Doctor of Philosophy, Miami University, 2023, English

Scholars and practitioners have legitimized narrative and storytelling as areas of study within not only composition and rhetoric (Vealey & Gerding, 2021) but also related fields, such as data visualization (Knaflic, 2015) and design (Quesenbery & Brooks, 2010). Composition and rhetoric scholars such as Natasha Jones, Kristen Moore, and Rebecca Walton have developed grounded theorizations of narrative for community-based research. However, undeveloped is a theorization of community-based writing and narrative that examines years-long community development. This dissertation builds upon past scholarship to investigate how the nonprofit Millvale Community Development Corporation (MCDC) tells the narratives of its work. I interviewed twelve participants as part of a community-engaged study, one which employs an antenarrative methodology. Key to this methodology was tracing marginalized or outlying stories, or antenarratives, and reifying how the Millvale Community Development Corporation centralizes them in its communications to rewrite harmful narratives of Millvale, a former mill town which borders Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. An antenarrative also refers to a bet, as in to “up the ante,” and I further examined how the Millvale Community Development Corporation “wagered” on its new narratives and what it did to ensure the odds were in its favor (Boje, 2001). My methods also include analysis of Pivot, a planning report which coordinates social action under six themes: energy, food, water, air, equity, and mobility. I theorize how a community's plot contains people resolving a complication around a theme, such as water, which initiates social change. The resulting narratives are both internal and external. For the MCDC, the external narrative involves making Millvale a hip destination to visit while the internal one involves keeping the borough an equitable, prideful, and sustainable place to live. This work applies to community-based writing, professional and tec (open full item for complete abstract)

Committee: Timothy Lockridge (Committee Chair); Heidi McKee (Committee Member); Timothy Holcomb (Committee Member); Emily Legg (Committee Member); Michele Simmons (Committee Member) Subjects: Composition; Rhetoric; Technical Communication

Doctor of Philosophy, Miami University, 2019, English

Planning, developing, and assessing sustainable mobile strategies is a challenge that many non-profit organizations face as they build mobile sites, native applications, and mobile experiences with community members. Through interviews with community organization leaders (n=3), community members (n=11), and a survey of a non-profit organization's members (n=266) in the southern Ohio region, this project, Designing Mobile User Experiences for Community Engagement, extends mobile literacy scholarship within the field regarding community-based work and, more recently, mobile communication literacies. Seeking to fill a gap in writing studies research concerning mobile communication strategy in non-profit organizations, this study's research questions include: (1) How do community organizations use mobile technologies and mobile communication practices for community engagement?; (2) What does the mobile technology and strategy development process look like in community organizations? (3) How do community members and leaders define the affordances of mobile technologies?; (4) What purpose do mobile technologies serve in community engagement?; (5) What are the challenges and benefits of using mobile technologies for community engagement purposes? Findings show participants encountered major breakdowns in motivation in using the application regarding three key areas: pertinence, personalization, and duplication of content, rather than issues that would be typically defined as breakdowns in ease of use. Ultimately, this dissertation offers a methodological framework based in activity theory and space as practiced place for studying mobile communication and mobile user experience that highlights identifying motivations and breakdowns that exist across communication ecologies and offers key strategies and practices for building, using, and developing mobile communications for community engagement.

Committee: W. Simmons PhD (Committee Chair) Subjects: Composition; Rhetoric; Technical Communication

Master of Arts, Miami University, 2018, English

This thesis reviews scholarship to create a synthesized framework for understanding community-based writing centers. It begins by establishing differences between writing centers at colleges and in the community. The framework is developed by exploring concepts of community, intersectionality, and writing. The thesis concludes by defining a community-based writing center by this framework, reiterating the current exigence for the proliferation of community-based writing centers, and also positing future directions research may go.

