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Snowshoe Hare (Lepus Americanus) Abundance In Relation To Habitat And Predator Assemblage Across The Apostle Islands, Jarod Reibel
Snowshoe Hare (Lepus Americanus) Abundance In Relation To Habitat And Predator Assemblage Across The Apostle Islands, Jarod Reibel
Masters Theses
Snowshoe hares (Lepus americanus) are a climate sensitive species that have a southern range boundary moving northward. Snowshoe hares are found on the Apostle Islands, Wisconsin which are near their southern boundary and differ by island in vegetative and carnivore communities. The archipelago serves as a natural laboratory to assess how top-down and bottomup forces interact and impact snowshoe hare populations. The objectives of this study were to determine the influence of vegetative characteristics, specifically visual obstruction, and the presence of predators on snowshoe hare abundances across the Apostle Islands. We conducted fecal pellet surveys to estimate hare abundance, measured …
Ecosystem Functional Consequences Of Body Size Variation In An Apex Predator (Ambystoma Jeffersonianum), David Samuel Smith
Ecosystem Functional Consequences Of Body Size Variation In An Apex Predator (Ambystoma Jeffersonianum), David Samuel Smith
Online Theses and Dissertations
Biodiversity is often emphasized at the species level where each species is assigned a mean functional trait value. However, populations within a species, and individuals within a population, often exhibit considerable intraspecific functional variation. Therefore, instead of focusing on species’ mean trait values, we must incorporate intraspecific variation when considering species’ ecological roles and conservation values. The primary objective of this study was to determine the effects of variation in body size (a functional trait in many aquatic taxa) in an apex predator on ecosystem functioning. We sought to characterize trophic cascades initiated by larval populations of Ambystoma jeffersonianum that …