Some of the most pressing conservation concerns involve declining populations of species with low fecundity and highly specialized foraging and reproductive requirements. Yet, we often lack a functional understanding of how individuals of those species interact with their environment, specifically how their movement is affected by human-induced changes. In order...
The television show South Park, created by Trey Parker and Matt Stone, is viewed by millions of people each week, regularly addresses a number of controversial issues and plays a major role in contemporary popular culture. Current academic research acknowledges Parker and Stone's willingness to attack the dominant views surrounding...
Recent climatic warming trends and increases in the frequency and extent of wildfires have prompted much concern regarding the potential for rapid change in the structure and function of forested ecosystems around the world. Episodes of mortality in wildfires and insect outbreaks associated with drought have affected large areas and...
Organellar DNA sequences are widely used in evolutionary and population genetic studies, however, the conservative nature of chloroplast gene and genome evolution often limits phylogenetic resolution and statistical power. To gain maximal access to the historical record contained within chloroplast genomes, we have adapted multiplex sequencing-by-synthesis (MSBS) to simultaneously sequence...
Premise of the Study: Hybrid zones provide "natural laboratories" for understanding the processes of selection, reinforcement, and speciation. We sought to gain insight into the degree of introgression and the extent of ecological-phenotypic intermediacy in the natural hybrid strawberry, Fragaria x ananassa subsp. cuneifolia.
Methods: We used whole-plastome sequencing to...
Pollination is a critical ecosystem function for sustaining biodiversity. However, pollinators and the services they provide are threatened by landscape-altering anthropogenic activities across the globe. Habitat loss and fragmentation, introduction of invasive species, chemical use, and urbanization have been shown to impact pollination. Pollinator foraging behavior is thought to be...
Gray wolves (Canis lupus) are the most socially polarizing species listed under the Endangered Species Act. Wildlife management practices at local, state, and federal levels include lethal control to resolve stakeholder and wolf conflicts as a last resort. There is little experimental evidence that lethal control is effective in this...
Training high school students to conduct field mapping and data
collection of wildlife habitat on public lands produces important data for
local government geographic information systems and introduces students
to the field of geography. However, the positional accuracy of the spatial
data is important for use in a GIS, as...
The Kittlitz's murrelet (Brachyramphus brevirostris) is a rare member of the seabird family Alcidae that breeds in coastal areas of Alaska and Beringian Russia. The species belongs to the genus Brachyramphus, an unusual seabird taxon in which all three extant species nest non-colonially, situating their nests up to 75 km...
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,...