The effects of anomalous oceanographic conditions on growth, abundance, spawn-date distributions, and diet of early-juvenile Pacific hake Merluccius productus were examined in nursery grounds off the coast of central California, USA. Spring collections from 2 consecutive years of El Nino conditions, 1997 and 1998, 1 year of La Nina conditions,...
This thesis describes investigations of archaeological materials recovered from Site ORBE2, an early-twentieth century historic site in Corvallis, OR. The archaeological materials were found only after construction workers had excavated trenches underneath the still-standing structure on the site in order to install a new foundation. Over 1500 artifacts were recovered...
As the frequency and intensity of wildfires continue to occur in the West, so does the need for measures intended to improve firefighter safety; public safety; and the protection of property, resources, and wildlife. Furthermore, as human activity in the expanding Wildland Urban Interface increases, so does the need for...
The boreal forest zone is located in the cool, high latitudes of the earth and represents approximately one third of the world’s remaining forested area. Maintaining the functional capacity of boreal forests is of global importance as they will both affect and be affected by climate change. Boreal forests can...
Miniature satellites called cubesats have been gaining increasing popularity in
both academic and private spaceflight ventures. NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory
has recently been accepting design proposals for a cubesat mission to Europa, where
solar and battery power would be inadequate power sources. In this thesis, a
radioisotope powered cubesat was...
Although it is generally assumed that the intensifying abiotic environment is the primary effect of drought on aquatic organisms, drought-induced top predator extinctions may be an important underlying mechanism. I used manipulative experiments to disentangle the impacts of drying and top predator extinctions on arid-land aquatic invertebrate communities. I then...
Boreal and temperate biomes host nearly half of the earth’s forested ecosystems. The temperate rainforests of the Pacific coast of North America constitute nearly half of all temperate rainforests on earth. Along the northern extent of this region, the perhumid and sub-polar rainforests of southeast and southcentral Alaska are among...
A substantial portion of the carbon (C) emitted by human activity is apparently being stored in forest ecosystems in the Northern Hemisphere, but the magnitude
and cause are not precisely understood. Current official estimates of forest C flux are based on a combination of field measurements and other methods. The...
Pre-harvest sprouting in wheat costs farmers millions of dollars every year. Pre-harvest sprouting tolerance (PST) has minimized this problem, but improvement of PST is still necessary. Synthetic hexaploid wheats (synthetics) have been used as sources of
genes coding for many useful traits. Two studies evaluated the PST of a synthetic...
Health effects stemming from animal feeding operations pollution in the contiguous United States are analyzed using a 20-year, county-level data set. Several quasi-experimental, potential outcome models are used to estimate the impact of high concentrations of animal units on mortality rates and other health and economic outcomes over a 20-year...