Advances in sensor technology are greatly expanding the range of quantities that can be measured while simultaneously reducing the cost. However, deployed sensors drift out of calibration and fail, so every sensor network requires quality control procedures to promptly detect these failures. To address these problems, we propose a two-level...
In light of water scarcity and the impacts of climate change, there is an increased need to understand the interaction between land use characteristics and ecohydrologic processes in semiarid regions. Additionally, many semiarid and arid regions face various land management challenges, including woody plant encroachment, decreased snowpack, and increased stream...
In recent years, unoccupied aircraft systems (UAS) have become increasingly affordable and straightforward to incorporate in monitoring applications of forested ecosystems. This shift has facilitated interest in using these tools to monitor aspects of forest ecosystems including vegetation health, forest structure and composition, and potential habitat provided by these systems....
Cell death is a process of dying within biological cells that are ceasing to function. This process is essential in regulating organism development, tissue homeostasis, and to eliminate cells in the body that are irreparably damaged. In general, dysfunction in normal cellular death is tightly linked to cancer progression. Specifically,...
Background: Uterine inflammation (e.g., endometritis) causes negative economic effects in the beef industry by reducing reproductive performance. Current treatments for endometritis in beef cattle involve hormones and antibiotics, which can be expensive and are often ineffective. The endometrial immune response regulates the release of cytokines and chemokines in response to...
The study of the effects of diethyldithiocarbamate (DEDTC) in some diseases is in focus for many years. However, DEDTC is a metal chelator that can present neurotoxicity as side effects. Here we investigate the effect of DEDTC on brain Zinc (Zn) content and behavior. To address this issue we used...
Landscape and site-scale data analyses aid
the interpretation of biological data and thereby help
us develop more cost-effective natural resource management
strategies. Our study focused on environmental
influences on stream assemblages and we
evaluated how three classes of environmental variables
(geophysical landscape, land use and cover, and
site habitat), influence...
Plant-pollinator mutualisms are one of the most prevalent and economically important mutualisms in nature. Like many other ecological systems, plant-pollinator communities are threatened by anthropogenic activity, both directly (e.g., habitat conversion and fragmentation) and indirectly (e.g., climate change). While we are aware of many of the activities that adversely impact...
Forest composition in Paraguay has been in a state of change for the past half century due to land management practices, forest fragmentation, and deforestation for agriculture. How these factors affect dendrological diversity and wood anatomy in Paraguay is not well understood. This thesis documents Paraguayan forest composition on the...