Biodiversity Graduate Student Research Enhancement Grants

The California Floater (Anodonta californiensis) and Western Pearlshell (Margaritifera falcata) are two species of freshwater mussels that co-exist in the Bear River drainage of Wyoming and are Species of Greatest Conservation Need (NSS1). They are essential for the continuation of healthy river basins because they filter water, are a rich food source for wildlife, recycle nutrients, and provide habitat and food for aquatic invertebrates. In Wyoming the California Floater mussel is declining throughout their native range. Western Pearlshell mussels are also declining but their populations appear healthy in the state. Currently, little information is known regarding California Floater recruitment or distribution throughout the Bear River Watershed and few live juveniles have been found during the last decade. The goals of this project are to better understand the life cycle of the California Floater by measuring what factors may inhibit reproduction and to learn more about their status and reproductive strategies. We will also simultaneously survey Western Pearlshell mussels as a comparison. This project aims to provide critical information on the distribution, abundance, and reproduction of these mussels within the Bear River Watershed to inform management decisions.

Objective:      

My objective is to test the efficacy of Beaver Dam Analogs (BDAs) in capturing ecosystem services provided by beavers, specifically the provisioning ecosystem service, biodiversity production. I aim to answer the overall question regarding the ability of BDAs to replicate the ecological effects of beaver dams on biodiversity in Wyoming streams. 

Summary:

      Beavers, as ecosystem engineers, can offer ecosystems great value, and it is extremely important to preserve and protect wetland habitats that can be created by beavers. Beavers can be utilized for the creation and maintaining wetlands. Many declining amphibians, reptiles, birds, and other animal species rely on wetlands as refugia. Beaver Dam Analogs (BDAs) are one way to increase a stream system's hydrological potential and could maximize biodiversity without introducing beavers into a system. Understanding the ecological value of BDAs can be critical to maintaining biodiversity in degraded stream systems. My project is on Red Canyon Ranch (RCR) in Lander, Wyoming, managed by The Nature Conservancy. Within RCR, I am studying three stream reaches that display the desired conditions of beaver presence, little to no beaver presence, and BDA installation. These reach conditions will allow us to test how BDAs work ecologically compared to beaver dams.

Harsh environments tend to have lower biodiversity because of the physiological challenges associated with surviving there. My research aims to discover why H. diversipes selects for the extreme environments it inhabits. I hypothesize these beetles select for harsh habitats because they have less biotic interactions (e.g., predators and competitors). I also hypothesize these beetles are subjected to harsh conditions near their physiological limits and are unable to achieve optimal fitness. This challenges the paradigm that rare and endemic species are physiologically adapted to the abiotic conditions of their specific locality and love it there. The goal of this project is to determine the habitat characteristics this species selects for, the conductivity limits of this species, and how predicted effects of climate change may alter the habitat this rare beetle occupies. Accordingly, I am conducting habitat selection surveys, performing two salinity laboratory experiments, and analyzing the hydrology of these habitats.

Objective:

This research aims to fill a key knowledge gap in the promise of trait-based ecology by empirically linking population fitness in different environments to plant functional traits. Although functional traits have been shown to differ across environmental gradients, strong empirical links between traits and vital rates are lacking. A link between these will be necessary if we hope to use traits to understand and predict the response of plant communities under climate change. Moreover, traits conferring fitness in different environments may further differ depending on biotic interactions with the neighbor community. In my M.S. research I showed that the more dissimilar the traits of a focal species are from the traits of the community the better that species did under drought stress. This current research will elucidate how both trait by environment and trait by neighbor interactions effect demographic performance. The differential performance of cooccurring species directly influences realized community assembly and biodiversity.

Background:
It is well-supported that fitness varies along environmental gradients. Different species are successful in different environments because they have characteristics that make them suitable for their environment and less suitable for others. Our understanding and ability to predict community assembly through environmental filtering is enhanced by considering how particular plant traits, instead of whole species, preform across environments. These plant functional traits are broadly defined as morpho-, physio-, phenological characteristics and have been posed as a holy grail for plant community ecology. A strong link between traits and demographic performance under different conditions would allow us to make strong predictions about the future of grasslands under climate change for example. Despite the strong theoretical connection between traits and fitness in different environments, empirical tests for the net effects of traits on fitness are still lacking. 

The goal is to assess the integration of stakeholder knowledge into caribou conservation and management in Alaska, with the goal of highlighting the validity and importance of collaborative approaches to wildlife management and biodiversity conservation. The other primary objective of this thesis is to further understand the diversity present within human-environmental relationships through the process of agent-based modeling programs that simulate caribou hunting by Dene (Athabascans).

Objectives:

We will compare movement behaviors among and within a diversity of migratory strategies in a mule deer herd and develop management recommendations to benefit climate - and disturbance - resilience. Specifically, we will test predictions of ecological theory, promote public engagement with citizen science and accessible presentations, engage early science education, and create novel tools for managers to monitor migration in real time.

Background: Animal migration is a global phenomenon of high subsistence, economic and cultural value. Migratory ungulates bolster rural and indigenous economies and provide multiple ecosystem services. To support this important role, regional managers use migration-specific protocols to maintain migratory herds. For instance, Wyoming managers install wildlife-friendly fencing, conduct habitat enhancement efforts, and adapt harvest regulations according to seasonal occurrence. However, while managers strive to adjust hunting quotas to spread harvest evenly throughout the herd, determining the precise level of harvestable surplus that limits unintended population effects is difficult. As a result, there are often mismatches between hunting quotas and their desired effect on harvested populations.

This project takes advantage of a unique study design to test (1) how the interactive impacts of global environmental drivers (precipitation and fragmentation) drive variation in avian community structure and species roles and (2) how species roles interact with precipitation and fragmentation to influence the structure and stability of biotic interactions.