• Coniferous, diffuse‐porous and ring‐porous trees vary in their xylem anatomy, but the functional consequences of these differences are not well understood from the scale of the conduit to the individual.
• Hydraulic and anatomical measurements were made on branches and trunks from 16 species from temperate and tropical areas,...
Ion pairs and solubility related to ion-pairing in water influence many processes in nature and in synthesis including efficient drug delivery, contaminant transport in the environment, and self-assembly of materials in water. Ion pairs are difficult to observe spectroscopically because they generally do not persist unless extreme solution conditions are...
Deep foundations are necessary for the construction of many structures, such as bridges and buildings, located in areas unsuitable for shallow foundations. Owing to the inherent variability of soil and the complex changes that occur in the soil adjacent to deep foundations as they are installed, the ability to accurately...
Managing wildlands to protect species and ecosystem services in response to climate change is challenging. To develop effective long-term strategies, natural resource managers need to account for the projected effects of climate change as well as the uncertainty inherent in those projections. Vegetation models are one important source of projected...
The size, shape, and stability of a species’ dietary niche can both influence and reflect a variety of biological patterns, including species interactions, extinction risk, and ecosystem function. This is particularly apparent when dietary changes manifest at ecosystem and clade scales to profoundly affect macroecological and macroevolutionary trajectories. However, many...
Wine is known to have been enjoyed since ancient times. Although early civilizations where unaware of scientific mechanisms of the properties of wine, empirical methods allowed them knowledge of its intoxicating effects as well as its healthful properties. These properties lead the ancients to use wine for many purposes including...
This thesis summarizes work completed over the previous four years primarily focusing on chloroplast phylogenomic inquiry into the genus Pinus and related Pinaceae outgroups using next-generation sequencing on Illumina platforms. During the time of our work, Illumina sequence read lengths have essentially been limited to 25 to 100 base pairs,...
Wheat (Triticum aestivum) is one of the world’s major staple food crops, with flour produced from starchy endosperm being used for breads, cakes, noodles and various other wheat-based foods. The unique bread making properties of wheat are primarily attributed to its gluten-forming storage proteins: gliadins and glutenins. This study investigated...
By means of a case study and historical analysis, this dissertation examines the past and present of avian influenza. By integrating disconnected histories of human and animal influenza, this dissertation links historical insights with the concerns of contemporary avian flu science. It is not only a natural history of avian...