Life Sciences Commons^™

The Use Of Biological Soil Health Indicators To Quantify The Benefits Of Cover Crops, Alexander Wu

Masters Theses

Soils provide many essential functions that support the world. With a decline in soil health, these functions also decrease in efficiency, and can threaten the health of billions of people around the world. Typically, soil health tests do not use biological indicators, however microbes drive and perform vital functions to increase soil health. One way to increase soil health is through the use of cover crops to reduce soil erosion during fallow periods, increasing soil organic matter, as well as collecting nutrients from soil into their biomass. These cover crops are then terminated through various methods such as herbicides, disk …

The Relative Effects Of Functional Diversity And Structural Complexity On Carbon Dynamics In Late-Successional, Northeastern Mixed Hardwood Forests, Samantha Myers

Masters Theses

Late-successional forests provide a unique opportunity to explore adaptive management approaches that mitigate atmospheric carbon dioxide levels through carbon storage while also enhancing ecological resilience to novel climate and disturbances. Typical benchmarks for adaptive forest management include species diversity and structural complexity, which are widely considered to increase ecosystem stability and productivity. However, the role of functional trait diversity (e.g., variation in leaf and stem traits) in driving forest productivity and ecosystem resilience remains underexplored. We leveraged existing continuous forest inventory (CFI) data and collected local functional trait observations from CFI plots within late-successional forests in western Massachusetts to explore …

Rainbow Beach Sediment Grain Size Analysis, Northampton, Massachusetts, Brian Yellen

Data and Datasets

This dataset was prepared by Brian Yellen, a research assistant professor in the Department of Earth, Geographic, and Climate Sciences at the University of Massachusetts Amherst. Dr. Yellen worked in conjunction with Melissa Grader of the USFWS and colleagues to conduct the associated field sampling.

This report provides information related to the substrate grain size at surveyed locations on Rainbow Beach on the Connecticut River in Northampton, MA (42.322125, -72.584928). This location is a known breeding site of the endangered puritan tiger beetle (PTB), Ellipsoptera puritana.

Perceptions Of Historical Climate Change And Park Policy: The Impact On The Fremont Cottonwood In Zion National Park, Kathleen Kavarra Corr

Doctoral Dissertations

Despite its “natural” appearance and the Organic Act 1916 mandate for preservation of the natural environment in National Parks, the Virgin River as it flows through Zion National Park’s Zion Canyon was transformed through massive flood control re-engineering projects in the 1930s. The armoring of the river has had significant impacts on riparian vegetation, particularly on the stands of native Fremont Cottonwood trees that once filled the narrow valley. What was the motivation for this massive flood control project carried out in an arid region with less than 15 inches of rain per year? This dissertation explores the motivations which …

Assessment Of The Economic And Ecosystem Service Contributions Of Usda Forest Service Landowner Assistance Programs In The Conterminous United States, Jacqueline S. Dias

Masters Theses

Forests provide immense goods and services to both local and regional communities. The USDA Forest Service’s, State and Private Forestry program administer multiple landowner assistance programs aimed at helping private forest owners while supporting the continued supply of ecosystem services (e.g., timber harvesting, recreation, carbon sequestration and storage). The two landowner assistance programs assessed in this study are the Forest Legacy Program (FLP) and the Forest Stewardship Program (FSP). A majority of the nation’s forests are privately owned, many of which are facing deleterious impacts like wildfires, invasive species, development pressures, and other adverse effects from climate change. The goal …

Statistical Improvements For Ecological Learning About Spatial Processes, Gaetan L. Dupont

Masters Theses

Ecological inquiry is rooted fundamentally in understanding population abundance, both to develop theory and improve conservation outcomes. Despite this importance, estimating abundance is difficult due to the imperfect detection of individuals in a sample population. Further, accounting for space can provide more biologically realistic inference, shifting the focus from abundance to density and encouraging the exploration of spatial processes. To address these challenges, Spatial Capture-Recapture (“SCR”) has emerged as the most prominent method for estimating density reliably. The SCR model is conceptually straightforward: it combines a spatial model of detection with a point process model of the spatial distribution of …

