Digital Commons Network^™

Climate Driven Range Shifts Of North American Small Mammals: Species’ Traits And Phylogenetic Influences, Katie Nehiba

All NMU Master's Theses

Current anthropogenically-driven climate change is accelerating at an unprecedented rate. In response, species’ ranges may shift, tracking optimal climatic conditions. Species-specific differences may produce predictable differences in the extent of range shifts. I evaluated if patterns of predicted responses to climate change were strongly related to species’ taxonomic identities and/or ecological characteristics of species’ niches, elevation and precipitation. I evaluated differences in predicted range shifts in well-sampled small mammals that are restricted to North America: kangaroo rats, voles, chipmunks, and ground squirrels. I used species distribution modeling to develop predictions for the distributions of species under current and future climate …

Indiana’S Agriculture In A Changing Climate: A Report From The Indiana Climate Change Impacts Assessment, Laura C. Bowling, Melissa Widhalm, Keith A. Cherkauer, Janna Beckerman, Sylvie Brouder, Jonathan Buzan, Otto Doering, Jeffrey Dukes, Paul Ebner, Jane Frankenburger, Benjamin Gramig, Eileen J. Kladivko, Charlotte Lee, Jeffrey Volenec, Cliff Weil

Agriculture Reports

Indiana has long been one of the nation’s leaders in agricultural productivity. Favorable temperatures and precipitation help Indiana farmers generate over $31 billion worth of sales per year, making the state 11th in total agricultural products sold.

Changes to the state’s climate over the coming decades, including increasing temperatures, changes in precipitation amounts and patterns, and rising levels of carbon dioxide (CO2) in the air will result in several direct and indirect impacts to the state’s agricultural industry.

This report from the Indiana Climate Change Impacts Assessment (IN CCIA) describes how projected changes in the state’s climate will affect the …

Development Of On-Shore Behavior Among Polar Bears (Ursus Maritimus) In The Southern Beaufort Sea: Inherited Or Learned?, Kate M. Lillie, Eric M. Gese, Todd C. Atwood, Sarah A. Sonsthagen

Wildland Resources Faculty Publications

Polar bears (Ursus maritimus) are experiencing rapid and substantial changes to their environment due to global climate change. Polar bears of the southern Beaufort Sea (SB) have historically spent most of the year on the sea ice. However, recent reports from Alaska indicate that the proportion of the SB subpopulation observed on-shore during late summer and early fall has increased. Our objective was to investigate whether this on-shore behavior has developed through genetic inheritance, asocial learning, or through social learning. From 2010 to 2013, genetic data were collected from SB polar bears in the fall via hair snags …

Quaternary Climate Instability Is Correlated With Patterns Of Population Genetic Variability In Bombus Huntii, Jonathan B. Koch, Rémy Vandame, Jorge Mérida-Rivas, Philippe Sagot, James Strange

All PIRU Publications

Climate oscillations have left a significant impact on the patterns of genetic diversity observed in numerous taxa. In this study, we examine the effect of Quaternary climate instability on population genetic variability of a bumble bee pollinator species, Bombus huntii in western North America. Pleistocene and contemporary B. huntii habitat suitability (HS) was estimated with an environmental niche model (ENM) by associating 1,035 locality records with 10 bioclimatic variables. To estimate genetic variability, we genotyped 380 individuals from 33 localities at 13 microsatellite loci. Bayesian inference was used to examine population structure with and without a priori specification of geographic …

Experimentally Increased Incubation Temperature Affects Posthatching Development, Offspring Begging And Parental Care, And Nestling Survival In Three Species Of Wild Bird, Alexander J. Mueller

Electronic Theses and Dissertations Archive

It is now widely accepted that recent climatic changes have had a causal effect on changing avian life histories. However, evidence for this is largely observational, whereas cause-and-effect inference requires an experimental approach. Here, we assess effects of experimentally increased temperature during incubation on posthatching development in three species of wild songbird, the Carolina chickadee (Poecile carolinensis), Carolina wren (Thryothorus ludovicianus), and prothonotary warbler (Protonotaria citrea). Increased incubation temperatures (i) reduced the duration of the incubation and nestling periods, (ii) reduced posthatching begging for food by nestlings, and (iii) reduced posthatching survival in Carolina chickadees and prothonotary warblers, while nestling …

An Interdisciplinary Approach To Understanding Predator-Prey Relationships In A Changing Ocean: From System Design To Education, Ileana M. Freytes-Ortiz

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Climate change is ecologically and socially complex, deemed the most important issue of our generation. Through this dissertation I have approached climate change research through an interdisciplinary perspective, investigating how this phenomenon will affect marine ecological systems, how we can better develop experimental systems to answer ecological questions, and how we can effectively educate about this issue.

