Physical Sciences and Mathematics Commons^™

Changes In Students’ Mental Models From Computational Modeling Of Gene Regulatory Networks, Jenny Dauer, Heather E. Bergan-Roller, Gretchen P. King, Mckenzie Kjose, Nicholas Galt, Tomas Helikar

School of Natural Resources: Faculty Publications

Background: Computational modeling is an increasingly common practice for disciplinary experts and therefore necessitates integration into science curricula. Computational models afford an opportunity for students to investigate the dynamics of biological systems, but there is significant gap in our knowledge of how these activities impact student knowledge of the structures, relationships, and dynamics of the system. We investigated how a computational modeling activity affected introductory biology students’ mental models of a prokaryotic gene regulatory system (lac operon) by analyzing conceptual models created before and after the activity.

Results: Students’ pre-lesson conceptual models consisted of provided, system-general structures (e.g., activator, repressor) …

Ready For Drought? A Community Resilience Role-Playing Game, Mary Noel, Michael Hayes, Deborah J. Bathke, Tonya Haigh, Michael J. Hayes

School of Natural Resources: Faculty Publications

Drought is an abstract and complex phenomenon that can be difficult for many people to comprehend. Proactive planning to improve response during drought events is necessary but complicated because it involves stakeholders and decision-makers with competing interests. A category of games, called serious games, have proven to be helpful when learning about abstract concepts, and for improving communication and conflict resolution with respect to water-related issues. In this study, we present a new in-person role-playing game that serves as a drought educational tool in both classroom and professional settings. The message of the game emphasizes the importance of communication and …

The Applicability Of The Cosmic Ray Neutron Sensor To Simultaneously Monitor Soil Water Content And Biomass In An Acacia Mearnsii Forest, Thigesh Vather, Colin S. Everson, Trenton E. Franz

School of Natural Resources: Faculty Publications

Soil water content is an important hydrological parameter, which is difficult to measure at a field scale due to its spatial and temporal heterogeneity. The Cosmic Ray Neutron Sensor (CRNS) is a novel and innovative approach to estimate area-averaged soil water content at an intermediate scale, which has been implemented across the globe. The CRNS is moderated by all hydrogen sources within its measurement footprint. In order to isolate the soil water content signal from the neutron intensity, the other sources of hydrogen need to be accounted for. The CRNS’s applications are not only limited to soil water content estimation, …

Drivers Of Long-Term Invertebrate Community Stability In Changing Swedish Lakes, Hannah B. Fried-Petersen, Yimen G. Araya-Ajoy, Martyn N. Futter, David G. Angeler

School of Natural Resources: Faculty Publications

Research on ecosystem stability has had a strong focus on local systems. However, environmental change often occurs slowly at broad spatial scales, which requires regional-level assessments of long-term stability. In this study, we assess the stability of macroinvertebrate communities across 105 lakes in the Swedish “lakescape.” Using a hierarchical mixed-model approach, we first evaluate the environmental pressures affecting invertebrate communities in two ecoregions (north, south) using a 23 year time series (1995–2017) and then examine how a set of environmental and physical variables affect the stability of these communities. Results show that lake latitude, size, total phosphorus and alkalinity affect …

Developing A Remote Sensing-Based Combined Drought Indicator Approach For Agricultural Drought Monitoring Over Marathwada, India, Sneha S. Kulkarni, Brian D. Wardlow, Yared Bayissa, Tsegaye Tadesse, Mark D. Svoboda, Shirishkumar S. Gedam

School of Natural Resources: Faculty Publications

The increasing drought severities and consequent devastating impacts on society over the Indian semi-arid regions demand better drought monitoring and early warning systems. Operational agricultural drought assessment methods in India mainly depend on a single input parameter such as precipitation and are based on a sparsely located in-situ measurements, which limits monitoring precision. The overarching objective of this study is to address this need through the development of an integrated agro-climatological drought monitoring approach, i.e., combined drought indicator for Marathwada (CDI_M), situated in the central part of Maharashtra, India. In this study, satellite and model-based input parameters (i.e., standardized precipitation …

Editorial: Operationalizing The Concepts Of Resilience And Resistance For Managing Ecosystems And Species At Risk, Jeanne C. Chambers, Craig R. Allen, Samuel A. Cushman

