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Articles 1 - 6 of 6
Full-Text Articles in Population Biology
Rapid: Ecological Resistance Of Multiply Stressed Populations: The Response Of Tidal Marsh Birds And Plants To Hurricane Sandy, Brian J. Olsen, Chris S. Elphick, Greg Shriver
Rapid: Ecological Resistance Of Multiply Stressed Populations: The Response Of Tidal Marsh Birds And Plants To Hurricane Sandy, Brian J. Olsen, Chris S. Elphick, Greg Shriver
University of Maine Office of Research Administration: Grant Reports
All animal and plant populations can weather change. However, the amount of environmental change a population can absorb is likely to depend upon other, past and ongoing stresses that the population experiences. This project will test whether the ability of populations of native plants and animals in coastal marshes to withstand the recent, extreme storm Hurricane Sandy was greater or less in marshes more subject to past stresses. Researchers will compare the abundances of marsh plants and animals before and after the storm and test whether vulnerability was greater in more specialized species or in marshes surrounded by development, invaded …
Collaborative Research: Land-Use Practices And Persistence Of Amphibian Populations, Malcolm L. Hunter Jr.
Collaborative Research: Land-Use Practices And Persistence Of Amphibian Populations, Malcolm L. Hunter Jr.
University of Maine Office of Research Administration: Grant Reports
Over the past 200 years, conversion of land for agricultural use, industrial development, and urban sprawl has drastically reduced natural habitat for many species and is considered the most serious threat to biological diversity. Fragmentation divides once continuous natural habitats into smaller pieces that are often separated by areas unsuitable to sustain viable populations. The goal of the proposed research is to understand how important local population and metapopulation processes are altered by fragmentation of natural habitats in a model system of pond-breeding amphibians. The primary objectives of the proposed study are to experimentally compare demographic and behavioral responses of …
Collaborative Research: Land-Use Practices And Persistence Of Amphibian Populations., Malcolm L. Hunter Jr.
Collaborative Research: Land-Use Practices And Persistence Of Amphibian Populations., Malcolm L. Hunter Jr.
University of Maine Office of Research Administration: Grant Reports
Over the past 200 years, conversion of land for agricultural use, industrial development, and urban sprawl has drastically reduced natural habitat for many species and is considered the most serious threat to biological diversity. Fragmentation divides once continuous natural habitats into smaller pieces that are often separated by areas unsuitable to sustain viable populations. The goal of the proposed research is to understand how important local population and metapopulation processes are altered by fragmentation of natural habitats in a model system of pond-breeding amphibians. The primary objectives of the proposed study are to experimentally compare demographic and behavioral responses of …
Dissertation Research: Eco-Evolutionary Effects Of An Aquatic Consumer: Linking Phenotypic Diversity To Community And Ecosystem Responses, Kevin S. Simon, Quenton Tuckett, Michael T. Kinnison
Dissertation Research: Eco-Evolutionary Effects Of An Aquatic Consumer: Linking Phenotypic Diversity To Community And Ecosystem Responses, Kevin S. Simon, Quenton Tuckett, Michael T. Kinnison
University of Maine Office of Research Administration: Grant Reports
This research addresses the interaction between ecological and evolutionary processes by examining the recent evolution of a common invasive fish species, the white perch, in lakes and the consequences of this evolution for community and ecosystem dynamics. White perch have successfully invaded lakes spanning a productivity gradient, which provides diverse selective pressures that may result in altered fish morphology, physiology and ecological role. Adaptation by these fish may, in turn, feed back to affect lake productivity and community structure through several ecological and chemical pathways. This project tests the hypothesis that this rapid evolutionary divergence within a single species has …
Collaborative Research: Extreme Discordance Between Allozyme And Non-Allozyme Introgression In Baltic Mussels. Selection On Allozymes?, Paul D. Rawson
Collaborative Research: Extreme Discordance Between Allozyme And Non-Allozyme Introgression In Baltic Mussels. Selection On Allozymes?, Paul D. Rawson
University of Maine Office of Research Administration: Grant Reports
A major challenge for evolutionary biologists is to determine the degree to which natural selection shapes genetic variation in natural populations. Hybridization is common between two species of blue mussel found in the North and Baltic Seas. The differential exchange of genes between the two mussel species, particularly genes encoding enzymes involved in central metabolic pathways, suggests those genes may be under selection and involved in adaptation to low salinity conditions in the Baltic Sea. Tests for selection will be conducted by comparing levels of genetic exchange for these metabolic genes against nonmetabolic and presumably neutral (i.e., not under selection) …
Collaborative Research: Toward Environmental Genomics: Can We Estimate Bacterial Diversity In The Ocean?, Daniel L. Distel
Collaborative Research: Toward Environmental Genomics: Can We Estimate Bacterial Diversity In The Ocean?, Daniel L. Distel
University of Maine Office of Research Administration: Grant Reports
Environmental genomics, wherein the total genomic diversity of a natural community may be sampled and analyzed in an ecological context, remains an elusive goal. This is due, at least in part, to (I) a lack of reliable estimates of total community diversity and (II) a lack of information regarding the exact phylogenetic, genomic and ecological units measured by commonly used diversity estimators. Although ribosomal RNA approaches have provided the first steps towards diversity estimation, and are widely used as a proxy for unique bacterial types in natural populations, the genomic unit a ribotype measures remains largely unexplored. It is generally …