Open Access. Powered by Scholars. Published by Universities.®

Ecology and Evolutionary Biology Commons™

Open Access. Powered by Scholars. Published by Universities.®

Terrestrial and Aquatic Ecology

Institution
Keyword
Publication Year
Publication
Publication Type
File Type

Articles 121 - 150 of 6333

Full-Text Articles in Ecology and Evolutionary Biology

Managing The Legacy Of Historical Land Use In Central Appalachia: Soil Health, Carbon Storage, And Restoration Across Disturbed Ecosystems, Kyra R. Dukich Jan 2026

Managing The Legacy Of Historical Land Use In Central Appalachia: Soil Health, Carbon Storage, And Restoration Across Disturbed Ecosystems, Kyra R. Dukich

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports (ETD)

Historical mining, intensive timber harvesting, agriculture, and atmospheric acid deposition have left lasting impacts on soil health throughout the Central Appalachian region, reducing soil productivity, carbon storage, and ecosystem resilience. This thesis evaluated restoration strategies across two long-term research systems in West Virginia to determine how land-use history and soil amendments influence soil health, carbon dynamics, and ecosystem recovery. The first study examined reclaimed mine lands and marginal agricultural soils planted with switchgrass (Panicum virgatum) or willow (Salix spp.) and treated with biochar or inorganic fertilizer. Soil greenhouse gas production, aggregate stability, total soil C:N, pH, and soil organic matter …

Go to article

Examining Drivers Of Brook Trout (Salvelinus Fontinalis) Fecundity And Recruitment In Central Appalachian Headwater Streams, Emilee Esther Briggs Jan 2026

Examining Drivers Of Brook Trout (Salvelinus Fontinalis) Fecundity And Recruitment In Central Appalachian Headwater Streams, Emilee Esther Briggs

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports (ETD)

The persistence of fish populations depends on the repeated production and survival of new year classes, also referred to as recruitment. Recruitment is broadly defined as the number of individuals in a fish population or stock that survive to a specific stage. However, the broader recruitment process reflects the cumulative outcome of many earlier life stages, including egg survival, fry emergence, and survival through the recruitment period. As a result, recruitment can vary substantially among years and populations, producing strong or weak year classes that influence population abundance and persistence. Understanding why recruitment varies is therefore central to fisheries ecology …

Go to article

Using Side Looking Hydroacoustics And Community Size Spectra To Assess Invasive Carp’S Impact On Fish Assemblage Integrity, Daniel Jacob Bryan Jan 2026

Using Side Looking Hydroacoustics And Community Size Spectra To Assess Invasive Carp’S Impact On Fish Assemblage Integrity, Daniel Jacob Bryan

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports (ETD)

Often accounting for over half of total fish biomass, invasive silver carp have dramatically reshaped the ecosystem of the Mississippi River and its tributaries. These high silver carp densities have been shown to affect native fish body condition, abundance, and community structure, highlighting the need for efficient methods to quantify silver carp’s effect on the native fish assemblage. Community size spectra (CSS) is a metric that quantifies fish assemblage body size structure based on the decrease in fish abundance with increasing size. To estimate silver carp’s effects on CSS in the Ohio River, side looking hydroacoustic monitoring was used alongside …

Go to article

To Flea Or Not To Flea: Abiotic And Biotic Factors Driving Flea Parasitism On Wild Deer Mice, Parker Todd, Angela Luis, Mike Kinsella Jan 2026

To Flea Or Not To Flea: Abiotic And Biotic Factors Driving Flea Parasitism On Wild Deer Mice, Parker Todd, Angela Luis, Mike Kinsella

Undergraduate Theses, Professional Papers, and Capstone Artifacts

Deer mice (Peromyscus maniculatus) are an abundant North American rodent and the primary reservoir for Sin Nombre virus (SNV), a hantavirus with a 30-40% case fatality rate in humans. While ectoparasites, such as fleas, are not considered vectors of SNV, their bites may indirectly affect the transmission of SNV by impacting host condition or immune function. These impacts could potentially lead to an increase in host susceptibility and/or an increase in viral shedding, yet there is still little knowledge on what influences flea parasitism on deer mice in western Montana. This study looks to examine how mouse sex, …

Go to article

The Sub-Lethal Effects Of Trematode Parasites On The Migratory Behavior Of Lesser Scaup (Aythya Affinis), Scott Alan Herman Jan 2026

