Life Sciences Commons^™

Advancing Nasa’S Airmoss P-Band Radar Root Zone Soil Moisture Retrieval Algorithm Via Incorporation Of Richards’ Equation, Morteza Sadeghi, Alireza Tabatabaeenejad, Markus Tuller, Mahta Moghaddam, Scott B. Jones

Plants, Soils, and Climate Faculty Publications

P-band radar remote sensing applied during the Airborne Microwave Observatory of Subcanopy and Subsurface (AirMOSS) mission has shown great potential for estimation of root zone soil moisture. When retrieving the soil moisture profile (SMP) from P-band radar observations, a mathematical function describing the vertical moisture distribution is required. Because only a limited number of observations are available, the number of free parameters of the mathematical model must not exceed the number of observed data. For this reason, an empirical quadratic function (second order polynomial) is currently applied in the AirMOSS inversion algorithm to retrieve the SMP. The three free parameters …

Tree Circumference Dynamics In Four Forests Characterized Using Automated Dendrometer Bands, Valentine Herrmann, Sean M. Mcmahon, Matteo Detto, James A. Lutz, Chia-Hao Chang-Yang, Kristina J. Anderson-Teixeira

Wildland Resources Faculty Publications

Stem diameter is one of the most commonly measured attributes of trees, forming the foundation of forest censuses and monitoring. Changes in tree stem circumference include both irreversible woody stem growth and reversible circumference changes related to water status, yet these fine-scale dynamics are rarely leveraged to understand forest ecophysiology and typically ignored in plot- or stand-scale estimates of tree growth and forest productivity. Here, we deployed automated dendrometer bands on 12–40 trees at four different forested sites—two temperate broadleaf deciduous, one temperate conifer, and one tropical broad-leaf semi-deciduous—to understand how tree circumference varies on time scales of hours to …

Forest Restoration Using Variable Density Thinning: Lessons From Douglas-Fir Stands In Western Oregon, Klaus J. Puettmann, Adrian Ares, Julia I. Burton, Erich Kyle Dodson

Wildland Resources Faculty Publications

A large research effort was initiated in the 1990s in western United States and Canada to investigate how the development of old-growth structures can be accelerated in young even-aged stands that regenerated following clearcut harvests, while also providing income and ecosystem services. Large-scale experiments were established to compare effects of thinning arrangements (e.g., spatial variability) and residual densities (including leave islands and gaps of various sizes). Treatment effects were context dependent, varying with initial conditions and spatial and temporal scales of measurement. The general trends were highly predictable, but most responses were spatially variable. Thus, accounting for initial conditions at …

The Role Of Diverse Strategies In The Sustainability Of Online Communities, Lingfei Wu, Jacopo A. Baggio, Marco A. Janssen

Environment and Society Faculty Publications

Online communities are becoming increasingly important as platforms for large-scale human cooperation. These communities allow users seeking and sharing professional skills to solve problems collaboratively. To investigate how users cooperate to complete a large number of knowledge-producing tasks, we analyze Stack Exchange, one of the largest question and answer systems in the world. We construct attention networks to model the growth of 110 communities in the Stack Exchange system and quantify individual answering strategies using the linking dynamics on attention networks. We identify two answering strategies. Strategy A aims at performing maintenance by doing simple tasks, whereas strategy B aims …

Interactions Among Climate, Topography And Herbivory Control Greenhouse Gas (Co2, Ch4 And N2o) Fluxes In A Subarctic Coastal Wetland, Kathy C. Kelsey, A. Joshua Leffler, Karen H. Beard, Joel A. Schmutz, Ryan T. Choi, J. M. Welker

Wildland Resources Faculty Publications

High-latitude ecosystems are experiencing the most rapid climate changes globally, and in many areas these changes are concurrent with shifts in patterns of herbivory. Individually, climate and herbivory are known to influence biosphere-atmosphere greenhouse gas (GHG) exchange; however, the interactive effects of climate and herbivory in driving GHG fluxes have been poorly quantified, especially in coastal systems that support large populations of migratory waterfowl. We investigated the magnitude and the climatic and physical controls of GHG exchange within the Yukon-Kuskokwim Delta in western Alaska across four distinct vegetation communities formed by herbivory and local microtopography. Net CO2 flux was greatest …

Sagestep News, Winter 2016, No. 29, Sagestep

Newsletters

Seasonal newsletter of SageSTEP.