In Chapter 2, I provided accessible alternatives for researching the effects of climate change (elevated temperatures and pCO2) on marine ecosystems. I designed, built, and troubleshooted two accurate and inexpensive climate-controlled experimental systems capable of maintaining target conditions: a temperature-controlled system and an …

How Does Climate Change Affect Endophytic Fungi?, Amber Toussaint, Natalie Christian, Katy Heath

PRECS student projects

Plant-associated microorganisms can have major effects on plant health, but climate change can affect plant microbiomes. While it is unknown how climate change will affect aboveground plant-associated microorganisms, such as foliar endophytic fungi, we hypothesize that increased CO₂ concentrations will increase species richness and diversity in endophytic fungal communities, because increased plant photosynthesis under elevated CO₂ will increase the resources available to the fungi.

Clark Magazine, Summer 2018, Clark University

Clark Magazine

The Summer 2018 edition of Clark Magazine. Clark Magazine is a twice-yearly publication primarily geared towards Clark University Alumni.

The cover story is 'After Maria: Clark students and alumni were left reeling from Hurricane Maria. As they rebuild, they struggle with the question 'Is this our new normal'?'

Woody Plants Optimise Stomatal Behaviour Relative To Hydraulic Risk, William R.L. Anderegg, Adam Wolf, Adriana Arango-Velez, Brendan Choat, Daniel J. Chmura, Steven Jansen, Thomas Kolb, Shan Li, Frederick C. Meinzer, Pilar Pita, Víctor Resco De Dios, John S. Sperry, Brett T. Wolfe, Stephen Pacala

Faculty Publications

Stomatal response to environmental conditions forms the backbone of all ecosystem and carbon cycle models, but is largely based on empirical relationships. Evolutionary theories of stomatal behaviour are critical for guarding against prediction errors of empirical models under future climates. Longstanding theory holds that stomata maximise fitness by acting to maintain constant marginal water use efficiency over a given time horizon, but a recent evolutionary theory proposes that stomata instead maximise carbon gain minus carbon costs/risk of hydraulic damage. Using data from 34 species that span global forest biomes, we find that the recent carbon-maximisation optimisation theory is widely supported, …

The Role Of Small Ruminants On Global Climate Change, Alda Lúcia Gomes Monteiro, Amanda Moser Coelho Da Fonseca Faro, Mylena Taborda Piquera Peres, Rafael Batista, Cesar Henrique Espirito Candal Poli, Juan J. Villalba

Wildland Resources Faculty Publications

Global warming, as a consequence of excessive CO2 production mainly due to anthropogenic actions, is one of the main concerns of society due to the effects it can cause in the survival of humans, plants and animals. Several climatic consequences have already been reported, such as warming the oceans and changing biodiversity in various regions of the planet. One of the greenhouse gases responsible for global warming, which causes a lot of concern, is methane gas from digestion of food by ruminants. Besides that, emissions of greenhouse gases are represented also by waste management, rice cultivation, burning of residues from …

Shifting Species Boundaries: Mytilus Spp. On The Pacific Coast, Melinda Kathleen Wheelock

Capstone Projects and Master's Theses

The two species of bay mussel present on the Pacific coast of North America, Mytilus trossulus and M. galloprovincialis, are morphologically very similar and typically difficult to distinguish by external characters. Mytilus trossulus is native to the eastern Pacific, and occurs in bays, estuaries and the outer coast from central California to Alaska. Its introduced counterpart, M. galloprovincialis, has replaced M. trossulus in southern California, and is found as far north as Humboldt Bay. Previous studies have shown that these sibling species co-occur and form genetic hybrids in central California between Monterey Bay and Humboldt Bay, though the exact hybrid …

Climate And Plant Controls On Soil Organic Matter In Coastal Wetlands, Michael J. Osland, Christopher A. Gabler, James B. Grace, Richard H. Day, Meagan L. Mccoy, Jennie L. Mcleod, Andrew S. From, Nicholas M. Enwright, Laura C. Feher, Camille L. Stagg