The Sub-Lethal Effects Of Trematode Parasites On The Migratory Behavior Of Lesser Scaup (Aythya Affinis), Scott Alan Herman

Graduate Research Theses & Dissertations

The introduction of the invasive freshwater faucet snail (Bithynia tentaculata) and its associated parasites in the Upper Mississippi River and Great Lakes Region provides the opportunity to investigate how anthropogenic stressors impact the life history of lesser scaup (Aythya affinis) using the Mississippi Flyway. To understand the life histories and interactions between lesser scaup and faucet snails we examined historical records, research, and ecology textbooks. Our literature review identified critical knowledge gaps in lesser scaup literature surrounding population dynamics, reproduction, and migration. Specifically, the sub-lethal effects of invasive trematodes on the migratory behavior of lesser scaup in the Upper Mississippi …

Go to article

Parasite Party: Investigating Ecological Drivers Of Trematode Parasite Prevalence Across The Isles Of Shoals, Aimee D. Bousquet, April Blakeslee, Amy Fowler, David Buck Jan 2026

Parasite Party: Investigating Ecological Drivers Of Trematode Parasite Prevalence Across The Isles Of Shoals, Aimee D. Bousquet, April Blakeslee, Amy Fowler, David Buck

UNH URC Open (2026 and after)

Parasite Party: Investigating Ecological Drivers of Trematode Parasite Prevalence Across the Isles of Shoals

Go to article

Survival, Cause-Specific Mortality, Resource Selection, Movement Rates, And Population Dynamics Of White-Tailed Deer (Odocoileus Virginianus) In West Virginia, Usa, Brett P. Skelly Jan 2026

Survival, Cause-Specific Mortality, Resource Selection, Movement Rates, And Population Dynamics Of White-Tailed Deer (Odocoileus Virginianus) In West Virginia, Usa, Brett P. Skelly

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports (ETD)

White-tailed deer (Odocoileus virginianus) are one of the most culturally and economically important big game species in the United States. At the turn of the 20th century white-tailed deer were almost extirpated due to market hunting and unsustainable forestry practices that destroyed habitat. The creation of game laws that eliminated market hunting and created seasons and bag limits for deer hunting along with restocking efforts by sportsmen’s groups and state wildlife agencies aided in deer population recovery. These efforts have led to the abundant deer populations that are currently enjoyed by hunters and wildlife viewers. Deer populations require …

Go to article

An Assessment Of Disease Risks, Population Genetics, And Spatial Ecology Of Appalachian Cottontails (Sylvilagus Obscurus) And Snowshoe Hares (Lepus Americanus) In West Virginia, Usa, Madison Leigh Miller Jan 2026

An Assessment Of Disease Risks, Population Genetics, And Spatial Ecology Of Appalachian Cottontails (Sylvilagus Obscurus) And Snowshoe Hares (Lepus Americanus) In West Virginia, Usa, Madison Leigh Miller

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports (ETD)

Snowshoe hares (Lepus americanus) occupy a large range across the United States and Canada. While snowshoe hare populations are generally considered stable in the interior of their range, populations along range edges are experiencing declines, possibly driven by climate-related factors such as seasonal coat color mismatch. West Virginia represents one of the southernmost extents of the species’ range, yet little is known about the population genetic status or population sizes of snowshoe hares in the state. Appalachian cottontails (Sylvilagus obscurus) are another lagomorph species found in West Virginia. This species experienced a historical decline and currently …

Go to article

Macroinvertebrate Response To Two Highway Construction Projects In West Virginia, Brenden Nauman Jan 2026

Macroinvertebrate Response To Two Highway Construction Projects In West Virginia, Brenden Nauman

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports (ETD)

Highway development and construction are frequently required to provide efficient transportation for an increasing human population. Specific to the Appalachian region, highway development has been a major goal since the mid 1900’s, with the aim of promoting economic growth and ease of travel. While highways provide necessary services to humans, their construction and presence often impact nearby waterways through multiple mechanisms including sedimentation and urbanization. To understand the degree of impact, streams are often monitored using biological data, which can be used to quantify effects. In this work I used freshwater macroinvertebrate communities to monitor changes in stream health surrounding …

