Environmental Indicators and Impact Assessment Commons^™

Species-Specific Responses To Landscape Features Shaped Genomic Structure Within Alaska Galliformes, Sarah A. Sonsthagen, Robert E. Wilson, Sandra L. Talbot

Nebraska Cooperative Fish and Wildlife Research Unit: Staff Publications

Aim: Connectivity is vital to the resiliency of populations to environmental change and stochastic events, especially for cold-adapted species as Arctic and alpine tundra habitats retract as the climate warms. We examined the influence of past and current landscapes on genomic connectivity in cold-adapted galliformes as a critical first step to assess the vulnerability of Alaska ptarmigan and grouse to environmental change. We hypothesize that the mosaic of physical features and habitat within Alaska promoted the formation of genetic structure across species.

Location: Alaska, United States of America.

Taxa: Ptarmigan and Grouse (Galliformes: Tetraoninae).

Methods: We collected double digest restriction-site- …

Spatial And Temporal Variability Of Mercury In Upper And Lower Red Lake Walleye, Tyler Orgon

Biology Graduate Theses

Mercury is a global pollutant that is released into our environment by natural and anthropogenic processes resulting in extensive studies conducted on mercury cycling in aquatic ecosystems which has led to the issuance of human-health-based fish-consumption advisories. We examined total mercury concentrations in Walleye Sander vitreus from Upper and Lower Red Lakes, located in north central Minnesota, between 2019 and 2020. Upper and Lower Red Lake form a contiguous water body consisting of two large (483.1 and 665.6 km2, respectively) basins that are naturally connected by a 1.4 km-wide strait. Both basins are important fisheries for recreation, subsistence, and commercial …

Heterogeneity Of Recreationists In A Park And Protected Area, Olivia A. Darugna, Mark A. Kaemingk, Christopher J. Chizinski, Kevin L. Pope

Nebraska Cooperative Fish and Wildlife Research Unit: Staff Publications

Limited information and resources have caused many parks and protected areas (PPAs) to functionally manage recreationists as a single homogeneous group, despite potential negative social and ecological consequences. We aimed to evaluate the homogeneity of recreationists at the Valentine National Wildlife Refuge (NWR) by 1) quantifying frequencies of consumptive (i.e., hunting), intermediate-consumptive (i.e., fishing), and non-consumptive recreational-activity groups (e.g., wildlife viewing), and 2) evaluating sociodemographic differences among these groups. We used onsite surveys to determine that Valentine NWR supports heterogeneous groups of recreationists. The intermediate-consumptive group was most frequent (77% of all parties). All three recreational-activity groups varied in party …

Droughtscape, Winter 2022, National Drought Mitigation Center

DroughtScape: Quarterly Newsletter of the National Drought Mitigation Center (2007–2023)

DroughtScape, Winter 2022

Largemouth Bass In The Upper Mississippi River: An Evaluation Of Management Strategies And Understanding Potential Factors Influencing Dynamic Rate Functions, Kylie Beth Sterling

Graduate Theses/Dissertations

The Upper Mississippi River (UMR) supports ecologically and economically important commercial and recreational fisheries. One recreational fishery in the UMR is the Largemouth Bass fishery. Recreational fisheries can be effectively managed using information on population dynamics, though little is known about Largemouth Bass population dynamics in large river ecosystems. Therefore, the objectives of this study were to 1) evaluate recruitment, growth, and mortality of three Largemouth Bass populations in the UMR, specifically within Pools 4, 8, and 13, and 2) to use those estimates of recruitment, growth and mortality to inform exploitation models to evaluate best management practices for each …

Downstream Dispersal Of Fine Tailings, Chat And Metals In Channel Sediment Of Big River, Old Lead Belt, Southeast Missouri, Jennifer Pace Witt

Graduate Theses/Dissertations

In St. François County, Missouri, compromised above-ground tailings piles and containment ponds from historical mining activities in the Old Lead Belt released considerable amounts of dolomitic, Pb- and Zn-contaminated waste sediments to the Big River, contributing to significant downstream floodplain and channel sediment contamination. Previous studies have documented the effects of heavy metals on Big River biota and water quality, as well as benthic habitat disruption resulting from the influx of small sediments. Few have considered the effects and future contamination risk of the coarse waste sediments (2-16 mm in diameter), locally called “chat”, which retain high Pb and Zn …

