Physical Sciences and Mathematics Commons^™

The Nebraska Water Leaders Academy Graduates’ Influence On Community Capitals And Community Capacity, Dakota W. Staggs, Mark E. Burbach, Gina S. Matkin, Cheryl Burkhart-Kriesel

School of Natural Resources: Faculty Publications

An overarching goal of the Nebraska Water Leaders Academy is to prepare a diverse group of Nebraskans from across the state to impact change in their communities by working together to solve wicked water problems. With 136 graduates from across Nebraska there is potential for graduates to effect change and impact their communities’ capitals (i.e., Built, Financial, Political, Social, Human, Cultural, and Natural). This study explored the impact of Academy graduates on their communities’ capitals and community capacity to prepare for future challenges from the perspective of graduates and community members. Findings show that Academy graduates are impacting their communities …

A Conceptual Model Evaluation Framework For Adaptive Governance And Adaptive Management In Large-Scale Restoration Programs, Chadwin Smith

School of Natural Resources: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

Adaptive management (AM) has become a kind of plastic phrase applied as a formulaic panacea for most major species recovery and ecosystem restoration efforts now underway across the United States. AM emerged as an application of the scientific method to resource management, closely tying management to science learning through experimental actions. The phrase “learning by doing” best captures the premise behind developing an experimental management approach that could be applied on the larger scale of a river system or ecosystem. In nearly five decades of application, however, examples of successful AM implementation at large scales are few and conflict remains …

Core Commitments For Field Trials Of Gene Drive Organisms, Kanya C. Long, Luke Alphey, George J. Annas, Cinnamon S. Bloss, Karl J. Campbell, Jackson Champer, Chun-Hong Chen, Amit Choudhary, George M. Church, James P. Collins, Kimberly L. Cooper, Jason A. Delborne, Owain R. Edwards, Claudia I. Emerson, Kevin Esvelt, Sam Weiss Evans, Robert M. Friedman, Valentino M. Gantz, Fred Gould, Sarah Hartley, Elizabeth Heitman, Janet Hemingway, Hirotaka Kanuka, Jennifer Kuzma, James V. Lavery, Yoosook Lee, Marce Lorenzen, Jeantine E. Lunshof, John M. Marshall, Philipp W. Messer, Craig Montell, Kenneth A. Oye, Megan J. Palmer, Philippos Aris Papathanos, Prasad N. Paradkar, Antoinette J. Piaggio, Jason L. Rasgon, Gordana Rašić, Larisa Rudenko, J. Royden Saah, Maxwell J. Scott, Jolene T. Sutton, Adam E, Vorsino, Omar S. Akbari

USDA Wildlife Services: Staff Publications

We must ensure that trials are scientifically, politically, and socially robust, publicly accountable, and widely transparent.

Gene drive organisms (GDOs), whose genomes have been genetically engineered to spread a desired allele through a population, have the potential to transform the way societies address a wide range of daunting public health and environmental challenges. The development, testing, and release of GDOs, however, are complex and often controversial. A key challenge is to clarify the appropriate roles of developers and others actively engaged in work with GDOs in decision-making processes, and, in particular, how to establish partnerships with relevant authorities and other …

Decline Of Novel Ecosystems Used By Endangered Species: The Case Of Piping Plovers, Least Terns, And Aggregate Mines, Joel G. Jorgensen, Stephen J. Brenner, Lauren R. Greenwalt, Mark P. Vrtiska

School of Natural Resources: Faculty Publications

Sand and gravel mining creates novel ecosystems along the Platte, Loup, and Elkhorn rivers in Nebraska, USA. Piping plovers and least terns are state and/or federally threatened and endangered species, respectively, that nest and raise young at these sites and their derivatives. Despite hosting relatively large numbers of piping plovers and least terns for decades, an important question that has largely gone unaddressed is whether the industry that has produced these novel ecosystems is stable and will continue to produce habitat consistently in the future. We evaluated how the number, size, and spatial distribution of different site types hosting different …

Species Distribution Modeling For Arid Adapted Habitat Specialists In Zion National Park, Sam Driver, Daniel R. Unger, David L. Kulhavy, Chris M. Schalk

