Other Ecology and Evolutionary Biology Commons^™

Redescription And Phylogenetic Analysis Of The Materials Assigned To The Taxon "Captorhinikos" Chozaensis, Jason Paul Jung

Electronic Theses, Projects, and Dissertations

“Captorhinikos” chozaensis is a multiple-tooth-rowed captorhinid reptile from the Lower Permian Clear Fork Group, undivided formation. Upon re-examination of the materials associated with the species from both the Chicago Field Museum of Natural History, and the Smithsonian United States National Museum, I reaffirm their affinity and collective identity as a valid taxon. “Captorhinikos” chozaensis does not, however, belong with either of the two members of its genus, C. valensis or “C.” parvus, instead occupying its own branch on the phylogenetic tree of the Captorhinidae. This conclusion is based in strong results from a combined phylogenetic parsimony analysis combined with …

The Tensile Root Strength Of Emergent Coastal Macrophytes, Lauris Olivia Hollis

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

Spartina patens is a dominant emergent macrophyte in fresh, intermediate, and brackish marshes along the Atlantic and Gulf coasts of United States where its biomechanical properties are a key component of wetland health and resilience. Its root biomass and tensile root strength are essential for anchorage, erosion protection, and are important determinants of soil strength. Nutrients and the herbicide atrazine are suspected of negatively impacting this wetland plant and others. The objectives of this study were to: 1) ascertain the tensile root strength of five emergent coastal macrophytes in coastal estuaries, and 2) test the effects of nutrient addition, atrazine …

The Groundwater Crisis, Austin Shwatal '20, Ethan Tse '20

UN Sustainable Development Goals Infographics

What is Groundwater? Groundwater is simply any water that is found in underground permeable rock layers known as aquifers

Industrial Impact, Sravani Ponnaluri '20, Emily Gonda '20

UN Sustainable Development Goals Infographics

Industries burn fossil fuels to create goods which releases carbon dioxide into the atmosphere. CO2 contributes to 20% of the world's greenhouse effect, and the level of it in the atmosphere has increased to over 400 ppm when before the French Revolution it fluctuated between 180-280 ppm (NASA, 2016). The coal industry is a big contributor as it contributes to 35% of the total U.S. energy related CO2 emissions (EIA, 2017). This all leads to global warming, which causes rising sea levels, longer plant growing seasons, and an increase in forest fires (NASA).

Threats To Ocean Biodiversity, Allia Lin '20, Grace Wulffraat '20

UN Sustainable Development Goals Infographics

Overfishing

Taking fish out of the ocean faster than their populations can be naturally replenished

Coastal Waters, Alison Deng '20, Winny Liu '20

UN Sustainable Development Goals Infographics

Coastal water, specifically coastal erosion, has been a growing problem due to human impact.

Global Climate Change: Changing Weather Patterns, Janna Jann '20, Sabrina Meng '20

UN Sustainable Development Goals Infographics

You can take action to combat global climate change! Here are some starting points:

• Use heating only when necessary
• Reduce energy consumption
• Reduce, Reuse, Recycle!
• Use resources wisely!

Agricultural Practices Destroying The Environment, Ayan Mallik '20, Ethan Talreja '20

UN Sustainable Development Goals Infographics

• 50% of the world's habitable land has been converted for farming (Farming: Habitat Conversion, 2017)
• Indonesia rain forests have been cleared for the construction of palm oil plantations
• This threatens the habitats of endangered species such as the Asian elephant

Effects Of Agriculture, Riley Brutto '20, Maddy Chow '20

UN Sustainable Development Goals Infographics

Due to a lack of education among their population, many Brazilians turn to agriculture as a way to provide for themselves and their families. Additionally, low labor costs draw in large commercial companies that establish business in these developing worlds. However, to obtain farmland in the first place, deforestation has become a common practice, where thousands of miles of lush jungles are cleared away for agricultural practices. According to NASA imaging, 224,000 square miles of rainforest have been cleared in the Amazon. If left unchecked, the drastic consequences could harm not only the countries practicing deforestation, but the entire earth.

Coastal Erosion And Flooding, Arohi Singh '20, Neha Maddali '20

UN Sustainable Development Goals Infographics

The effects of human activities on our coasts.

Waste Management, Rachel Moreno '20, Alana Depaz '20

UN Sustainable Development Goals Infographics

"Human society sustains itself by transforming nature into garbage."