A Framework For Near-Real Time Monitoring Of Diversity Patterns Based On Indirect Remote Sensing, With An Application In The Brazilian Atlantic Rainforest, Andrea Paz, Thiago S. Silva, Ana C. Carnaval

Publications and Research

Monitoring biodiversity change is key to effective conservation policy. While it is difficult to establish in situ biodiversity monitoring programs at broad geographical scales, remote sensing advances allow for near-real time Earth observations that may help with this goal. We combine periodical and freely available remote sensing information describing temperature and precipitation with curated biological information from several groups of animals and plants in the Brazilian Atlantic rainforest to design an indirect remote sensing framework that monitors potential loss and gain of biodiversity in near-real time. Using data from biological collections and information from repeated field inventories, we demonstrate that …

Integrating Data Types To Estimate Spatial Patterns Of Avian Migration Across The Western Hemisphere, Timothy D. Meehan, Sarah P. Saunders, William V. Deluca, Nicole L. Michel, Joanna Grand, Jill L. Deppe, Miguel F. Jimenez, Erika J. Knight, Nathaniel E. Seavy, Melanie A. Smith, Lotem Taylor, Chad Witko, Michael E. Akresh, David R. Barber, Erin M. Bayne, James C. Beasley, Jerrold L. Belant, Richard O. Bierregaard, Keith L. Bildstein, Than J. Boves, John N. Brzorad, Steven P. Campbell, Antonio Celis-Murillo, Hilary A. Cooke, Robert Domenech, Laurie Goodrich, Elizabeth A. Gow, Aaron Haines, Michael T. Hallworth, Jason M. Hill, Amanda E. Holland, Scott Jennings, Roland Kays, Tommy King, Stuart A. Mackenzie, Peter P. Marra, Rebecca A. Mccabe, Kent P. Mcfarland, Michael J. Mcgrady, Ron Melcer, D. Ryan Norris, Russell E. Norvell, Olin E. Rhodes, Christopher C. Rimmer, Amy L. Scarpignato, Adam Shreading, Jesse L. Watson, Chad R. Wilsey

United States Department of Agriculture Wildlife Services: Staff Publications

For many avian species, spatial migration patterns remain largely undescribed, especially across hemispheric extents. Recent advancements in tracking technologies and high-resolution species distribution models (i.e., eBird Status and Trends products) provide new insights into migratory bird movements and offer a promising opportunity for integrating independent data sources to describe avian migration. Here, we present a three-stage modeling framework for estimating spatial patterns of avian migration. First, we integrate tracking and band re-encounter data to quantify migratory connectivity, defined as the relative proportions of individuals migrating between breeding and nonbreeding regions. Next, we use estimated connectivity proportions along with eBird occurrence …

Plastic Recycling Is Inefficient And Expensive, Clark S. Adomaitis

Capstones

Plastics production and incineration contributes more than 850 million metric tons to the emissions that are causing climate change. Emissions are growing at a moment when scientists and world leaders are in agreement that they need to dramatically decrease. Environmentalists say that plastic production makes up 4.5% of global greenhouse gas emissions. New plastic plants opening in the U.S. do not line up with emission reduction goals.

At the end of plastics’ lives, a lot of what we’re putting into our recycling bins isn’t getting recycled. In fact, only 18% of trash from New York City homes is actually recycled. …

The Effects Of Hydrologic Heterogeneity On Harmful Algal Blooms In Freshwater Reservoir, Lake Sinclair, Georgia, Margaret Blackledge

Biology Theses

Aquatic habitats are frequently studied after a major water quality problem like the occurrence of an algal bloom. In this study, A proactive rather than a reactive response was considered, where the complexity of conditions conducive to uncontrolled cell growth were studied before a bloom took place by sampling regularly. This study aimed to monitor water quality by monthly sampling of algal communities for approximately one year. As the base of the aquatic food web, algae are a highly diverse group of organisms with varying sensitivity to physical and chemical changes in the environment. Four shallow sites were monitored at …

Biodiversity Scale-Dependence And Opposing Multi-Level Correlations Underlie Differences Among Taxonomic, Phylogenetic And Functional Diversity, Nadejda A. Mirochnitchenko, Erica F. Stuber, Joseph J. Fontaine

