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A century of landscape change in the southern Rocky Mountains and Foothills of Alberta: Using historical photography to quantify ecological change
DownloadSpring 2017
Throughout the Rocky Mountain regions of North America fire regimes have been altered towards longer fire return intervals in the 20th century as compared to the 18th and 19th centuries; this has been accompanied by losses of grassland and open canopy woodlands due to encroachment by closed...
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Fall 2017
Species extinctions are inevitable, irreversible and a time-delayed process that is accelerating due to the warming climate and the loss of habitats worldwide. The most threatened vertebrate group in terrestrial ecosystems is amphibians. In this thesis, I assess potential range shifts and...
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An Alternate Indicator System for Nutrient Supply as Part of Ecosystem Function, a Component of Reclamation Success in the Athabasca Oil Sands Region
DownloadFall 2017
Northeastern Alberta faces the challenges of reclaiming a vast area that has been disturbed my oil sands mining, cumulatively 896 km2 and increasing as of December 2013. The limited resources available for reclamation and expensive costs of undertaking the process necessitates that reclamation be...
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Assessing the Short-term Impacts on Sediment Production following Rapid Harvest and Stream Crossing Decommissioning in Rocky Mountain Headwaters
DownloadFall 2017
While rapid road and road-stream crossing decommissioning after forestry operations may serve to limit broader impacts of sedimentation in high value headwater streams, few studies have evaluated the combined effects of accelerated harvest operations and rapid retirement of roads on stream...
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Spring 2017
Phosphogypsum (PG) is an acidic by-product created during phosphate fertilizer production (Rutherford et al 1994). In open or operational PG stacks, airborne fluorides are emitted from phosphogypsum process water pond surface evaporation or particulate fluoride that can be transported as fluoride...
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Breaking the wall of silence of trees Mining metabolomics to describe hybridization and predict performance in the Populus – Sphaerulina musiva pathosystem
DownloadFall 2017
Stem canker diseases in poplars caused by the fungal pathogen Sphaerulina musiva Peck. remain some of the least understood forest diseases despite causing considerable damage, particularly in hybrid poplar plantations. S. musiva is endemic to eastern Canada in provinces including the Maritimes,...
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Changes in peatland plant community composition and stand structure due to road induced flooding and desiccation
DownloadFall 2017
Roads built through peatlands with horizontal water flow can to act as dams that affect local hydrology and thus vegetation composition and structure. On the ‘upstream’ side of roads, soils can become waterlogged causing either increased tree mortality, or stunted tree growth; conversely, the...
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Characterizing adaptive morphological features and resource selection of Rocky Mountain Sculpin (Cottus sp.), a species at risk in Canada
DownloadFall 2017
Freshwater biodiversity is presently one of the world’s largest conservation concerns. Both direct and indirect human activities contributing to waterway modifications, climate change, and habitat alteration are causing major declines in freshwater fish species richness and abundance. While these...
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Spring 2017
Achieving forest recovery on previously forested well sites in northern Alberta is an on-going challenge for the oil and gas industry. Thirty-three experimental oil sands exploration (OSE) sites were constructed and reclaimed between 2004 and 2006 in northeastern Alberta. Our goal was to...
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EFFECTS OF CLIMATE CHANGE, VEGETATION AND ROADS ON CARIBOU DISTRIBUTION IN WESTERN NORTH-AMERICA
DownloadFall 2017
Caribou (Rangifer tarandus) are a vital component of the cultural history and contemporary existence of First Nations and northern communities. However, caribou habitat is increasingly threatened by cumulative effects of climate change and land-use pressures from human settlement, forestry, and...