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Full-Text Articles in Biology
Using Modeling To Investigate Factors Driving Avian Diversity In Urban Ecosystems, Clay Bliznick
Using Modeling To Investigate Factors Driving Avian Diversity In Urban Ecosystems, Clay Bliznick
Scholars Week
Anthropogenic influences have altered global landscapes considerably throughout the past two centuries, resulting in the decline of natural land cover types. Conversely, land cover types such as cropland and urban areas that are derived from human activities have experienced vast expansion. This landscape transition has serious implications for ecosystem services. To mitigate the loss of these services, it is necessary to maintain ecological integrity within these anthropogenically-influenced systems. Being able to support high biodiversity is an indicator of well-functioning ecosystems, thus quantifying biodiversity and assessing its contributing factors can be useful for developing management strategies in artificial environments. Our objective …
Morph- And Sex-Specific Differences In Corticosterone Of The Arizona Tiger Salamander (Ambystoma Mavortium Nebulosum), Megan Zerger
Morph- And Sex-Specific Differences In Corticosterone Of The Arizona Tiger Salamander (Ambystoma Mavortium Nebulosum), Megan Zerger
Scholars Week
Life history morph, sex, and body condition are traits that may influence stress within salamander populations because of differences in physiology and environmental conditions. Given widespread declines and the effects chronic stress can have on amphibian health, it is important to understand within-population drivers of stress and how population level variation may influence population viability. Thus, the objective of our study was to assess how corticosterone varies within the Arizona tiger salamander (Ambystoma mavortium nebulosum) population at the Mexican Cut Nature Preserve. We used a non-invasive skin swabbing method to collect baseline and elevated corticosterone from paedomorph (aquatic …
Examining The Relationship Between Climate And Seasonal Stream Thermal Regimes In A High Desert Ecosystem, Hannah Moore, Melody Feden
Examining The Relationship Between Climate And Seasonal Stream Thermal Regimes In A High Desert Ecosystem, Hannah Moore, Melody Feden
Scholars Week
Climate change is negatively affecting ecosystems around the world, and in the coming years, scientists predict that these changes will only intensify and accelerate. In the western mountains of North America, climate change projections predict elevated temperatures, reduced snowpack, and earlier snowmelt. Elevated air temperatures have the propensity to affect water temperatures in sensitive freshwater ecosystems. Temperature increases may cause streams to reach the upper thermal limit for many aquatic organisms, such as aquatic invertebrates and fish, and result in death or dispersal for these organisms. This makes the availability of cold-water refugia in streams that much more important for …
Can Omnivores Mediate The Effects Of Degradation?, Hannah Moore
Can Omnivores Mediate The Effects Of Degradation?, Hannah Moore
Scholars Week
Omnivores feed at multiple trophic levels and have large effects on community structuring and stability. The magnitude and direction of such effects, whether omnivores stabilize or destabilize communities, remains unresolved. Shifts in omnivore diet and trophic position may be of particular importance to community stability in degraded habitats, where resources are sparse. For example, omnivores may reduce the severity and duration of community responses to degradationby dampening the effects of any disturbance-mediated trophic cascade. The relatively simple food webs of freshwater systems are ideal for studying trophic ecology, and in the western U.S., streams are heavily degraded by overgrazing, beaver …