Physical Sciences and Mathematics Commons^™

Niche-Based Modeling Of Japanese Stiltgrass (Microstegium Vimineum) Using Presence-Only Information, Nathan Bush

Masters Theses

The Connecticut River watershed is experiencing a rapid invasion of aggressive non-native plant species, which threaten watershed function and structure. Volunteer-based monitoring programs such as the University of Massachusetts’ OutSmart Invasives Species Project, Early Detection Distribution Mapping System (EDDMapS) and the Invasive Plant Atlas of New England (IPANE) have gathered valuable invasive plant data. These programs provide a unique opportunity for researchers to model invasive plant species utilizing citizen-sourced data. This study took advantage of these large data sources to model invasive plant distribution and to determine environmental and biophysical predictors that are most influential in dispersion, and to identify …

Transportation And Sanitation Drivers Of Land Use/Land Cover Change: Loss Of The Jamaica Bay Wetlands, Margaret Joy Cytryn

Theses and Dissertations

This thesis presents an analysis (1830-2014) of the historical events of land use/land cover change in the Jamaica Bay estuary, identification of the agents of change, and a perspective on the potential drivers of transportation and sanitation in land use/land cover change.

Mapping Ancient Baldcypress Forests For Conservation At Black River, North Carolina, Jordan Nichole Burns

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

A few ancient baldcypress-bottomland hardwood forests survive across the southeastern United States in a mosaic of remnant old-growth stands left untouched by extensive logging during the early 20th century. Uncut stands in the Southeast that survived centuries of disturbance following European settlement tended to be too senescent and non-commercial to justify logging. Remnant ancient baldcypress forests at Black River, North Carolina, appear to contain the oldest living trees in eastern North America and The Nature Conservancy has protected several of these stands. However, the full extent of ancient bottomland forests along Black River is not known and many valuable tracts …

St. Norbert College As Arboretum: Mapping The Trees On Campus, Jordan A. Mayer, Jason Mills, David Hunnicut

GIS Library

St. Norbert College as Arboretum: Mapping the Trees on Campus - Take a virtual tour of the trees on campus.

The tour is a multimedia ArcGIS Online story map and is available here.

Many of the trees on the St. Norbert Campus were planted by Fr. Anselm Keefe (1895- 1974) in the mid 20th century. It was Fr. Keefe’s vision to beautify the campus by creating gardens that were accessible to the public. This included planting a diverse variety of trees, including one of every tree species native to Wisconsin. It was Keefe’s mission to make St. Norbert College …

The Molecular Evolution Of Non-Coding Dna And Population Ecology Of The Spiny Softshell Turtle (Apalone Spinifera) In Lake Champlain, Lucas Edward Bernacki

Graduate College Dissertations and Theses

ABSTRACT

Spiny softshell turtles (Apalone spinifera) occur at the northwest limit of their range in Lake Champlain. This species, although widespread across North America, is listed as threatened in Vermont due to habitat destruction and disturbances of anthropogenic origin. The population of spiny softshell turtles in Lake Champlain is isolated from other North American populations and is considered as an independent management unit. Efforts to obtain information on the biology of spiny softshell turtles in Lake Champlain precede 1936 with conservation measures being initiated in 1987.

Methods of studying spiny softshell turtles in Lake Champlain have included direct …

Gis Analysis Of Brownfield Sites In The City Of Minneapolis, Shreya Vaidya

All Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Other Capstone Projects

Brownfield sites have many negative ramifications on a local area which includes loss of economy, decline in land use value and potential hazard to human health and the environment. Despite the efforts on redeveloping brownfields, Minnesota Pollution Control Agency (MPCA) claims that over 10,000 known contaminated or potentially contaminated sites remain across Minnesota and thousands are likely to exist but have not been identified and recorded. The objectives of this study are to map the brownfield sites in Minneapolis based on the information provided by the regulatory sources and to categorize and analyze all the sites on the basis of …

Ranking Trails Based On Natural Hazards Instead Of Difficulty: A Case Study On Starved Rock State Park, Julia Ryherd

Honors Program Projects

Starved Rock State Park in North-Central Illinois is not topographically flat as are many glaciated areas of Illinois. Its deep canyons and steep valley walls provide the backdrop for a diverse variety of natural hazards. Geologic hazards include steep canyon walls, flooding with erosion events, high elevation vantage points, and rock falls. Other natural hazards include falling tree branches and steep staircases. ArcGIS was used to record locations of both hazards and injuries along the trails and feature classes were made for each hazard. These feature classes were spatially joined and a weighted sum computed to create a hazard rating …

An Assessment Of South China Tiger Reintroduction Potential In Hupingshan And Houhe National Nature Reserves, China, Yiyuan Qin, Philip J. Nyhus, Courtney L. Larson, Charles J.W. Carroll, Jeff Muntifering, Thomas D. Dahmer, Lu Jun, Ronald L. Tilson

Philip J. Nyhus

Human-caused biodiversity loss is a global problem, large carnivores are particularly threatened, and the tiger (Panthera tigris) is among the world’s most endangered large carnivores. The South China tiger (Panthera tigris amoyensis) is the most critically endangered tiger subspecies and is considered functionally extinct in the wild. The government of China has expressed its intent to reintroduce a small population of South China tigers into a portion of their historic range as part of a larger goal to recover wild tiger populations in China. This would be the world’s first major tiger reintroduction program. A free-ranging population of 15–20 tigers …