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Skip to Search Results- 1Belter, Pamela R.
- 1Brookson, Cole B
- 1Brown, Charlotte
- 1Found, Robert B.
- 1Garg, Aneri
- 1Gorrell, Jamie
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Biological and environmental correlates of cougar (Puma concolor) survival in west central Alberta
DownloadSpring 2023
Large carnivores have a significant role in ecosystems and their role as apex predators can have cascading effects that influence ecosystem stability. Managing large carnivores requires an understanding of how they use the land and their vital rates, including survival. For cougars (Puma...
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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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Disentangling the relative effects of structural complexity and substrate composition on fish habitat selection in coral reef environments
DownloadFall 2021
Identifying features of biogenic habitats (i.e. made of living plants and animals) that attract and retain resident species is a key theme in ecology with important implications for habitat conservation and restoration. Using corals (class Anthozoa, phylum Cnidaria) —a group of foundational...
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Spring 2015
Personality has been documented in diverse taxa and growing attention is being directed towards the ecological implications of consistent variation in individual behaviour. These implications include the rise in habituation behaviour by wildlife living in human-disturbed areas, which has resulted...
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Ecology and management of white-tailed deer (Odocoileus virginianus) and mule deer (O. hemionus) of east-central Alberta in relation to chronic wasting disease
DownloadFall 2010
Chronic wasting disease (CWD) is a fatal pathogen affecting white-tailed and mule deer in east-central Alberta, and I addressed two current limitations of CWD management. First, to improve precision and accuracy of density estimates obtained from aerial surveys, I evaluated alternative survey...
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Fall 2023
Global melting of mountain glaciers is altering downstream ecosystems. As glaciers disappear, downstream water temperatures are rising while turbidity and nutrient concentrations decline. Here, knowledge gaps exist concerning how these abiotic changes will affect primary producers in glacial...
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Genetic diversity and selection in North American red squirrels (Tamiasciurus hudsonicus): A Hamiltonian perspective into the processes and mechanisms of evolution
DownloadFall 2013
The theory of natural selection has advanced our understanding in every aspect of biological sciences, yet despite this seeming ubiquity, there remain some components that are not fully resolved. Natural selection predicts the “selfish” advancement of genes that are optimally suited for their...
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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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Landscape Ecology of Mule Deer (Odocoileus hemionus) and White-tailed Deer (O. virginianus) with Implications for Chronic Wasting Disease
DownloadFall 2012
Chronic wasting disease (CWD) is a fatal prion disease of cervids that continues to spread into new regions of Canada despite containment efforts. I examine the importance of landscape connectivity using circuit theory and source/sink habitats that are based on selection, survival and...
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Spring 2013
The Rocky Mountain apollo butterfly, Parnassius smintheus, and its host-plant Sedum lanceolatum, are endemic to open alpine meadows threatened by the encroachment of trees. I explore variability in interactions between P. smintheus and S. lanceolatum relative to the treeline-delimited meadow...