Water movement, from forest soil to streams, has traditionally been modeled by translatory flow. A hypothesis was presented by Brooks et al. (2010) suggesting that, in addition to translatory flow, there exists an immobile pool of water trapped in small pores with low matric potential. Comparisons of water stable isotope...
DNA segments in the fungus Fusarium graminearum were identified as possible genes encoding for chromodomain proteins (CDPs), and targeted for genetic manipulation. Targeted single-gene deletion strains, as wells as GFP-S tag fusion strains, were generated from wildtype F. graminearum protoplasts, and verified strains were screened for phenotypic differences, such as...
Even though cloudburst events in high mountain areas can be highly destructive and result in significant losses of life, little is known definitively about these flood events. An exact
understanding of the driving processes, typical precipitation rates, and impacts of cloudburst events remain uncertain. This study seeks to advance knowledge...
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John Selker, Committee Member, representing Biological and Ecological Engineering
How water moves through soils is of importance to studies of stream hydrology and biogeochemistry. Although translatory flow, which states how soil water is displaced by additional precipitation into streams, is a widely accepted model, Brooks et al. (2010) found evidence that challenged this model. They suggested that there are...
Auxotrophic strains of the fungus Fusarium graminearum were generated in order to increase
the number of functional selectable markers and improve the utility of the model organism.
Single metabolic genes, the sequences encoding for enzymes required for the production of
specific essential metabolites, were deleted in F. graminearum, and then...
Swelling soils cause millions of dollars of damage to buildings every year in the Unites States alone. One essential piece to understanding these soils is to understand how water moves through them. Hydraulic conductivity is a measure of how easily water flows through a soil. Currently, the most common method...
Polycomb Repressive Complex 2 (PRC2) is a histone methyltransferase that initiates facultative heterochromatin formation by trimethylating histone H3 on lysine 27 (H3K27me3). Mutations within its three primary subunits, KMT6, EED, and SUZ12, result in inherited diseases and sporadic cancers. In the fungus Fusarium graminearum, deletion of the gene encoding the...
Modifications of histone tail amino acid residues are necessary for many reactions involving chromatin. These processes can produce transcriptionally active, euchromatic, or inactive, heterochromatic, segments of DNA. The formation and maintenance of facultative heterochromatin is critical for the proper growth and development of many eukaryotes. Euchromatin can be changed into...
Dissolved organic carbon (DOC) flux is an important mechanism to convey soil carbon (C) from aboveground organic debris (litter) to deeper soil horizons and can influence the formation of stable soil organic carbon (SOC) compounds. Aboveground litter quantity and quality was manipulated for 20-years in an old-growth Douglas fir forest...
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John Selker, Committee Member, representing Biological and Ecological Engineering
Unmanned Aerial System (UAS) technology is a rapidly developing technological marketspace. This thesis focuses on micro, tethered, coaxial UASs and the development of an electrically-tethered observation platform (ETOP). The thesis details the current status of the technology as well as current products on the market. Stability considerations, critical when adding...