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Full-Text Articles in Biology
Relating Occupancy Patterns To Multi-Life-History Scales For Pond-Breeding Anurans In Eastern Virginia, Patrick A. Hardner
Relating Occupancy Patterns To Multi-Life-History Scales For Pond-Breeding Anurans In Eastern Virginia, Patrick A. Hardner
Undergraduate Honors Theses
Amphibians are experiencing population declines worldwide due to a multitude of factors, including habitat loss. Therefore, assessments of breeding habitat occupancy are important to determine which environmental characteristics are crucial for conservation of amphibians. While most research assesses habitat conditions at the breeding site (i.e., pond or wetland), for many species this misrepresents annual habitat use as many migrate to terrestrial habitats once breeding is completed. To provide a comprehensive assessment of annual habitat use, we evaluated how anuran (i.e., frog and toad) breeding site occupancy related to three life-history scales: breeding, migration and dispersal. Basically, the three scales define …
Carrying Capacity Of Cultured Bivalves In Cherrystone Inlet, Va, And The Implications Of Spatial Distribution And Environmental Change, Sophia Chirico
Carrying Capacity Of Cultured Bivalves In Cherrystone Inlet, Va, And The Implications Of Spatial Distribution And Environmental Change, Sophia Chirico
Undergraduate Honors Theses
Aquaculture is a growing industry internationally. In the United States, aquaculture of bivalves occurs throughout the Chesapeake Bay. Cherrystone Inlet, a tidal inlet on the Virginia Eastern Shore, is the location of intensive hard clam culture, and recently oyster aquaculture has become common there as well. Given the intensive culture in Cherrystone and similar systems in the Chesapeake, it is important to understand the carrying capacity of the respective bivalves and how they can be grown together. Carrying capacity is defined here as the largest population of individuals that can be supported that allows individuals to reach a harvestable size …
Intertidal Zonation Of Hemichordates In Soft Sediments, Kharis R. Schrage, Juselyn D. Tupik, Jonathan D. Allen
Intertidal Zonation Of Hemichordates In Soft Sediments, Kharis R. Schrage, Juselyn D. Tupik, Jonathan D. Allen
Arts & Sciences Articles
Intertidal zonation of organisms is well studied on rocky shores but less so in soft sediment communities. On rocky shores, communities are two dimensional, with biotic factors such as competition and predation setting the lower bound of a zone, whereas abiotic factors such as desiccation set the upper bound. In soft sediment communities, these patterns persist, but with a dynamic three-dimensional ecosystem occupied by mobile infaunal organisms, zonation can be more difficult to quantify and detect. Hemichordate worms, however, deposit fecal casts at the surface, which can be easily identified and counted, making them a potential model system for identifying …
Mysteries And Uncertainties In Tracing Cryptic Viral Infections, Melaina Jacoby
Mysteries And Uncertainties In Tracing Cryptic Viral Infections, Melaina Jacoby
Undergraduate Honors Theses
Viruses are the most abundant biological entities on Earth. Viral impacts are evident from the level of individual cells and population all the way up to ecosystems and global elemental cycles. Since bacteriophages (viruses that infect bacteria) were first identified in the early twentieth century, the study of these fascinating entities has shown how viral dynamics within ecosystems can influence microbially-mediated processes at a large scale. Viral infections can impact hosts and host-mediated processes in in multiple ways, one of which is through cryptic infections. This state, in which a bacterium may harbor a cryptic phage infection, is known as …
Differential Effects Of Bivalves On Sediment Nitrogen Cycling In A Shallow Coastal Bay, Ashley Smyth, Anna E. Murphy, Iris C. Anderson, Bk Song
Differential Effects Of Bivalves On Sediment Nitrogen Cycling In A Shallow Coastal Bay, Ashley Smyth, Anna E. Murphy, Iris C. Anderson, Bk Song
VIMS Articles
In coastal ecosystems, suspension-feeding bivalves can remove nitrogen though uptake and assimilation or enhanced denitrification. Bivalves may also retain nitrogen through increased mineralization and dissimilatory nitrate reduction to ammonium (DNRA). This study investigated the effects of oyster reefs and clam aquaculture on denitrification, DNRA, and nutrient fluxes (NOx, NH4 6 +, O2). Core incubations were conducted seasonally on sediments adjacent to restored oyster reefs (Crassostrea virginica), clam aquaculture beds (Mercenaria mercenaria) which contained live clams, and bare sediments from Smith Island Bay, Virginia, USA. Denitrification was significantly higher at oyster reef sediments and clam aquaculture site than bare sediment in …