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Exploring above- and belowground behavioural responses to nutrients and neighbours in wheat (Triticum aestivum L.)
DownloadSpring 2022
Taking in environmental information and responding in ways that maximize their ability to thrive and reproduce, plants exhibit behaviour through constant changes in biomass development and spatial distribution. Studies aiming to map this behaviour often use model plants like sunflowers and...
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Role of host identity, stand composition, soil type and disturbance severity in structuring ectomycorrhizal communities in the boreal forest
DownloadSpring 2018
The symbiosis between trees and ectomycorrhizal fungi (EMF) is essential for tree establishment and survival in the boreal forest because it is a disturbance prone ecosystem characterized by long harsh winters and low nutrient mobility. Ectomycorrhizal fungal community composition can be...
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Competition in Arabidopsis thaliana (L.) Heynh., behaviour of Mimosa pudica L. and a new method to characterize roots demonstrated with Helianthus annuus L..
DownloadFall 2016
In this dissertation, I address 5 problems in the discipline of plant ecology: two problems in plant competition, two problems in plant behaviour and one problem in the phenotyping of plant roots. First, we directly test Darwin’s competition-relatedness hypothesis with a pairwise...
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Fall 2015
The recent open pit mining for oil sands in the Athabasca Oil Sands Region (AOSR), northern Alberta has created an unprecedented industrial scale disturbance whose ecological consequences is not well understood, and requires intensive investigation. This study focused on the temporal dynamics of...
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Relationships among diverse root foraging behaviours: understanding plant behavioural types
DownloadSpring 2014
Behaviours capture the functional response of plants to environmental factors. I explore behaviours for twenty co-occurring grassland species in response to common belowground environmental factors (competition, mycorrhizae, heterogeneous and high nutrients) and their relationship to plant...
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Spring 2011
All organisms, including plants, experience variability in the environment which puts pressure on organisms to evolve flexible responses. The study of these responses by organisms falls into the discipline of behavioural ecology. In this thesis, I am interested in the foraging behaviour of plant...