School of Natural Resources: Faculty Publications

Ecological resilience is essential for maintaining ecosystem services in an era of rapid global change, but successful attempts to operationalize it for managing ecosystems at risk have been limited. Clear formulation and application of ecological resilience concepts can guide ecosystem management so that it enhances the capacity of ecosystems to resist and recover from disturbances and provides adaptive space for periods of ecological reorganization. As originally defined, ecological resilience measures the amount of perturbation required to change an ecosystem from one set of processes and structures to a different set of processes and structures, or the amount of disturbance that …

Increasing Atmospheric Co2 Concentrations Outweighs Effects Of Stand Density In Determining Growth And Water Use Efficiency In Pinus Ponderosa Of The Semi-Arid Grasslands Of Nebraska (U.S.A.), Giovanna Battipaglia, Tala Awada, Rahel Aus Der Au, Michele Innangi, Matthias Saurer, Paolo Cherubini

School of Natural Resources: Faculty Publications

This study investigated the impacts of environmental (e.g., climate and CO2 level) and ecological (e.g., stand density) factors on the long-term growth and physiology of pon- derosa pine (Pinus ponderosa) in a semi-arid north American grassland. We hypothesized that ponderosa pine long-term growth patterns were positively influenced by an increase in atmospheric CO2 concentrations and a decrease in stand density. To test this hypothesis, comparison of long-term trends in tree-ring width and carbon and oxygen stable isotopic composition of trees growing in dense and sparse forest stands were carried out at two sites located in the Nebraska National Forest. Results …

Geographic Variation In The Prnp Gene And Its Promoter, And Their Relationship To Chronic Wasting Disease In North American Deer, Robert M. Zink, Nadje Najar, Hernan Vazquez-Miranda, Brittaney Buchanan, John Loy, Bruce W. Brodersen

School of Natural Resources: Faculty Publications

PRNP genotypes, number of octarepeats (PHGGGWGQ) and indels in the PRNP promoter can influence the progression of prion disease in mammals. We found no relationship between presence of promoter indels in white-tailed deer and mule deer from Nebraska and CWD presence. White-tailed deer with the 95 H allele and G20D mule deer were more likely to be CWD- free, but unlike other studies white-tailed deer with the 96S allele(s) were equally likely to be CWD-free. We provide the first information on PRNP genotypes and indels in the promoter for Key deer (all homozygous 96SS) and Coues deer (lacked 95 H …

Cultivating Water Literacy In Stem Education: Undergraduates’ Socio-Scientific Reasoning About Socio-Hydrologic Issues, David C. Owens, Destini N. Petitt, Diane Lally, Cory Forbes

School of Natural Resources: Faculty Publications

Water-literate individuals effectively reason about the hydrologic concepts that underlie socio-hydrological issues (SHI), but functional water literacy also requires concomitant reasoning about the societal, non-hydrological aspects of SHI. Therefore, this study explored the potential for the socio-scientific reasoning construct (SSR), which includes consideration of the complexity of issues, the perspectives of stakeholders involved, the need for ongoing inquiry, skepticism about information sources, and the affordances of science toward the resolution of the issue, to aid undergraduates in acquiring such reasoning skills. In this fixed, embedded mixed methods study (N = 91), we found SHI to hold great potential as meaningful …

Leaf Reflectance Spectra Capture The Evolutionary History Of Seed Plants, Jose Eduardo Meireles, Jeannine Cavender-Bares, Philip A. Townsend, Susan Ustin, John A. Gamon, Anna K. Schweiger, Michael E. Schaepman, Gregory P. Asner, Roberta E. Martin, Aditya Singh, Franziska Schrodt, Adam Chlus, Brian C. O’Meara

School of Natural Resources: Faculty Publications

• Leaf reflection spectra have been increasingly used to assess plant diversity. However, we do not yet understand how spectra vary across the tree of life or how the evolution of leaf traits affects the differentiation of spectra among species and lineages.
• Here we describe a framework that integrates spectra with phylogenies and apply it to aglobal dataset of over 16 000 leaf-level spectra (400–2400 nm) for 544 seed plant species. We test for phylogenetic signal in spectra, evaluate their ability to classify lineages, and characterize their evolutionary dynamics.
• We show that phylogenetic signal is present in leaf spectra but that …

Chronology Of Advance And Recession Dynamics Of The Southern Green Bay Lobe Of The Laurentide Ice Sheet, South-Central Wisconsin, Usa, Eric C. Carson, John W. Attig, J. Elmo Rawling Iii, Paul R. Hanson, Stefanie E. Dodge

