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Full-Text Articles in Physical Sciences and Mathematics
Impact Of Disturbance Regimes On Community And Landscape Biodiversity In Atlantic Coastal Pine Barren Ecoregion Streams, Sean T. Mccanty
Impact Of Disturbance Regimes On Community And Landscape Biodiversity In Atlantic Coastal Pine Barren Ecoregion Streams, Sean T. Mccanty
Graduate Doctoral Dissertations
Streams are dynamic systems shaped by geographic location, hydrology, riparian vegetation, and in-stream habitat. Furthermore, ecosystem disturbance plays a major role in structuring stream communities and ecosystem processes. Disturbances include natural occurrences, such as flooding, drought, and fire events and anthropogenic disturbances such as land use changes, damming, and pollution. Agricultural use acts as a press disturbance regime, homogenizing the surrounding landscape and simplifying in-stream habitat, leaving legacy effects after farming ceases. Active restoration is intended to ameliorate these effects by reintroducing variation, with the goal of shifting the ecosystem into a more diverse and natural state. The act of …
Characterizing The Impacts Of The Invasive Hemlock Woolly Adelgid On The Forest Structure Of New England, Peter Brehm Boucher
Characterizing The Impacts Of The Invasive Hemlock Woolly Adelgid On The Forest Structure Of New England, Peter Brehm Boucher
Graduate Doctoral Dissertations
Climate change is raising winter temperatures in the Northeastern United States, both expanding the range of an invasive pest, the hemlock woolly adelgid (HWA; Adelges tsugae), and threatening the survival of its host species, eastern hemlock (Tsuga canadensis). As a foundation species, hemlock trees underlie a distinct network of ecological, biogeochemical, and structural systems that will likely disappear as the HWA infestation spreads northward. Remote sensing can offer new perspectives on this regional transition, recording the progressive loss of an ecological foundation species and the transition of evergreen hemlock forest to mixed deciduous forest over the course of the infestation. …