The climate of the Pacific Northwest is in flux, and existing forest ecosystems are stressed and poised to shift in fundamental ways, with or without human intervention. This dissertation probes the nature of forest responses to environmental change through investigations of morphology and genetics of three species of alder co-occurring...
At a time when the biodiversity on Earth is being rapidly lost, new technologies and methods in genomic analysis are fortunately allowing scientists to catalog and explore the diversity that remains more efficiently and precisely. The studies in this dissertation investigate genomic diversity within the milkweed genus, Asclepias, at multiple...
Astragalus oniciformis Barneby is a xerophyte of the sagebrush deserts of central Idaho. It is a narrow endemic of the upper Snake River Plains where it inhabits stabilized, aeolian sand deposits over Quaternary basalt flows. The objective of this study was to determine the levels and distribution of genetic differentiation...
In March 2005 the Oregon State University Herbarium launched its new, free online Oregon Vascular Plant Atlas for public use. This Atlas allows users to access location information from over 385,000 vascular plant specimen and observation records in the state of Oregon. The potential applications of such spatial information are...
The Seeds of Success (SOS) is a wildland seed collection program in support of the interagency Native Plant Materials Development Program (NPMP) and in partnership with the global conservation initiative, the Millennium Seed Bank Project of the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew. SOS collections follow a set protocol with consideration for...
My internship was conducted with the Native Seed Network program within the Institute for Applied Ecology, a non-profit organization located in Corvallis, whose focus is education, applied research and active restoration and of native ecosystems. My internship goals were to increase my experience in applied restoration ecology and conservation biology...
The internship I performed was with Rural Community Development Program (RCDP), a domestic non-governmental organization in the country of Nepal. This organization focuses on community development goals in rural communities, utilizing the efforts of volunteers within the context of environmental conservation ideals. I primarily worked with the associated community plant...
Pollination ecology may play an important role in the maintenance of selfing in populations of self-compatible hermaphroditic plants where both selfing and outcrossing occur (mixed mating). Behavior and abundance of pollinators can influence the two major modes of selfing; autogamy (selfing within a flower) and geitonogamy (selfing between flowers on...
Data from nuclear ribosomal internal transcribed spacer regions (nrITS) and chloroplast DNA (cpDNA) have failed to resolve phylogenetic relationships in Pinus. To provide greater interspecific resolution, five low-copy nuclear genes were developed from mapped conifer anchor loci. Four genes were sequenced from species representing all Pinus subsections. Individual loci do...