Go to article

Evaluating Species At Risk In Data-Limited Fisheries: A Productivity-Susceptibility Analysis For Marine Aquarium Fish, Gabrielle A. Baillargeon, Alice A. Wynn, Jemelyn Grace P. Baldisimo, Michael F. Tlusty, Andrew L. Rhyne Jan 2026

Evaluating Species At Risk In Data-Limited Fisheries: A Productivity-Susceptibility Analysis For Marine Aquarium Fish, Gabrielle A. Baillargeon, Alice A. Wynn, Jemelyn Grace P. Baldisimo, Michael F. Tlusty, Andrew L. Rhyne

Biological Sciences Faculty Publications

The marine aquarium trade (MAT) is a significant global industry harvesting millions of wild-caught, live coral reef fishes for public and private aquaria markets in the United States and Europe annually, while supporting fisher livelihoods in the Indo-Pacific. This diverse and species-rich trade is considered data-limited, creating barriers to quantifying the current and future socio-ecological sustainability of the fishery. We present a revised and expanded productivity–susceptibility analysis (PSA) that serves as a holistic risk assessment to estimate the vulnerability of marine aquarium fish to overfishing. Our global analysis includes 306 species that are actively in trade. Improvements to the PSA …

Go to article

Evaluating Benthic Macroinvertebrate Communities In Streamside Management Zones In Private, Working Forests, Haley Vaglienti Jan 2026

Evaluating Benthic Macroinvertebrate Communities In Streamside Management Zones In Private, Working Forests, Haley Vaglienti

College of Graduate Studies: Theses & Dissertations

Forestry operations can alter riparian vegetation and increase sediment and nutrient inputs to streams, affecting water quality and aquatic biota. Forestry best management practices (BMPs) including streamside management zones (SMZs) are designed to mitigate those effects by reducing sediment delivery and moderating temperature, flow, and nutrient regimes. We assessed ecological integrity at 24 intermittent stream sites with SMZs in private, working forests across the Piedmont and Southeastern plains of Georgia. At each site, we conducted physical habitat evaluations and characterized benthic macroinvertebrate assemblages. Sites represented a gradient of habitat conditions, SMZ widths, and pine stand ages, allowing for comparisons of …

Go to article

Compositional And Functional Shifts In Fish Community Structure In Response To Low-Head Dam Removals, Joshua D. Bruegge Jan 2026

Compositional And Functional Shifts In Fish Community Structure In Response To Low-Head Dam Removals, Joshua D. Bruegge

Masters Theses

Low-head dams serve as intermittent barriers to aquatic connectivity and directly alter both upstream and downstream habitats and biotic communities. In 2018 and 2019, two low-head dams in the Vermilion River watershed of eastern Illinois were removed, reconnecting over 1,700 kilometers of upstream habitat within the basin. To determine the impacts of these dam removals, fish community surveys were conducted at 12 fixed sites across three reaches in two rivers from 2012-2022. This study assessed reach-specific temporal responses of the fish community and habitat characteristics. I linked trait expressions within the fish community to abiotic variables using the co-inertia RLQ …

Go to article

Manatee Dock Sign Distribution And Its Influence On Publicly-Sourced Sighting Reports In Alabama, Daniela Payán Arias, Sophia C. Corde, Ruth H. Carmichael Jan 2026

Manatee Dock Sign Distribution And Its Influence On Publicly-Sourced Sighting Reports In Alabama, Daniela Payán Arias, Sophia C. Corde, Ruth H. Carmichael

Gulf and Caribbean Research

No abstract provided.

Go to article

Ecological Feedbacks In The Earth System, Eugene J. Murphy, Jessica J. Williams, Isla H. Myers-Smith, Vivienne P. Groner, David M. P. Jacoby, Lester Kwiatkowski, Jess Melbourne-Thomas, Emma Ransome, Cristina Banks-Leite, Laurent Bopp, Marion Gehlen, Eileen E. Hofmann, Babette Hoogakker, Nadine M. Johnston, Yadvinder Malhi, Emma L. Cavan Jan 2026

Ecological Feedbacks In The Earth System, Eugene J. Murphy, Jessica J. Williams, Isla H. Myers-Smith, Vivienne P. Groner, David M. P. Jacoby, Lester Kwiatkowski, Jess Melbourne-Thomas, Emma Ransome, Cristina Banks-Leite, Laurent Bopp, Marion Gehlen, Eileen E. Hofmann, Babette Hoogakker, Nadine M. Johnston, Yadvinder Malhi, Emma L. Cavan

