Terrestrial and Aquatic Ecology Commons^™

El Arbolado De Los Espacios Públicos Abiertos De La Zona De Monumentos Del Centro Histórico De La Ciudad De Puebla, Víctor Gutiérrez-Pacheco, Sonia Emilia Silva-Gómez, José Silvestre Toxtle-Tlamani, J. Santos Hernández-Zepeda

Estudios en Biodiversidad

Los conglomerados humanos, presentan espacios públicos abiertos (EPA´s), sobre todo arbolados, con funciones estéticas, sociales y ambientales. Se requiere información e indicadores con un enfoque ecológico, para que su atención descanse sobre una planeación documentada. Así, se pretende conocer la composición arbórea, su distribución y la biodiversidad en los Espacios Públicos Abiertos (EPA´s) de la Zona de Monumentos del Centro Histórico de la Ciudad de Puebla (ZMCHP). Por tanto, se contaron los especímenes, se ubicaron en los EPA´s y se identificaron. Para determinar la biodiversidad se aplicó el Índice de Diversidad de Shannon-Wiener (H´). En 25 EPA´s, se censaron 1,120 …

Phylogenetic And Fossil Evidence For A Common Body Size Attractor In Marine Mammals, William Gearty, Jonathan Payne

School of Biological Sciences: Presentations

Evolutionary transitions between terrestrial and aquatic habitats are rare and often have large effects on the evolutionary trajectory of the clade making the transition. Following a single transition from the marine realm to the terrestrial realm, tetrapods have subsequently re-evolved a marine lifestyle at least 30 separate times. At least six of these re-invasions of the water occurred within crown-group mammals and four [sirenians (Sirenia), whales (Cetacea), pinnipeds (Pinnipedia), and otters (Lutrinae)] clades are extant. Although marine mammals are widely known to be larger than their terrestrial sister groups, the extent to which the body size evolution of these clades …

Genetically Based Low Oxygen Affinities Of Felid Hemoglobins: Lack Of Biochemical Adaptation To High-Altitude Hypoxia In The Snow Leopard, Jan E. Janecka, Simone S. E. Nielsen, Sidsel D. Andersen, Federico G. Hoffmann, Roy E. Weber, Trevor Anderson, Jay F. Storz, Angela Fago

School of Biological Sciences: Faculty Publications

Genetically based modifications of hemoglobin (Hb) function that increase blood–O₂ affinity are hallmarks of hypoxia adaptation in vertebrates. Among mammals, felid Hbs are unusual in that they have low intrinsic O₂ affinities and reduced sensitivities to the allosteric cofactor 2,3-diphosphoglycerate (DPG). This combination of features compromises the acclimatization capacity of blood–O2 affinity and has led to the hypothesis that felids have a restricted physiological niche breadth relative to other mammals. In seeming defiance of this conjecture, the snow leopard (Panthera uncia) has an extraordinarily broad elevational distribution and occurs at elevations above 6000 m in the Himalayas. Here, …

Presencia De Metales Pesados En La Reserva De La Biosfera Barranca De Metztitlán, Hidalgo, México, Irving Giovanny González-Salazar, Maritza López-Herrera, Scott Monks, Griselda Pulido-Flores

Estudios en Biodiversidad

La Reserva de la Biosfera Barranca de Metztitlán es un área natural protegida por la gran diversidad de flora y fauna existente en la misma. La zona es atravesada por un río de gran longitud que se extiende desde el municipio de Tulancingo hasta su desembocadura en la Laguna de Metztitlán, en la zona núcleo de la reserva. A lo largo del cauce del río se ubican algunos asentamientos humanos y zonas industriales, que vierten aguas residuales domésticas e industriales. Además, el agua del río es un recurso natural utilizado como agua de riego para las zonas agrícolas, que con …

Percepción De Calidad De Vida, Contaminación Y Riesgo En Localidades Rurales Del Municipio De Tecoanapa, Guerrero, Rocío López-Velasco, América Rodríguez-Herrera, Humberto González-González, Branly Olivier-Salomé, Consuelo Montalvo-Marques