~Mason Cooley

Solution & Effects Of Agricultural Practices, Ryan Talusan '20, Caitlyn Castillo '20

UN Sustainable Development Goals Infographics

A potential solution of vertical farming

• PROFITABLE
• SCALABLE
• YEAR-ROUND

Urbanization In India: An Obituary, Meghana Karan '20, Shruti Shakthivel '20

UN Sustainable Development Goals Infographics

India is urbanizing very rapidly due to the movement of people from rural areas to urban cities for better opportunities. India does not have the resources or money to back this rapid urbanization of the population in general. This urbanization has created many environmental problems with air and water pollution.

Mute Swans, David R. Marks

Wildlife Damage Management Technical Series

Mute swans (Cygnus olor) are an invasive species originally brought to the United States in the late 19th and early 20th centuries for ornamental ponds and lakes, zoos and aviculture collections. Original populations were located in northeastern states along the Hudson Valley but have since expanded to several Midwestern states and portions of the western U.S. and Canada. Mute swan damage includes competing with native waterfowl, destroying native plants, spreading disease, and colliding with aircraft. They are also considered a nuisance in some areas due to their abundant fecal droppings and aggressiveness towards people.

Mute swans can impact …

New Classification Of The Dictyostelids, Sanea Sheikh, Mats Thulin, James C. Cavender, Ricardo Escalante, Shin-Ichi Kawakami, Carlos Lado, John C. Landolt, Vidyanand Nanjundiah, David C. Queller, Joan E. Strassmann, Frederick W. Spiegel, Steven L. Stephenson, Eduardo M. Vadell, Sandra L. Baldauf

Biology Faculty Research

Traditional morphology-based taxonomy of dictyostelids is rejected by molecular phylogeny. A new classification is presented based on monophyletic entities with consistent and strong molecular phylogenetic support and that are, as far as possible, morphologically recognizable. All newly named clades are diagnosed with small subunit ribosomal RNA (18S rRNA) sequence signatures plus morphological synapomorphies where possible. The two major molecular clades are given the rank of order, as Acytosteliales ord. nov. and Dictyosteliales. The two major clades within each of these orders are recognized and given the rank of family as, respectively, Acytosteliaceae and Cavenderiaceae fam. nov. in Acytosteliales, and Dictyosteliaceae …

The Effects Of Tree Plantations And Land Use On Natural Regeneration Of Woody Plants In The Tropics: Diversity, Species Composition, Successional Dynamics, And Functional Traits, John Benjamin Longworth

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

As anthropogenic forests become more common in the tropics, there is a greater need to understand the factors that impact forest succession. I used censuses of woody plants in successional forests to study the effects of prior land use and tree plantations on species composition and richness. First, I tested the hypothesis that communities originating from different land uses were converging in species composition over time. I compared species composition using the Chao-Jaccard similarity index. I observed shifts in the dominant species during the first 30 years of succession, but not convergence of species composition in sites with different land-use …

Responses Of Early-Successional Songbirds To A Two-Stage Shelterwood Harvest For Oak Forest Regeneration, Eric L. Margenau, Yong Wang, Callie J. Schweitzer

Faculty & Staff Scholarship

Background: The early stage of forest succession following disturbance is characterized by a shift in songbird com- position as well as increased avian richness due to increased herbaceous growth in the forest understory. However, regeneration of woody species eventually outcompetes the herbaceous understory, subsequently shifting vegetation communities and decreasing availability of vital foraging and nesting cover for disturbance-dependent birds, ulti- mately resulting in their displacement. These early stages following forest disturbance, which are declining through- out the eastern United States, are ephemeral in nature and birds depend on such disturbances for nesting and other purposes throughout their lives.

Methods: We …

Effects Of Anthropogenic Noise On Mating Behavior And Fitness, Gabrielle A. Gurule-Small

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

When environments change rapidly, adaptive phenotypic plasticity can ameliorate negative effects of environmental change on survival and reproduction. Recent evidence, however, suggests that plastic responses to human induced environmental change are often maladaptive or insufficient to overcome novel selection pressures. Anthropogenic noise is a ubiquitous and expanding disturbance with demonstrated effects on fitness-related traits of animals like stress responses, foraging, vigilance, and pairing success. Elucidating the lifetime fitness effects of noise has been challenging because long-lived vertebrate systems are typically studied in this context. In both chapters described herein, I reared field crickets, Teleogryllus oceanicus, in masking traffic noise, …

