Little is known on the importance of riparian areas to birds near small headwater streams in mesic forests. Progress towards understanding limiting factors that affect bird populations has been difficult because of lack of information beyond the breeding period. I compared bird assemblages between headwater riparian and upland areas throughout...
Strong ground motions from earthquakes can result in the reduction of the shear modulus and wave propagation characteristics of soils, and can produce liquefaction and cyclic softening during shaking and for some time following the seismic event. While the ground motions produced from controlled blasting are different than those in...
A growing body of work reveals that animal-mediated pollination is negatively affected by anthropogenic disturbance. Landscape-scale disturbance results in two often inter-related processes: (1) habitat loss, and (2) disruptions of habitat configuration (i.e. fragmentation). Understanding the relative effects of such processes is critical in designing effective management strategies to limit...
Lone Lake is an approximately ninety acre lake in Langley, WA on Whidbey Island. Since 2008, Lone Lake has experienced a number of harmful cyanobacterial blooms (cyanoHABs). Since 2016, however, the intensity of these cyanoHABs have impacted both ecosystem functions and human activities in the watershed. In June of 2020,...
Juvenile chinook salmon (Oncorhynchus tshawytscha) were experimentally infected with Renibacterium salmoninarum (Rs), the causative agent of bacterial kidney disease (BKD), to investigate the effects of BKD on three aspects of juvenile salmonid performance: (1) predator avoidance ability; (2) smoltification; and (3) physiological responses to stress. For these experiments, fish with...
Chlorinated and non-chlorinated solvents are used in a variety of industrial processes and as a consequence, they have become environmental contaminants as well. Because of this, they lead to both occupational and environmental exposures. Exposure to these compounds can potentially result in various forms of neurological damage with a wide...
This thesis consists of two papers in manuscript format. The first paper presents optical measurements of tsunami inundation through an urban waterfront in a laboratory wave basin. The physical model was constructed at 1:50 scale and was an idealization of the town of Seaside, Oregon. The paper presents an analysis...
Biochar has shown promise as a soil amendment for improvement of agricultural and forest productivity, remediation of heavy metals, and sequestration of carbon, but has not yet been adopted for widespread use in any of these applications. By assessing the production potential as a carbon sequestration tool, and the stability...
Informed conservation of small mammals, ecosystems, and predators requires a detailed understanding of how small mammals species and communities vary in both space and time, as well as the relative cyclicity and synchrony of this variation. This variation can be especially informative to land managers interested in manipulating the abundance...
The effect of clipping and supplemental nitrogen application on
seed production of Linn perennial ryegrass and Merion Kentucky bluegrass
was studied. Clipping and nitrogen treatments did not significantly
affect the seed yield of Linn perennial ryegrass during the 1967
growing season. The seed yield of Merion Kentucky bluegrass was
significantly...