Life Sciences Commons^™

Evapotranspiration And Energy Balance Of Irrigated Urban Turfgrass, Matthew D. Miksch

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Spring 1920 to Summer 2023

Water usage for irrigation is a big consumer of water resources in urban areas in Utah and other parts of the Intermountain Region of the Western United States. As populations continue to increase in these states, it is important to understand how much water is being used by urban landscapes in order to plan and manage future water resources. Evapotranspiration (ET), or the amount of water leaving a surface over a certain timeframe due to both transpiration from plants and evaporation from the soil, is a key variable in understanding how much water urban landscapes are really using to grow …

Quantifying Floral Resource Availability Using Unmanned Aerial Systems And Machine Learning Classifications To Predict Bee Community Structure, Jesse Anjin Tabor

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Spring 1920 to Summer 2023

Bees are important for agricultural and non-agricultural ecosystems because they pollinate both wild plants and commercial crops. Flowers provide pollen and nectar resources that bees use to survive and reproduce. Measuring the relationship between the floral community and bee community may help apiarists and land managers to make informed decisions in managing wild and domesticated bee species. Manual methods to describe and count flowering vegetation is costly in time and personnel. Unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) technology may be an efficient way to describe and count flowering vegetation on a large scale. UAVs with classification analysis and ground transect surveys were …

Influences Of Forest Edges On The Growth And Health Of Old-Growth Coast Redwood Forests, Cody R. Dangerfield

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Spring 1920 to Summer 2023

Coast redwood (Sequoia sempervirens) is the tallest species in the world, frequently attaining heights greater than 300 ft. The unique characteristics of the redwoods has led to the establishment of several preservation areas including national and state parks. However, abrupt forests edges created by previous logging and landcover changes has left the remaining stands exposed to elevated temperature, sunlight, and wind intensities, thereby making redwoods along the forest edge more susceptible to windthrow and drought stress. Despite the rarity of old-growth coast redwood forests and their ecological and cultural significance, very few studies have investigated how forests edges …

Interactions Between Fire Severity And Forest Biota In The Central Sierra Nevada: Formation And Impact Of Small-Scale Fire Refugia And The Effect Of Fire On Forest Structure Predictive Of Fisher (Pekania Pennanti) Den Habitat, Erika M. Blomdahl

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Spring 1920 to Summer 2023

Fire is a natural and essential component of forests in western North America. Fire maintains biodiversity through the creation of different habitat types, and regular fire rotations reduce the accumulation of woody fuels and thick understory plant densities that give rise to catastrophic fire. The practice of fire exclusion has altered western forests and increased the risk of widespread change under rising temperatures projected for the 21^st century. To manage for the reintroduction of fire it is critical that we understand the interactions between fire and forest biota in recently fire-suppressed forests.

In Chapter 2, I studied the formation …

Using Biophysical Geospatial And Remotely Sensed Data To Classify Ecological Sites And States, Carson A. Stam

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Spring 1920 to Summer 2023

Within the Intermountain West, vast expanses of big sagebrush shrubland and steppe are considered emblems of the western range. Currently, there are approximately 60 million hectares of big sagebrush within the 11 western states, four million of which are in the state of Utah. However, the historic distribution of sagebrush has been impacted by conversion to other types of land cover through juniper encroachment, urbanization, invasive weeds, and agricultural expansion. In Utah alone, big sagebrush communities have been reduced to approximately 55% of their historic extent. A primary and current example of the cumulative impact of big sagebrush loss is …