Nebraska Cooperative Fish and Wildlife Research Unit: Staff Publications

Aim: Biodiversity is a multidimensional property of biological communities that represents different information depending on how it is measured, but how dimensions relate to one another and under what conditions is not well understood. We explore how taxonomic, phylogenetic, and functional diversity can differ in scale-of-effect dependence and habitat-biodiversity relationships, and subsequently how spatial differences among biodiversity dimensions may arise. Location: Nebraska, United States. Taxon: Birds. Methods: Across 2016 and 2017, we conducted 2,641 point counts at 781 sites. We modeled the occupancy of 141 species using Bayesian Bernoulli-Bernoulli hierarchical logistic regressions. We calculated species richness (SR), phylogenetic diversity (PD), …

Longleaf Pine Restoration In The South Carolina Sandhills Wiregrass Gap, Jacob W. Murray

All Theses

Longleaf pine restoration has been a topic of great concern and intrigue in the southeast and has taken on new fervor in recent decades as restoration methods continue to develop. Many landowners and forest managers are now pursuing ecological forestry and restoration ecology in great numbers as a new form of land management. However, niche regions can often be overlooked, as is the case with the Carolina Sandhills Wiregrass Gap, an area devoid of wiregrass and one that is on the outskirt regions of the historical longleaf pine range. Field studies were conducted pre- and post-harvest during two growing seasons …

Forced And Unforced Permafrost Changes In The Northern Hemisphere During 1901-2100, Hong Guo

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Permafrost regions are very sensitive to rapid changes in climate and environment. In recent decades, there has been growing interest to better understand the permafrost degradation over the Northern Hemisphere in the context of human-induced climate change. Understanding permafrost dynamics is not only important for infrastructure but also for environmental protection in cold regions. In-situ permafrost measurements are important for assessing permafrost conditions. However, direct permafrost observations are sparse and asymmetrical in both spatial and temporal coverage. Active layer thickness (ALT) modeling is another approach that can overcome many of these limitations, but the models have large uncertainty in predicting …

The U.S. Inland Creel And Angler Survey Catalog (Creelcat): Development, Applications, And Opportunities, Abigail J. Lynch, Nicholas A. Sievert, Holly S. Embke, Ashley M. Robertson, Bonnie J.E. Myers, Micheal S. Allen, Zachary S. Feiner, Frederick Hoogakker, Scott Knoche, Rebecca M. Krogman, Stephen R. Midway, Chelsey L. Nieman, Craig P. Paukert, Kevin L. Pope, Mark W. Rogers, Lyndsie S. Wszola, T. Douglas Beard

Nebraska Cooperative Fish and Wildlife Research Unit: Staff Publications

Inland recreational fishing, defined as primarily leisure-driven fishing in freshwaters, is a popular pastime in the USA. State natural resource agencies endeavor to provide high-quality and sustainable fishing opportunities for anglers. Managers often use creel and other angler survey data to inform state- and waterbody-level management efforts. Despite the broad implementation of angler surveys and their importance to fisheries management at state scales, regional and national coordination among these activities is minimal, limiting data applicability for larger-scale management practices and research. Here, we introduce the U.S. Inland Creel and Angler Survey Catalog (CreelCat), a first-of-its-kind, publicly available national database of …

Determination Of Sustainable Zones For Groundwater Abstraction From The Multi-Layered Aquifer System In The Bengal Basin, Bangladesh, Anwar Zahid, Muhammad Qumrul Hassan, Nazrul I. Khandaker

Publications and Research

The use of deep groundwater (±300 m deep) is becoming an important issue in the Bengal Basin, due to both water quality problems and an acute shortage of available water in upper aquifers. In southeastern Bangladesh, multi-layered aquifer conditions exist with arsenic contamination at shallow depths, and high iron and brackish groundwater occurring mainly in the deeper layers. Many previous studies have offered explanations for the high concentrations of dissolved arsenic in groundwater - most of which proposed that the arsenic is derived from geo-genic sources and its release in groundwater is through natural processes, not the result of anthropogenic …

Droughtscape, Fall 2021, National Drought Mitigation Center

DroughtScape: Quarterly Newsletter of the National Drought Mitigation Center (2007–2023)

DroughtScape, Fall 2021

Rwanda To Phase Out Polluting Vehicles By 2040, An Efficient Strategy To Mitigate Global Warming Effects?, Josue Kwizera

