Browsing by Subject "Wyoming"
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Item Open Access Climate change induced changes in moisture availability in eastern Wyoming ranchlands with management recommendations for adaptation(2008-04-25T20:24:54Z) Fox, RobIn the future there is an expectation for climate change to have impacts on both natural systems and agricultural enterprises. A number of studies have been conducted for the purpose of determining the effects of a changing climate on agricultural enterprises, but most of these studies are large scale in their scope and give non-specific recommendations for adaptation. In the United States much of agriculture, including ranching, requires large capital shifts to change their products and as such they need to have more specific advice as to how to respond. Having more specific advice today also means that individuals in agriculture can start planning to adapt today, rather than being surprised a few decades from now. This project utilizes historical climate information and projections of future temperature and precipitation based on IPCC regional expectations and local climate variability. These projected values were used in two versions of the Thornwaite moisture balance model to calculate a range of possible changes for moisture availability from 2009 to the year 2100. The estimated changes in available moisture (potential evapotranspiration, soil moisture, atmospheric moisture deficit, etc.) were compared to the baseline values to determine the decrease from normal values. The literature was searched to determine the amount of decrease in moisture availability that would likely result in ecological drought and hinder production. The evidence indicates that there will be varying degrees of diminishing of available moisture dependent upon the amount of temperature increase. Because of the range of possible impacts, a variety of management practice recommendations are included, as well as mechanisms to monitor the climate more carefully to better spot droughts as they begin. For scenarios with severe shifts in the climate, recommendations are made to make strong changes in their production methods or the uses of the land.Item Open Access Crafting Climate Solutions in Coal Country: Lessons from the Work of the Energy Communities Interagency Working Group (IWG) in Wyoming(2024-05-03) Hitchcock, IanCurrent federal efforts to support coal dependent “energy communities” will be insufficient to ensure their well-being through clean energy transition. Energy Community incentives and frameworks that treat coal communities as a monolith fail to account for distinct local needs between coal communities in different regions. The story of the coal producing state of Wyoming’s engagement with federal funding opportunities designed to support coal communities in transition demonstrates the shortcomings of current federal policy frameworks to support coal communities. While there has been alignment between Wyoming and federal policy goals around clean energy transition with support for carbon capture, utilization, and storage demonstration projects (CCUS), the state has largely failed to receive funding from competitive grant programs aimed at supporting diversified economic development within coal communities, even though Wyoming is the highest producing coal area in the country. All that said, the work of the Energy Communities Interagency Working Group and their pilot Rapid Response Team (RRT)in Wyoming offers lessons that could be applied to federal programs aiming to support a just transition for coal communities in the US. The successes of the RRT demonstrate how a focus on place-based community engagement, emphasis on relationship building and building on the ground capacity to engage with federal programs, and flexibility in program design can create the conditions that lead to policy progress on climate even in unlikely places like Wyoming communities whose economies, culture, and politics have been dominated by fossil fuels for decades.Item Open Access First virtual endocasts of adapiform primates.(Journal of human evolution, 2016-10) Harrington, Arianna R; Silcox, Mary T; Yapuncich, Gabriel S; Boyer, Doug M; Bloch, Jonathan IWell-preserved crania of notharctine adapiforms from the Eocene of North America provide the best direct evidence available for inferring neuroanatomy and encephalization in early euprimates (crown primates). Virtual endocasts of the notharctines Notharctus tenebrosus (n = 3) and Smilodectes gracilis (n = 4) from the middle Eocene Bridger formation of Wyoming, and the late Eocene European adapid adapiform Adapis parisiensis (n = 1), were reconstructed from high-resolution X-ray computed tomography (CT) data. While the three species share many neuroanatomical similarities differentiating them from plesiadapiforms (stem primates) and extant euprimates, our sample of N. tenebrosus displays more variation than that of S. gracilis, possibly related to differences in the patterns of cranial sexual dimorphism or within-lineage evolution. Body masses predicted from associated teeth suggest that N. tenebrosus was larger and had a lower encephalization quotient (EQ) than S. gracilis, despite their close relationship and similar inferred ecologies. Meanwhile, body masses predicted from cranial length of the same specimens suggest that the two species were more similar, with overlapping body mass and EQ, although S. gracilis exhibits a range of EQs shifted upwards relative to that of N. tenebrosus. While associated data from other parts of the skeleton are mostly lacking for specimens included in this study, measurements for unassociated postcrania attributed to these species yield body mass and EQ estimates that are also more similar to each other than those based on teeth. Regardless of the body mass prediction method used, results suggest that the average EQ of adapiforms was similar to that of plesiadapiforms, only overlapped the lower quadrant for the range of extant strepsirrhines, and did not overlap with the range of extant haplorhines. However, structural changes evident in these endocasts suggest that early euprimates relied more on vision than olfaction relative to plesiadapiforms, despite having relatively small endocranial volumes compared to extant taxa.