ASU Electronic Theses and Dissertations
This collection includes most of the ASU Theses and Dissertations from 2011 to present. ASU Theses and Dissertations are available in downloadable PDF format; however, a small percentage of items are under embargo. Information about the dissertations/theses includes degree information, committee members, an abstract, supporting data or media.
In addition to the electronic theses found in the ASU Digital Repository, ASU Theses and Dissertations can be found in the ASU Library Catalog.
Dissertations and Theses granted by Arizona State University are archived and made available through a joint effort of the ASU Graduate College and the ASU Libraries. For more information or questions about this collection contact or visit the Digital Repository ETD Library Guide or contact the ASU Graduate College at gradformat@asu.edu.
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- All Subjects: Biology
- Creators: Bateman, Heather
- Creators: Gerber, Leah
Description
Consideration of both biological and human-use dynamics in coupled social-ecological systems is essential for the success of interventions such as marine reserves. As purely human institutions, marine reserves have no direct effects on ecological systems. Consequently, the success of a marine reserve depends on managers` ability to alter human behavior in the direction and magnitude that supports reserve objectives. Further, a marine reserve is just one component in a larger coupled social-ecological system. The social, economic, political, and biological landscape all determine the social acceptability of a reserve, conflicts that arise, how the reserve interacts with existing fisheries management, accuracy of reserve monitoring, and whether the reserve is ultimately able to meet conservation and fishery enhancement goals. Just as the social-ecological landscape is critical at all stages for marine reserve, from initial establishment to maintenance, the reserve in turn interacts with biological and human use dynamics beyond its borders. Those interactions can lead to the failure of a reserve to meet management goals, or compromise management goals outside the reserve. I use a bio-economic model of a fishery in a spatially patchy environment to demonstrate how the pre-reserve fisheries management strategy determines the pattern of fishing effort displacement once the reserve is established, and discuss the social, political, and biological consequences of different patterns for the reserve and the fishery. Using a stochastic bio-economic model, I demonstrate how biological and human use connectivity can confound the accurate detection of reserve effects by violating assumptions in the quasi-experimental framework. Finally, I examine data on recreational fishing site selection to investigate changes in response to the announcement of enforcement of a marine reserve in the Gulf of California, Mexico. I generate a scale of fines that would fully or partially protect the reserve, providing a data-driven way for managers to balance biological and socio-economic goals. I suggest that natural resource managers consider human use dynamics with the same frequency, rigor, and tools as they do biological stocks.
ContributorsFujitani, Marie (Author) / Abbott, Joshua (Thesis advisor) / Fenichel, Eli (Thesis advisor) / Gerber, Leah (Committee member) / Anderies, John (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2014
Description
Human recreation on rangelands may negatively impact wildlife populations. Among those activities, off-road vehicle (ORV) recreation carries the potential for broad ecological consequences. A study was undertaken to assess the impacts of ORV on rodents in Arizona Uplands Sonoran Desert. Between the months of February and September 2010, rodents were trapped at 6 ORV and 6 non-ORV sites in Tonto National Forest, AZ. I hypothesized that rodent abundance and species richness are negatively affected by ORV use. Rodent abundances were estimated using capture-mark-recapture methodology. Species richness was not correlated with ORV use. Although abundance of Peromyscus eremicus and Neotoma albigula declined as ORV use increased, abundance of Dipodomys merriami increased. Abundance of Chaetodipus baileyi was not correlated with ORV use. Other factors measured were percent ground cover, percent shrub cover, and species-specific shrub cover percentages. Total shrub cover, Opuntia spp., and Parkinsonia microphylla each decreased as ORV use increased. Results suggest that ORV use negatively affects rodent habitats in Arizona Uplands Sonoran Desert, leading to declining abundance in some species. Management strategies should mitigate ORV related habitat destruction to protect vulnerable populations.
ContributorsReid, John Simon (Author) / Brady, Ward (Thesis advisor) / Miller, William (Committee member) / Bateman, Heather (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2012
Description
Aboveground net primary production (ANPP) and belowground net primary production (BNPP) may not be influenced equally by the same factors in arid grasslands. Precipitation is known to affect ANPP and BNPP, while soil fauna such as nematodes affect the BNPP through herbivory and predation. This study on black grama grass (Bouteloua eriopoda) in the Chihuahuan Desert investigates the effects of precipitation and nematode presence or absence on net primary production (NPP) as well as the partitioning between the aboveground and belowground components, in this case, the fraction of total net primary production occurring belowground (fBNPP). I used a factorial experiment to investigate the effects of both precipitation and nematode presence on the components of NPP. I used rainout shelters and an irrigation system to alter precipitation totals, while I used defaunated and re-inoculated soil for the nematode treatments. Precipitation treatment and seasonal soil moisture had no effect on the BNPP and a nonsignificant positive effect on the ANPP. The fBNPP decreased with increasing precipitation and seasonal soil moisture, though without a significant effect. No predator nematodes were found in any of the microcosms at the end of the experiment, though other functional groups of nematodes, including herbivores, were found in the microcosms. Total nematode numbers did not vary significantly between nematode treatments, indicating that the inoculation process did not last for the whole experiment or that nematodes had little plant material to eat and resulted in low population density. Nematode presence did not affect the BNPP, ANPP, or the fBNPP. There were no significant interactions between precipitation and nematode treatment. The results are inconclusive, possibly as a result of ecosystem trends during an unusually high precipitation year, as well as the very low NPP values in the experiment that correlated with low nematode community numbers.