Op-Eds from ENSC230 Energy and the Environment: Economics and Policies

Passenger vehicles are major pollutants because on average a typical passenger vehicle emits about 4.6 metric tons of carbon dioxide per year. I highly support the idea that Rwanda joined on November 11, 2021, a group of countries at the COP26 United Nations climate talks that have made an agreement to end polluting vehicles by 2040. Rwanda is a landlocked country with a 12.95 million population as of 2020 (World Bank). Rwanda currently has over 221,000 registered vehicles; 83,980 are passenger vehicles, 114,900 vehicles (52 percent of those vehicles) are motorcycles and the rest include public transports (buses and minibuses) …

Underground Burning Of Jharia Coal Mine (India) And Associated Surface Deformation Using Insar Data, Jungrack Kim, Shih-Yuan Lin, Ramesh P. Singh, Chen-Wei Lan, Hye-Won Yun

Biology, Chemistry, and Environmental Sciences Faculty Articles and Research

The underground burning in the Jharia coal mine (JCM) in India is a highly devastating environmental hazard inducing various adverse consequences. In the present study, we carried out time series analyses based on Interferometric Synthetic Aperture Radar (InSAR) and land surface temperature (LST) to study the environmental risk. First, a permanent scatterer (PS) time series analysis using Sentinel-1 images over three years was performed to detect the spatio-temporal distribution of ground deformation. Comparison of ground thermal anomaly clearly delineated the subsidence spots associated with the oxygen supply to combustion areas. On the contrary, few deformations were mapped showing pronounced uplift …

Polycyclic Aromatic Hydrocarbons And The Microbiomes Of Two Benthic Species, Samantha Ells

Master's Theses

The presence of oil has been shown to affect the microbiomes of the water column, sediments, and organisms, both by altering the diversity and the composition of those microbial communities. If the microbiome is altered it may no longer provide benefits to its host organism, impacting its ability to survive. Thus, it is important to understand the effects of large-scale contamination events including the Deepwater Horizon oil spill. This study set out to examine the effects of oil exposure on the microbiome of two benthic species, southern flounder (Paralichthys lethostigma) and eastern oysters (Crassostrea virginica) to further understand the effects …

Droughtscape, Summer 2021, National Drought Mitigation Center

DroughtScape: Quarterly Newsletter of the National Drought Mitigation Center (2007–2023)

DroughtScape, Summer 2021

Urban Permaculture For Climate-Resilient Farming In Worcester, Massachusetts, Priyanka Shrestha

Sustainability and Social Justice

Climate changes observed over the past several decades are associated with changes in the multiple components of hydrological systems, including changes in precipitation patterns, higher rates of evaporation and increasing soil erosion. In 2019, the city of Worcester declared a climate emergency, stating that climate change threatens the community’s environment. Permaculture can strengthen crucial relationships between nature and human beings, offering long-lasting solutions to protect our planet from risks associated with climate change. This paper focuses on the application of permaculture practices in urban agriculture, including techniques to address changes in hydrological systems. Use of perennial plants, creating swales, drip …

Intangible Cultural Heritage: A Benefit To Climate-Displaced And Host Communities, Gül Aktürk, Martha B. Lerski

Publications and Research

Climate change is borderless, and its impacts are not shared equally by all communities. It causes an imbalance between people by creating a more desirable living environment for some societies while erasing settlements and shelters of some others. Due to floods, sea level rise, destructive storms, drought, and slow-onset factors such as salinization of water and soil, people lose their lands, homes, and natural resources. Catastrophic events force people to move voluntarily or involuntarily. The relocation of communities is a debatable climate adaptation measure which requires utmost care with human rights, ethics, and psychological well-being of individuals upon the issues …

International Migration From The Latin American-Caribbean Region: Taking Environmental Indicators Into Consideration, Chelsea Wepy

Student Theses and Dissertations

International migration, the act of leaving one’s country to permanently settle in another country, is driven by many socio economic/political factors, such as lack of economic opportunity, access to education, governmental corruption, and violence. These factors have proven to be the reason that many citizens within the Latin American-Caribbean region either choose or are forced to relocate internationally. While these factors are important to consider independently; these issues are often exacerbated by changes in the natural environment. The objective of my paper is to highlight the importance of considering changes in the natural environment. In doing so, I hope to …

The Effect Of Changing Substrate On Arctic Aquatic Invertebrates Abundance, Tom Dolman

Michael D. Wilson Symposium

Climate change is directly affecting tundra ecosystems in northern regions, and warming temperatures have caused discontinuous permafrost and thawing sediments across the region. This project investigates how increasing erosion and the foraging patterns of migratory snow geese may degrade habitat for aquatic invertebrates in the upper Mast River, located in Wapusk National Park, Manitoba, Canada. In the past two decades, many of the important species of aquatic invertebrates have shown declines. Declining invertebrate populations are predicted to affect aquatic ecosystems and decrease the resources available to shorebirds and waterfowl, which breed and migrate through this area.

