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Full-Text Articles in Life Sciences
Are Rising Seas Pushing Ghost Crabs Out Of Their Comfort Zone?, Finn Gillette
Are Rising Seas Pushing Ghost Crabs Out Of Their Comfort Zone?, Finn Gillette
Honors Theses
Ghost crabs (Ocypode quadrata) can be found on sandy beaches bordering the western Atlantic Ocean. These semiterrestrial crustaceans are often found between the swash zone and the dunes on beaches. Dunes are critical refuges for ghost crabs during storms and extreme tide events. This makes them a useful indicator species for monitoring the effects of global warming-induced sea level rise on beach biota, as their distribution patterns among beach zones may correlate with shifts found in other species. Beach surveys conducted from 2015 onward assessed the population density of ghost crabs on beaches of Horry and Georgetown counties …
Changes In Ecosystem Processes And Functional Traits Over An Elevational Gradient, Tiana Issa
Changes In Ecosystem Processes And Functional Traits Over An Elevational Gradient, Tiana Issa
Honors Theses
Elevation gradients have been used to understand how climate change impacts various ecosystems processes by substituting distance across elevation with time, reflecting a previous, colder climate. To monitor the changes in soil organic carbon (SOC), plant community, and functional traits across time in the face of climate change, this study used space-for-time substitution to emulate a long-term study with elevational gradients and revisited the same gradient for nearly two decades to monitor elevational effects across time. With this research, I aim to answer the following questions: (1) How does elevation impact ecosystem processes and alpine plant traits? (2) How does …