ContributorsWiedenfeld, Amy (Author) / Sala, Osvaldo (Thesis advisor) / Gerber, Leah (Committee member) / Hall, Sharon (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2018
Description
Human-inhabited or -disturbed areas pose many unique challenges for wildlife, including increased human exposure, novel challenges, such as finding food or nesting sites in novel structures, anthropogenic noises, and novel predators. Animals inhabiting these environments must adapt to such changes by learning to exploit new resources and avoid danger. To my knowledge no study has comprehensively assessed behavioral reactions of urban and rural populations to numerous novel environmental stimuli. I tested behavioral responses of urban, suburban, and rural house finches (Haemorhous mexicanus) to novel stimuli (e.g. objects, noises, food), to presentation of a native predator model (Accipiter striatus) and a human, and to two problem-solving challenges (escaping confinement and food-finding). Although I found few population-level differences in behavioral responses to novel objects, environment, and food, I found compelling differences in how finches from different sites responded to novel noise. When played a novel sound (whale call or ship horn), urban and suburban house finches approached their food source more quickly and spent more time on it than rural birds, and urban and suburban birds were more active during the whale-noise presentation. In addition, while there were no differences in response to the native predator, rural birds showed higher levels of stress behaviors when presented with a human. When I replicated this study in juveniles, I found that exposure to humans during development more accurately predicted behavioral differences than capture site. Finally, I found that urban birds were better at solving an escape problem, whereas rural birds were better at solving a food-finding challenge. These results indicate that not all anthropogenic changes affect animal populations equally and that determining the aversive natural-history conditions and challenges of taxa may help urban ecologists better understand the direction and degree to which animals respond to human-induced rapid environmental alterations.
ContributorsWeaver, Melinda (Author) / McGraw, Kevin J. (Thesis advisor) / Rutowski, Ronald (Committee member) / Pratt, Stephen (Committee member) / Bateman, Heather (Committee member) / Deviche, Pierre (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2018
Description
When most people think of Phoenix, Arizona, they think of sprawling cityscapesand hot desert mountains full of saguaros and other cacti. They rarely think of water and
fish, and yet, the Arizona landscape is home to many lakes, ponds, rivers and streams,
full of both native fish and sportfish, including in the urban areas. According to the report
by DeSemple in 2006, between the years 2001 and 2006, the Rio Salado Environmental
Restoration Project worked to revitalize the dry river bed that runs through Phoenix, that
included the construction of two urban ponds, the Demonstration Pond and the Reservoir
Pond. At the start of this study, it was unknown what vertebrate species inhabited these
ponds, but it was known that these urban ponds have been used to dump unwanted
aquatic pets. The bluegill Lepomis macrochirus was found to reside in both ponds, and as
it is such an important sportfish species, it was chosen as the focal species for these
studies, which took place over periods in March, May, July, and September of 2021.
Single-season occupancy models were used to attempt to determine how L. macrochirus,
use the microhabitats within the system, and a multi-season model was used to estimate
their recruitment, and seasonal changes in occupancy. In addition, this study also
attempts to understand the size structures of the L. macrochirus population in the
Reservoir Pond and the population in the Demonstration Pond, and if that size structure
varies from March to September. As the populations of these ponds are physically
isolated from one another, statistical tests were also done to determine if the size
structures of the two populations of L. macrochirus differ from one another and found
that the two populations do indeed differ from one another, but only during two of the
sampling periods.
ContributorsKeister, Emily Jan (Author) / Saul, Steven (Thesis advisor) / Bateman, Heather (Committee member) / Suzart de Albuquerque, Fabio (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2022
Description
Globally, land use change is the primary driver of biodiversity loss (IPBES, 2019). Land use change due to agricultural expansion is driving bird species to the brink of extinction in the Peruvian Amazon rainforest. Agriculture is one of the primary threats to bird species in the region, and agroforestry is being pursued in some communities as a potential solution to reduce agriculture's impacts on species, as agroforestry provides improved habitat for wildlife while also enabling livelihoods for people. Understanding how anthropogenic land use choices affect imperiled species is an important prerequisite for conservation policy and practice in the region. In this thesis, I develop a spatial model for quantifying expected threat abatement from shifting agricultural land use choices towards agroforestry. I used this model explored how agricultural land use impacts imperiled bird species in the Peruvian Amazon. My approach builds on the species threat abatement and restoration (STAR) metric to make the expected consequences of reducing agricultural threats spatially explicit. I then analyzed results of applying the metric to alternative scenarios with and without agroforestry conversion. I found that agroforestry could result in up to 18.68% reduction in mean bird projected population decline. I found that converting all terrestrial agriculture in the Peruvian Amazon to agroforestry could produce a benefit of up to 83% to imperiled birds in the region in terms of improvement in Red List status. This use of the STAR metric to model alternative scenarios presents a novel usage for the STAR metric and a promising approach to understand how to address terrestrial biodiversity challenges efficiently and effectively.
ContributorsPoe, Katherine (Author) / Iacona, Gwen (Thesis advisor) / Gerber, Leah (Thesis advisor) / Mair, Louise (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2023