belongs to the Glutamate Family (Arginine, Proline, Glutamine, and Glutamate). Although Glutamine is not an EAA, it is a major nitrogencontaining amino acid that is transported to the seed; thus it's regulatory control is of particular interest. I harness...

efforts to better understand the minds of animals have been flourishing, with methodological breakthroughs and a remarkable increase in the number of publications dealing with a wide variety of non-model species. The growing interest in species...

to determine microclimate and thereby influence amphibian survival. Returning to the model building process, I used the results of my field experiments to develop a demographic model designed to evaluate the potential effects of forestry practices on wood frog...

of elucidating the effect that domestication has had on early light responses. Our study indicates that G. max exhibits growth in darkness that is more characteristic of growth in light. This finding suggests that domestication has resulted in a crop species...

salamanders were significantly less abundant. It is unlikely that salamanders will persist or thrive for more than a season or two in logged forests due to a significant deterioration in body condition of Ocoee salamanders in logged riparian areas. My results...

Territoriality is a suite of behaviors through which animals secure access to particular areas or resources. It is prevalent across animal groups and has the potential to exert substantial influence on fitness by mediating how individuals...

Land use is a pervasive form of disturbance affecting natural systems on Earth. My dissertation research is set within the context of a large scale project referred to as Land-use Effects on Amphibian Populations (LEAP), where researchers in Maine...

on the effects of logging on amphibians that require streams for reproduction. In order to mitigate the impacts of habitat alteration on stream amphibians, it is necessary to have a clear understanding of the role abiotic and biotic factors play in determining...

of floodplain forest restoration on a large, regulated river in an agricultural valley. I used infrared, time-lapse video to identify agriculture-associated nest predators as a primary source of nest mortality in the Sacramento River Valley, California. Then...

The movement of individuals within and among populations has been recognized as an important determinant of the persistence of species. Fragmentation of terrestrial landscapes has exacerbated the need to understand the ...

Freshwater ponds are often underappreciated landscape features, despite the fact they comprise a major portion of all freshwater ecosystems. Ponds support diverse food webs and species not found in other habitat types. Ponds ecosystems do not exist...

of skeletal muscle is exhausted. The potential of stem cells in regenerative medicine lies in the ability to remove them from their natural niche, inducing them to proliferate in culture and placing functional cells back into a tissue environment. In order...

tree-species tree incongruence. In Chapter III, as published in Abrahams et al., 2020, I utilize a microsynteny network and phylogenetic inference to investigate the origin and diversification of the MAM/IPMS gene family. I uncover unique MAM-like genes...

Plants are sessile organisms and therefore are limited in their ability to gather resources. Therefore, they have evolved several mechanisms that aid them in their quest to gather light, water and nutrients. One such mechanism is phototropism, a...

character displacement. Empirical studies of reproductive character displacement often report that the interactions between species are asymmetrical, such that one species shows the expected pattern of displacement while the other does not. This may be a...

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...

Particularly in organisms with a limited breeding period, females must rely on both external and physiological cues to regulate the phenology of reproduction and behavior. I investigated the relationship between male acoustic signals...

necessary to respond to altered demands or perturbations. Studying the mechanisms which confer these properties requires a well characterized system with a known network topology and identifiable neurons that are amenable to both electrophysiological...