Student Publications

The Arizona toad (Anaxyrus microscaphus) and Jones’ waxy dogbane (Cycladenia humilis var. jonesii) are habitat specialists with historical ranges in the desert southwest and specifically, Zion National Park (ZION). The machine learning method, MaxEnt, constructed species distribution models (SDMs) in ZION for the two study species at 30 m and 900 m spatial resolutions using climate, topographic, and remotely sensed data. Additionally, 900 m forecasting models were constructed to observe the shifts in suitable habitat for the years 2050 and 2070, based off two representative concentration pathway scenarios. Results indicate promising predictive power for both high …

Operationalizing Niche Construction Theory With Stone Tools, Radu Lovita, David R. Braun, Matthew J. Douglass, Simon J. Holdaway, Sam C. Lin, Deborah I. Olsezewski, Zeljko Rezek

School of Natural Resources: Faculty Publications

One of the greatest difficulties with evolutionary approaches in the study of stone tools (lithics) has been finding a mechanism for tying culture and biology in a way that preserves human agency and operates at scales that are visible in the archaeological record. The concept of niche construction, whereby organisms actively construct their environments and change the conditions for selection, could provide a solution to this problem. In this review, we evaluate the utility of niche construction theory (NCT) for stone tool archaeology. We apply NCT to lithics both as part of the “extended phenotype” and as residuals or precipitates …

Leveraging Image Analysis To Compute 3d Plant Phenotypes Based On Voxel-Grid Plant Reconstruction, Sruti Das Choudhury, Srikanth Maturu, Ashok Samal, Vincent Stoerger, Tala Awada

School of Natural Resources: Faculty Publications

High throughput image-based plant phenotyping facilitates the extraction of morphological and biophysical traits of a large number of plants non-invasively in a relatively short time. It facilitates the computation of advanced phenotypes by considering the plant as a single object (holistic phenotypes) or its components, i.e., leaves and the stem (component phenotypes). The architectural complexity of plants increases over time due to variations in self-occlusions and phyllotaxy, i.e., arrangements of leaves around the stem. One of the central challenges to computing phenotypes from 2-dimensional (2D) single view images of plants, especially at the advanced vegetative stage in presence of self-occluding …

Food System Resilience In Nigeria: Farmers Perspective, Azariah Lawal

School of Natural Resources: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

Disturbances are inherent in every socio-ecological system (SES). However, the spate and scope of upheavals in contemporary SES has increased dramatically in recent years. Agricultural systems are perhaps the most impacted when disasters occur because different aspects of agricultural production are directly affected. The burgeoning farmers-Fulani herdsmen conflict in West Africa is a manifestation of these challenges. When faced with events like these, contemporary food systems are faced with two options: collapse or transform. It is essential to have resilient agricultural systems because these systems lie at the nexus of resolving emerging global issues.

Nigeria is an important country in …

Population Characteristics And Movement Of Blue Catfish In The Kansas River, Quintin Dean

School of Natural Resources: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

Blue Catfish Ictalurus furcatus is a mobile, large-river species native to the Missouri River and its tributaries, including the Kansas River. Historical data regarding the Kansas River population is negligible, limiting managers’ ability to appropriately manage this population. Multiple anthropogenic barriers along the Kansas River create a gradient of connectivity within the Kansas River, and with the Missouri River, possibly limiting Blue Catfish movement. Additionally, the contribution of tributary-reservoir populations to the Kansas River remains unknown. My objectives were to: 1) describe population characteristics and 2) quantify stock contributions from the Missouri River and Kansas River tributary reservoirs to the …

Impacts Of Irrigated Agriculture On The Near Surface And Planetary Boundary Layer Atmosphere: Results From The Great Plains Irrigation Experiment (Grainex), Emilee Lachenmeier

School of Natural Resources: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