Monitoring Mammals At Multiple Scales: Case Studies From Carnivore Communities, Kadambari Devarajan

Doctoral Dissertations

Carnivores are distributed widely and threatened by habitat loss, poaching, climate change, and disease. They are considered integral to ecosystem function through their direct and indirect interactions with species at different trophic levels. Given the importance of carnivores, it is of high conservation priority to understand the processes driving carnivore assemblages in different systems. It is thus essential to determine the abiotic and biotic drivers of carnivore community composition at different spatial scales and address the following questions: (i) What factors influence carnivore community composition and diversity? (ii) How do the factors influencing carnivore communities vary across spatial and temporal …

Diversity-Production Relationships Of Fish Communities In Freshwater Stream Ecosystems, Bonnie J. E. Myers, C. Andrew Dolloff, Jackson R. Webster, Keith H. Nislow, Andrew L. Rypel

Environmental Conservation Faculty Publication Series

Aim Ecological relationships between species richness and biomass production are increasingly thought to be pervasive across the globe. Yet, diversity-production relationships have not been explored extensively for freshwater fish communities even though fisheries production provides key services to humans. Our aim was to evaluate the diversity-production relationship of fish communities inhabiting freshwater streams across the Appalachian Mountain range and examine how diversity-production relationships varied across streams possessing different thermal signatures. Location Our study area included 25 freshwater stream ecosystems spanning from Vermont to North Carolina in the United States. Twenty sites were located in Maryland south to Tennessee and North …

New England’S Underutilized Seafood Species: Defining And Exploring Marketplace Potential In A Changing Climate, Amanda Davis

Masters Theses

New England’s seafood industry has been searching for opportunities to diversify their landings and build resilience as it faces socio-economic challenges from a changing climate. Developing markets for underutilized species is one way the New England community could help their seafood industry build resilience. This thesis identified New England’s underutilized fish species and explored their marketplace potential by examining their availability in a changing climate, current availability to consumers, and consumers’ responses. In Chapter I, I account how New England’s seafood preferences have changed over time. In Chapter II, I identify New England’s seven underutilized seafood species: 1) Acadian redfish …

Integrative Experience: Soil Microbes And The Sustainability Of Organic Agriculture, Kristen Deangelis, Luiz Domeignoz Horta

Microbiology Educational Materials

This curriculum describes a one-unit course designed to fulfill the University of Massachusetts requirement for Integrative Experience as part of the Gen Ed curriculum for undergraduates.

Population Viability And Connectivity Of The Federally Threatened Eastern Indigo Snake In Central Peninsular Florida, Javan Bauder

Doctoral Dissertations

Understanding the factors influencing the likelihood of persistence of real-world populations requires both an accurate understanding of the traits and behaviors of individuals within those populations (e.g., movement, habitat selection, survival, fecundity, dispersal) but also an understanding of how those traits and behaviors are influenced by landscape features. The federally threatened eastern indigo snake (EIS, Drymarchon couperi) has declined throughout its range primarily due to anthropogenically-induced habitat loss and fragmentation making spatially-explicit assessments of population viability and connectivity essential for understanding its current status and directing future conservation efforts. The primary goal of my dissertation was to understand how …

Plants, Parasites, And Pollinators: The Effects Of Medicinal Pollens On A Common Gut Parasite In Bumble Bees, George Locascio

Masters Theses

Declines in several pollinator species are due to a variety of factors, including pathogens. Incorporating pollinator-friendly plant species into wild and agricultural habitats could reduce the stress of pathogens if food sources act medicinally against pathogens. Previous research demonstrated one domesticated sunflower cultivar (Helianthus annuus) can dramatically reduce a gut pathogen (Crithidia bombi) of the common eastern bumble bee, Bombus impatiens. To ascertain the breadth of this medicinal trait, we tested whether pollen from several H. annuus cultivars and four relatives could also reduce C. bombi infections in B. impatiens. We also investigated whether …

Modelling Bird Migration With Motus Data And Bayesian State-Space Models, Justin Baldwin

