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Fall 2016
Western North American landscapes are rapidly being transformed by forest die- off caused by mountain pine beetle with implications for plant and soil communities. The mechanisms that drive changes in plant and soil community structure and function, particularly for understory vegetation and the...
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Disentangling competitive processes to better understand their drivers and consequences in a native grassland community
DownloadSpring 2021
Competition is often highlighted as a major force influencing community structure. However, there are multiple facets of competition that may have independent and differential impacts, making the understanding of what drives competition and how it structures communities difficult. In this thesis,...
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Spring 2014
The worldwide biodiversity crisis has intensified the need to better understand how biodiversity and human disturbance are related. Yet this relationship lacks both consensus in theoretical expectations and consistency in observed empirical patterns. I present one of the largest extent studies...
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Spring 2018
Climate change will continue to affect the Arctic more intensely than other biomes. These changes can have dramatic effects on biotic interactions that influence the functioning of these systems, including plant-herbivore interactions. Invertebrate herbivores strongly depend on external...
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Shrub encroachment in arctic and alpine tundra: Patterns of expansion and ecosystem impacts.
DownloadFall 2011
With a warming climate, northern ecosystems will face significant ecological changes such as permafrost thaw, increased frequency of forest fires, and shifting ecosystem boundaries including the spread of canopy-forming shrubs into tundra communities. A growing number of observations show...
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Fall 2017
Multiple novel and rapidly changing environmental factors (i.e. anthropogenic stressors) are increasingly affecting ecological communities, and their functional roles in ecosystems. Consequently, freshwater biodiversity has declined worldwide; however, the functional impacts of this loss should...