School of Natural Resources: Faculty Publications

We used a combination of accelerator mass spectrometry (AMS) radiocarbon dating, optically stimulated luminescence (OSL) age estimates, and stratigraphic data from cores collected along the southern margin of the Green Bay Lobe (GBL) of the Laurentide Ice Sheet to provide new information on the timing and dynamics of the end of advance of the GBL and the dynamics of the ice sheet while very near its maximum position. Coring at multiple sites along the margin of the GBL indicate that ice had reached a stable position near its maximum extent by 24.7 ka; that ice advanced several kilometers to the …

Modeling Gross Primary Production Of Midwestern Us Maize And Soybean Croplands With Satellite And Gridded Weather Data, Gunnar Malek-Madani, Elizabeth A. Walter-Shea, Anthony Nguy-Robertson, Andrew E. Suyker, Timothy J. Arkebauer

School of Natural Resources: Faculty Publications

Gross primary production (GPP) is a useful metric for determining trends in the terrestrial

carbon cycle. To estimate daily GPP, the cloud-adjusted light use efficiency model (LUEc) was developed by adapting a light use efficiency (LUE, ε) model to include in situ meteorological data and biophysical parameters. The LUEc uses four scalars to quantify the impacts of temperature, water stress, and phenology on ε. This study continues the original investigation in using the LUEc, originally limited to three AmeriFlux sites (US-Ne1, US-Ne2, and US-Ne3) by applying gridded meteorological data sets and remotely sensed green leaf area index (gLAI) to estimate …

Literature Review: Global Neonicotinoid Insecticide Occurrence In Aquatic Environments, Josephus F. Borsuah, Tiffany L. Messer, Daniel D. Snow, Steve D. Comfort, Aaron R. Mittelstet

School of Natural Resources: Faculty Publications

Neonicotinoids have been the most commonly used insecticides since the early 1990s. Despite their efficacy in improving crop protection and management, these agrochemicals have gained recent attention for their negative impacts on non-target species such as honeybees and aquatic invertebrates. In recent years, neonicotinoids have been detected in rivers and streams across the world. Determining and predicting the exposure potential of neonicotinoids in surface water requires a thorough understanding of their fate and transport mechanisms. Therefore, our objective was to provide a comprehensive review of neonicotinoids with a focus on their fate and transport mechanisms to and within surface waters …

Uncovering Unique Plasticity In Life History Of An Endangered Centenarian Fish, Martin J. Hamel, Jonathan J. Spurgeon, Kirk D. Steffensen, Mark A. Pegg

School of Natural Resources: Faculty Publications

the ability to adapt to changing environments is fundamental for species persistence. Both plasticity and genetic selection are potential drivers that allow for traits to be advantageous, thus leading to increases in survival or fitness. Identifying phenotypic plasticity in life history traits of long-lived organisms can be difficult owing to high survival, long generation times, and few studies at sufficient spatial and temporal scales to elicit a plastic response within a population. to begin to understand phenotypic plasticity of a long-lived freshwater fish in response to environmental conditions, we used a long-term data set consisting of over 1,200 mark-recapture events …

Drought Monitoring In The Middle East And North Africa (Mena) Region: Participatory Engagement To Inform Early Warning Systems, Stephen Russell Fragaszy, Theresa Jedd, Nicole Wall, Cody Knutson, Makram Belhaj Fraj, Karim Bergaoui, Mark D. Svoboda, Michael J. Hayes, Rachael Mcdonnell

School of Natural Resources: Faculty Publications

When drought hits water-scarce regions, there are significant repercussions for food
and water security, as well as serious issues for the stability of broader social and environmental systems. To mitigate these effects, environmental monitoring and early warning systems aimed at detecting the onset of drought conditions can facilitate timely and effective responses from government and private sector stakeholders. The study uses multi-stage, participatory research methods across more than 135 interviews, focus groups, and workshops to assess extant climatic, agricultural, hydrological, and drought monitoring systems, key cross-sector drought impacts, and drought monitoring needs in four MENA-region countries: Morocco, Tunisia, Lebanon, and …

Catfish Population Characteristics Among River Segments With Altered Fluvial Geomorphic Conditions In The Missouri River, Nebraska, Usa, Martin J. Hamel, Jonathan J. Spurgeon, Mark A. Pegg

