Life Sciences Commons^™

Citizen Science Reveals Widespread Negative Effects Of Roads On Amphibian Distributions, Bradley J. Cosentino, David M. Marsh, Kara S. Jones, Joseph J. Apodaca, Christopher Bates, Jessica Beach, Karen H. Beard, Kelsie Becklin, Jane Margaret Bell, Christopher Crockett, George Fawson, Jennifer Fjelsted, Elizabeth A. Forys, Kristen S. Genet, Melanie Grover, Jaimie Holmes, Katherine Indeck, Nancy E. Karraker, Eran S. Kilpatrick, Tom A. Langen, Stephen G. Mugel, Alessandro Molina, James R. Vonesh, Ryan J. Weaver, Anisha Willey

Wildland Resources Faculty Publications

Landscape structure is important for shaping the abundance and distribution of amphibians, but prior studies of landscape effects have been species or ecosystem-specific. Using a large-scale, citizen science-generated database, we examined the effects of habitat composition, road disturbance, and habitat split (i.e. the isolation of wetland from forest by intervening land use) on the distribution and richness of frogs and toads in the eastern and central United States. Undergraduates from nine biology and environmental science courses collated occupancy data and characterized landscape structure at 1617 sampling locations from the North American Amphibian Monitoring Program. Our analysis revealed that anuran species …

Drug Resistant Tuberculosis: Challenges Of Urbanization, Rumina Hasan

Department of Pathology and Laboratory Medicine

No abstract provided.

Assessing The Homogenization Of Urban Land Management With An Application To Us Residential Lawn Care, Colin Polsky, J. Morgan Grove, Chris Knudson, Peter M. Groffman, Neil D. Bettez, Jeannine Cavender-Bares, Sharon J. Hall, James B. Heffernan, Sarah E. Hobbie, Kelli L. Larson, Jennifer L. Morse, Christopher Neill, Kristen C. Nelson, Laura A. Ogden, Jarlath O'Neil-Dunne, Diane E. Pataki, Rinku Roy Chowdhury, Meredith K. Steele

Environmental Science and Management Faculty Publications and Presentations

Changes in land use, land cover, and land management present some of the greatest potential global environmental challenges of the 21st century. Urbanization, one of the principal drivers of these transformations, is commonly thought to be generating land changes that are increasingly similar. An implication of this multiscale homogenization hypothesis is that the ecosystem structure and function and human behaviors associated with urbanization should be more similar in certain kinds of urbanized locations across biogeophysical gradients than across urbanization gradients in places with similar biogeophysical characteristics. This paper introduces an analytical framework for testing this hypothesis, and applies the framework …

A Global Analysis Of The Impacts Of Urbanization On Bird And Plant Diversity Reveals Key Anthropogenic Drivers, Myla F.J. Aronson, Frank A. La Sorte, Charles H. Nilon, Madhusudan Katti, Mark A. Goddard, Christopher A. Lepczyk, Paige S. Warren, Nicholas S.G. Williams, Sarel Cilliers, Bruce Clarkson, Cynnamon Dobbs, Rebecca W. Dolan, Marcus Hedblom, Stefan Klotz, Jip Louwe Kooijmans, Ingolf Kühn, Ian Macgregor-Fors, Mark Mcdonnell, Ulla Mörtberg, Petr Pyšek, Stefan Siebert, Jessica Sushinsky, Peter Werner, Marten Winter

Scholarship and Professional Work - LAS

Urbanization contributes to the loss of the world's biodiversity and the homogenization of its biota. However, comparative studies of urban biodiversity leading to robust generalities of the status and drivers of biodiversity in cities at the global scale are lacking. Here, we compiled the largest global dataset to date of two diverse taxa in cities: birds (54 cities) and plants (110 cities). We found that the majority of urban bird and plant species are native in the world's cities. Few plants and birds are cosmopolitan, the most common beingColumba livia and Poa annua. The density of bird and …

The Environmental Condition Of Tan Brook And Campus Pond, A Community And University Concern, Marita Clay, Robert F. Smith

Research

Small streams have the unfortunate ability to be greatly impacted by human intervention. Civilizations for centuries have attempted to alter the natural state of their environment, and Amherst's own Tan Brook is a local example of the consequences of human alterations on a stream. The brook flows over and under what many local citizens call home, and where many UMass students go to learn. A healthier Tan Brook would be expected to provide for improvement of ecosystem services such as flood control and nutrient processing, resulting in a cleaner campus pond and a better connection between the stream and the …

Qualitative And Comparative Analysis Of Stormwater Management In The Tan Brook Watershed, Natalia Von Hausen, Robert F. Smith

Research

The Tan Brook Watershed is both a daylighted and diverted underground stream that runs through the Town Center of Amherst and the campus of UMass Amherst. Various stormwater management practices have been used to infiltrate stormwater runoff from streets, lots, buildings and/or vehicles. These systems are custom-designed relative to the surrounding permeability of the soil, vegetation and geographical topography. Some systems have higher success rates than others.

Beta Diversity Of Urban Floras Among European And Non-European Cities, Frank A. La Sorte, Myla F.J. Aronson, Nicholas S.G. Williams, Laura Celesti-Grapow, Sarel Cilliers, Bruce D. Clarkson, Rebecca W. Dolan, Andrew Hipp, Stefan Klotz, Ingolf Kühn, Pter Pyšek, Stefan Siebert, Marten Winter

Scholarship and Professional Work - LAS

Aim- Cities represent an ideal study system for assessing how intensive land-use change and biotic interchange have altered beta diversity at broad geographic extents. Here we test the hypothesis that floras in cities located in disparate regions of the globe are being homogenized by species classified as invasive (naturalized species that have spread over a large area) or as a European archaeophyte (species introduced into Europe before ad 1500 from the Mediterranean Basin). We also test the prediction that the global influences of European activities (colonization, agriculture, commerce) have supported this outcome.

Location- One hundred and ten cities …

Vcu's Green Richmond Research, Nadia Rentia

AUCTUS: The Journal of Undergraduate Research and Creative Scholarship

The impact of urbanization on the dogwood tree was the VCU junior Kaitlyn Parkman’s focus as she researched hundreds of trees in Richmond.