Origins Of Animal Cell Adhesion, Jennyfer Mora Mitchell

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

A fundamental requirement for multicellularity is cell adhesion. This includes mechanisms by which cells adhere to each other and to their secreted extracellular matrix (ECM). Two well characterized adhesion complexes in animals include: 1) adherens junctions (AJs), which are involved in cell-cell adhesion and composed of cadherin receptors, p120-, α- and β-catenin, and 2) focal adhesions (FAs), which are involved in cell-ECM adhesion and include proteins such as integrins, vinculin, paxillin, talin and focal adhesion kinase (FAK). The molecular components of AJs are widely conserved in animals, and largely absent in non-animals. In contrast, the molecular components of FAs have …

What Drives Species Richness In Colorado's Alpine Tundra, Michael Kintgen

Regis University Student Publications (comprehensive collection)

Despite years of research, drivers of vascular plant species richness in Colorado’s alpine tundra habitats are largely unknown. Factors such as slope aspect, Pleistocene glaciation, nutrient levels, latitude and longitude, snow depth, and disturbance have been studied. Despite this research, few patterns have emerged. Research in Colorado has been conducted on a few well studied mountains. Aridity is one factor that has not been well studied but shows promise in explaining species richness. In Patagonia and the Swiss Alps, increasing aridity correlates with higher species richness. Here, a full species assessment was conducted on nine mountains previously under researched or …

Social Contact Patterns Can Buffer Costs Of Forgetting In The Evolution Of Cooperation, Jeffrey R. Stevens, Jan K. Woike, Lael J. Schooler, Stefan Lindner, Thorsten Pachur

Jeffrey Stevens Publications

Analyses of the evolution of cooperation often rely on two simplifying assumptions: (i) individuals interact equally frequently with all social network members and (ii) they accurately remember each partner's past cooperation or defection. Here, we examine how more realistic, skewed patterns of contact—in which individuals interact primarily with only a subset of their network's members—influence cooperation. In addition, we test whether skewed contact patterns can counteract the decrease in cooperation caused by memory errors (i.e. forgetting). Finally, we compare two types of memory error that vary in whether forgotten interactions are replaced with random actions or with actions from previous …

Mesotocin Influences Pinyon Jay Prosociality, Juan Duque, Whitney Leichner, Holly Ahmann, Jeffrey R. Stevens

Jeffrey Stevens Publications

Many species exhibit prosocial behavior, in which one individual’s actions benefit another individual, often without an immediate benefit to itself. The neuropeptide oxytocin is an important hormonal mechanism influencing prosociality in mammals, but it is unclear whether the avian homologue mesotocin plays a similar functional role in birds. Here, we experimentally tested prosociality in pinyon jays (Gymnorhinus cyanocephalus), a highly social corvid species that spontaneously shares food with others. First, we measured prosocial preferences in a prosocial choice task with two different payoff distributions: Prosocial trials delivered food to both the subject and either an empty cage or a partner …

Infection Dynamics Of Herpesvirus In Gopher Tortoises, Joanne Saldanha

Honors Undergraduate Theses

Gopherus polyphemus, commonly known as the Gopher Tortoise, is a dryland reptile native to the southeastern United States. It is commonly a resident of longleaf pine and dry oak sand hill habitats. It is considered a keystone species because they dig deep burrows that provide shelter to them as well as many other animals. Habitat loss, fragmentation, and disease are major threats and have caused this species to be federally listed as a threatened species under the Endangered Species Act (ESA). Disease is a major threat to the gopher tortoise’s survival, and with declining populations, the need to investigate …

Framing Contemporary U.S. Wild Horse And Burro Management Processes In A Dynamic Ecological, Sociological, And Political Environment, J. Derek Scasta, Jacob D. Hennig, Jeffrey L. Beck

Human–Wildlife Interactions

The Wild Free-Roaming Horses and Burros Act (WFRHBA) of 1971 established all “unbranded or unclaimed” equids on U.S. public lands as “living symbols of the historic and pioneer spirit of the West.” Today, >72,000 feral horses (Equus ferus caballus) and burros (E . asinus ; WHB) live on western U.S. public rangelands. The number of WHBs exceeds the Bureau of Land Management’s maximum Appropriate Management Level (AML) of 26,715 by a factor of approximately 2.7 and has nearly doubled from 2007–2015. The AML was set to balance WHB numbers with rangeland health and support other uses such as wildlife habitat …

