The agricultural sector is one of the largest contributors to global climate change but is also one of the most vulnerable to its impacts. Farmers are at increasing risk of livelihood loss, which produces risks for their physical and emotional wellbeing on a global scale. Swift and effective adaptation is...
We apply the Fishery Performance Indicators (FPIs) methodology to the Southeast Pacific Anchoveta Fishery off southern Peru and northern Chile. Our basic model of analysis is a production function framework, where the performance outcomes are a result of the available inputs. We measured all FPI categories (outcomes and input metrics)...
This dissertation develops a framework for Curandera feminism, informed by familial healing practices, women of color feminisms, and institutional critique. My research centers my family’s generational Curandera practices. As I honor the call to be critical of the master’s tools, I seek possibilities for institutional change through Curandera feminism. Institutions...
As the global demand for seafood increases each year, there is a growing need to expand sustainable aquaculture in the interests of food security and resilience of coastal communities. Pacific oysters, Crassostrea gigas, are grown in West coast estuaries - where cultures often overlap with the federally protected native eelgrass,...
Entrepreneurship is regarded as a viable way for women to enter the economy and improve their quality of life (Morris et al., 2018). However, little attention has been paid to understanding how women, and specifically women of color, utilize their ways of knowing to learn entrepreneurship. Grounded in Chicana/Latina feminism...
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....
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...
Energetic resources transferred between distinct habitats or ecosystems, referred to as allochthonous resources, can greatly subsidize consumers in the recipient habitat, and thus influence food web structure and dynamics. Such subsidies may allow the growth of the consumer population to be decoupled from in situ productivity with effects on consumer...
Global environmental change is causing local extinctions of species. When species depend on one another, as in the mutualistic relationship between plants and pollinators, loss of one interaction partner may cause cascading effects within the community – such as additional extinctions and reduced pollination services. Network theory provides a way...