Northern Flicker - Biology And Damage Management, Nicki Frey, Steve Zanoni

All Current Publications

This fact sheet describes the northern flicker, a large woodpecker, It include how to identify it, sources of conflict with humans, and managing damage it may cause,

Multitaxon Distribution Models Reveal Severe Alteration In The Regional Biodiversity Of Freshwater Invertebrates, Charles P. Hawkins, Lester L. Yuan

Watershed Sciences Faculty Publications

Knowledge of current and historical conditions is needed to guide conservation and restoration policies, but such information is lacking for most taxa. This problem is especially severe for small, inconspicuous taxa, such as the thousands of invertebrate species that inhabit stream and other freshwater ecosystems. We describe a novel application of River Invertebrate Prediction and Classification System (RIVPACS)-type multitaxon distribution models that, when applied to the biological survey data routinely collected in support of water-quality monitoring programs, can quantify the regional biodiversity status of hundreds of taxa. We used models developed for 2 stream data sets (North Carolina and the …

Engaging Educational Professionals Towards Training The Next Generation Within The Food, Agricultural, And Natural Resources Career Areas, Tyson Sorensen

Funded Research Records

No abstract provided.

Buckhorn Plantain Control In Irrigated Pastures, Allan Sulser, Ralph Whitesides, Cory Ransom

All Current Publications

This fact sheet describes Buckhorn plantain, a weed with increasing significance in Utah. It includes a management options, and test plot observations and results.

Northern Utah Grass-Fed Beef Production Costs And Returns, 2016, Kynda Curtis, Trevor Knudsen

All Current Publications

This fact sheet is intended to be a guide used to make production decisions, determine potential returns, and prepare business and marketing plans.

Peaches In The Garden, Tiffany Maughan, Brent Black, Andrea Simondi

All Current Publications

This fact sheet describes peaches and includes recommended cultivars for Utah, how to grow them; pests and disease;, and harvest, storage and use information.

The Effects Of Rootstock, Scion, Grafting Method And Plant Growth Regulators On Flexural Strength And Hydraulic Resistance Of Apple, Stuart W. Adams

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Spring 1920 to Summer 2023

The apple rootstock ‘Geneva^® 41’ (‘G.41’), is desirable for its resistance to fire blight, Erwinia amylovora, while producing high yields. However, ‘G.41’ and other Geneva^® selections tend to form weak graft unions in the nursery that are susceptible to breaking in the wind, at harvest, or during shipment. In order to understand and remedy this graft union weakness, six scions (‘Fuji’, ‘Gala’, ‘Honeycrisp’, ‘McIntosh’, ‘Pink Lady’, and ‘Scilate’) by seven rootstocks (‘G.41’, ‘G.935’, ‘G.214’, ‘G.11’, ‘M.9-NIC 29’, ‘B.9’ and ‘EMLA 26’), by two grafting methods (chip bud and saddle graft) in a factorial design were tested for graft …

Agricultural Adaptation To Drought In The Sri Lankan Dry Zone, Emily Burchfield, Jonathan Gilligan

Environment and Society Faculty Publications

Droughts affect more people than any other natural disaster. Drought severity is not merely a function of precipitation; it emerges from a web of interrelations between human and natural systems. The impacts of drought are equally complex, shifting across temporal scales, economic sectors, and regions. Even in regions with similar hydroclimatic characteristics, there is tremendous variation in the effects of drought. This study combines satellite imagery, geospatial data, and qualitative data to identify the multi-scalar factors that drive variations in agricultural responses to drought. We analyzed eleven years of remotely sensed imagery to identify agricultural areas in which cultivation occurred …

Can Low-Severity Fire Reverse Compositional Change In Montane Forests Of The Sierra Nevada, California, Usa?, Kendall M. L. Becker, James A. Lutz

Wildland Resources Faculty Publications

Throughout the Sierra Nevada, nearly a century of fire suppression has altered the tree species composition, forest structure, and fire regimes that were previously characteristic of montane forests. Species composition is fundamentally important because species differ in their tolerances to fire and environmental stressors, and these differences dictate future forest structure and influence fire regime attributes. In some lower montane stands, shade-tolerant, fire-sensitive species have driven a threefold increase in tree density that may intensify the risk of high-severity fire. In upper montane forests, which were historically characterized by longer fire return intervals, the effects of fire exclusion are both …

Characterization Of The Substrate Interactions And Regulation Of Protein Arginine Methyltransferase, Yalemi Morales

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Spring 1920 to Summer 2023

Protein arginine methylation is a posttranslational modification catalyzed by the family of proteins known as the protein arginine methyltransferases (PRMTs). Thousands of methylated arginines have been found in mammalian cells. Many targets of arginine regulation are involved in important cellular processes like transcription, RNA transport and processing, translation, cellular signaling, and DNA repair. Since PRMT dysregulation has been linked to a variety of disease states, understanding how the activity of the PRMTs is regulated is of paramount importance. PRMT1 is the predominant PRMT, responsible for about 85% of all arginine methylation in cells, but very little is known about how …

