On Cervid Chronic Wasting Disease In Semi-Arid South Texas, Md Rafiul Islam, Ummugul Bulut, Teresa Patricia Feria-Arroyo, Michael G. Tyshenko, Tamer Oraby

School of Integrative Biological & Chemical Sciences (Formerly Dept. of Biology)

Chronic wasting disease (CWD) is a spongiform encephalopathy disease caused by the transmission of infectious prion agents. CWD is a fatal disease that affects wild and farmed cervids in North America with few cases reported overseas. Social interaction of cervids, feeding practices by wildlife keepers and climate effects on the environmental carrying capacity all can affect CWD transmission in deer. Wildlife deer game hunting is economically important to the semi-arid South Texas region and is affected by climate change. In this paper, we model and investigate the effect of climate change on the spread of CWD using typical climate scenarios. …

How Environmental Change Will Impact Mosquito-Borne Diseases, Arsal Khan

Master's Projects and Capstones

Mosquitos, the most lethal species throughout human history, are the most prevalent source of vector-borne diseases and therefore a major global health burden. Mosquito-borne disease incidence is expected to shift with environmental change. These changes can be predicted using species distribution models. With the wide variety of methods used for models, consensus for improving accuracy and comparability is needed. A comparative analysis of three recent modeling approaches revealed that integrating modeling techniques compensates for trade-offs associated with a singular approach. An area that represents a critical gap in our ability to predict mosquito behavior in response to changing climate factors, …

Seeing The Forest Through The Trees: How Site Conditions Mediate White And Black Spruce Responses To Climate In Interior Alaska, E. Fleur Nicklen

Biological Sciences

The boreal forest provides essential ecosystem services and helps regulate global climate. With climate change occurring at a faster rate at high latitudes, including in the boreal forest biome, it is critical to understand how boreal forests are responding to these unprecedented changes. Despite much effort, uncertainty remains as to how boreal forest productivity has and will change with ongoing climate changes. Some of the uncertainty reflects the complex mosaic of regional climatic patterns, direct and indirect species-specific responses to regional climate, and heterogenous local site conditions that affect boreal forest productivity. I focused on the latter uncertainty: the potential …

The Relationship Between Urban Heat Islands And Redline Districts, Emily Cornwell

Undergraduate Theses and Capstone Projects

As climate change worsens and the world attempts to find solutions to global changes, it is important to identify how climate change will affect individual communities. Climate resilience tactics aim to protect vulnerable populations against environmental harms, such as excess heat. Historically, communities of color face forms of environmental racism. One example of structural racism includes the loans given out by the Home Owners Loan Corporation during the 1940s which “redlined” certain communities of color by refusing to give these neighborhoods loans and rated these areas undesirable for loaners. Urban heat islands occur in residential, densely populated areas with lots …

Exploring The Impact Of End-User Engagement On The Diffusion And Adoption Of A Climate Resilience Tool In The Gulf Of Mexico, Renee C. Collini

Theses and Dissertations

Climate change-related hazards negatively impact ecosystems, economies, and quality of life. Significant resources have been invested in data collection and research with the goal of enhanced understanding and capacity to predict future conditions in order to mitigate or adapt to intensifying hazard risk. The expansive production of climate science has generated a necessary complimentary enterprise dedicated to enhancing decision-makers’ understanding of and access to climate science as it is essential for future societal and ecological well-being. Though the aim of these many tools is to support resilient decision-making in the face of climate change, professionals report an underutilization of climate …

Temperature Across Vegetation Canopy-Water-Soil Interfaces Is Modulated By Hydroperiod And Extreme Weather In Coastal Wetlands, Xiaochen Zhao, Victor H. Rivera-Monroy, Chunyan Li, Ivan A. Vargas-Lopez, Robert V. Rohli, Z. George Xue, Edward Castañeda-Moya, Carlos Coronado-Molina

Faculty Publications

Environmental temperature is a widely used variable to describe weather and climate conditions. The use of temperature anomalies to identify variations in climate and weather systems makes temperature a key variable to evaluate not only climate variability but also shifts in ecosystem structural and functional properties. In contrast to terrestrial ecosystems, the assessment of regional temperature anomalies in coastal wetlands is more complex since the local temperature is modulated by hydrology and weather. Thus, it is unknown how the regional free-air temperature (TFree) is coupled to local temperature anomalies, which can vary across interfaces among vegetation canopy, water, and soil …

Remedying Renewable Energy Research: Implementation Of Green Chemistry In Laboratories, Julia Mayes

Student Theses 2015-Present

One of the pillars of environmental studies is the analysis of the natural world and the research being done to rectify harmful human activity on it. Laboratory components in the fields of chemistry, biology, ecology, among others, are powerful tools for learning about the way our environment works and assessing how human activities harm it. More advanced laboratories conduct research in the pursuit of new technologies to mitigate anthropogenic climate change. Concurrently, this work yields large quantities of waste. While laboratories are inherently valuable to the field of environmental science, the waste created by them raises a question of net …

Tetracapsuloides Bryosalmonae Ecology In Southwest Montana, Paul Helfrich

Graduate Theses & Non-Theses

Tetracapsuloides bryosalmonae is a microscopic myxozoan parasite of freshwater bryozoans and salmonid fish. Infection by T. bryosalmonae under certain environmental conditions causes a deadly immune response in salmonid hosts known as proliferative kidney disease (PKD). Although T. bryosalmonae is present in rivers in western Montana, its distribution, as well as that of its bryozoan hosts, is poorly understood. Environmental chemistry, environmental DNA (eDNA), and bryozoan surveys were conducted at 10 study sites on the Big Hole River and Madison River to assess the presence of the parasite and bryozoans in these areas. T. bryosalmonae DNA was detectable across a wide …

Into The Depths: Climate Change Part 4, Felicia Bedford

D.U.Quark

No abstract provided.

Perspectives On The Environment: What Do Likert Values Tell Us For Meea?, Mine Cinar, Alain Safa, Denis Allemand

Topics in Middle Eastern and North African Economies

This proceeding is a short version of our study on different perceptions and approaches for mitigation to environmental problems between social and natural scientists. We discuss our survey findings of perception differences between respondents from the MENA region relative to those in the US in terms of their awareness of environmental issues. The survey used Likert values to measure attitudes, values, knowledge, intent, business ethics and corporate social responsibility with respect to climate change.

Temporal Changes In Surface Water Availability: Patterns Of Seasonal Shift On Water Stress In The Conterminous Us Under A Changing Climate, Quinn Montana

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

The argument could be made that there is nothing more valuable on the planet than water. Our lives depend upon it. Climate change is already having an impact on the United States (US) and water stress will be one of the problems we increasingly face in coming decades. Regional research has shown that one or another part of the conterminous US (CONUS) is expected to experience an annual deficit or a surplus in runoff. Further studies have looked at changing patterns over the CONUS as a whole. Other research has focused on a particular season. This work addresses a gap …