School of Earth, Environmental, & Marine Sciences Faculty Publications

Coastal wetlands are among the most productive and carbon‐rich ecosystems on Earth. Long‐term carbon storage in coastal wetlands occurs primarily belowground as soil organic matter (SOM). In addition to serving as a carbon sink, SOM influences wetland ecosystem structure, function, and stability. To anticipate and mitigate the effects of climate change, there is a need to advance understanding of environmental controls on wetland SOM. Here, we investigated the influence of four soil formation factors: climate, biota, parent materials, and topography. Along the northern Gulf of Mexico, we collected wetland plant and soil data across elevation and zonation gradients within 10 …

An Integrated Modeling Approach Coupling Stakeholders’ Values And Policy Trade-Offs In Oklahoma, Usa, Gehendra Kharel Dr., Ronald Miller Dr., Chris Zou Dr., Jennifer Koch Dr., Tracy Boyer Dr., Heather Mccarthy Dr., Naci Dilekli Dr., Raymond Huhnke Dr.

International Congress on Environmental Modelling and Software

Oklahoma watersheds and urban areas are subject to increased water shortages, woody plant encroachment, and other socio-ecological issues. To investigate these issues in an integrated fashion, we are constructing an agent-based model using an integrated modeling platform, ‘ENVISION’. Three modeled areas represent the diversity within Oklahoma: Oklahoma City (urban), Kiamichi watershed (timber, reservoir), and Cimarron watershed (agriculture, grassland). Oklahoma City (OKC) stakeholders are concerned with the ‘greenness’ of the urban environment, and the water required to maintain it in the context of future urban growth and climate change, and the OKC model estimates urban greenness and the related water demand. …

A Metric For Evaluating The Ability Of The Rzwqm Model To Project The Impact Of Climate Change, Robert Anex, Lei Gu, Matthew Helmers

International Congress on Environmental Modelling and Software

Making projections with models is always difficult and climate change poses a particularly challenging problem for biophysical models which tend to be over-parameterized and have poor predictive power when extrapolations are beyond the range of the calibration. It is common practice to assume that if a calibrated model replicates observations reasonably well, predictions under other conditions will also be reasonably good. Unfortunately, this assumption is not always correct, as we show for prediction of nitrate loss from a tile-drained, corn-soybean experiment in Northern Iowa.

The RZWQM is a biophysical process model that simulates plant growth and movement of water and …

Intercorporeality: An Invitation To Being In The Human-Body-Nature Relationship, Eli, Renee

Journal of Conscious Evolution

Human-mediated climate change and environmental degradation are real. Likewise, human health issues associated with modernity are becoming increasingly concerning. This paper presupposes the inter-relationship between these two bourgeoning phenomena, and draws upon recent scholarship in the field of Religion and Ecology, and particularly the work of Thomas Berry (2006, 1999), as a means to critically analyze Judeo-Christian theosophy, an encoded meaning animus by which Westerners (largely), and Americans primarily, enact denial of the fullest expression of life – among one another and within the context of the natural world. I offer two broadly generalized and contrasting religious narratives, which together …

Incubation Under Climate Warming Affects Behavioral Lateralisation In Port Jackson Sharks, Catarina Vila Pouca, Connor Gervais, Joshua Reed, Culum Brown

Laterality Collection

Climate change is warming the world’s oceans at an unprecedented rate. Under predicted end-of-century temperatures, many teleosts show impaired development and altered critical behaviors, including behavioral lateralisation. Since laterality is an expression of brain functional asymmetries, changes in the strength and direction of lateralisation suggest that rapid climate warming might impact brain development and function. However, despite the implications for cognitive functions, the potential effects of elevated temperature in lateralisation of elasmobranch fishes are unknown. We incubated and reared Port Jackson sharks at current and projected end-of-century temperatures and measured preferential detour responses to left or right. Sharks incubated at …

Using Continuous Response Assessment To Evaluate The Effectiveness Of Extension Education Products, R. Glenn Cummins, David W. Smith, Coy Callison, Saqib Mukhtar

Journal of Extension

The case study addressed in this article illustrates the value of continuous response measurement (CRM) for testing and refining messages produced for distribution to Extension audiences. We used CRM to evaluate the responses of Extension educators and Natural Resources Conservation Service technical service providers to a video describing greenhouse gas mitigation techniques. By using this assessment method, message producers can identify elements in a video that elicit strong positive or negative responses and then refine communication activities accordingly. Our study highlights the potential of CRM for informing how Extension education products and materials may be preevaluated to ensure more widespread …

Direct And Indirect Controls On Bee Community Composition, Caroline Marie Devan

Dissertations

Bees are important pollinators, critical for the continued survival of plants in both natural and agricultural ecosystems. Diverse bee communities have been shown to increase richness in plant communities and plant reproduction depends upon bee community richness. Yet there is growing concern that pollinators, especially bees, are declining globally. This dissertation focuses on evaluating the mechanisms responsible for bee community composition in order to promote bee conservation in natural systems and their restoration in human-dominated urban and agricultural landscapes.

