Theses and Dissertations at Montana State University (MSU)
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Item Conservation guidance for blanding's turtles in northwest iowa(Montana State University, 2021) Howing, Drew Taylor LeeBlanding's turtles (Emydoidea blandingii) are currently threatened or endangered across their range in the United States and Canada due to habitat destruction and fragmentation. In Iowa, a recent survey from 2010 states that they currently reside in only 26 of the original 45 counties they historically inhabited. Due to the habitat differences across their range, developing survey protocols for the prairie pot-hole region of northwest Iowa is needed. Within Dickinson, Clay, and Palo Alto counties of Iowa, Blanding's turtles have been detected historically and contain a greater abundance of wetland habitats than the surrounding counties. The goal of this project was to assess different survey and capture techniques to inform future monitoring programs for Blanding's turtles in this region of Iowa. I used visual rapid assessments and hoop net trapping to detect, capture, and mark Blanding's turtles throughout the 2020 and 2021 field seasons. These surveys and trapping efforts were mostly conducted throughout the month of June, which is later than most literature would recommend due to reduced turtle basking behavior. However, due to the proliferation of submergent vegetation as the summer progressed, it seems likely that the detection of this species could be greater using these methods later into the summer as turtles venture out into more open areas of wetlands. In addition, these methods led to the discovery of multiple viable Blanding's turtle populations and new sites where the species is present. An additional spatial analysis concluded the presence of perennial streams in turtle home ranges which could be an important habitat factor for their existence in the boom-and-bust cycles of the prairie. Further research needs to be conducted using these methods for developing a more robust dataset to determine the effectiveness of this method. Long-term monitoring will be initiated using a field maps survey created by Iowa Lakes Community College students for increasing efficiency of data collection by managers and other professionals that encounter this species. In addition, funding for the purchase of 25 radio transmitters has been received for marking and tracking adult male and female turtles. These data will give a population-level understanding of future conservation action needed for their habitat management.Item Condition assessment of tailings-impacted wetlands at the Carpenter-Snow Creek Mining District Superfund Site, Neihart, Montana(Montana State University - Bozeman, College of Agriculture, 2019) Sovner, Nicholas Steven; Chairperson, Graduate Committee: Scott PowellIn this study, I evaluate the condition of two wetlands down-gradient of mine tailings at the Carpenter-Snow Creek Mining District (CSCMD) Superfund Site near Neihart, Montana. Wetlands contaminated with mine waste are unique in that they are highly disturbed, but they still perform some level of ecological function and service. The CSCMD consists of 70 historic mine sites in the Upper Belt Creek watershed. Historic metal mining activity occurred between the late 1800s and early 1900s, with exploration activities occurring as late as the 1980s. Waste rock from mining and milling operations generated numerous tailings piles that expose heavy metals to erosion and subsequently contaminate groundwater, surface water, and stream sediments. Therefore, wetland rapid assessment tools were used to assess the capacity of wetlands to perform ecological functions. My objective was to identify which of four methods is the most effective at identifying functional loss. Rapid assessment methods included the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers - Hydrogeomorphic Approach to Assessing Wetland Function (HGM), the Montana Department of Transportation - Montana Wetland Assessment Method (MWAM), the Montana Natural Heritage Program - Montana Ecological Integrity Assessment (MEIA), and Montana Department of Environmental Quality - Wetland Assessment Protocol (WAP). The methods were performed on pairs of impacted and reference sites along Carpenter Creek and Belt Creek. My results indicate that MEIA displays the greatest sensitivity for differences between reference sites and impacted sites with a difference of 0.38 (out of 1) for the Belt Creek sites and 0.46 for the Carpenter Creek sites, while HGM displays slightly less sensitivity with differences of 0.31 and 0.40, respectively. The WAP shows the least absolute difference in index scores in the Belt Creek watershed (0.17), and the MWAM shows the least absolute difference between sites in the Carpenter Creek watershed (0.17). These results are useful for mining-related environmental cleanups where a decision regarding whether wetlands should be left in place, removed and reconstructed, or newly created where none currently exists. At cleanup sites, where long-term monitoring of wetland and riparian systems is necessary after reclamation, my study will help regulators and consultants determine whether a chosen remedial action was successful at eliminating, or at least