Browsing by Department "Ecology"
Now showing items 1-20 of 81
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An Ecosystem Approach to Dead Plant Carbon over 50 years of Old-Field Forest Development
(2011)This study seeks to investigate the dynamics of dead plant carbon over fifty years of old-field forest development at the Calhoun Long Term Soil-Ecosystem Experiment (LTSE) in South Carolina, USA. Emphasis is on the transition ... -
Animal Movement in Pelagic Ecosystems: from Communities to Individuals
(2009)Infusing models for animal movement with more behavioral realism has been a goal of movement ecologists for several years. As ecologists have begun to collect more and more data on animal distribution and abundance, a clear ... -
Aspects of the Feeding Ecology of the Antillean Manatee (<italic>Trichechus manatus manatus</italic>) in the Wetlands of Tabasco, Mexico
(2013)Manatees (Mammalia: Sirenia), along with the closely related dugongs, are the only herbivorous marine mammals. Manatees consume a wide variety of vascular plants and algae in both marine and freshwater habitats. However, ... -
Avian Distribution Patterns and Conservation in Amazonia
(2007-10-19)In this dissertation, I address the distribution and conservation of the Amazonian avifauna at several different scales. In Chapter 1, I looked at how the spatial bias in ornithological collections affects our understanding ... -
A Multiscale Investigation of Snake Habitat Relationships and Snake Conservation in Illinois
(2008-02-11)Snake populations in the North American tallgrass prairie appear to be declining, yet data unavailability impedes the development of enhanced ecological understanding of snake species-habitat relationships and also hinders ... -
Barnacle cement: a polymerization model based on evolutionary concepts.
(2009-11)The tenacity by which barnacles adhere has sparked a long history of scientific investigation into their adhesive mechanisms. To adhere, barnacles utilize proteinaceous cement that rapidly polymerizes and forms adhesive ... -
Broad Scale Conservation: Protected Areas and Species Interactions
(2009)This dissertation consists of four chapters. The first three chapters examine protected areas (or parks) from multiple perspectives. Parks are the first, and often only, line of defense in efforts to conserve biodiversity. ... -
Climate Change, Phenological Shifts, and Species Interactions: Case Studies in Subalpine Plant and Migratory Fish Populations
(2019)Phenology, the timing of biological events across the year, is shifting in response to climate change. Not all species within a community are responding to the same environmental cues by shifting their phenology to the same ... -
Climatic Influences on Seedlings in Eastern Nort America
(2017)Unprecedented rates of warming and an inability to curtail greenhouse gas productionhas fueled the discussion of how to mitigate climatic impacts. Climate impactson forests are coarsely understood. A large number of interacting ... -
Coastal Plain Pond Vegetation Patterns: Tracking Changes Across Space and Time
(2010)Coastal plain ponds are an understudied and threatened wetland ecosystem with many unique environmental attributes. Research in these ponds can investigate species-environment relationships, while simultaneously providing ... -
Connectivity Drives Function: Carbon and Nitrogen Dynamics in a Floodplain-Aquifer Ecosystem
(2012)Rivers interact with their valleys from headwaters to mouth, but nowhere as dynamically as in their floodplains. Rivers deliver water, sediments, and solutes onto the floodplain land surface, and the land in turn supplies ... -
Consequences of Changing Rainfall Variability for the Chihuahuan Desert Annual Plant Community
(2017)Climate change is expected to increase climate variability over much of the world, including the timing and magnitude of weather events such as droughts and heat waves. Although ecologists have made great strides in quantifying ... -
Conservation Through Population Assessments Across Variable Landscapes
(2019)Few areas of the planet are untouched by human actions, be they marine or terrestrial. Marine habitats face disturbance from overexploitation of fisheries and pollution while terrestrial habitats face significant threat ... -
Controls on Carbon Uptake and Storage in Southeastern Forests
(2012)Uptake and storage of carbon by forest ecosystems continues to be a major research topic needed for the quantification of global budgets in an increasing atmospheric carbon dioxide environment. However, there are considerable ... -
Ecological contexts of balancing selection in nature
(2020)How genetic variation is maintained in the face of persistent natural selection is a central question in evolutionary biology. Here, I leverage a focal polymorphism, leaf chemical profile in a perennial wildflower (Boechera ... -
Ecological Forces in Microbial Communities: Experimental Tests of Community Ecology Theory in Soil and the Mammalian Gut
(2017)Microbes are the foundation of all ecosystems and crucial players in major ecosystem processes. However, most of our ecological theory was developed for plants and animals and thus may not help us understand these important ... -
Ecological immunology in meerkats: testing environmental, social, hormonal, and transgenerational factors
(2017)Much of our knowledge of the mammalian immune system comes from laboratory studies of model organisms in highly controlled settings; however, in nature, organisms experience myriad biotic and abiotic pressures that can influence ... -
Ecology of Beaked Whales and Sperm Whales in the Western North Atlantic Ocean: Insights from Passive Acoustic Monitoring
(2017)Beaked whales (family Ziphiidae) and sperm whales (Physeter macrocephalus) are apex marine predators found throughout the world’s deep oceans. These species are challenging to observe, and little is known about fundamental ... -
Ecosystem Consequences of Sea Level Rise and Salinization in North Carolina’s Coastal Wetlands
(2021)Climate change is driving vegetation community shifts in coastal regions of the world, where low topographic relief makes ecosystems particularly vulnerable to sea level rise, salinization, storm surge, and other effects ... -
Ecotoxicology of Natural and Anthropogenic Extreme Environments
(2010)Reactive oxygen species (ROS) are produced endogenously in all aerobes and are induced by environmental stressors. ROS oxidize and disable essential cellular components such as DNA, proteins, and lipid membranes. Exposure ...