Masters Theses

Bird migration is a poorly-known yet important phenomenon, as understanding movement patterns of birds can inform conservation strategies and public health policy for animal-borne diseases. Recent advances in wildlife tracking technology, in particular the Motus system, have allowed researchers to track even small flying birds and insects with radio transmitters that weigh fractions of a gram. This system relies on a community-based distributed sensor network that detects tagged animals as they move through the detection nodes on journeys that range from small local movements to intercontinental migrations. The quantity of data generated by the Motus system is unprecedented, is on …

Botswana’S Elephant-Back Safari Industry – Stress-Response In Working African Elephants And Analysis Of Their Post-Release Movements, Tanya Lama

Masters Theses

Understanding how African elephants (Loxodonta africana) respond to human interactions in ecotourism operations is critical to safeguarding animal and human welfare and sustaining wildlife ecotourism activities. We investigated the stress response of elephants to a variety of tourist activities over a 15-month period at Abu Camp in northern Botswana. We compared fecal glucocorticoid metabolite (FGM) concentrations across three elephant groups, including: eight elephants in an elephant-tourism operation (Abu herd), three elephants previously reintroduced back into the wild from the Abu herd, and wild elephants. There were no differences in FGM concentrations between the three groups of elephants. The highest observed …

Ecological Consequences Of Lost Anadromous Forage Fish In Freshwater Ecosystems, Steven R. Mattocks

Masters Theses

Beginning in the early 1600s, dam construction in New England obstructed anadromous fish access to spawning grounds during migration. As a result, anadromous forage fish populations have declined, which has impacted freshwater, marine, and terrestrial ecosystems. To determine the impacts of dams on anadromous forage fish and freshwater ecosystems, I used historical and current data to estimate population changes in alewives (Alosa pseudoharengus) from 1600-1900. A significant reduction in spawning habitat occurred in New England as a result of 1,642 dams constructed between 1600 and 1900, resulting in 14.8% and 16.6% lake and stream habitat remaining by 1900, …

Factors Affecting Habitat Quality For Wintering Wood Thrushes In A Coffee Growing Region In Honduras, Brett A. Bailey

Masters Theses

Amongst the diversity of taxa that occur in the Neotropics, 200 migratory bird species that breed in temperate North America can be found. Many of these populations have seen significant declines since the 1960s. The Wood Thrush, Hylocichla mustelina, is one such species. Shade coffee and other agroforestry practices show potential for benefiting migratory species, but the quality of coffee habitat and optimal habitat characteristics for Wood Thrushes remain unknown.

I surveyed a spatially complex, agricultural landscape in Honduras outside the recognized winter range of the Wood Thrush and radio-tagged 46 individuals within rustic coffee farms during the winters …

Distribution Locations Of Invasive Species (Out Of The Weeds? Reduced Plant Invasion Risk With Climate Change In The Continental United States), Bethany Bradley, Jenica Allen

Environmental Conservation Datasets

The comma-delimited data file includes the species code (see Supplemental Online Table S2 for full species names), latitude, and longitude in decimal degrees (WGS84) for the occurence points used in model fitting. Some data use agreements prohibit the publication of coordinate data and those points have been removed.

Continent-Wide Survey Reveals Massive Decline In African Savannah Elephants, Michael J. Chase, Scott Schlossberg, Curtice R. Griffin, Philippe J.C. Bouché, Sintayehu W. Djene, Paul W. Elkan, Sam Ferreira, Falk Grossman, Edward Mtarima Kohi, Kelly Landen, Patrick Omondi, Alexis Peltier, S.A. Jeanetta Selier, Robert Sutcliffe

Environmental Conservation Faculty Publication Series

African elephants (Loxodonta africana) are imperiled by poaching and habitat loss. Despite global attention to the plight of elephants, their population sizes and trends are uncertain or unknown over much of Africa. To conserve this iconic species, conservationists need timely, accurate data on elephant populations. Here, we report the results of the Great Elephant Census (GEC), the first continent-wide, standardized survey of African savannah elephants. We also provide the first quantitative model of elephant population trends across Africa. We estimated a population of 352,271 savannah elephants on study sites in 18 countries, representing approximately 93% of all savannah …