Estudios en Biodiversidad

En el presente trabajo se realizó un análisis sobre la percepción de calidad de vida, contaminación y riesgo en nueve comunidades rurales del Municipio de Tecoanapa, Guerrero. Para ello, se seleccionaron nueve comunidades que cumplieran con tres aspectos: rezago social (muy alto, medio y muy bajo); ubicación (cerca de ríos); y vivencias en conflictos y embates ambientales. Se levantó una encuesta a jefes de familia en febrero de 2014. Registrando que el 70% de los habitantes afirmaron tener una buena calidad de vida. Al cuestionarlos sobre contaminación, el 59.9% consideró que si existe y está asociada al agua. El 52.0% …

Plantas Útiles De Tres Municipios (Metztitlán, Atotonilco El Grande Y Huasca De Ocampo) De La Reserva De La Biosfera Barranca De Metztitlán, Hidalgo, México, Miguel Ángel Villavicencio-Nieto, Blanca Estela Pérez-Escandón, Berenice N. López-Gutiérrez

Estudios en Biodiversidad

Existen muy pocos trabajos etnobotánicos realizados en la Reserva de la Biosfera Barranca de Metztitlán, por lo que el objetivo de este estudio fue generar un listado preliminar de plantas útiles de la Reserva. Se aplicaron entrevistas a habitantes de localidades ubicadas en la zona, para colectar las plantas útiles mencionadas se hicieron recorridos de campo en compañía de informantes, posteriormente las especies fueron identificadas con el uso de claves dicotómicas. Se registraron 83 especies de plantas útiles, distribuidas en 39 familias y 20 categorías de uso, siendo la medicinal la mejor representada por número de especies. Conocer el uso …

Assessing Changes In Avian Communities, Jessie D. Golding

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

Grazing is a potentially powerful tool to address wildlife declines associated with land use conversion in the western United States. Grazing systems can be manipulated to achieve desired vegetation outcomes, preserve native habitat and economically benefit multiple stakeholders. As a result, systems designed to benefit native ecosystems are being widely implemented. However, the benefits of these grazing systems on many wildlife communities remain relatively unexplored. Songbirds provide an ideal study system to test these benefits because they continue to use native habitat that is currently grazed. Given limited time and resources, conservation practitioners often monitor a single focal species or …

An Economic Analysis Of High-Intensity, Short-Duration Grazing Systems In South Dakota And Nebraska, Bronc Mcmurtry

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Four different grazing systems: two rotational, a continuous, and a high-intensity, short-duration (mob) system, replicated twice, were evaluated from an economic perspective. Mob grazing is defined as a system having very high stocking rates for a small amount of time. Livestock are forced to eat or trample the vegetation. Stocking rates and average daily gains (ADG) were collected from the UNL Barta Brothers ranch near Rose, Nebraska. The study started in 2011 and lasted until 2014. Using the performance data and other cost data relevant to South Dakota and Nebraska, budgets were set up for each system and extrapolated to …

School Gardens: Cultivating A Child’S Nutritional Habits, Environmental Knowledge, And Sustainability Practices, Jeffrey Meltzer

Honors Theses

School gardens have existed since the late nineteenth century and today are becoming increasingly popular in many parts of the world, including where I studied in Maine and Australia (AUS). Multiple organizations support school gardens in Maine, including the Maine School Garden Network, which has over 125 registered school gardens. In AUS, the Stephanie Alexander Kitchen Garden Foundation primarily supports the school garden movement and has over 800 registered school gardens. While many researchers have studied school gardens, few have compared two countries, focused on environmental sustainability, or investigated Maine in particular. This thesis combines information from literature reviews, and …

Dynamics Of Baseline Stable Isotopes Within A Temperate Coastal Ecosystem: Relationships And Projections Using Physical And Biogeochemical Factors, Andrew Mackey

