The California Current Ecosystem (CCE) is a dynamic marine ecosystem from which many socioeconomically important fisheries species are harvested. In this thesis, a genotyping-by-sequencing (GBS) approach was used to examine genomic variation in an early life stage of the Dungeness crab (Cancer magister), which constitutes the most valuable single-species commercial...
The concept of the fundamental niche is frequently used in ecology to define the set of environmental conditions needed by a species to survive and reproduce (Hutchinson 1957). In contrast, the realized niche constitutes the locations where a species actually occurred, which is a function of both the environmental (abiotic)...
The distribution of mobile marine predators often reflects underlying dynamic ecological processes. The geographical focus of this PhD is the South Taranaki Bight (STB) of New Zealand, where wind-driven coastal upwelling generates productivity and prey to support a blue whale foraging ground. The STB is also New Zealand’s most industrial...
An interlaboratory study of Mg/Ca and Sr/Ca ratios in three commercially available carbonate reference
materials (BAM RS3, CMSI 1767, and ECRM 752-1) was performed with the participation of
25 laboratories that determine foraminiferal Mg/Ca ratios worldwide. These reference materials containing
Mg/Ca in the range of foraminiferal calcite (0.8 mmol/mol to...
Foliar fungi – pathogens, endophytes, epiphytes – form taxonomically diverse communities that affect plant health and productivity. The composition of foliar fungal communities is variable at spatial scales both small (e.g., individual plants) and large (e.g., continents). However, few studies have focused on how environmental factors and host plant traits...
Understanding connectivity among exploited populations is critical to their sustainable management and long-term viability. In the marine environment, estimates of connectivity often rely on the use of genetic markers, as dispersal primarily occurs during a planktonic larval phase which is difficult to track using direct methods. In this thesis, we...
Reintroduction programs are increasingly being used to save animals from extinction and aid in their recovery. The California Condor (Gymnogyps californianus), one of the most endangered birds in the world, is a remarkable example of how reintroduction programs can help rapidly increase a species' population numbers and range following a...
Biological invasions pose one of the greatest threats to global biodiversity, but many naturalized invaders coexist with the native community. Community ecology theory provides a framework for understanding the mechanisms by which invaders might coexist with native species or exclude them from the community, thus informing management practices to maximize...
Farmers in the high plateau region of Algeria are
assumed to exhibit risk averse behavior, particularly, due
to highly variable weather conditions inducing income
instability over time. This in turn directly affects their
production behavior. The Eastern High Plateau (Setif) is
not a homogeneous region. In the El-Eulma daira, for...
Dynamic marine environments can shape complex spatial and temporal patterns in the population connectivity of marine species, and this is often exemplified in species with long larval phases. Here, we used a genotyping-by-sequencing (GBS) approach to examine fine-scale spatial and temporal genomic variation among Dungeness crab Cancer magister larval recruits...