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Articles 1 - 4 of 4
Full-Text Articles in Ecology and Evolutionary Biology
Understanding Patterns And Drivers Of Alaskan Fire-Regime Variability Across Spatial And Temporal Scales, Tyler J. Hoecker
Understanding Patterns And Drivers Of Alaskan Fire-Regime Variability Across Spatial And Temporal Scales, Tyler J. Hoecker
Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers
Boreal forest and tundra ecosystems are globally important because the mobilization of large carbon stocks, and changes in energy balance could act as positive feedbacks to ongoing climate warming. In Alaska, wildfire is a key driver of ecosystem structure and function, and therefore fire strongly determines the feedbacks between high-latitude ecosystems and the larger Earth system. The paleoecological record from Alaska reveals the sensitivity of fire regimes to climatic and vegetation change over centennial to millennial time scales, highlighting increased burning with warming and/or increased landscape flammability associated with large-scale vegetation changes. This thesis focuses on two studies aimed at …
Coupling Biophysical Complexity And Forest Metabolism In A Floodplain Landscape, Peter Davis
Coupling Biophysical Complexity And Forest Metabolism In A Floodplain Landscape, Peter Davis
Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers
Floodplains are biophysically complex systems that are considered among the most productive and biodiverse ecosystems on Earth. Until recently, quantitative assessment of the relationship between complexity and terrestrial production has been constrained by technological limitation. To address how floodplain biophysical complexity and ecosystem function are related, I employed remote sensing, GIS, and spatial analyses to quantify and couple metrics of complexity and terrestrial production, as well as explore the relationship among complexity, vegetation structural diversity, and terrestrial primary productivity. The study site is a 6.75-km by 1.75-km portion of the Bitterroot River floodplain near Carlton, MT upon which 551 sample …
Response Of Amphibian And Invertebrate Communities To Wetland Mitigation In The Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem, Leah K. Swartz
Response Of Amphibian And Invertebrate Communities To Wetland Mitigation In The Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem, Leah K. Swartz
Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers
Wetlands play a critical role in supporting freshwater biodiversity and ecosystem services, but human activities have resulted in large-scale loss and degradation of these habitats across the globe. To offset the decline of wetland area, mitigation wetlands are now frequently constructed, but their ability to replace the functions of natural habitats, including providing habitat for native fauna, remains uncertain. A recent highway reconstruction project in northwestern Wyoming caused impacts to and the destruction of multiple natural wetlands. To mitigate this loss, new wetlands were constructed along the highway corridor. To evaluate the performance of these created wetlands relative to reference …
Assessing Stream Channel Restoration: The Phased Recovery Framework, Jacob M. Dyste
Assessing Stream Channel Restoration: The Phased Recovery Framework, Jacob M. Dyste
Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers
Channel reconfiguration projects command a large portion of stream restoration resources, while long-term monitoring and research is severely underfunded and rarely implemented. This has led to a limited knowledge base about ecological response and efficacy. Although channel reconfiguration projects are being implemented to restore biological function to lotic systems, the document responses are highly variable and little evidence has shown these projects are reaching their target goals. I predicted the inconsistent response to these projects is the result of disturbance-induced successional processes and catchment-scale water quality impairment. To address how these endogenous and exogenous factors influence stream response to channel …