Marine bivalves are globally recognized as ecologically and commercially valuable species and, for over a century, researchers have been studying their feeding, digestion and other related physiological processes. These studies have shown that marine bivalves have complex feeding and particle processing behaviors to maximize growth in dynamic environmental conditions. Additionally,...
Red raspberry, Rubus idaeus L., is a valuable crop for the U.S. Pacific Northwest and clonal propagation is required to produce disease-free plants and for germplasm preservation. One challenge of red raspberry micropropagation is the wide variation in growth response among the cultivars. The studies described in this dissertation were...
Humpback whales (Megaptera novaeangliae, Borowski 1781) in the North Pacific migrate from mid- to high- latitude summer feeding grounds along the Pacific Rim, including areas off the coasts of the U.S., Canada, Russia and eastern Asia, to tropical breeding grounds each winter along Pacific coasts of Mexico and Central America...
Invasion by non-native plants into natural areas is an important component of global change that threatens biodiversity and ecosystem structure and function. Mountains are currently among the least invaded ecosystems, however, these biodiversity hotspots are increasingly under threat of exotic plant invasion. Evaluation of plant species distribution patterns in mountain...
The individual stocks of sockeye salmon that make up the
annual spawning migration to the Bristol Bay region of Western
Alaska are produced in the lakes and streams of ten major river
systems, which discharge into the bay over a shoreline distance of
120 miles. The hypothesis adopted in this...
The Late Spring Secondary Precipitation Maximum in the
Interior Pacific Northwest results from a complex system of climatic
controls. The Secondary Maximum is most strongly developed over the
high plateau of Oregon immediately in the lee of the Cascade
Mountains. Local topographic
organization exerts strong control
over the magnitude and...