Modification of natural prairie grasslands into irrigated and rainfed agriculture in the Great Plains produced significant impacts on regional weather and climate including temperatures, precipitation, energy fluxes, and the planetary boundary layer (PBL) atmosphere. The Great Plains Irrigation Experiment (GRAINEX) during the 2018 growing season collected data over irrigated and non-irrigated crop fields to further understand these impacts. The data were collected during two intensive observation periods (IOPs) in early June (IOP 1: 30 May – 13 June of 2018) and late July (IOP 2: 16 July – 30 July of 2018). The data analyzed include latent (LE) and sensible …

Population Demographics, Distribution, And Environmental History Of Asian Carp In A Great Plains River, Jake Werner

School of Natural Resources: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

Silver Carp Hypophthalmichthys molitrix, Bighead Carp H. nobilis, and Black Carp Mylopharyngodon piceus, collectively known as Asian carp, are a group of invasive fishes in the U.S.A. that have garnered much attention over the last couple decades. Most research devoted to this group of fishes has been focused in the Mississippi River basin with little investigation in the Missouri River drainage, particularly in tributary systems. The Kansas River is a major tributary to the Missouri River that has multiple anthropogenic barriers creating varying levels of connectivity within the Kansas River itself, and with the Missouri River. Information …

Remediating Contaminated Groundwater With An Aerated, Direct-Push, Oxidant Delivery System, James Reece, Mark Christenson, Ann Kambhu, Yusong Li, Clifford Harris, Steve D. Comfort

School of Natural Resources: Faculty Publications

One of the biggest challenges to treating contaminated aquifers with chemical oxidants is achieving uniform coverage of the target zone. In an effort to maximize coverage, we report the design and installation of a novel aerated, slow-release oxidant delivery system that can be installed by direct-push equipment. By continuously bubbling air beneath a slow-release oxidant in situ, an airlift pump is created that causes water and oxidant to be dispersed from the top of the outer screen and drawn in at the bottom. This continuous circulation pattern around each drive point greatly facilitates the spreading of the oxidant as it …

Harmful Algal Blooms Threaten The Health Of Peri-Urban Fisher Communities: A Case Study In Kisumu Bay, Lake Victoria, Kenya, Amber Roegner, Lewis Sitoki, Chelsea Weirich, Jessica Corman, Dickson Owage, Moses Umami, Ephraim Odada, Jared Miruka, Zachary Ogari, Woutrina Smith, Eliska Rejmankova, Todd R. Miller

School of Natural Resources: Faculty Publications

Available guidance to mitigate health risks from exposure to freshwater harmful algal blooms (HABs) is largely derived from temperate ecosystems. Yet in tropical ecosystems, HABs can occur year-round, and resource-dependent populations face multiple routes of exposure to toxic components. Along Winam Gulf, Lake Victoria, Kenya, fisher communities rely on lake water contaminated with microcystins (MCs) from HABs. In these peri-urban communities near Kisumu, we tested hypotheses that MCs exceed exposure guidelines across seasons, and persistent HABs present a chronic risk to fisher communities through ingestion with minimal water treatment and frequent, direct contact. We tested source waters at eleven communities …

Davis Creek Dredge Channel Data Report, C. Scott Hardaway Jr., Donna A. Milligan, Christine A. Wilcox, Nicholas Dinapoli

Reports

Introduction Davis Creek is located in Mathews County, Virginia (Figure 1) and empties into Mobjack Bay, a small bay in the lower Chesapeake Bay. The creek has a narrow mouth that splits into three prongs (Figure 2). The eastern prong is shortest at 2,200 ft from the mouth, and the western prong is the longest extending about 3,000 ft from the mouth. The Marina on Davis Creek occurs on this prong. Land use adjacent to the creek is mostly residential with some agriculture and wooded properties. The headwaters do not have extensive marsh. Instead the creek terminates soon after the …

Hole In The Wall Dredge Channel Data Report, C. Scott Hardaway Jr., Donna A. Milligan, Christine A. Wilcox, Nicholas J. Dinapoli

