ALERT: This system is being upgraded on Tuesday December 12. It will not be available
for use for several hours that day while the upgrade is in progress. Deposits to DukeSpace
will be disabled on Monday December 11, so no new items are to be added to the repository
while the upgrade is in progress. Everything should be back to normal by the end of
day, December 12.
Browsing by Subject "Biology, Ecology"
Now showing items 1-20 of 42
-
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 ... -
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 ... -
Behavior, Ecology, and Conservation of Sea Turtles in the North Atlantic Ocean
(2009)Sea turtles have experienced dramatic population declines during the last century as a consequence of direct harvest, by-catch in fisheries, and habitat loss. Despite almost 50 years of partial international protection, ... -
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. ... -
Carbon and Water Relations in Pinus Taeda: Bridging the Gap across Plant Physiology, Genomics, and Global Climate Change
(2008-06-23)Plants respond to changes in their local environment and, at the same time, influence the environment at a global scale. The molecular and physiological mechanisms regulating this interaction are not completely understood ... -
Coevolution of the Ipomoea-Coleosporium Natural Plant-Fungus Pathosystem
(2010)<p>Plants and their pathogens coevolve, with pathogen infection and host resistance acting in evolutionary antagonism of each other. Plant-pathogen coevolution has been shown to effect genetic divergence between populations ... -
Costs and Benefits of Intrasexual Aggression in Females: an Experimental Approach
(2009)A long-held assumption in animal behavior is that females and males differ fundamentally in their mating strategies. Females are thought to be more choosy because female reproduction typically is limited by parental investment. ... -
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 ... -
Environmental Impacts on the Population Dynamics of a Tropical Seabird in the Context of Climate Change: Improving Inference through Hierarchical Modeling
(2008-04-25)Under the increasing threat of climate change, it is imperative to understand the impact that environmental phenomena have on the demography and behavior of natural populations. In the last few decades an ever increasing ... -
Establishment and Growth of a Sea Turtle Rookery: the Population Biology of the Leatherback in Florida.
(2007-08-10)Despite facing threat of extirpation in the eastern Pacific, the critically endangered leatherback turtle (Dermochelys coriacea) appears to be thriving in the Atlantic. The purpose of my dissertation was to establish a baseline ... -
Estuarine Ingress of the Blue Crab Callinectes Sapidus
(2008-04-21)This dissertation investigated ingress of postlarval blue crabs Callinectes sapidus to the Newport River estuary, North Carolina, USA. Data from C. similis, Menippe mercenaria, Pachygrapsus transversus, and Arenaeus cribrarius ... -
FARM FIELDS TO WETLANDS: BIOGEOCHEMICAL CONSEQUENCES OF RE-FLOODING IN COASTAL PLAIN AGRICULTURAL LANDS
(2010)Whether through sea level rise, farmland abandonment, or wetland restoration, agricultural soils in coastal areas will be inundated at increasing rates, renewing connections to sensitive surface waters and raising critical ... -
FEEDBACKS of NITROGEN CYCLING and INVASION with the NON-NATIVE PLANT, <italic>MICROSTEGIUM VIMINEUM</Italic>, in RIPARIAN WETLANDS
(2009)<p>Invasive species are rapidly expanding in riparian wetlands while concurrently anthropogenic causes are increasing nitrogen (N) into these ecosystems. <italic>Microstegium vimineum (Microstegium) </italic> is a particularly ... -
Fruit to Sapling: an Ontogenetically Integrated Study of Tree Recruitment in an Amazonian Rainforest
(2008-05-16)I examined recruitment patterns of multiple tree species in a western Amazonian floodplain forest at three ontogenetic stages: seed fall, seedling establishment, and sapling recruitment.From analyzing a long-term seed rain ... -
Geological Control of Floristic Composition in Amazonian Forests
(2010)Amazonia contains the largest remaining tracts of undisturbed tropical forest on earth, and is thus critical to international nature conservation and carbon sequestration efforts. Amazonian forests are notoriously difficult ... -
Host Constraints on the Post-glacial Migration History of the Parasitic Plant, Epifagus Virginiana
(2009)Because species respond individually to climate change, understanding community assembly requires examination of multiple species from a diversity of forest niches. I present the post-glacial phylogeographic history of an ... -
Hydrologic Controls on Vegetation: from Leaf to Landscape
(2009)Topography, vegetation, nutrient dynamics, soil features and hydroclimatic forcing are inherently coupled, with feedbacks occurring over a wide range of temporal and spatial scales. Vegetation growth may be limited by soil ... -
Influence of Substrate on Coral Reef Fish Communities
(2008-06-23)Coral reef fish coexist in a state of high diversity that has not been successfully explained by niche diversification, larval supply, differential mortality, or a suite of other proposed factors. These processes are all ... -
Integrating genetics, geography, and local adaptation to understand ecotype formation in the yellow monkeyflower, Mimulus guttatus
(2010)Speciation is a constantly ongoing process whereby reproductive isolating baririer build up over time until groups of organisms can no longer exchange genes with each other. Adaptation is thought to play a major role in ...