A Foray Into Laboratory Scale Soil Incubations With Corn Stover And High Lignin Fermentation Byproduct, Michelle Wang

ENGS 88 Honors Thesis (AB Students)

As the production of biofuels increases to meet the demands of a growing low carbon economy, questions of sustainability surrounding its feedstock and waste streams have become increasingly relevant. In the biofuel production process, crop residues like corn stover are harvested from the field and converted to biofuels leaving generating a residue called high lignin fermentation byproduct (HLFB). From extensive process modelling in the literature, it is suggested that HLFB should be either combusted to fuel auxiliary conversion processes or returned to the soil in place of the crop residues that were harvested. Currently, there is little literature testing the …

Droughtscape, Spring 2021, National Drought Mitigation Center

DroughtScape: Quarterly Newsletter of the National Drought Mitigation Center (2007–2023)

DroughtScape, Spring 2021

Solutions Human Centered Approach To Conservation, Illustration Department, History, Philosophy, + The Social Sciences Department

Illustration Course Work & Materials

"These essays were were written and illustrated by students at the Rhode Island school of Design in February, 2021. Their perspectives are entirely personal and reflect their efforts within a 5.5-week fused studio/seminar course that was centered on the Sixth Mass Extinction and how biodiversity is changing because of humans. Discovering that science communication is more than delivering just the facts, students were invited to research a topic of personal interest that is relevant to human impacts on biodiversity. Through analysis of data and other scientific information, each sought to synthesize their research and opinions on their topic through a …

Optimisation Of Retrofit Wall Insulation: An Irish Case Study, Rakshit D. Muddu, D M. Gowda, Anthony James Robinson, Aimee Byrne

Articles

Ireland has one of the highest rates of emissions per capita in the world and its residential sector is responsible for approximately 10% of total national CO2 emissions. Therefore, reducing the CO2 emissions in this sector will play a decisive role in achieving EU targets of reducing emissions by 40% by 2030. To better inform decisions regarding retrofit of the existing building stock, this study proposes Optimum Insulation Thicknesses (OIT) for typical walls in 25 regions in Ireland. The calculation of OIT includes annual heat energy expenditure, CO2 emissions, and material payback period. The approach taken is based on Heating …

Temporal Invariance Of Social-Ecological Catchments, Mark A. Kaemingk, Christine N. Bender, Chris Chizinski, Aaron J. Bunch, Kevin L. Pope

Nebraska Cooperative Fish and Wildlife Research Unit: Staff Publications

Natural resources such as waterbodies, public parks, and wildlife refuges attract people from varying distances on the landscape, creating “social-ecological catchments.” Catchments have provided great utility for understanding physical and social relationships within specific disciplines. Yet, catchments are rarely used across disciplines, such as its application to understand complex spatiotemporal dynamics between mobile human users and patchily distributed natural resources. We collected residence ZIP codes from 19,983 angler parties during 2014–2017 to construct seven angler–waterbody catchments in Nebraska, USA. We predicted that sizes of dense (10% utilization distribution) and dispersed (95% utilization distribution) angler–waterbody catchments would change across seasons and …

Roost Use And Movements Of Northern Long-Eared Bats In A Southeast Nebraska Agricultural Landscape, Christopher Fill, Craig R. Allen, John F. Benson, Dirac Twidwell

Nebraska Cooperative Fish and Wildlife Research Unit: Staff Publications

Bats are important bio-indicators of ecosystem health and provide a number of ecosystem services. White-nose Syndrome and habitat loss have led to the decline of many bat species in eastern North America, including the federally threatened northern long-eared bat, Myotis septentrionalis. White-nose Syndrome was only recently found in Nebraska, which lies on the western extent of this species geographic range. To better understand how this forest-dependent species persists in an agriculturally dominated landscape amid a growing number of pressures, we investigated the roosting habits of this bat at the Homestead National Monument of America, located in southeast Nebraska. We …