Reports

Hole in the Wall (HITW) is located in Mathews County, Virginia (Figure 1). It is a natural channel between fetch-limited barrier islands that provides access from Chesapeake Bay to Milford Haven and Gwynn Island. Milford Haven is a unique tidal creek watershed occurring between Chesapeake Bay and the Piankatank River and consists of numerous lateral tidal creeks entering from Gwynn Island to the north and others entering from the south including Lanes Creek, Stutts Creek, Billups Creek, Stoakes Creek and Whites Creek (Figure 2). Presently, the barrier between Milford Haven and Chesapeake Bay includes the northern barrier and Rigby Island. …

Timberneck Creek Dredge Channel Data Report, C. Scott Hardaway Jr., Donna A. Milligan, Christine A. Wilcox, Nicholas J. Dinapoli

Reports

Introduction Timberneck Creek is located in Gloucester County, Virginia (Figure 1). It is a long, but narrow creek that empties into the York River. The mouth is a wide embayment, but farther north, the creek narrows to about 400 ft wide and extends for about 2 miles to its marshy headwaters. The interior of the creek is irregular with many very small lateral creeks/marsh drainages emptying into the Timberneck. Timberneck Creek has never been dredged and a federally-defined channel does not exist at the site. As a new dredging project, the channel design must balance safety, economic, and sustainability requirements. …

Aberdeen Creek Dredge Channel Data Report, C. Scott Hardaway Jr., Donna A. Milligan, Christine A. Wilcox, Nicholas J. Dinapoli

Reports

Aberdeen Creek is located on the York River in Gloucester County, Virginia (Figure 1). At the narrow confluence of the York and Aberdeen, the creek takes about a 90-degree bend to the north (Figure 2) and widens to about 700 to 800 feet (ft) for about 2,000 ft. The creek then divides into two branches, one continuing north and one going east. These two prongs narrow quickly and become thin meandering tidal channels with adjacent marsh. The land use around the creek is mostly agricultural and wooded with some residential properties along its east side and along the York River …

Hog Island Shore Protection And Habitat Restoration Living Shoreline Project, C. Scott Hardaway Jr., Donna A. Milligan, Christine A. Wilcox, Nicholas J. Dinapoli

Reports

Hog Island is an emergent estuarine marsh complex that is part of the overall Guinea marshes (Figure 1). These marshes are located at the confluence of Mobjack Bay and the York River in Gloucester County, Virginia. Hog Island is a high wave energy eroding shoreline along its south-face on the York River, and lower wave energy along its west and east flanks that occur on Monday Creek (Figure 2). The marsh consists mainly of grasses such as Spartina alterniflora and Spartina patens. A higher, sandy area along the higher energy shorelines has some scrub shrub. Two small ponds and a …

The Prairie Naturalist, Vol. 52, Issue 2, December 2020

The Prairie Naturalist

Comparing Native Bee Communities on Reconstructed and Remnant Prairie in Missouri • Joseph LaRose, Elisabeth B. Webb, and Deborah Finke

Patterns and Potential Causes of Changing Winter Bird Distributions in South Dakota • David L. Swanson, Reza Goljani Amipkhiz, and Mark D. Dixon

Greater prairie-chickens and sharp-tailed grouse have similarly high nest survival in the Nebraska Sandhills • Larkin A. Powell, Walter H. Schacht, Julia P. Ewalt, and Katie R. McCollum

Captive Ring-necked Pheasant Response to Very High Experimental Doses of Lead • Travis J. Runia and Alex J. Solem

Trends in a Greater Prairie Chicken Population Established by Translocation …

Linking Mosquito Surveillance To Dengue Fever Through Bayesian Mechanistic Modeling, Clinton B. Leach, Jennifer A. Hoeting, Kim M. Pepin, Alvaro E. Eiras, Mevin B. Hooten, Colleen T. Webb

USDA Wildlife Services: Staff Publications

Our ability to effectively prevent the transmission of the dengue virus through targeted control of its vector, Aedes aegypti, depends critically on our understanding of the link between mosquito abundance and human disease risk. Mosquito and clinical surveillance data are widely collected, but linking them requires a modeling framework that accounts for the complex non-linear mechanisms involved in transmission. Most critical are the bottleneck in transmission imposed by mosquito lifespan relative to the virus’ extrinsic incubation period, and the dynamics of human immunity. We developed a differential equation model of dengue transmission and embedded it in a Bayesian hierarchical …