Bee populations are impacted directly by three things: floral resources, nesting resources and risk, primarily from natural enemies. Bees are indirectly …

Birds And Berries: Projecting The Responses Of Seed Dispersal Networks To Climate Change, Manette E. Sandor

Doctoral Dissertations

Climate change has caused species range shifts, with more predicted in coming decades. Range shifts could result in secondary threats such as spatial mismatch with mutualist partners and movement out of protected areas. We found that due to range shifts, shrub species richness will be lost at higher elevations, and species turnover will peak at middle elevations. Areas of bird species turnover will only partially overlap with areas of shrub species turnover, which could result in broken interactions between partners. Our projections suggest that climate change will result in clear winners and losers with some species gaining and others losing …

Plant Functional Groups And Success In A Changing Environment: Modeling Physiological Niches Of Colorado Plateau Plants, Anne Thomas

Undergraduate Honors Theses

Quantifying the environmental and physiological niches of plant species is crucial to predicting their sensitivity to global change, and aggregating plant species by functional type is fundamental both to ecological theory and to the practicality of large-scale efforts to predict the consequences of global change. However, traditional functional types are not always predictive of individual species’ responses to change. Here, an inverse species distribution modeling approach is used to identify functionally similar species based on physiological niche in order to better anticipate the consequences of climate change on the Colorado Plateau, USA. The Colorado Plateau is a semiarid region particularly …

The Effect Of Warmer Winters On The Demography Of An Outbreak Insect Is Hidden By Intraspecific Competition, Devin W. Goodsman, Guenchik Grosklos, Brian H. Aukema, Caroline Whitehouse, Katherine P. Bleiker, Nate G. Mcdowell, Richard S. Middleton, Chonggang Xu

Mathematics and Statistics Faculty Publications

Warmer climates are predicted to increase bark beetle outbreak frequency, severity, and range. Even in favorable climates, however, outbreaks can decelerate due to resource limitation, which necessitates the inclusion of competition for limited resources in analyses of climatic effects on populations. We evaluated several hypotheses of how climate impacts mountain pine beetle reproduction using an extensive 9‐year dataset, in which nearly 10,000 trees were sampled across a region of approximately 90,000 km², that was recently invaded by the mountain pine beetle in Alberta, Canada. Our analysis supports the hypothesis of a positive effect of warmer winter temperatures on …

A Quantitative Analysis Of The Effects Of Urbanization, Mesophication And Prescribed Burns On Oak Woodlands In The Chicago Metropolitan Area, Chad Populorum

Celebration of Learning

Urban expansion has had devastating impacts on forest ecosystems, especially within the past century. Human attempts to dominate nature have diminished natural disturbance regimes, which have maintained the biodiversity and historic composition of these ecosystems. Fires have been a prominent force in maintaining the structure of oak, hickory and other heliophytic (sun loving and fire-adapted) forest systems. Human induced fire suppression has led to mesophication across North America. Mesophication is the transition from drier conditions with open canopies to wetter conditions with closed canopies. These new conditions decrease the survival rates of these important species and begin to favor mesophytic …

High Interspecific Variation In Nutrient Excretion Within A Guild Of Closely Related Caddisfly Species, Jared A. Balik, Brad W. Taylor, Susan E. Washko, Scott A. Wissinger

Watershed Sciences Faculty Publications

Understanding the amount of variation in functional traits between closely related species within guilds is critical for understanding links between community composition and ecosystem processes. Nutrient excretion is an important link between animals and their environments, and aquatic invertebrate communities can supply a considerable proportion of ecosystem nutrient demand via excretion. We quantified nitrogen (N) and phosphorus (P) excretion rates of 10 species of larval caddisflies that inhabit high‐elevation ponds and wetlands to determine the magnitude of variation in nutrient excretion within this guild. We found considerable interspecific variation in biomass‐specific excretion of nitrogen (eightfold differences), phosphorus (sevenfold differences), and …

Indiana's Future Forests: A Report From The Indiana Climate Change Impacts Assessment, Richard Phillips, Songlin Fei, Leslie Brandt, P. David Polly, Patrick A. Zollner, Michael Saunders, Keith Clay, Louis Iverson, Melissa Widhalm, Jeffrey Dukes

