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University of Nebraska - Lincoln

2020

Biodiversity

Articles 1 - 4 of 4

Full-Text Articles in Physical Sciences and Mathematics

Anthropogenic Change On The Distribution Of Marine Megafauna And Their Prey, Baylie Fadool Oct 2020

Anthropogenic Change On The Distribution Of Marine Megafauna And Their Prey, Baylie Fadool

Honors Theses

Anthropogenic change is impacting the distribution and survival of marine megafauna and their prey. Humans are changing every aspect of the marine environment, with effects reaching as large as changing the composition of marine environments to directly overexploiting species through the fishing industry. The role that marine megafauna play in balancing ecosystems, including as top apex predators, leads to detrimental results in the absences and population declines of these species. Migrations and declines due to threats on marine apex predator species will alter their environments by causing mesopredator release and changes in community structure, which is often associated with reduced …

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Invasive Rat Establishment And Changes In Small Mammal Populations On Caribbean Islands Following Two Hurricanes, Aaron B. Shiels, Claudia D. Lombard, Laura Shiels, Zandy Hillis-Starr Jan 2020

Invasive Rat Establishment And Changes In Small Mammal Populations On Caribbean Islands Following Two Hurricanes, Aaron B. Shiels, Claudia D. Lombard, Laura Shiels, Zandy Hillis-Starr

USDA Wildlife Services: Staff Publications

Invasive mammals, particularly black rats (Rattus rattus), house mice (Mus musculus), and mongoose (Herpestes auropunctatus) are established on many tropical islands and threaten natural resources such as native birds, sea turtles, lizards, invertebrates, and plants. St. Croix (U.S. Virgin Islands, Caribbean) has a diversity of natural resources being protected from invasive mammals by U.S. conservation agencies. Sandy Point National Wildlife Refuge and Buck Island Reef National Monument receive among the highest density of nesting sea turtles in the region, including annual nesting populations of 50e250 leatherbacks (Dermochelys coriacea), 25e80 hawksbills (Eretmochelys imbricata), and 100e250 green turtles (Chelonia mydas). Buck Island …

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Climate Change & Grief: An Overview Of The Mental Health Effects Of Climate Change & How Biodiversity Loss In The Great Plains Affects Our Emotional Wellbeing, Luke Andersen Jan 2020

Climate Change & Grief: An Overview Of The Mental Health Effects Of Climate Change & How Biodiversity Loss In The Great Plains Affects Our Emotional Wellbeing, Luke Andersen

Department of Environmental Studies: Undergraduate Student Theses

While it is known that our changing climate is predicted to have dire consequences, there is less discussion taking place about the potential mental health effects and outcomes of those consequences. Many articles outline the mental health consequences of climate change, but they all discuss similar ideas and theories that don't necessarily generate further topics to explore. A topic that remains unexplored is that of ecological grief, which is our emotional response to ecological loss. The hypothesis being tested in this research project is that people will feel relatively strong grief-related emotions (i.e. anger, sadness) when imagining the loss of …

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End-Permian (252 Mya) Deforestation, Wildfires And Flooding—An Ancient Biotic Crisis With Lessons For The Present, Vivi Vajda, Stephen Mcloughlin, Chris Mays, Tracy D. Frank, Christopher R. Fielding, Allen Tevyaw, Veiko Lehsten, Malcolm Bocking, Robert S. Nicoll Jan 2020

End-Permian (252 Mya) Deforestation, Wildfires And Flooding—An Ancient Biotic Crisis With Lessons For The Present, Vivi Vajda, Stephen Mcloughlin, Chris Mays, Tracy D. Frank, Christopher R. Fielding, Allen Tevyaw, Veiko Lehsten, Malcolm Bocking, Robert S. Nicoll

Department of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences: Faculty Publications

Current large-scale deforestation poses a threat to ecosystems globally, and imposes substantial and prolonged changes on the hydrological and carbon cycles. The tropical forests of the Amazon and Indonesia are currently undergoing deforestation with catastrophic ecological consequences but widespread deforestation events have occurred several times in Earth’s history and these provide lessons for the future. The end-Permian mass-extinction event (EPE; ∼252 Ma) provides a global, deep-time analogue for modern deforestation and diversity loss. We undertook centimeter-resolution palynological, sedimentological, carbon stable-isotope and paleobotanical investigations of strata spanning the end- Permian event at the Frazer Beach and Snapper Point localities, in the …

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