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Spatiotemporal Variation Of Avian Populations Within Geographically Isolated Freshwater Marshes, Brian Rodenbeck
Spatiotemporal Variation Of Avian Populations Within Geographically Isolated Freshwater Marshes, Brian Rodenbeck
Electronic Theses and Dissertations
Metacommunity connectivity, i.e., multi-species dispersal events, is vital to metapopulation persistence in patchy landscapes. Assessments of metacommunity connectivity are not trivial. However, a relationship between trophic rank and the species-area relationship has been found in previous studies, allowing for the use of the predator species-area relationship to act as a surrogate measure of actual metacommunity connectivity of prey species in some systems. For this study, avian species were selected as they are generalist top predators within the study system. Predator species richness within geographically isolated freshwater marshes is influenced by a number of factors. I explore the relative roles of …
Effects Of Isolation On Metapopulation Dynamics In Small-World Networks, Alaina Brooke Bernard
Effects Of Isolation On Metapopulation Dynamics In Small-World Networks, Alaina Brooke Bernard
Electronic Theses and Dissertations
Simulation models are valuable for making predictions that may be tested in natural systems and for understanding observed patterns. The simulation model developed for this thesis evaluates the effects of spatial network architecture, including organism dispersal patterns and isolation of habitats, on metapopulations. Two fields were merged throughout this project: metapopulation biology and small-world network theory. Small-world networks are characterized in their extremes as scale-free or single-scale. These models potentially simulate the networks of habitats and corridors in which metapopulations operate. Small-world network theory has been used to describe systems as diverse as rivers, the world-wide-web, and protein interactions, but …