Forest Reports

Over the next century, rising temperatures and changing precipitation patterns across the Midwest will likely have profound consequences for Indiana’s forests. Such changes include shifts in the distributions and abundances of trees, understory plants and wildlife, as well as changes to the environmental, economic and cultural benefits these forests provide. This report from the Indiana Climate Change Impacts Assessment (IN CCIA) examines the direct and indirect impacts that climate change is expected to have on Indiana’s forests. The report specifically addresses forest regeneration, forest composition, tree growth and harvest, wildlife habitat and forest products.

Maintaining Indiana's Urban Green Spaces: A Report From The Indiana Climate Change Impacts Assessment, Heather Reynolds, Leslie Brandt, Melissa Widhalm, Songlin Fei, Burnell Fischer, Brady Hardiman, Donovan Moxley, Eric Sandweiss, James Speer, Jeffrey Dukes

Urban Green Spaces Reports

Cities use green infrastructure, including forests, community gardens, lawns and prairies, to improve the quality of life for residents, promote sustainability and mitigate the effects of climate change. These and other kinds of green spaces can decrease energy consumption, increase carbon storage and improve water quality, among other benefits.

More than 70 percent of Hoosiers reside in urban settings, and green infrastructure can provide significant economic advantages. In Indianapolis, for example, urban forests provide a $10 million annual benefit through stormwater control, carbon sequestration, energy reduction and air pollution filtration.

However, just like human-built infrastructure, urban green infrastructure will be …

Pacific In Peril: Micronesia’S Food Security, Development, And Health Under A Changing Climate, Yota Pacifico Oue

Student Theses 2015-Present

This thesis focuses on food security in Micronesian Island nations and how the effects of climate change are detrimental to the region’s fisheries resources and agricultural production. Because the Micronesian islands are on the forefront of climate change, the effects of ocean acidification, rising sea levels, and higher mean surface areas pose immediate risks to the region’s food security. Not only does climate change threaten both sources of the region’s food – fisheries and traditional agriculture – but includes ramifications for economic development, environmental conservation, and public health. Each island nation in the Pacific is entitled to an Exclusive Economic …

A Conservative Concern: Conservative Ideology, The Environmental Crisis, And Why They Can Be A Perfect Pair, Alexandra Ferreira

Student Theses 2015-Present

The world’s current geopolitical landscape is in its most fragile state since World War II, as the specter of environmental disaster due to climate change and environmental degradation lies at the center of and looms over social, political, and economic conflict. This paper incorporates applied science, social sciences, environmental science, and the humanities into an interdisciplinary analysis of the climate change debate as well as possible solutions from the conservative perspective. Chapter 1 employs quantitative and statistical data of the natural sciences of environmental chemistry and ecology. It uses data from the United Nations IPCC report on climate change to …

Science, Advocacy, Policy, Planning: Tools For Advancing Transportation Equity, Garrett S. Mcallister

Graduate Student Portfolios, Professional Papers, and Capstone Projects

The theme of this portfolio is how different tools and approaches can be used for advancing transportation equity. Broadly defined, transportation equity is about fairness in transportation. There are a number of ways this fairness can be assessed. The most common way to assess transportation equity is by looking at the fairness of outcomes, distributed geographically, socially, or even by mode of transportation. Equity can also be defined by the fairness of processes. The first half of the portfolio illustrates some of the problems with the current transportation system and how it is unhealthy (Piece 1) and unjust (Piece 2). …

Linking Climate Change And Mortality In Piñon-Juniper Woodlands, From Leaf To Ecosystem, Amanda I. Liebrecht

Biology ETDs

As global climate changes, the Southwestern US is predicted to experience more frequent and intense drought events. Extreme droughts can drive decreases in both physiological and ecosystem function, and can result in widespread tree mortality. Piñon-juniper (PJ) woodlands are a prevalent ecosystem in the region, co-dominated by two tree species, piñon (Pinus edulis) and juniper (Juniperus monosperma). Drought-induced piñon mortality has occurred over the past few decades, coinciding with outbreaks of a piñon-specific bark beetle. Piñon and juniper have different hydraulic strategies (isohydry and anisohydry, respectively) that should affect the way each species responds to drought. …

One Small Step For Earth, One Giant Leap For Costa Rica, Emily Canney

University of Miami Inter-American Law Review

No abstract provided.