Oocyte Quality: Molecular Constituents Altered In The Oocyte Due To Various Environmental Factors, Lindsay Cox

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Spring 1920 to Summer 2023

An estimated 1.6 million American couples struggle with infertility. Some causes for poor fertility can be clearly defined but in many instances, subfertility is unexplained. Poor oocyte quality is now considered to be a main contributing factor for many causes of infertility. Good oocyte quality is crucial for many processes including embryo development and maintaining pregnancy. There is a possibility that any alterations to the oocyte can have long lasting effects on embryo development and the health of the offspring. The oocyte is very sensitive to any perturbations to its surrounding environment. Transcripts for apoptosis inhibitors and epigenetic modifiers were …

The Regeneration Of Aspen Stands In Southern Utah, Justin Britton, Justin Derose, Karen Mock, Darren Mcavoy

All Current Publications

This fact sheet describes research conducted at Utah State University that identified factors to improve the success of regenerating aspen in southern Utah. Evaluating past silvicultural regeneration treatments indicated that the presence of pre-harvest advance reproduction, site preparation by broadcast burning, and decreasing browsing pressure could increase the quantity of aspen regeneration. The outcomes are generalized into an easy-to-use model, the Aspen Pyramid, to facilitate decision-making regarding regenerating aspen.

Southern Utah Grass-Fed Beef Production Costs And Returns, 2016, Kynda Curtis, Trevor Knudsen

All Current Publications

This fact sheet is intended to be a guide used to make production decisions, determine potential returns, and prepare business and marketing pans.

Red Yucca (Hesperaloe Parvifolia) Use In Utah, Michael Caron, Taun Beddes

All Current Publications

This fact sheet describes Red yucca and its use in the landscape, including planting, care, and maintenance, varieties, and diseases and pests.

Ncer Assistance Agreement Annual Progress Report For Grant #83582401 - Assessment Of Stormwater Harvesting Via Manage Aquifer Recharge (Mar) To Develop New Water Supplies In The Arid West: The Salt Lake Valley Example, Ryan Dupont, Joan E. Mclean, Richard C. Peralta, Sarah E. Null, Douglas B. Jackson-Smith

Civil and Environmental Engineering Faculty Publications

The aims of the original proposed project remain the same, that is, to test the hypothesis that Managed Aquifer Recharge (MAR) for stormwater harvesting is a technically feasible, socially and environmentally acceptable, economically viable, and permittable option for developing new water supplies for arid Western urban ecosystems experiencing increasing population, and climate change pressures on existing water resources. The project is being carried out via three distinct but integrated components that include: 1) Monitoring of existing distributed Managed Aquifer Recharge (MAR) harvesting schemes involving a growing number of demonstration Green Infrastructure (GI) test sites; 2) Integrated stormwater/vadose zone/groundwater/ ecosystem services …

Animating And Exploring Phylogenies With Fibre Plots, William D. Pearse

Biology Faculty Publications

Despite the progress that has been made in many other aspects of data visualisation, phylogenies are still represented in much the same way as they first were by Darwin. In this brief essay, I give a short review of what I consider to be some recent major advances, and outline a new kind of phylogenetic visualisation. This new graphic, the fibre plot, uses the metaphor of sections through a tree to describe change in a phylogeny. I suggest it is a useful tool in gaining an rapid overview of the timing and scale of diversification in large phylogenies.

Do We Need Demographic Data To Forecast Plant Population Dynamics?, Andrew T. Tredennick

Wildland Resources Faculty Publications

1. Rapid environmental change has generated growing interest in forecasts of future population trajectories. Traditional population models built with detailed demographic observations from one study site can address the impacts of environmental change at particular locations, but are difficult to scale up to the landscape and regional scales relevant to management decisions. An alternative is to build models using population-level data that are much easier to collect over broad spatial scales than individual-level data. However, it is unknown whether models built using population-level data adequately capture the effects of density-dependence and environmental forcing that are necessary to generate skillful forecasts.
2. Here, …

Importance Of Heat And Pressure For Solubilization Of Recombinant Spider Silk Proteins In Aqueous Solution, Justin A. Jones, Thomas I. Harris, Paula F. Oliveira, Brianne E. Bell, Abdulrahman Alhabib, Randolph V. Lewis

Biology Faculty Publications

The production of recombinant spider silk proteins continues to be a key area of interest for a number of research groups. Several key obstacles exist in their production as well as in their formulation into useable products. The original reported method to solubilize recombinant spider silk proteins (rSSp) in an aqueous solution involved using microwaves to quickly generate heat and pressure inside of a sealed vial containing rSSp and water. Fibers produced from this system are remarkable in their mechanical ability and demonstrate the ability to be stretched and recover 100 times. The microwave method dissolves the rSSPs with dissolution …