significantly reducing, the effects of mine waste.Item Remote sensing for wetland restoration analysis: Napa-Sonoma Marsh as case study(Montana State University - Bozeman, College of Agriculture, 2019) Bryne, Charles; Chairperson, Graduate Committee: Scott PowellHuman-caused ecosystem change and habitat loss is a major worldwide concern. Wetland loss has been remarkable worldwide and in the US. In the San Francisco Bay system, the largest estuary on the eastern rim of the Pacific Ocean and a biodiversity hotspot, more than 90 percent of the wetlands have been lost to urban development, salt production and agriculture, a loss that primarily occurred in the century following 1850. Restoration is our primary mechanism for confronting this challenge. While wetland restoration design has advanced dramatically since the early designs of the 1980s, restoration analysis and evaluation remain challenges that until now have wholly or primarily required on-site sampling. This is a major challenge for larger restoration projects, such as the Napa- Sonoma Salt Marsh restoration in California. Previous studies have indicated that the Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI) has been used in some restoration analyses with apparent success, but data is limited. To better understand its potential, this study examines issues in restoration analysis in the context of wetland restorations. By comparing pre- and post-restoration remote sensing data, I found that two sites in the Napa-Sonoma Marsh restoration demonstrated mixed NDVI results and that changes depended on subarea and whether median or maximum NDVI was analyzed. The mixed results are explained by several factors: the inherent limitations of NDVI; the large restoration size; the fact that wetlands, less vegetated, present special challenges for analysis; and the fact that it is early in the post-restoration period. The case study supports the use of remote sensing and GIS for restoration analysis and evaluation, but also emphasizes their current limitations. Many of these limitations, which hinge on the complexity of the potential data involved, are likely to be addressed in the next generation as the relevant technology continues to develop.Item Land-atmosphere exchange of carbon and energy at a tropical peat swamp forest in Sarawak, Malaysia(Montana State University - Bozeman, College of Agriculture, 2017) Tang Che Ing, Angela; Chairperson, Graduate Committee: Paul C. Stoy; Paul C. Stoy, Kevin K. Musin, Edward B. Aeries, Joseph Wenceslaus, Mariko Shimizu, Ryuichi Hirata and Lulie Melling were co-authors of the article, 'The role of biophysical drivers in controlling the variability of net ecosystem CO 2 exchange in a tropical peat forest in Sarawak, Malaysian Borneo' submitted to the journal 'Global change biology' which is contained within this thesis.; Paul C. Stoy, Kevin K. Musin, Edward B. Aeries, Joseph Wenceslaus, Mariko Shimizu, Ryuichi Hirata and Lulie Melling were co-authors of the article, 'The exchange of water and energy between a tropical peat forest and the atmosphere: seasonal trends and comparison against global tropical rainforests' submitted to the journal 'Geophysical research letters' which is contained within this thesis.; Paul C. Stoy, Kevin K. Musin, Edward B. Aeries, Joseph Wenceslaus, Mariko Shimizu, Ryuichi Hirata and Lulie Melling were co-authors of the article, 'Eddy covariance measurements of methane flux at a tropical peat forest in Sarawak, Malaysian Borneo' submitted to the journal 'Agricultural and forest meteorology' which is contained within this thesis.Tropical peatlands comprise 11% of the global peat area of ca. 400 Mha and are estimated to store about 89 Gt of carbon (C). However, considerable uncertainties remain about their present role in global C cycle as interannual ecosystem-scale measurements of undisturbed tropical peat forests have not been measured to date. Hence, an eddy covariance tower was instrumented in a tropical peat forest in Sarawak, Malaysia over four years from 2011 to 2014. We found that the forest was a net source of CO 2 to the atmosphere during every year of measurement. The inter-annual variation in net ecosystem CO 2 exchange (NEE) was largely modulated by the variation in gross primary production (GPP), which was jointly controlled by vapor pressure deficit (VPD) and leaf area index (LAI) in addition to photosynthetically active photon flux density (PPFD). Greater reduction of GPP in 2011 and 2012, are likely attributed to the relative low atmospheric transmission due to massive peat fires in Indonesia. Similarly, no analysis to our knowledge has measured whole-ecosystem methane (CH 4) flux from a tropical peat forested wetland to date despite their importance to global CH 4 budget. The two-month average of C-CH 4 flux measurements, on the order of 0.024 g C-CH 4 m -2 d -1, suggests that tropical peat forests are not likely to be disproportionally important to global CH 4 flux. Results demonstrate a limited ability for simple models to capture the variability in the diurnal pattern of CH 4 efflux, but also consistent responses to soil moisture, water table height, and precipitation over daily to weekly time scales. The sensible heat flux (H) and latent heat flux (LE) and their ratio (the Bowen