Physical Sciences and Mathematics Commons^™

The Role Of Vegetative Cover In Enhancing Resilience To Climate Change And Improving Public Health, Anastasia D. Ivanova

Masters Theses

Changing temperature and precipitation patterns are causing degraded soil, water, and air quality which is negatively affecting the safety and health of people, and the productivity of urban and rural communities. However, research shows that implementing urban forests and cover crops into urban and rural landscapes, respectively, can mitigate these effects by providing ecosystem services. As extreme precipitation and heat events continue to intensify, there is a need for comprehensively assessing these ecosystem services under changing climates and for this information to be easily accessible by communities for rapid land-use decision making. Therefore, I investigated the role of urban forests …

Managing Vegetation To Restore Tern Nesting Habitat In The Gulf Of Maine, Juliet S. Lamb

Masters Theses 1911 - February 2014

Following catastrophic exploitation throughout the North Atlantic, breeding seabird populations have begun to recover thanks to regulatory protection and restoration and management efforts. As bird populations increase, new challenges emerge, including overgrowth of vegetation that limits the open nesting habitat favored by most tern species. Though managers have used a variety of measures to reduce vegetation cover, these techniques have rarely been quantified or compared experimentally.

During the summers of 2009 and 2010, I applied two different techniques, controlled burning and artificial weed barriers (muslin fabric and artificial turf) to experimental plots on Eastern Egg Rock and Outer Green Island, …