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Skip to Search Results- 1Banfield, Jeremiah E
- 1Beale, Meghan
- 1Coogan, Sean C P
- 1Cristescu, Bogdan
- 1Knamiller, Peter Thurston
- 1Knopff, Aliah Adams
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Fall 2015
Specialist predators with a limited diet may be less adaptable to environmental change than generalists, which consume a diversity of prey. As the climate changes, ecological homogenization is occurring, where generalist species outcompete specialists, reducing ecosystem complexity. In Arctic...
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Fall 2010
Predation by cougars (Puma concolor) variously can structure ecosystems and preserve biodiversity, engender conflict where livestock and pets are killed, and even drive prey populations to extinction. Effective management requires a firm grasp of the ecological drivers of predation, but these...
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Using drilled-undrilled shell damage analysis to estimate crushing predation frequencies in modern marine gastropod assemblages
DownloadSpring 2010
Predation is a frequently studied subject, but estimating crushing predation in mollusk communities is challenging. Shells record successful attacks, but it is not always possible to identify attacks on an individual basis. Repair scar frequency is a common proxy for crushing mortality, but shell...
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Spring 2013
Industrial development is transforming Alberta's landscapes, with largely unquantified effects on wildlife species. Open-pit mining is occurring on vast expanses, most notably for bitumen but also extensively for coal in a rich seam that traverses the province. Major concerns have developed over...
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Getting to the root of the matter: grizzly bears and alpine sweetvetch in west-central Alberta, Canada
DownloadSpring 2012
Wildlife habitat selection is influenced by gender, offspring-dependency, resource availability, and spatiotemporal variation in resource nutrition. In consideration of these factors, this thesis examines alpine sweetvetch (Hedysarum alpinum) root and its relationship to grizzly bears (Ursus...
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Fall 2017
The degree to which predator and prey distributions overlap in space influences the probability of encounters between predator and prey, kills of prey, and consequently, how each species’ abundance varies in time and in space. Predator and prey attempt to increase or decrease overlap respectively...
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Interactions between the forest tent caterpillar (Malacosoma disstria Hubner) and its natural enemies: the effects of forest composition and implications for outbreak spread
DownloadFall 2011
Forest tent caterpillar (Malacosoma disstria Hübner; FTC), a major defoliator of aspen trees, occupies both aspen and mixedwood forest stands in Alberta’s boreal forest. Forest stand composition could influence the spatial pattern of FTC outbreaks if mortality from natural enemies differs...
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Spatial Predation Risk and Interactions Within a Predator Community on the Rocky Mountains East Slopes, Alberta
DownloadSpring 2019
Understanding how large carnivores spatially partition the landscape is essential for understanding how they collectively pose risk to their prey. Most research on predation risk focuses on how prey respond to a single predator species, but prey respond to a community of predators. Additionally,...
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Conserving cougars in a rural landscape: habitat requirements and local tolerance in west-central Alberta
DownloadSpring 2011
Maintaining large carnivores in human-dominated landscapes poses a significant conservation challenge. Extirpation is common because of habitat loss or direct persecution. I studied cougar habitat selection and human perception of cougars in west-central Alberta to better understand...
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Spatial ecology of cougars (Puma concolor) in the Cypress Hills: Implications for human-cougar interactions and range expansion
DownloadFall 2013
Cougar (Puma concolor) range is expanding eastward in North America. Understanding how range expansion is occurring in a human-dominated landscape is needed to manage the social and ecological implications of a returning large carnivore. To address this, I used GPS-radio collars and...