Theses: Doctorates and Masters

Measurements of carbon (13C/12C; δ13C) and nitrogen (15N/14N; δ15N) stable isotope ratios have become important tools for: estimating energy flow and trophic positions in aquatic foodwebs; comparing food webs; and aiding in the tracking of wide-ranging consumers. However, each of these applications requires accurate measurements of isotopic signatures in organisms at or near the base of the food web (e.g. autotrophs and their consumers), which act as basal reference points from which to calibrate inferences. Therefore, understanding variations in isotopic baselines, and the mechanisms leading to their variability, is crucial for food web ecology.

Using the shallow temperate reefs along …

Evolution, Systematics & Geographic Parthenogenesis Of Ilyodromus (Crustacea, Ostracoda), Rylan James Shearn

Theses

Most multicellular organisms reproduce sexually at some point in their life cycle. This is paradoxical because being asexual is theoretically far more advantageous. Asexual organisms do not need to find and court new mates, they reproduce at a faster rate, and with no males, all members of the population contribute toward population growth rate. With over 20, often mutually exclusive hypotheses, this paradox resists a synthesised explanation, and continues to represent one of the largest gaps in our understanding of fundamental evolutionary theory. Clearly, more real world studies are required that document the selective mechanisms underlying differences in evolutionary fitness …

Re-Envisioning Community-Wildfire Relations In The U.S. West As Adaptive Governance, Jesse B. Abrams, Melanie Knapp, Travis B. Paveglio, Autumn Ellison, Cassandra Moseley, Max Nielsen-Pincus, Matthew S. Carroll

Environmental Science and Management Faculty Publications and Presentations

Prompted by a series of increasingly destructive, expensive, and highly visible wildfire crises in human communities across the globe, a robust body of scholarship has emerged to theorize, conceptualize, and measure community-level resilience to wildfires. To date, however, insufficient consideration has been given to wildfire resilience as a process of adaptive governance mediated by institutions at multiple scales. Here we explore the possibilities for addressing this gap through an analysis of wildfire resilience among wildland-urban interface communities in the western region of the United States. We re-engage important but overlooked components of social-ecological system resilience by situating rural communities within …

Ecohydraulic Investigation Of Diatoms In A Bedrock-Controlled Stream, Alex M. Rittle

Theses and Dissertations--Geography

Recent studies within the past decade or so have shown the importance of algae in geomorphic and hydrologic processes of lotic systems. However, the ecohydraulic role of algae in bedrock systems has largely been ignored. In addition, the utility of algae as indicators of channel dynamics have often been assumed by geomorphologists, but relatively few studies have examined this relationship. The purpose of this study was to determine whether algae, specifically diatoms, are useful indicators of channel geomorphological dynamics, and to examine if distinct habitats or biotopes typical in fluviokarst and bedrock systems provide unique habitat space for diatoms, and …

Striking The Balance: Challenges And Perspectives For The Protected Areas Network In Northeastern European Russia, Svetlana V. Degteva, Vasily I. Ponomarev, Sasha W. Eisenman, Vyacheslav Dushenkov

Publications and Research

Increasing anthropogenic pressure on the largest remaining tracts of old-growth boreal forest in Europe necessitates additional conservation of ecosystems and biodiversity in northeastern European Russia. In a regional network comprising 8 % of the Nenets Autonomous District and 13.5 % of the Komi Republic, 248 areas have varying protected statuses as state nature reserves (zapovedniks), national parks, reserves/sanctuaries (zakazniks), or natural monuments. Due to increased natural resource extraction in this relatively pristine area, designation of additional protected areas is critical for the protection of key ecological sites. The history of ecological preservation in these regions is herein described, and recent …

An Investigation Into The Occurrence Of Batrachochytrium Dendrobatidis Infection In Plethodontid Salamander Communities Of Robinson Forest, Sarah H. Spaulding