ratio, Bo) at the study ecosystem were relatively invariant compared to other tropical rainforests. The average daily LE across the calendar year tended to be higher at MY-MLM (11 MJ m -2 day -1) than most other tropical rainforest ecosystems in the FLUXNET2015 database. Results demonstrate important differences in the seasonal patterns in water and energy exchange in tropical rainforest ecosystems that need to be captured by models to understand how ongoing changes in tropical rainforest extent impact the global climate system.Item Effects of land use on vegetation in glaciated depressional wetlands in western Montana(Montana State University - Bozeman, College of Agriculture, 1998) Borth, Cynthia S.Item A comparison of techniques for establishing Nebraska sedge and hardstem bulrush(Montana State University - Bozeman, College of Agriculture, 1998) Klausmann, Jeffrey M.Item Metal accumulation in voles from an acid mine drainage impacted wetland(Montana State University - Bozeman, College of Agriculture, 1990) Zavitz, Thomas LindseyItem The determination of wetland hydrologic characteristics using a bromide tracer(Montana State University - Bozeman, College of Agriculture, 1988) Morton, Robert BoydItem Mapping and change detection of wetland and riparian ecosystems in the Gallatin Valley, Montana using landsat imagery(Montana State University - Bozeman, College of Agriculture, 2004) Baker, Corey Ryan; Chairperson, Graduate Committee: Rick Lawrence.The location and distribution of wetlands and riparian zones influences the ecological functions present on a landscape. Accurate and easily reproducible landcover maps enable monitoring of land management decisions and ultimately a greater understanding of landscape ecology. Multi-season Landsat ETM+ imagery from 2001 combined with ancillary topographic and soils data was used to map wetland and riparian systems in the Gallatin Valley of Southwest Montana. Classification Tree Analysis (CTA) and Stochastic Gradient Boosting (SGB) decision-tree based classification algorithms were used to distinguish wetlands and riparian areas from the rest of the landscape. CTA creates a single classification tree using a one-step-look-ahead procedure to reduce variance. SGB utilized classification errors to refine tree development and incorporated the results of multiple trees into a single best classification. The SGB classification (86.0% overall accuracy) was more effective than CTA (61.7% overall accuracy) at detecting a variety of wetlands and riparian zones present on this landscape. A change detection analysis was performed for the years 1988 and 2001. The change detection used Landsat-based Tasseled Cap (TC) components and change vector analysis (CVA) to identify locations of wetland/riparian gain or loss in the 13-year period. CVA of TC brightness, greenness, and wetness components reduces the compound errors of multi-date classifications by using a threshold value to separate land cover change from spectral variability between 1988 and 2001 imagery. Only the highly changed pixels were classified using 1988 Landsat imagery and ancillary data. These change pixels were then merged with the 2001 classified image to develop a wetland/riparian map for 1988. The high overall accuracy of the 1988 classification (81%) developed with this procedure showed the benefits of this technique for mapping historical landcover features. Comparison of the 1988 and 2001 classifications identified locations where wetlands/riparian areas increased, decreased, or remained stable between these years. TC based CVA had an overall change detection accuracy of 75.8% and was able to identify areas of isolated and contiguous wetland/riparian change.Item Composition and modeling of riparian vegetation in the West Fork of the Gallatin River watershed(Montana State University - Bozeman, College of Agriculture, 2007) Shoutis, Levia Nima; Chairperson, Graduate Committee: Duncan T. Patten.Riparian areas contribute to the health of watersheds through their influence on hydrologic, biogeochemical, physical, and ecological processes. Limited research has focused on riparian systems of small mountain watersheds in the western U.S., which are increasingly under pressure from development activities. Watershed managers would benefit from an increased understanding of environment-riparian relationships in mountainous watersheds, for the purpose of assessing habitat and potential available nutrient buffering. This study assessed vegetation-environment relationships using digitally-derived terrain variables and wetland indicator scores, and used these relationships to assess the composition and model the cross-valley extent of riparian vegetation within the West Fork of the Gallatin River watershed in southwest Montana. Digital terrain analysis was used to extract the following terrain predictors: elevation above and distance from streams, plot gradient, valley width, and a topographic wetness index, which integrates the upslope area that contributes flow to a plot, and the plot gradient, thus serving as a measure of site wetness. Species abundance was used to assign weighted plot wetland indicator scores in order to focus on cross-valley gradients, with plots below a threshold score (mesic plots) designated as riparian plots.