Experimental Test Of Genetic Rescue In Isolated Populations Of Brook Trout, Zachary L. Robinson

Masters Theses

Translocations are an important aspect of the management of natural populations in an increasingly fragmented landscape. Maintaining connectivity and gene flow is beneficial for both contemporary fitness and adaptive potential in the face of environmental change. Genetic rescue (GR) can alleviate inbreeding depression, genetic load, and increase adaptive potential of populations. Here, I have translocated 10 (5 of each sex) brook trout (Salvelinus fontinalis) to four geographically proximate and environmentally similar fragmented stream-dwelling populations of brook trout in Virginia to test for genetic rescue. The translocated brook trout contributed to more families than would be expected under neutral …

Wellspring Waste To Energy Feasibility Study, Andrew Clinton, Emily Hajjar, Frank Nakashian

School of Public Policy Capstones

This study was conducted by the University of Massachusetts Amherst public policy masters students for Springfield based Wellspring Cooperative, a nonprofit focused on cooperative job creation and training. The project assesses three potential scale options for Wellspring in order to use organic material to heat and/or generate electricity to power its hydroponic greenhouse. Though the greenhouse is not constructed as of yet, its source of energy is an important element for Wellspring. Motivations for utilizing organic waste to power the greenhouse are due in part to the influx of food waste sources being diverted due to the new Massachusetts Food …

Syllabus: Sustainable Living: Solutions For The 21st Century, Lena Fletcher

Sustainability Education Resources

In this innovative interdisciplinary course you will work with your peers to research and understand how sustainability in different contexts presents solutions to many problems facing modern society. You will work in teams to investigate, evaluate, communicate, and reflect on the multifaceted challenges associated with natural resource use, food systems, energy, transportation, waste, the built environment, water quality, and climate change. You will also research case studies, debate controversies, assess political and cultural contexts, investigate technological advances, and identify gaps in scientific knowledge. Using these resources, you and your peers will be tasked with developing your own sustainable solutions for …

Roosting, Site Fidelity, And Food Sources Of Urban Gulls In Massachusetts: Implications For Protecting Public Water Supplies, Daniel E. Clark

Doctoral Dissertations

Anyone who has spent time in coastal New England has seen gulls flying overhead and heard their familiar sound; gulls may be one of the most recognizable birds in the world. There are over 50 species of gulls worldwide, and many of them are closely associated with human development or activities. In Massachusetts, there are several common gull species including herring (Larus argentatus), great black-back (Larus marinus), laughing (Leucophaeus atricilla), and ring-billed (Larus delawarensis). While coastal encounters with gulls are ubiquitous, gulls can also be found inland, and ring-billed and herring gulls …

The Potential For Restoration Of Tan Brook, An Urban Headwater Stream In Amherst, Massachusetts, Alison Tenhulzen, Alyssa Black, Robert F. Smith

Research

The goal of the Tan Brook Student Conservation Group is to educate undergraduate students at the University of Massachusetts Amherst about freshwater sustainability. to accomplish this, the group will act to provide opportunities in original research, applied field and laboratory methods, and outreach. The initial goal for the group will be a collaborative project describing the ecological, historical, and social significance of the Tan Brook, which will result in an informative website and educational signage located at several locations in the town of Amherst and on University property where the Tan Brook enters campus. Ultimately, the group will contribute to …

Habitat Heterogeneity Concentrates Predators In The Seascape: Linking Intermediate-Scale Estuarine Habitat To Striped Bass Distribution, Cristina Kennedy

Masters Theses 1911 - February 2014

Predators are key components of aquatic ecosystems and innovative approaches to understanding their spatial distribution are imperative for research, effective management, and conservation. Discontinuities, created by abrupt changes between two unlike entities, are irregularly-distributed, intermediate-scale features that can have a disproportionate effect on organismal distribution within the seascape. Here I use the discontinuity concept to relate the distribution of a predator, striped bass (Morone saxatilis), to physical features within Plum Island Estuary (PIE), MA. I mapped the distribution of 50 acoustically-tagged striped bass during four monthly surveys at 40 sites to evaluate if heterogeneity in physical features concentrated …

