Soils contain the largest pool of carbon that is actively cycling on human timescales, leading many to view soils as a natural climate solution with multiple co-benefits. The field of soil science is rapidly evolving, but without a unified understanding of soil carbon dynamics. This dissertation leverages two distinct long-term...
Conservation banking is a market-based instrument and conservation tool designed to provide compensatory mitigation for impacts to endangered species. These banks provide both ecological and economic benefits, however their ability to continue providing these benefits is threatened by climate change. The motivational factors behind the decisions to establish a conservation...
North American bighorn sheep (Ovis canadensis) have experienced significant declines and population extirpations due to novel pathogens such as Mycoplasma ovipneumoniae. This disease continues to limit the population restoration of bighorn sheep. Therefore, understanding the demographic consequences of pathogen presence and the risk of contact between bighorn populations and potential...
The Ni-les’tun tidal wetland restoration project in the Coquille River Estuary in southern Oregon is one of the largest and most well-studied tidal restoration projects on the Pacific Northwest coast. However, ecological data on restoration effectiveness and ecosystem change following restoration are relatively rare for projects more than a few...
Personal health monitoring tools, a subset of point-of care-diagnostics, enable more frequent testing of chronic health conditions outside of a clinic setting and can inform personalized therapy or support telehealth diagnostic capabilities. While there is evidence that regular monitoring of chronic conditions can lead to better health outcomes and lower...
Interactions between proteins are essential to life, driving and regulating a majority of processes within all living cells. Study of protein-protein interactions reveals that some proteins act as hubs within networks of interactions, binding to many partner proteins. These hubs therefore are of particular importance to understanding protein function, interwoven...
Livestock grazing is the prominent land use in Wyoming big sagebrush (Artemisia tridentata ssp. wyomingensis [Beetle & A. Young] S.L. Welsh) steppe and has been present since the late 1800’s. There have been calls to remove livestock grazing from rangelands as historic grazing practices resulted in the degradation of some...
Previous research has shown that traveling in a work zone involves a higher risk of crashing compared to normal (non-work zone) driving conditions. Research further suggests that the severity of work zone crashes is greater on average than non-work zone crashes. The period of time in which the traffic control...
Artificial collectives are useful for accomplishing tasks that require teamwork from multiple simple robots. Multiple robot and collective testbeds have been developed, yet none stay committed to leverage the local interactions, group size, and imperfect information assumptions that strengthen biological collectives. A review of the collective and multiple robot literature,...
Severe wildfires are increasing in the western United States, impacting vegetation structure, and in turn, forest regeneration conditions. These wildfires are also raising a substantial amount of scientific and management concern regarding the resilience of forested ecosystems, or the ability of the ecosystem to return to a pre-fire condition. This...