School of Natural Resources: Faculty Publications

Alteration of river systems around the world has created novel environments that have been fragmented, homogenized, or transformed from their natural state, thus posing challenges for understanding how fish populations function. The Missouri River has undergone significant alteration through reservoir construction and channelization. Channel Catfish Ictalurus punctatus and Flathead Catfish Pylodictis olivaris both reside in various fragmented sections of the river, and there is a substantial gap in knowledge of how catfishes synchronously function in this modified system. From 2009 to 2018, we assessed catfishes with baited hoop nets and low-frequency electrofishing among four different areas: upper and lower unchannelized …

Panarchy: Opportunities And Challenges For Ecosystem Management, Ahjond Garmestani, Dirac Twidwell, David G. Angeler, Shana Sundstrom, Chris Barichievy, Brian C. Chaffin, Tarsha Eason, Nick Graham, Dean Granholm, Lance Gunderson, Melinda Knutson, Kirsty L. Nash, R John Nelson, Magnus Nystrom, Trisha L. Spanbauer, Craig A. Stow, Craig R. Allen

School of Natural Resources: Faculty Publications

Addressing unexpected events and uncertainty represents one of the grand challenges of the Anthropocene, yet ecosystem management is constrained by existing policy and laws that were not formulated to deal with today’s accelerating rates of environmental change. In many cases, managing for simple regulatory standards has resulted in adverse outcomes, necessitating innovative approaches for dealing with complex social–ecological problems. We highlight a project in the US Great Plains where panarchy – a conceptual framework that emerged from resilience – was implemented at project onset to address the continued inability to halt large-scale transition from grass-to-tree dominance in central North America. …

Camera Traps Detect Prey Of Northern Carnivores, David A. Keiter, Brent R. Patterson, Carol Dersch, Bob Elliott, Arthur R. Rodgers, John F. Benson

School of Natural Resources: Faculty Publications

Use of camera traps for non-invasive data collection is increasingly common in wildlife studies. This technique presents a valuable, but generally unexploited, opportunity to learn about carnivore diet through direct observations of predators with prey. To highlight this potential, we present a collection of photographic observations from Michipicoten Island, ON, Canada, that improve our knowledge of the diets of northern carnivores. These include the first documentation of Vulpes vulpes (Red Fox) consumption of a Colaptes auratus (Northern Flicker) and the first photographic evidence of wintertime consumption of a Lithobates sp. (frog) by a Mustela erminea (Short-tailed Weasel). We discuss the …

Survival And Competing Mortality Risks Of Mountain Lions In A Major Metropolitan Area, John F. Benson, Jeff A. Sikich, Seth P.D. Riley

School of Natural Resources: Faculty Publications

Understanding natural and human-caused mortality for top predators persisting in human-dominated landscapes is critical for conserving their populations. We estimated survival and cause-specific mortality rates and investigated factors influencing mortality risk of mountain lions by radio-tracking 58 individuals (33 males, 25 females) across the highly fragmented landscape in greater Los Angeles, California from 2002 to 2019. Mortality risk did not differ strongly between subadults (annual survival [ŝ]=0.68, SE=0.08) and adults (ŝ=0.81, SE=0.04). However, the different age-classes were subjected to mortality risks from different sources as subadults were more likely to be killed by conspecifics, whereas adults were more likely to …

Cigarette Butt Disposal Behavior: A Case Study Of A Public Beach On Jekyll Island, Georgia, Usa, Maranda R. Miller, Mark E. Burbach

School of Natural Resources: Faculty Publications

Improperly discarded cigarette butts are a substantial environmental problem. This study explored factors influencing cigarette butt discarding behavior on a public beach on Jekyll Island, Georgia, USA. A mixed-mode design utilized quantitative and qualitative data to study improper cigarette butt disposal. We surveyed smokers regarding their place attachment, environmental attitudes, environmental awareness, and habit as predictors of improper cigarette butt disposal. Environmental attitudes, environmental awareness, and habits were significant predictors of improper cigarette butt disposal behavior. A qualitative inquiry further explored the phenomenon of cigarette butt disposal from the smokers’ perspectives. Interviews illustrated that “improper disposers” experienced themes involving uncertainty …

Nutrient Cycling In Forage Production Systems, David A. Wedin, Michael P. Russelle

School of Natural Resources: Faculty Publications

In most forage production systems, the nutrients needed for plant growth are provided by the microbially-mediated breakdown and release of plant-available mineral nutrients from dead plant tissues, livestock excreta, soil organic matter, and geochemically-bound mineral forms. Even in fertilized forage systems, determining appropriate fertilizer or manure application rates requires a “systems” approach on the part of the manager (Rotz et al. 2005; Wood et al. 2012). Fertilizer additions are simply one input in the system of inputs, outputs, pools, and fluxes that characterize nutrient cycling in a particular ecosystem.