Flowers Are Essential To Maintain High Beetle Diversity (Coleoptera) In A Neotropical Rainforest Canopy, Susan Kirmse, Caroline S. Chaboo

Publications of UNSM Staff and Affiliates

Many hypotheses have been proposed to explain the megadiversity of angiosperms and insects. Flowers and their pollinators represent the most common terrestrial mutualistic interaction today and this is thought to have driven the evolution of angiosperms and their visitors. Within the framework of that interaction, this paper develops and tests two new hypotheses: 1) megadiversity of canopy beetles in tropical rainforests is largely based on flower resources, and 2) the majority of adult canopy beetles are adapted to visit flowers. To test hypothesis 1, the beetle fauna associated with 23 canopy tree species (13 families, 45 individuals) in a 1.4 …

Assessing The Impact Of Land Use And Land Cover Data Representation On Weather Forecast Quality: A Case Study In Central Mexico, Rezaul Mahmood

School of Natural Resources: Faculty Publications

In atmospheric modeling, an accurate representation of land cover is required because such information impacts water and energy budgets and, consequently, the performance of models in simulating regional climate. This study analyzes the impact of the land cover data on an operational weather forecasting system using the Weather Research and Forecasting (WRF) model for central Mexico, with the aim of improving the quality of the operative forecast. Two experiments were conducted using different land cover datasets: a United States Geological Survey (USGS) map and an updated North American Land Change Monitoring System (NALCMS) map. The experiments were conducted as a …

Reduced Lignin Decomposition And Enhanced Soil Organic Carbon Stability By Acid Rain: Evidence From 13c Isotope And 13c Nmr Analyses, Jianping Wu, Qi Deng, Dafeng Hui, Xin Xiong, Huiling Zhang, Mengdi Zhao, Xuan Wang, Minghui Hu, Yongxian Su, Hongou Zhang, Guowei Chu, Deqiang Zhang

Biology Faculty Research

Due to the emissions of air pollutants, acid rain in southern China poses a great threat to terrestrial ecosystems. However, its influences on ecological processes such as litter decomposition and soil organic carbon (SOC) accumulation are still not clear. The aim of this study was to understand the potential mechanisms of carbon sequestration change in response to long-term acid rain in a subtropical forest. A field experiment with simulated acid rain (SAR) treatment was conducted in a monsoon evergreen broadleaf forest in southern China. Four levels of SAR treatment were implemented by irrigating the plots with water of different pH …

Connections In The Underworld: A Morphological And Molecular Study Of Diversity And Connectivity Among Anchialine Shrimp., Robert Eugene Ditter

FIU Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This research investigates the distribution and population structure of crustaceans, endemic to anchialine systems in the tropical western Atlantic focusing on cave-dwelling shrimp from the family Barbouriidae. Taxonomic and molecular tools (genetic and genomic) are utilized to examine population dynamics and the presence of phenotypic hypervariation (PhyV) of the critically endangered species Barbouria cubensis (von Martens, 1872). The presence of PhyV and its geographic distribution is investigated among anchialine populations of B. cubensis from 34 sites on Abaco, Eleuthera, and San Salvador, Bahamas. Examination of 54 informative morphological characters revealed PhyV present in nearly 90% (n=463) of specimens with no …

The Waterfall Crisis, Guiliana G. Grisaffi

English Department: Research for Change - Wicked Problems in Our World

While the Earth’s surface is 71% covered in water, that does not mean that one day all our water could be gone. The current global water crisis is not just a water crisis-it is a waterfall crisis. One wicked, terrible problem that leads to many other wicked problems, a waterfall crisis. Millions of women and young girls are taken out of work and school and instead forced to collect and gather fresh water for their families. Children are suffering from irreversible health consequences from toxic, contaminated water, an example of a health consequence is a lower IQ from lead poisoning. …

The Role Of Eolian-Fluvial Interactions And Dune Dams In Landscape Change, Late Pleistocene-Holocene, Mojave Desert, Usa, Mark R. Sweeney, Eric V. Mcdonald, Lucas P. Chabela, Paul R. Hanson

