Microfluidic devices have enabled lab-on-a-chip (LOC) systems that allow for complex sample analysis and preparation in a compact form factor. One technology that may benefit from a microfluidic approach and further miniaturization is flow cytometry. Flow cytometry is an analysis technique for enumerating and characterizing populations of cells; this is...
Somatic growth variation manifests from the cumulative effects of a suite of biological, ecological, and environmental processes and can have profound effects on individual fitness and species population dynamics. As ectotherms whose growth dynamics are greatly influenced by environmental factors, sea turtles display considerable variation in somatic growth within and...
Phytophthora ramorum, an oomycete plant pathogen, is the causal agent of sudden oak death, a serious disease of Fagaceous trees in California and Oregon over the last decade. Tanoak (Notholithocarpus densiflorus) is one of the most susceptible host species, but the cause of host mortality is poorly understood. Previous research...
Arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi (AMF) may exert profound influences on ecosystem resilience and invasion resistance in western North American sagebrush steppe and other arid rangeland plant communities. Maintenance of plant community structure through ecological feedbacks such as facilitation of nutrient cycling and uptake by host plants, physical and chemical contributions to...
The creation of autonomous decision makers to handle potentially hazardous or logistically complicated tasks is desirable for the purpose of reducing human labor and exposure to risk, and for increasing the general performance of autonomous systems in a wide variety of environments. However, traditional autonomous decision makers perform poorly when...
Pacific Coast estuaries provide important rearing habitats leading to improved growth and survival for juvenile chinook salmon. However, research has suggested that juvenile salmon have little use for estuarine habitats in the Columbia River. To further understand salmonid recovery needs in estuaries, I compared historical and contemporary life history patterns...
Although deep reinforcement learning agents have produced impressive results in many domains, their decision making is difficult to explain to humans. To address this problem, past work has mainly focused on explaining why an action was chosen in a given state. A different type of explanation that is useful is...
Society derives many critical and irreplaceable values from forests. With a growing global human population and rates of consumption, forests are under increasing pressure to provide all these values simultaneously. To meet societal demands for wood products, tree plantations are becoming increasingly common and are replacing native forests. Yet, forests...
Ontogenetic niche theory predicts that as organisms grow they make size-specific changes in habitat use and diet to optimize growth and survival. A variety of factors contribute to growth and survival in different habitats, ultimately leading to variation in life history that can affect population dynamics. An understanding of the...