Coral reefs, found in tropical regions, are renowned for their rich biodiversity and their contributions to ecological, cultural, and economic aspects worldwide. The success of coral reefs hinges on the symbiotic partnership between corals and their dinoflagellate algae, from the family Symbiodiniaceae. The algae reside within the coral host’s gastrodermal...
Given the many significant roles that bacteria play in modern food manufacturing, it is crucial that we have a fundamental understanding of how bacterial communities assemble and behave in the food manufacturing environment. The focus of this dissertation was to investigate both the spatial and temporal distributions of microbial communities...
Childhood obesity and food insecurity are public health issues that often coexist, and both conditions are more prevalent among rural compared to non-rural populations. Social ecological prevention efforts are recommended, yet limited research has examined how rural family-home environments may influence obesity-preventing and -promoting behaviors. The purpose of this dissertation...
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...
The focus of this thesis is to design, characterize, and apply novel computational methods and molecular systems to interrogate heterogeneous human gut microbiome-related phenomena. In Chapter 2, I design, implement, and characterize a method for embedding co-occurrence patterns derived from massive 16s amplicon datasets. I use this method to 1....
New ice cores retrieved from the Taylor Glacier (Antarctica) blue ice area contain ice and air spanning the Marine Isotope Stage (MIS) 5/4 transition, a period of global cooling and ice sheet expansion. Chronologies were determined for the ice and air bubbles in the new ice cores by visually matching...