Diving Behavior And Identification Of Sex Of Breeding Atlantic Puffins (Fratercula Arctica), And Nest-Site Characteristics Of Alcids On Petit Manan Island, Maine, Sarah M. Spencer

Masters Theses 1911 - February 2014

During 2008 – 2009, we quantified foraging behavior of adult Atlantic puffins (Fratercula arctica) by deploying time-depth recorders (TDRs) on 18 adults and collected morphological measurements from 40 adults nesting on Petit Manan Island, Maine. Dive data were successfully retrieved from 5 birds foraging for 14 days in 2008, and 8 birds foraging for 18 days in 2009. Pooling across all birds, a total of 8,097 dives were recorded, with peaks in activity during 0400-0800 and 1600-2000, and no diving between 2100 and 0400. Mean (± SD) dives/bird/day was 276.4 (± 84.7), with dives grouped into bouts lasting …

Global Change, Global Trade, And The Next Wave Of Plant Invasions, Bethany Bradley, D. M. Blumenthal, R. Early, E. D. Grosholz, J. J. Lawler, L. P. Miller, C. J.B Sorte, C. M. D'Antonio, J. M. Diez, J. S. Dukes, I. Ibanez, J. D. Olden

Bethany Bradley

Many non-native plants in the US have become problematic invaders of native and managed ecosystems, but a new generation of invasive species may be at our doorstep. Here, we review trends in the horticultural trade and invasion patterns of previously introduced species and show that novel species introductions from emerging horticultural trade partners are likely to rapidly increase invasion risk. At the same time, climate change and water restrictions are increasing demand for new types of species adapted to warm and dry environments. This confluence of forces could expose the US to a range of new invasive species, including many …

Behavior And Habitat Use Of Roseate Terns (Sterna Dougallii) Before And After Construction Of An Erosion Control Revetment, Corey Grinnell

Masters Theses 1911 - February 2014

An erosion control revetment was constructed at the Falkner Island Unit of the Stewart B. McKinney National Wildlife Refuge, Connecticut during the winter of 2000–2001. At the time, Falkner Island was the fifth largest breeding colony site for the federally endangered Roseate Tern. This study measures and describes some baseline information regarding Roseate Tern nesting, behavior, and habitat use at Falkner Island during the three breeding seasons prior to revetment construction (1998–2000). This baseline information is then compared to similar information from the first breeding season following revetment construction (2001).

For Roseate Tern adults, this study examined changes in pre-nesting …

Pollinator Populations In Massachusetts Cranberry, 1990 To 2009: Changes In Diversity And Abundance, Effects Of Agricultural Intensification, And A Contribution To The North American Pollinator Survey., Molly M. Notestine

Masters Theses 1911 - February 2014

It is now widely accepted that over one-third of the global food supply depends upon pollinators. Risking severe ecological and economic implications, the status of the 4000 species of bees native to North America has been poorly understood due to a lack of long-term survey data. In this study, I conducted bee surveys on Massachusetts cranberry (Vaccinium macrocarpon Ait.) bogs from 2007-2009 and compared diversity and abundance data to those from historical surveys performed in 1990-1992 on the same bogs. I found that overall bee diversity declined severely in the 19-year survey period, while total bee abundance remained consistent. My …

Conservation Implications Of A Marbled Salamander, Ambystoma Opacum, Metapopulation Model, Ethan B. Plunkett

Masters Theses 1911 - February 2014

Amphibians are in decline globally and a significantly greater percentage of ambystomatid salamander species are in decline relative to other species; habitat loss contributes significantly to this decline. The goals of this thesis is to better understand extinction risk in a marbled salamander (ambystoma opacum) population and how forestry effects extinction risk. To achieve this goal we first estimated an important life history parameter (Chapter 1) then used a metapopulation model to estimate population viability and determine what aspects of their life history put them most at risk (Chapter 2) and finally predicted extinction risk in response to hypothetical forestry …