Theses and Dissertations--Forestry and Natural Resources

Environmental and anthropogenic stressors negatively affect amphibians in a variety of ways, often increasing their vulnerability to pathogen infection and mortality. Sampling for the pathogenic fungus Batrachochytrium dendrobatidis (Bd) was conducted in order to: 1) determine the presence of chytrid infection in stream-associated plethodontid salamanders of southeastern Kentucky, and 2) evaluate differences in infection intensity between salamanders residing in intact forest streams, timber-harvested streams, and surface-mined streams. During 14 sampling sessions occurring between March, April and May of 2013, DNA samples from 306 individual salamanders within 8 species from the family Plethodontidae were collected; additional amphibians (i.e. frogs, newts) were …

Recovery Potential Of The Mussel Communities In The Lower Section Of Big Walnut Creek, Jared B. Ellenbogen

Undergraduate Honors Thesis Projects

Since the enactment of the 1977 Clean Water Act, biologists have created numerous multimetric assessment tools to evaluate the biological integrity of water resources, using biological criteria. The integrity of Big Walnut Creek, Ohio, has been in flux since the 1955 construction of Hoover Dam, and while current water quality is high, mussel communities in the creek have yet to recover to historical levels. This study sought to determine the cause of the decline in the mussels in the lower section of the creek below the dam. Historical creek data, including a fish-based index of biotic integrity (f-IBI), invertebrate community …

Use Of Airborne Digital Imagery To Examine Floodplain Complexity At Varying Discharges, Katelyn P. Driscoll

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

Floodplains are composed of aquatic and terrestrial habitats that are frequently reshaped by hydrologic processes operating at various spatial and temporal scales. I hypothesized that floodplain habitat complexity is maximized at intermediate discharges because small changes in flow result in substantial aquatic habitat changes and extreme discharges are associated with a decreased habitat heterogeneity. Between April and September 2014, I collected ultra-high resolution digital multispectral imagery of the Clark Fork River, Montana taken on 6 dates between early spring and fall. Following image mosaicking into a single image, unsupervised classification of the spectral reflectance was used to identify and quantify …

Behavioral Response Of Pacific Lamprey (Entosphenus Tridentatus) To Predator Odors, Laurie L. Porter

All Master's Theses

Pacific lamprey (Entosphenus tridentatus), a species facing serious threats to their existence, experience a number of challenges in reaching their desired spawning grounds during the adult migratory phase, and predators are suspected to be one of these challenges. Understanding if Pacific lamprey respond to predator odorants may provide a management tool for use in conjunction with attractants in guiding lamprey to suitable spawning habitat and deterring them from poor habitat. Previous research has failed to explore Pacific lamprey response to predator odorants, although much research exists on attractant odorants. In our study, we tested Pacific lamprey response to …

Assessing The Contributions Of Two Stocked Strains On A Minnesota-Wisconsin Border Water, Douglas Zentner

Journal of Earth and Life Science

Stocking has long been used as a management tool in the United States even though many of its effects remain cryptic. Past comparisons between stocked strains were generally based on the survival and growth rates of physically marked individuals. More recently the use of genetic markers to assess contributions of stocked individuals has been employed by fisheries managers. Using 13 microsatellite markers we assessed the contributions of two muskellunge (Esox masquinongy) strains (Wisconsin and Leech) stocked into the St. Louis River Estuary. Ancestry in the adult samples remained relatively constant with differences only observed between the 2008 and …

Using Wild I.D. As A Reliable Source For Mark And Recapture Studies On Northern Pike (Esox Lucius), Martin Evans

Journal of Earth and Life Science

Mark and recapture studies are a very popular method fisheries biologists use to assess certain fish populations in lakes. This process can be very labor intensive and expensive. Wild I.D. is free software developed by Dartmouth College that uses SIFT program to find unique features in photographs. Initially developed for identification of African land mammals the program gives each photo a score and percent match to other photos. Northern pike were used in this study to determine if the program can recognize simulated recapture events. Photos of sample fish were taken at two separate locations, the photos were then copied …