School of Natural Resources: Faculty Publications

The formation of the Kelso Dunes in the eastern Mojave Desert, California, was a landscape-changing event triggered by an increase in sediment supply that followed the incision of Afton Canyon by the Mojave River ca. 25 ka. Eastward migration of sand dunes occurred along a well-defined eolian trans­port corridor. Dunes temporarily blocked washes resulting in substantial aggradation of eolian and fluvial sediments. Stratigraphic exposures reveal numerous fining-up sequences with interbedded eolian sands that provide evidence of dune dams and subsequent aggradation. Luminescence ages reveal that dune blocking and aggradation correspond to a regional pulse of alluvial fan sedimentation that occurred …

Spotted Owls And Forest Fire: Comment, Gavin M. Jones, R. J. Gutiérrez, William M. Block, Peter C. Carlson, Emily J. Comfort, Samuel A. Cushman, Raymond J. Davis, Stephanie A. Eyes, Alan B. Franklin, Joseph L. Ganey, Shaula Hedwall, John J. Keane, Rodd Kelsey, Damon B, Lesmeister, Malcolm P. North, Susan L. Roberts, Jeremy T. Rockweit, Jamie S. Sanderlin, Sarah C. Sawyer, Ben Solvesky, Douglas J. Tempel, Ho Yi Wan, A. Leroy Westerling, Gary C. White, M. Zachariah Peery

USDA Wildlife Services: Staff Publications

Western North American forest ecosystems are experiencing rapid changes in disturbance regimes because of climate change and land use legacies (Littell et al. 2018). In many of these forests, the accumulation of surface and ladder fuels from a century of fire suppression, coupled with a warming and drying climate, has led to increases in the number of large fires (Westerling 2016) and the proportion of areas burning at higher severity (Safford and Stevens 2017, Singleton et al. 2018). While the annual area burned by fire is still below historical levels (Taylor et al. 2016), some forest types in the west …

Significance Statements Communicate Our Science More Widely, Rezaul Mahmood

School of Natural Resources: Faculty Publications

The American Meteorological Society (AMS) mission statement specifically calls for advancing ‘‘the atmospheric and related sciences . . . for the benefit of society.’’ To further the goal of communicating the importance of the science in our journals more widely, AMS is encouraging the inclusion in submitted papers of a ‘‘significance statement,’’ written in plain language and aimed at an educated layperson without formal training or education in the atmospheric and related sciences. As of 6 November 2020, Earth Interactions authors now have the option to include a significance statement with their submitted papers. A significance statement is an explanation …

Data Availability Principles And Practice, Rezaul Mahmood, Joseph A. Santanello, Xiaoyang Zhang

School of Natural Resources: Faculty Publications

Science requires evidence. Making data available lets other scientists confirm results, uncover errors, or find new insights. Moreover, gathering data can be expensive and time consuming. Since the same data can be used for a range of purposes, making data available can be an efficient use of limited research resources. Doing so can also improve traceability and, thus, accountability, when it comes to research findings. These reasons and more lie behind recent efforts to promote data availability. The American Meteorological Society (AMS) recently updated its data policy guidelines (https://www.ametsoc.org/ index.cfm/ams/publications/ethical-guidelines-and-ams-policies/data-policy-and-guidelines/) to require, among other things, that papers in its journals …

Toward The Standardization Of Mesoscale Meteorological Networks, Christopher Fiebrich, Kevin Brinson, Rezaul Mahmood, Stuart Foster, Megan Schargorodski, Nathan L. Edwards, Christopher A. Redmond, Jennie R. Atkins, Jeffrey Andresen, Xiaomao Lin

School of Natural Resources: Faculty Publications

Although they share many common qualities in design and operation, mesonetworks across the United States were established independently and organically over the last several decades. In numerous instances, the unique ways each network matured and developed new protocols has led to important lessons learned. These experiences have been shared in informal ways among various network operators over the years to promote reliable operation. As existing networks begin to introduce new sensors and technologies, and as new networks come online, there is a common need for guidance on best practices. This paper aims to formally provide recommendations to improve and harmonize …