CCPO Publications

Ecological feedbacks are fundamental features of the Earth system, affecting physical processes and chemical cycles. Our understanding of the interactions underlying these feedbacks at different spatial and temporal scales and the extent to which feedbacks affect Earth system functioning remains limited. Climate change and other anthropogenic pressures are already negatively affecting ecological processes in marine, freshwater, and terrestrial ecosystems. These will most likely be amplified in the coming decades under our current warming and socioeconomic pathways. The knock-on impacts on ecological feedbacks have the potential to cause rapid perturbations to the Earth system, and may significantly impact the structure and …

Go to article

Microbial Mats In Dinosaur Ichnocoenoses, Nora Noffke, Paul C. Murphy, Roger C. Buntin, Martin G. Lockley Jan 2026

Microbial Mats In Dinosaur Ichnocoenoses, Nora Noffke, Paul C. Murphy, Roger C. Buntin, Martin G. Lockley

OES Faculty Publications

Until now, the significance of microbial mats in preservation of dinosaur tracks and in reconstructing the palaeoenvironment in which dinosaurs roamed was rarely studied. Dinosaur tracks are commonly found close to ancient aquatic bodies where moist sediment had once allowed footstep registration. At such sites, epibenthic or endobenthic microbial mats may have developed as well and may have led to exquisite track preservation. Microbial mats in coastal, lacustrine or flood plain environments cause 'microbially induced sedimentary structures—MISS', which are micobialites found in sandy or evaporitic settings. The microbial structures record environmental parameters including meteorological conditions that existed at the time …

Go to article

Aquatic Macrophytes As Nature-Based Solutions: Challenges And Opportunities Across Inland And Coastal Waters, Morgan Botrel, Roxane Maranger, Lindsay L. Trottier, Mathieu Cusson, Lars L. Iverson, Fanny Noisette, Christian Nozais, Katrine Turgeon, Andrea Bertolo, Thibaud André-Alphonse, Simon Bélanger, Arthur De Grandpré, Jean-Olivier Goyette, Sabine Hilt, Ladd Johnson, Valérie Langlois, Martin Laporte, Félix Lauzon, Brigitte Légaré, Anne Ola, Marie-Pomme Presne-Poissant, Matthieu Prugne, Caroline Susini, Richard Zimmerman Jan 2026

Aquatic Macrophytes As Nature-Based Solutions: Challenges And Opportunities Across Inland And Coastal Waters, Morgan Botrel, Roxane Maranger, Lindsay L. Trottier, Mathieu Cusson, Lars L. Iverson, Fanny Noisette, Christian Nozais, Katrine Turgeon, Andrea Bertolo, Thibaud André-Alphonse, Simon Bélanger, Arthur De Grandpré, Jean-Olivier Goyette, Sabine Hilt, Ladd Johnson, Valérie Langlois, Martin Laporte, Félix Lauzon, Brigitte Légaré, Anne Ola, Marie-Pomme Presne-Poissant, Matthieu Prugne, Caroline Susini, Richard Zimmerman

OES Faculty Publications

Macrophytes are foundation species whose use as nature-based solution (NbS) in aquatic ecosystems can help reduce climate change impacts while mitigating biodiversity loss. The discrepancy in research and application of macrophytes as NbS across inland and marine coastal ecosystems is an opportunity to expand the concept and learn from different approaches. We report on an initiative uniting marine and freshwater scientists that compared knowledge on macrophytes as NbS across realms, identified advances and gaps in their use, and synthesized challenges and opportunities for application. We conducted a bibliometric analysis and an expert participatory exercise around recent review papers. We reveal …

Go to article

A Frog, A Toad, And A Salamander Walk Into A Forest: How Timber Harvest And Environmental Conditions Impact Amphibian Species Abundance In The White Mountain National Forest, William T. Brandenburg Jan 2026

A Frog, A Toad, And A Salamander Walk Into A Forest: How Timber Harvest And Environmental Conditions Impact Amphibian Species Abundance In The White Mountain National Forest, William T. Brandenburg

