This report is intended to increase the understanding of interrelationships in a small farming community. It consists of three main sections. First, it begins with an historical review of agriculture in the Willamette Valley, Oregon. Since every agricultural region has unique components it is important to begin any modeling process...
From 1 April – 24 September 2008, we monitored the distribution, abundance and productivity
of the federally Threatened Western Snowy Plover (Charadrius alexandrinus nivosus) along the Oregon
coast. From north to south, we surveyed and monitored plover activity at Sutton Beach, Siltcoos River
estuary, the Dunes Overlook, North Tahkenitch Creek,...
THE ROLE OF THE OCEANS in Earth systems ecology, and the effects of climate variability on the ocean and its ecosystems, can be understood only by observing, describing, and ultimately predicting the state of the ocean as a physically forced ecological and biogeochemical system. This is a daunting but exciting...
Habitat fragmentation has been widely studied in the biological literature and
is considered a primary threat to biodiversity. However, there has been little research
on land-use policies to reduce fragmentation. This dissertation focuses on two major
research issues related to fragmentation policies. First, I develop an analytical model
to analyze...
A multispectral optical sensor collects data at select wavebands or channels. An example is the Sea-viewing Wide-Field-of-view Sensor (SeaWiFS) ocean color satellite, which measures eight wavebands between 402 and 885 nm (20-40 nm bandwidth with peaks centered around 412, 443, 490, 510, 555, 670, 765, and 865 nm). Optical oceanographers...
The Mars Science Laboratory mission aims to land a car-sized rover on Mars’ surface and operate it for at least one Mars year in order to assess whether its field area was ever capable of supporting microbial life. Here we describe the approach used to identify, characterize, and assess environmental...
Land-use change around protected areas can reduce their effective size and limit their ability to conserve biodiversity
because land-use change alters ecological processes and the ability of organisms to move freely among protected areas.
The goal of our analysis was to inform conservation planning efforts for a nationwide network of...
Grazing experiments were conducted in summer, autumn and winter
to assess the effects of stock density, grazing duration, pre-grazing
pasture mass and stock type on forage intake by sheep grazing at high
stock densities for short durations. In summer and winter, sheep were
stocked at 200 sheep/ha on 0.1 ha...