Decoding The Corn Field: Building Third-Grade Students’ Ideas About Plant Inheritance And Variation, D. Cisterna, E. Ingram, D. Bhattacharya, R. Roy, C. Forbes

School of Natural Resources: Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

Carbon And Nitrogen Recycling During Cyanohabs In Dreissenid-Invaded And Non-Invaded Us Midwestern Lakes And Reservoirs, Trinity L. Hamilton, Jessica Corman, Jeff R. Havig

School of Natural Resources: Faculty Publications

Lakes and reservoirs play key roles in global carbon cycling, especially as a carbon sink. Enrichment of nutrients in lakes and reservoirs (eutrophication) and rising global temperatures favors the proliferation of bloom-forming cyanobacteria. Harmful blooms of cyanobacteria (cyanoHABs) alter carbon and nutrient cycling in freshwater ecosystems. Some evidence suggests the introduction or establishment of invasive mussel species (i.e., Dreissena spp.) also favor cyanoHAB formation through selective filter feeding, a process through which they may also impact biogeochemical processes including carbon cycling and sequestration. However, few studies have considered the combined effects of invasive mussels and cyanoHABs on carbon and nitrogen …

Whose Ground Truth Is It? Harvesting Lessons From Missouri’S 2018 Bumper Crop Of Drought Observations, Kelly Helm Smith, Mark E. Burbach, Michael J. Hayes, A. Tyre, Patrick E. Guinan, Brian Fuchs, Tonya Haigh, Mark D. Svoboda

School of Natural Resources: Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

Lessons Learned From The 2017 Flash Drought Across The U.S. Northern Great Plains And Canadian Prairies, A. Hoell, B. Fuchs, D. Kluck, L. Edwards, J. Perlwitz, J. Eischeid, V. Deheza, R. Pulwarty, K. Bevington

School of Natural Resources: Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

Patterns Of Inquiry-Based Science Instruction And Student Science Achievement In Pisa 2015, Cory Forbes, Knut Neumann, Anja Schiepe-Tiska

School of Natural Resources: Faculty Publications

Scientific literacy is a central aim of science education. The Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) provides a measure of secondary students’ scientific literacy and reported science instruction in 72 countries. Researchers have analyzed PISA data to identify important relationships between science instruction and students’ science achievement. The purpose of this study is to further explore these relationships by using PISA 2015 data from a sample of 13 participating countries representing a range of mean science achievement. We use Latent Profile Analysis (LPA) to explore how students from highest- and lowest-performing profiles characterize the inquiry-based science instruction they experience. We …

Linking Drought Impacts To Drought Severity At The State Level, M. Noel, K. Smith, D. Bathke, B. Fuchs, D. Gutzmer, T. Haigh, M. Hayes, M. Podebradska, C. Shield, M. Svoboda

School of Natural Resources: Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

Transient Streambed Hydraulic Conductivity In Channel And Bar Environments, Loup River, Nebraska, J. Korus, W.P. Fraundorfer, T. Gilmore, K. Karnik

School of Natural Resources: Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

Drought Management Norms: Is The Middle East And North Africa (Mena) Region Managing Risks Or Crises?, T. Jedd, C. Knutson, M. Hayes, M. Svoboda, S. Fragaszy, M. Belhaj Fraj, R. Mcdonnell

School of Natural Resources: Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

Czech Drought Monitor System For Monitoring And Forecasting Of Agricultural Drought And Drought Impacts, Miroslav Trnka, Petr Hlavinka, Martin Možný, Daniela Semerádová, Petr Štěpánek, Jan Balek, Lenka Bartošová, Pavel Zahradníček, Monika Bláhová, Petr Skalák, Aleš Farda, Michael Hayes, Mark D. Svoboda, Wolfgang Wagner, Josef Eitzinger, Milan Fischer, Zdeněk Zalud

School of Natural Resources: Faculty Publications

The awareness of drought and its impacts on Central Europe increased after the significant drought episodes in 2000, 2003, 2012 and 2015, which were all estimated to have caused over 500 million Euro in damage in the Czech Republic alone. These events indicated the need for timely and highresolution monitoring tools that would enable analysing, monitoring and forecasting of drought events. Monitoring soil water availability in near real time and at high-resolution (up to 0.5 × 0.5 km for some products) helps farmers and water managers to mitigate impacts of these extreme events. The Czech Drought Monitor was developed between …