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Full-Text Articles in Ecology and Evolutionary Biology

Direct And Indirect Effects Of Climate On Bird Abundance Along Elevation Gradients In The Northern Appalachians, Timothy Duclos Oct 2017

Direct And Indirect Effects Of Climate On Bird Abundance Along Elevation Gradients In The Northern Appalachians, Timothy Duclos

Masters Theses

The stratification of bird species along elevational gradients is widely reported, with montane bird communities typically characterized by distinctive species occurring in relatively small and isolated populations; as such, these species are the subject of considerable interest to ecologists and conservationists. The stratification of species along elevation is largely attributed to compressed climatic zonation. Recent evidence that bird species are shifting up in elevation has fueled speculation that these species are tracking their climactic niches in response to climate change. However, there is also evidence plant communities are shifting in elevation, presenting a potential additional mechanism explaining changes observed in …


Processing Conservation Indicators With Open Source Tools: Lessons Learned From The Digital Observatory For Protected Areas, Lucy Bastin, Andrea Mandrici, Luca Battistella, Grégoire Dubois Sep 2017

Processing Conservation Indicators With Open Source Tools: Lessons Learned From The Digital Observatory For Protected Areas, Lucy Bastin, Andrea Mandrici, Luca Battistella, Grégoire Dubois

Free and Open Source Software for Geospatial (FOSS4G) Conference Proceedings

The European Commission has a commitment to open data and the support of open source software and standards. We present lessons learnt while populating and supporting the web and map services that underly the Joint Research Centre's Digital Observatory for Protected Areas. Challenges include: large datasets with highly complex geometries; topological inconsistencies, compounded by reprojection for equal-area calculations; multiple different representations of the same geographical entities, for example coastlines; licensing requirement to continuously update indicators to respond to monthly changes in the authoritative data. In order to compute and publish an array of indicators, we used a range of open …


The Effects Of Anthropogenic Stress On Nitrogen-Cycling Microbial Communities In Temperate And Tropical Soils, George S. Hamaoui Jr. Jul 2017

The Effects Of Anthropogenic Stress On Nitrogen-Cycling Microbial Communities In Temperate And Tropical Soils, George S. Hamaoui Jr.

Doctoral Dissertations

In this dissertation several research studies are discussed that characterize the effects of anthropogenic, or human-induced, stress on both ammonia-oxidizing and total bacterial soil microbial communities. The disturbances of land-use change in tropical, South American rainforests and artificial warming and nitrogen (N) fertilization in temperate, North American forests were investigated as these disturbances represent past and current disturbances caused by human landscape alteration and climate change. Initially, the response of soil ammonia-oxidizing microbial communities to land-use change from primary rainforest to pasture and, finally, back to secondary forest was determined. Next, these analyses of land-use change effects were expanded to …


Methods For Incorporating Ecological Impacts With Climate Uncertainty To Support Robust Flood Management Decision-Making, Caitlin M. Spence Mar 2017

Methods For Incorporating Ecological Impacts With Climate Uncertainty To Support Robust Flood Management Decision-Making, Caitlin M. Spence

Doctoral Dissertations

Modern and historic flood risk management involves accommodating multiple sources of sources of uncertainty and potential impacts across a broad range of interrelated sectors. Sources of uncertainty that affect planning include internal climate variability, anthropogenic changes such as land use and system performance expectations, and more recently changes in climatology that affect the resources supporting the system. Flood management systems potentially impact human settlements within and beyond the systems’ scope of planning, local weather patterns, and associated ecological systems. Federal guidelines across nations have called for greater consideration of uncertainty and impacts of water resources planning projects, but methods for …


Spatial Ecology Of Black Bears (Ursus Americanus) In Newfoundland, Canada, Nathaniel D. Rayl Mar 2017

Spatial Ecology Of Black Bears (Ursus Americanus) In Newfoundland, Canada, Nathaniel D. Rayl

Doctoral Dissertations

Although black bears (Ursus americanus) are among the most studied mammals in the world, little is known about their ecology in Newfoundland, Canada. I investigated the spatial ecology of black bears on the island, focusing on unusual movements during the denning period and their role as caribou (Rangifer tarandus) calf predators. I investigated the influence of climatic conditions (rainfall) and anthropogenic disturbance on the rate of den abandonment for black bears in Newfoundland, a population with an unusually high rate of abandonment given its northern latitude. I found no evidence that rainfall or anthropogenic disturbance played …