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Full-Text Articles in Ecology and Evolutionary Biology
Dust Storms And The Dispersal Of Aquatic Invertebrates In The Chihuahuan Desert Ecoregion, Jose Rivas Jr.
Dust Storms And The Dispersal Of Aquatic Invertebrates In The Chihuahuan Desert Ecoregion, Jose Rivas Jr.
Open Access Theses & Dissertations
The Chihuahuan Desert surrounding El Paso, Texas is one of the most intense sources of dust in the Western Hemisphere. Within this vast desert are ephemeral wetlands with micrometazoan propagules contained within their sediment egg banks. Dispersal of aquatic microinvertebrates between habitats is vital for the success of their populations. Passive dispersal of the propagules provides an escape mechanism from unfavorable conditions. Upon desiccation of these habitats, windstorms can potentially transport propagules mixed within entrained sediments across regional scales. To study this process, I collected falling sediment from 91 windstorms, with 59 samples collected at the University of Texas at …
Movement Ecology Of A Cryptic Ambush Predator: Integrating Radio Telemetry And Tri-Axial Accelerometry To Evaluate Spatial Strategies And Activity Patterns By Western Diamond-Backed Rattlesnakes (Crotalus Atrox), Dominic L. Desantis
Open Access Theses & Dissertations
An animal's decision to move from one location to another within its environment is determined by a complex blend of internal and external factors. Teasing apart the relative roles of specific variables in this web of interacting mechanisms has been a long-standing challenge in animal movement ecology. Historically, this problem was viewed as a sort of black box for which a myriad of methodological limitations precluded rigorous study. Recently, a diversity of animal-borne transmitters and dataloggers (i.e., bio-loggers) have circumvented many of these traditional limitations and transformed field studies of animal movement, behavior, and physiology - in some cases, allowing …
Deciduous Shrub Encroachment Effects On Tundra Soil Properties, Daniela Aguirre
Deciduous Shrub Encroachment Effects On Tundra Soil Properties, Daniela Aguirre
Open Access Theses & Dissertations
Deciduous shrub abundance is increasing in tundra ecosystems as an effect of rising temperatures which may change tundra physical properties and, in turn, microbial communities and biogeochemical processes. Two mechanisms through which shrub presence may affect tundra ecosystems were examined in this study; the physical presence of the shrubs and effects of increasing shrub litter inputs. In a sub-arctic alpine tundra ecosystem, dominated by the deciduous shrub Betula glandulosa, both shrub presence (shrub present and removed) and litter quantity (no litter/litter removed, ambient litter, and twice ambient litter) were manipulated; multiple ecosystem properties where measured within the treatment plots over …