Life Sciences Commons^™

Herpetological Collections At Pittsburg State University: Assessing Collecting Patterns And Analysis Of Spatial And Temporal Origin Of Specimens., Natalia Agostini Schneider

Electronic Theses & Dissertations

Natural History Collections are a rich source of biological data. Each specimen contains data for that species’ presence for a specific location and time, providing researchers with essential biological information. Importantly, this information can be preserved and re-evaluated for hundreds of years. To maintain specimens through time, good curation protocols are essential. The Herpetology Collection (henceforth HC) at Pittsburg State University houses 1,631 specimens, representing 181 species and subspecie collected from 23 U.S. states, Mexico and Manitoba, Canada. The majority of specimens (78.6%) were collected from the four-state area (Kansas, Missouri, Arkansas and Oklahoma). Specimens collected exclusively in Kansas comprise …

The Richness And Relative Abundance Of Small Mammals In Old Surface Coal-Mined Sites In Crawford And Cherokee Counties, Kansas, Fabio Giacomelli

Electronic Theses & Dissertations

Species richness and relative abundance (RA) of the small terrestrial mammals were accessed in 20 different unreclaimed old coal mined sites in Crawford and Cherokee counties, southeast Kansas in 2014. Lines of Victor™ wooden snap-traps were set in three habitat types in each area: grassy, brushy and forested during 3-days period in each of the four seasons.

Southeast Kansas was heavily surface-mined (strip-mined) between the 1930’s and the 1970’s and many of these sites were not reclaimed (restored to the appearance of its original landscape). This has resulted in many types of altered habitats in this region such as strip-pits …