Honors Theses and Capstones

Balancing the needs of humans and wildlife is one of the primary goals of conservation. Understanding how species respond to resource extraction is essential to achieve long-term population stability. This is especially relevant for amphibians, which are particularly sensitive to environmental disturbances due to habitat loss and degradation. As such they are often used as indicator species. This study leverages 20-years of amphibian abundance data from surveys in different silvicultural treatments to understand how American toads (Anaxyrus americanus), wood frogs (Lithobates sylvaticus), and red-backed salamanders (Plethodon cinereus) respond to changes in forest structure, weather, …

Go to article

Current And Historical Occurrences Of Rare Coastal Plants In The Hampton Falls Salt Marshes, Liliana T. Chirichella Jan 2026

Current And Historical Occurrences Of Rare Coastal Plants In The Hampton Falls Salt Marshes, Liliana T. Chirichella

Honors Theses and Capstones

A botanical survey of two sites in the Hampton Falls saltmarshes was conducted to document the occurrences of a list of eleven endangered and threatened coastal plants listed in the Natural Heritage Bureau’s NH Rare Plant List. This survey was conducted in fulfillment of the NH Native Plant Protection Act to highlight and identify target species in an area where restorative runneling is to be implemented in order to restore proper hydrology and prevent further expansion of mega-pools in the Little River and Depot Road salt marsh sites, which have been subject to historical ditching and are a part of …

Go to article

Assessing The Diversity And Composition Of Crayfish Assemblages In The Ogeechee River Basin, Reginald Turner Jan 2026

Assessing The Diversity And Composition Of Crayfish Assemblages In The Ogeechee River Basin, Reginald Turner

College of Graduate Studies: Theses & Dissertations

Crayfish assemblage composition in the southeastern United States is understudied relative to other aquatic taxa, such as aquatic insects and fishes, and the Coastal Plain watersheds of that region are particularly underrepresented in the contemporary literature on this topic. For example, although 38% of the crayfish species in Georgia are considered “species of greatest conservation need,” most of the distributional data used to make these designations are outdated, with some dating back over 50 years. This thesis sought to update our understanding of the contemporary distributions of crayfish species within the Ogeechee River Basin (ORB), a watershed in southeastern Georgia …

Go to article

Toadally Not A Frog: A Neuromuscular Physiology Study, Iris Renna Jan 2026

Toadally Not A Frog: A Neuromuscular Physiology Study, Iris Renna

Williams Honors College, Honors Research Projects

Upper-level physiology labs in undergraduate education use freshly isolated bullfrog and/or leopard frog tissue to teach core concepts in nerve and muscle physiology. Sourcing live animals for routine educational use raises ethical and conservation concerns. Cane toads (Rhinella marina) are an invasive species that are routinely culled, can provide a potential source of laboratory animals which would remove pressure to native amphibian populations. This study tested the hypothesis that cane toads can serve as a functional substitute for bullfrogs and/or leopard frogs in the muscle and nerve physiology lab. Isolated sciatic nerve and gastrocnemius muscle preparations from cane …

Go to article

Aquatic Habitat Use By Western Toads And American Bullfrogs In California’S Central Valley: Effects Of Local Habitat Characteristics And Landscape Composition, Kaitlyn Breana Hernandez Jan 2026

Aquatic Habitat Use By Western Toads And American Bullfrogs In California’S Central Valley: Effects Of Local Habitat Characteristics And Landscape Composition, Kaitlyn Breana Hernandez

Cal Poly Humboldt theses and projects

Drastic losses of historic wetland habitat in the California Central Valley have caused widespread population declines and extirpations of aquatic breeding amphibians. Efforts to restore wetland habitat have included private land, which represents 70% of land tenure in the Central Valley. Management of these restored wetlands is focused on waterfowl with the assumption that they will provide habitat for native herpetofauna. This study used combined surveys to test the assumption that restored wetlands on private land provide habitat for native amphibians with the western toad (Anaxyrus boreas) as a case study. The objectives were to use environmental DNA …

Go to article

Early Successional Response To Stream Daylighting In Redwood National And State Parks, Orick, California, Rylee Rawson Jan 2026

Early Successional Response To Stream Daylighting In Redwood National And State Parks, Orick, California, Rylee Rawson