Jeweled Spider Flies (Eulonchus Tristis) Are Important Pollinators Of Iris Bracteata, A Rare Siskiyou Mountain Endemic, Jean-Paul E. Ponte

Cal Poly Humboldt theses and projects

Little is known about the pollination biology of the Pacific Coast Irises (Iris: series Californicae, hereafter PCI), especially who visits and pollinates their flowers. In general, Iris flowers are considered bee-pollinated, however, flies in the genus Eulonchus (Acroceridae) are known to visit some PCI members. Therefore, I assessed the relative importance of Eulonchus and other insect visitors to the pollination of a rare PCI species native to the Siskiyou Mountains, I. bracteata.

Methods. I quantified pollinator importance for all flower visitors at sites in northern California and southern Oregon as the product of average visit rate and …

Evolving Reproductive Isolation In The Parasitic Wasp Genus Cotesia, Justin P. Bredlau

Theses and Dissertations

Parasitic wasps are highly diverse and play a major role in suppression of herbivorous pest populations, but relatively little is known of the mechanisms driving their diversity. Molecular studies indicate that cryptic species complexes resulting from adaptations to specific hosts or host-foodplants may be common. The gregarious endoparasitoid, Cotesia congregata (Braconidae), is a model system for understanding parasitic wasp biology. It is reported to attack at least 15 species of sphingid caterpillars, most of which are plant family specialists. Molecular studies have demonstrated genetic differentiation of two host-foodplant complex sources originating from Manduca sexta on tobacco (MsT) and Ceratomia catalpae …

Predator Presence And Size Variation Alters Community Structure Through Multiple Trophic Cascades, Robin Baker, Howard Whiteman Ph.D.

Murray State Theses and Dissertations

Predation plays a crucial role in shaping community structure and can initiate trophic cascades that can alter abundances across adjacent trophic levels. Recent research has suggested that variation among individual predators may have stronger effects on ecological dynamics than previously appreciated. Intraspecific variation within predators could lead to differential levels of top-down control with implications for trophic cascade strength. In this experiment, we manipulated the body size variation of predatory mole salamanders (Ambystoma talpoideum) within experimental mesocosms and monitored a suite of abiotic and biotic response variables. We predicted that predator populations with increased body size variation would …

Comparing Bird Communities Within Shrubby Transmission Line Rights-Of-Way Managed By Mowing Or By Selective Herbicide Application In Maine And New Hampshire, Kathleen P. Wadiak

Honors Theses and Capstones

In the northeastern U.S., thousands of miles of shrub-dominated transmission line rights-of-way (ROW) extend across the landscape and provide some of the largest and most stable shrubland habitats in the region. These ROW are used as nesting and post-fledging habitat by the region’s entire community of shrubland-dependent songbirds, but evidence for how ROW are used by songbirds that require other habitats for nesting is lacking. Mist-netting surveys conducted in regenerating clearcuts indicate that adult and fledgling mature-forest songbirds comprise a large proportion of the bird community in clearcuts during the post-fledging portion of the breeding season, a time when juvenile …

Zero Textbook Cost Syllabus For Env 3009/Bio 4009 (Conservation Biology And Sustainable Development), Natalia Borrego

Open Educational Resources

Conservation biology is an interdisciplinary topic that explores how we can protect and maintain natural areas. Due to the resources we take and impacts we have on natural environments, this field is directly related to restoration ecology (restoring natural areas) and sustainable development/natural resource management. We will explore the basis for these related fields from an ecological, social, legal, and cultural perspective, as all conservation and management projects take place in the larger human landscape. We will consider how we measure biodiversity, why it matters, why is it is threatened, and how we can manage (protect, restore, maintain, use) it …

Survival, Movements, And Resource Selection Of Female White-Tailed Deer In Missouri, Chloe A. Wright

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

White-tailed deer (Odocoileus virginianus) in Missouri are a socially and economically important game species generating annual revenue in excess of $1 billion. The last comprehensive deer study in Missouri was conducted in the 1980s – 1990s when deer populations were rapidly expanding. Since this time there has been a reduction in deer population size, declining growth rates, changes in harvest strategies, and the emergence and spread of chronic wasting disease (CWD). These changes have rendered prior survival estimates outdated, and the presence of CWD requires a deeper understanding of movement patterns and space use. We were interested in …