Effects Of Road And Land Use On Frog Distributions Across Spatial Scales And Regions In The Eastern And Central United States, David M. Marsh, Bradley J. Cosentino, Kara S. Jones, Joseph J. Apodaca, Karen H. Beard, Jane Margaret Bell, Christine Bozarth, Derrick Carper, Julie F. Charbonnier, Andreia Dantas, Elizabeth A. Forys, Miran Foster, Jaquelyn General, Kristen S. Genet, Macie Hanneken, Kyle R. Hess, Shane A. Hill, Faisal Iqbal, Nancy E. Karraker, Eran S. Kilpatrick, Tom A. Langen, James Langford, Kathryn Lauer, Alison J. Mccarthy, Joseph Neale, Saumya Patel, Austin Patton, Cherie Southwick, Nathaniel Stearrett, Nicholas Steijn, Mohammed Tasleem, Jospeh M. Taylor, James R. Vonesh

Wildland Resources Faculty Publications

Understanding the scales over which land use affects animal populations is critical for conservation planning, and it can provide information about the mechanisms that underlie correlations between species distributions and land use. We used a citizen science database of anuran surveys to examine the relationship between road density, land use and the distribution of frogs and toads across spatial scales and regions of the United States.

Different Prey Resources Suggest Little Competition Between Non-Native Frogs And Insectivorous Birds Despite Isotopic Niche Overlap, Robyn L. Smith, Karen H. Beard, Aaron B. Shiels

Wildland Resources Faculty Publications

Non-native amphibians often compete with native amphibians in their introduced range, but their competitive effects on other vertebrates are less well known. The Puerto Rican coqui frog (Eleutherodactylus coqui) has colonized the island of Hawaii, and has been hypothesized to compete with insectivorous birds and bats. To address if the coqui could compete with these vertebrates, we used stable isotope analyses to compare the trophic position and isotopic niche overlap between the coqui, three insectivorous bird species, and the Hawaiian hoary bat. Coquis shared similar trophic position to Hawaii amakihi, Japanese white-eye, and red-billed leiothrix. Coquis were about 3 ‰ …

Transcriptome Analysis Revealed The Dynamic Oil Accumulation In Symplocos Paniculata Fruit, Qiang Liu, Youping Sun, Jingzhen Chen, Peiwang Li, Genhua Niu, Lijuan Jiang, Changzhu Li

Plants, Soils, and Climate Faculty Publications

Background Symplocos paniculata, asiatic sweetleaf or sapphire berry, is a widespread shrub or small tree from Symplocaceae with high oil content and excellent fatty acid composition in fruit. It has been used as feedstocks for biodiesel and cooking oil production in China. Little transcriptome information is available on the regulatory molecular mechanism of oil accumulation at different fruit development stages. Results The transcriptome at four different stages of fruit development (10, 80,140, and 170 days after flowering) of S. paniculata were analyzed. Approximately 28 million high quality clean reads were generated. These reads were trimmed and assembled into 182,904 non-redundant …

How To Restore Phragmites-Invaded Wetlands, Christine Rohal, Keith Hambrecht, Chad Cranney, Karin M. Kettenring

UAES Publications

Phragmites grows in tall, dense stands that shade out native plants. It spreads rapidly and overtakes important habitat for shorebirds and waterfowl, reducing the availability of nesting, loafing, and foraging areas. Phragmites makes large areas of wetlands inaccessible to wildlife and humans alike.

Human Amplified Changes In Precipitation-Runoff Patterns In Large River Basins Of The Midwestern United States, Sara A. Kelly, Zeinab Takbiri, Patrick Belmont, Efi Foufoula-Georgiou

Watershed Sciences Faculty Publications

Complete transformations of land cover from prairie, wetlands, and hardwood forests to homogenous row crop agriculture scattered with urban centers are thought to have caused profound changes in hydrology in the Upper Midwestern US since the 1800s. Continued intensification of land use and drainage practices combined with increased precipitation have caused many Midwest watersheds to exhibit higher streamflows today than in the historical past. While changes in crop type and farming practices have been well documented over the past few decades, changes in artificial surface (ditch) and subsurface (tile) drainage systems have not. This makes it difficult to quantitatively disentangle …

Mapping Landscape Values Using Social Media, Lael Gilbert, Jordan W. Smith, Boris Van Zanten, Derek Van Berkel

All Current Publications

Social media data are providing scientists with a variety of new ways to examine how and why individuals value particular natural landscapes. In this fact sheet, we review cutting edge research that used millions of photos posted to Instagram, Flickr and Panaramio to examine which European landscapes individuals value most. The research is the first of its kind to use social media data to identify the public’s most valued landscapes across an entire continent. The research is also the first to compare the spatial agreement between geotagged imagery uploaded to different platforms.