Cal Poly Humboldt theses and projects

In-channel stream restoration projects can act as both disturbance and recovery mechanisms, disrupting existing conditions to reestablish the hydrologic and ecological processes that sustain stream ecosystems. These interventions initiate successional trajectories in which channel form and biological communities reorganize over time. In Redwood National and State Parks (California, USA), the Redwoods Rising initiative restores buried headwater channels by recontouring legacy logging roads and daylighting streams buried by Humboldt crossings. Using the National Park Service Klamath Network wadable stream monitoring protocol, I evaluated nine restored reaches spanning one to five years post-restoration, alongside old-growth reference reaches and available pre-treatment data. I …

Go to article

Coho Salmon (Oncorhynchus Kisutch) Response To Habitat Restoration Through Space And Time: Monitoring Growth, Survival, And Movement In A Restored Habitat Network, Carter Perez Adamson Jan 2026

Coho Salmon (Oncorhynchus Kisutch) Response To Habitat Restoration Through Space And Time: Monitoring Growth, Survival, And Movement In A Restored Habitat Network, Carter Perez Adamson

Cal Poly Humboldt theses and projects

Despite the decline of coho salmon (Oncorhynchus kisutch), Prairie Creek, a tributary of Redwood Creek in northern California, remains a coho salmon stronghold. The restoration of juvenile coho rearing habitat was identified as a recovery objective in this watershed by the National Marine Fisheries Service. Among the restoration projects addressing this objective are an ongoing project on Prairie Creek and its tributary Skunk Cabbage Creek, and a prior effort on Strawberry Creek (a tributary of Redwood Creek’s estuary). Standard monitoring methods for assessing project success have limitations and may be improved by measuring salmon use of restored habitats …

Go to article

Integrating Multi-Method Monitoring To Characterize Seasonal Habitat Use Of Green Sturgeon (Acipenser Medirostris) In Humboldt County, California, Olivia S. Boeberitz Jan 2026

Integrating Multi-Method Monitoring To Characterize Seasonal Habitat Use Of Green Sturgeon (Acipenser Medirostris) In Humboldt County, California, Olivia S. Boeberitz

Cal Poly Humboldt theses and projects

Green sturgeon (Acipenser medirostris) are a long-lived, anadromous, iteroparous species that spawns in large West Coast North American rivers but ranges widely in the coastal ocean. For coastal California Native American Tribes, green sturgeon are a vital part of their cultural heritage and traditions, and central to their food security. Two genetically distinct population segments (DPSs) of green sturgeon are recognized in the United States, Canada, and Mexico; the southern DPS is listed as “threatened” under the Endangered Species Act and the northern DPS is considered of “conservation concern.” Although green sturgeon are known to use large estuaries …

Go to article

Multiple Burn And Forest Characteristics Affect Gray Fox (Urocyon Cinereoargenteus) Occurrence Following A California Megafire, Amida Zohar Verhey Jan 2026

Multiple Burn And Forest Characteristics Affect Gray Fox (Urocyon Cinereoargenteus) Occurrence Following A California Megafire, Amida Zohar Verhey

Cal Poly Humboldt theses and projects

In western North American forests, predator communities are faced with changing fire regimes and increased fire severity and size, particularly with megafires (>10,000 ha). As some wildlife communities may restructure following the loss of apex consumers, understanding post-fire space use of mid-trophic carnivores may inform species composition in these forests. I compared gray fox (Urocyon cinereoargenteus) occupancy in and around the 2021 Dixie Fire, the largest single-ignition fire in California state history, to examine which spatially variable burn and forest characteristics affected the space use of a widespread generalist mesopredator. Using 210 camera traps placed in 2023, …

Go to article

Does Fishery Management For Groupers (Teleostei: Epinephelidae) Protect Them Effectively? Context From The Iucn's Red List Of Threatened Species, Sean T. Fennessy, Christi Linardich, Kevin Rhodes, Joao P. Barreiros, David Pollard, Eloy Sosa-Cordero, Felicia Coleman, Alfonso Aguilar-Perera, Christopher R. Malinowski, Thierry Brulé, Pedro Afonso, Kayan Ma, Min Liu, Muktha Menon, Colin Wen, Stanley K. H. Shea, Sean N. Porter, Matthew Craig, Yvonne Sadovy De Mitcheson Jan 2026

