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Assessing the effects of anticoagulant rodenticides on non-target fish species
(University of Missouri--Columbia, 2018)
[ACCESS RESTRICTED TO THE UNIVERSITY OF MISSOURI AT AUTHOR'S REQUEST.] Invasive rat species have negatively affected island ecosystems contributing to the decline and extinction of many endemic species. The eradication of rodents on islands can...
Brassicales to Brassica : integrating phylogenomics and population genomics
(University of Missouri--Columbia, 2020)
(e.g., kale) and are an important diet source for key minerals and elements. Ionomics, the measurement of the total elemental composition of an organism, allows for high throughput characterization of the levels of these elements at the same time...
Tales of an 'invisible' life stage : survival and physiology among terrestrial juvenile ambystomatid salamanders
(University of Missouri--Columbia, 2019)
The vital rates (e.g., survival, growth, and reproduction) of distinct life stages within a species are known to influence the growth and persistence of populations. As such, studies describing stage-specific vital rates, and the factors that shape...
Uncovering the genetic basis of seed amino acid composition in arabidopsis using a multi-omics integrative approach
(University of Missouri--Columbia, 2021)
Seeds are a vital source of protein in the diet of humans and livestock. However, protein composition in the seed is low, comprising about 10 percent of the total composition in the seed. Additionally, protein quality in ...
Dissecting the genetic basis of carbohydrate partitioning in maize and sugarcane
(University of Missouri--Columbia, 2022)
Carbohydrate partitioning, the process by which carbohydrates synthesized in the photosynthetic source tissues (mature leaves) are mobilized to non-photosynthetic (sink) tissues, such as roots, seeds, and developing organs ...
Assessment of the microbiome associated with endangered orchids
(University of Missouri--Columbia, 2018)
or the potential effects of climate change. We studied two species of endangered terrestrial orchids in Missouri and, using DNA collected from soil and high throughput sequencing, evaluated the bacterial microbiome associated with these two orchid species....
Uncovering the genetic architecture and metabolic basis of amino acid composition in maize kernels using multi-omics integration
(University of Missouri--Columbia, 2020)
composition display extensive natural variation which can be utilized to uncover the genetic basis and identify new targets for seed amino acids biofortification. Hence to uncover the genetic architecture of amino acids composition in maize kernels we used...
The power of synteny : deep evolutionary insights from comparative genomics
(University of Missouri--Columbia, 2021)
Synteny, or the order of genes in a given genome, is an emergent property of individuals and species that has only, with the implementation of next gen-sequencing, become available for evolutionary consideration. In this ...
Interactions between neuroanatomy, cognition, and ecology in Anolis lizards
(University of Missouri--Columbia, 2021)
The interactions between an organism and its environment are mediated by cognition, the substrates of which are in the brain. Cognition is ubiquitous across vertebrates, yet we still know very little about the factors ...
Conservation genetics of conflict in the Asian elephant, Elephas maximus
(University of Missouri--Columbia, 2021)
The Asian elephant (Elephas maximus) is an endangered species whose distribution spans 13 countries in south, southeast, and insular Asia. The primary threats to the survival of this species include direct conflict, primarily ...
Elucidation of the genetic control of carbohydrate partitioning in Zea mays
(University of Missouri--Columbia, 2019)
Carbohydrate partitioning, the process of transporting carbohydrates from sites of synthesis in hotosynthetic tissue to developing sink tissues, is crucial for the growth, development, and yield in plants and crops. ...
Phylogenomics of orchids and their mycorrhizal fungi : trees, diversity, and the pursuit of symbiosis
(University of Missouri--Columbia, 2019)
[ACCESS RESTRICTED TO THE UNIVERSITY OF MISSOURI AT REQUEST OF AUTHOR.] Phylogenetic trees show us how organisms are related and provide frameworks for studying and testing evolutionary hypotheses. To better understand the evolution of orchids...
The effects of metal contamination on larval white sturgeon in the upper Columbia River
(University of Missouri--Columbia, 2018)
in the upper Columbia River (UCR) face many of the same factors. White sturgeon in this system have been declining for decades due to a lack of recruitment to the population, despite evidence of spawning and early larval survival in the wild. Early life stage...
Friends in high places : ecology of mycorrhizal associations in alpine plant communities
(University of Missouri--Columbia, 2010)
Mutualisms are ubiquitous in nature, yet these interactions often vary in strength and persistence. This variation raises the questions of what determines whether mutualisms persist or vanish, and how does variation in the ...
Roles for the adhension molecule Contactin2 in the development and function of neural circuits in zebrafish
(University of Missouri--Columbia, 2018)
model to study how different molecules collaborate to guide migrating neurons and growing axons to their final location. In this thesis, I examine the roles of membrane molecules during neuron migration and axon guidance in zebrafish. In Chapter 3, I...
Genetic and hormonal regulation of meristem initiation and maintenance pathways during maize vegetative and reproductive development
(University of Missouri--Columbia, 2021)
Plant development is driven by pools of undifferentiated stem cells called meristems. Meristems have two functions, to divide producing cells that will replenish the stem-cell niche, and cells that will differentiate into ...
Dissecting the genetic basis of learning, memory, and thermal tolerance in a multi-parental population of fruit flies
(University of Missouri--Columbia, 2021)
Learning, memory, and thermal tolerance are complex traits that are fundamental survival skills in many species. For example, small poikilotherms " like Drosophila melanogaster, have evolved physiological mechanisms to ...
Establishing a foundation for large DNA transfer to artificial minichromosomes and B insert platforms in maize
(University of Missouri--Columbia, 2019)
In plants, conventional genetic engineering methods limit the number of available traits that could potentially improve the quality of agriculture. Agrobacterium-mediated transformation and biolistic bombardment are tools used in transferring genes...
From unique killers to a jumbo genome - isolation and characterization of phages that infect the plant pathogen, Agrobacterium tumefaciens
(University of Missouri--Columbia, 2019)
Bacteriophages and their lytic peptides can protect plants from phytopathogens such as Agrobacterium tumefaciens. To better understand mechanisms of phagemediated host killing, we isolated and characterized five lytic ...
Mechanisms of polar growth in the alphaproteobacterial order rhizobiales
(University of Missouri--Columbia, 2019)
and division in the A. tumefaciens, which are conserved in other Rhizobiales, including agriculturally and medically species such as Sinorhizobium and Brucella....