Does Fishery Management For Groupers (Teleostei: Epinephelidae) Protect Them Effectively? Context From The Iucn's Red List Of Threatened Species, Sean T. Fennessy, Christi Linardich, Kevin Rhodes, Joao P. Barreiros, David Pollard, Eloy Sosa-Cordero, Felicia Coleman, Alfonso Aguilar-Perera, Christopher R. Malinowski, Thierry Brulé, Pedro Afonso, Kayan Ma, Min Liu, Muktha Menon, Colin Wen, Stanley K. H. Shea, Sean N. Porter, Matthew Craig, Yvonne Sadovy De Mitcheson

Biological Sciences Faculty Publications

Worldwide, groupers (Epinephelidae) are commercially valued fishes, which also play key ecological roles on tropical and subtropical reefs. In 2007 and 2016, the IUCN's Groupers and Wrasses Specialist Group assessed all 160+ grouper species, with 17 of these being identified as threatened in 2016 and the major threat factor being overexploitation. Our present study aimed to identify whether management measures (MMs) for previously assessed groupers were established, whether these measures aligned with IUCN's Red List categories, and whether they effectively protect grouper populations. Experts in grouper biology and management assigned scores per grouper species based on the extent to which …

Go to article

Chemical Load: An Unseen Herbicide Filter In Restored Prairies?, Rylie Franklin Jan 2026

Chemical Load: An Unseen Herbicide Filter In Restored Prairies?, Rylie Franklin

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Community Assembly Theory is a framework used to describe the process by which species from a regional species pool disperse and encounter various abiotic and biotic conditions that act as filters, limiting which species will populate a specific local community. Prairie restoration success can be improved by understanding abiotic and biotic filters. As agricultural practices have adopted integrated weed management plans, that include the use of both chemical and non-chemical techniques, another filter needs to be considered during restoration: the chemical load of soils, i.e., herbicide residue from recent on-site applications and herbicide drift from adjacent areas. To examine the …

Go to article

High Algal Biomass Is Decoupled From Metabolism In The Gallatin River, Cora Mae Steinbach Jan 2026

High Algal Biomass Is Decoupled From Metabolism In The Gallatin River, Cora Mae Steinbach

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

Assessing eutrophication in rivers is difficult compared to lakes and coastal waters, because most algal biomass occurs on the riverbed and flows interact and co-vary with production (Biggs and Close, 1989; Bernhardt et al., 2018). Riverine eutrophication is typically assessed using algal biomass and water column nutrients (U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, 2000), but biomass is highly variable and labor-intensive to measure, while nutrient concentrations often underestimate enrichment due to rapid biological uptake (Dodds and Smith, 2016). Reach-scale river metabolism can help evaluate long-term functional change in rivers recovering from nutrient enrichment (Arroita et al., 2019; Jankowski et al., 2021; Diamond …

Go to article

Surveillance Of A Novel Vesivirus Discovered In An Urban Mephitis Mephitis Population, Amanda E. Diggins Jan 2026

Surveillance Of A Novel Vesivirus Discovered In An Urban Mephitis Mephitis Population, Amanda E. Diggins

Honors Theses and Capstones

Caliciviridae is a family of non-enveloped, positive-sense, single stranded RNA viruses, including eleven defined genera that contain important pathogens of humans and animals. Within the Caliciviridae family, the genus Vesiviridae includes feline calicivirus, a leading cause of upper respiratory disease in cats, and vesicular exanthema of swine virus, a historical disease of domestic swine that has now been implicated in several marine mammal vesicular diseases, one of which has been confirmed zoonotic. Urban landscapes create a unique environment for rapid intra- and interspecies transmission of viruses. Clustered resources attract high-density populations of synanthropic wildlife species, increasing spatial overlap and heightening …

Go to article

Investigating Microbe-Mediated Temperature Tolerance In Lemna Minor, Matthew Thomas Farbaniec Jan 2026

Investigating Microbe-Mediated Temperature Tolerance In Lemna Minor, Matthew Thomas Farbaniec

Honors Theses and Capstones

Temperature limits plant growth and survival more than many other environmental variables, and increases in the frequency of extreme hot or cold weather events pose significant challenges for plant growth and crop yields. Previous studies have shown that bacteria, fungi, and other microorganisms associated with plants ( i.e., the plant microbiome) can influence host response to temperature stress. These same microbes have their own temperature tolerances. We investigated whether microbial temperature tolerance correlates with plant resilience using an aquatic plant model, Lemna minor, and isolates derived from its microbiome. Microbial isolates were assessed at −10°C, 4°C, and 32°C for …

Go to article

First Prev Next Last