Committee: Elizabeth Wardle (Committee Chair); Jason Palmeri (Committee Member); Michele Simmons (Committee Member) Subjects: Composition; Pedagogy; Rhetoric

Doctor of Philosophy, The Ohio State University, 2017, English

Community is a concept with tremendous power in higher education and writing studies. For higher education institutions, community influences the purpose and method of education. Based on John Dewey's work on the social nature of education and other histories of community-based education, higher education practitioners and theorists like Ernest Boyer and Vincent Tinto call for the university to embrace its identity as a community to better educate students. As a result of the “university as community” model, institutions have created curricular, co-curricular, and extracurricular programs like community-based education, living-learning communities, and community outreach to foster students' sense of belonging to the institution. Furthermore, several studies have linked students' sense of institutional community to increased student retention and graduation rates. Community is also a foundational concept in writing studies' disciplinary scholarship and pedagogical practices. Based on social theories of writing, writing scholars and instructors implement collaborative pedagogical practices like peer review and class curriculum like writing across communities that simulate the community contexts of writing practices. Scholars also engage in community-based research into discursive communities, community engagement, and community literacies, among other forms. However, writing studies scholarship also complicates the idea of community, scholars like Joseph Harris argue that the focus on community obscures conflict or the power dynamics that are always present within groups. In spite of the critique presented by Harris, community is still present in the scholarship and pedagogical practice of writing studies ranging from conference themes, presentation titles and abstracts, research articles, teaching philosophies, and course syllabi. In spite of community's omnipresence in higher education and writing studies, few studies critically examine the ideology of commun (open full item for complete abstract)

Committee: Kay Halasek (Committee Chair); Scott DeWitt (Committee Member); Beverly Moss (Committee Member); Cynthia L. Selfe (Committee Member) Subjects: Composition; Higher Education; Rhetoric

Master of Science (MS), Ohio University, 2002, Biological Sciences (Arts and Sciences)

Avian community structure is determined by many abiotic and biotic factors such as bird-habitat associations, resource partitioning, and species interactions. Disturbance, such as shelterwood harvesting and prescribed burning, alter these patterns of co-existence. I studied avian forest communities at three sites in Southeast Ohio. Each site consists of four treatment plots: control, burn, thin, and thin + burn. I determined differences in species composition, richness, mean abundance, and nest success at each site. Avian species composition and abundance appear most impacted within the burn plots in 2001. Species richness is highest in the thin only and thin and burn plots. Daily nest survival rates are similar across treatments and years. My results are comparable to other studies that found these management practices provide habitat for both gap associated birds and mature forest birds. Further research is needed to determine the impact of other factors that may mask treatment effects.

Committee: Donald Miles (Advisor) Subjects: Biology, General

Doctor of Philosophy (Ph.D.), Bowling Green State University, 2024, English (Rhetoric and Writing) PhD

In 2019, The Lake Erie Bill of Rights (LEBOR) was voted onto the city charter of Toledo, Ohio. The charter amendment made it possible for citizens of the city of Toledo to sue polluters on behalf of the Lake, effectively giving Lake Erie more standing in court closer to that of legal personhood. A year later, LEBOR was deemed unenforceable by Judge Jack Zouhary, who critiqued it as vague and reaching too far beyond the jurisdiction of Toledo. This dissertation starts from those two critiques, analyzing how LEBOR fell short in 1. specifically connecting to the thousands of years of landscape practices and relations Indigenous residents had developed in the time before the region was colonized and 2. understanding the Lake as a place with a dynamic set of naturecultural relations with deep ties to the watershed and landscape within the jurisdiction of Toledo. This analysis uses theories from spatial rhetoric, placemaking, naturecultural critique, Indigenous scholarship, and postcolonial studies focused on the U.S. to understand why these shortcomings occurred and how future activist composers can possibly benefit from avoiding them. At the center of the analysis is an oral history composed using only the words of the activists in order to ground the work in their more immediate context. The dissertation concludes by evaluating how my analysis of LEBOR can be applied to teaching writing in and outside of the classroom and to scientific research projects that may otherwise be falling short in their connection with the public connected to the knowledge they gather and the organisms and entities they research.

Committee: Neil Baird Ph.D. (Committee Chair); Ellen Gorsevski Ph.D. (Committee Member); Chad Iwertz-Duffy Ph.D. (Committee Member); Lee Nickoson Ph.D. (Committee Member) Subjects: American Studies; Environmental Justice; Geography; Rhetoric

Master of Science, The Ohio State University, 2024, Environment and Natural Resources

Forests across the U.S. have been shaped by indigenous stewardship for centuries, and more recently by colonial land managers. Presently these forests are facing multiple stressors such as fragmentation, plant and pest invasion, and climate change. Non-native, ‘invasive' plant species pose a threat to forest ecosystems and are responsible for disrupting the structure and function of these systems, outcompeting native plant species and disrupting soil health. This study investigates (a) management effects on plant communities in an invaded eastern hardwood forest in Coshocton, OH, and (b) decomposition of litter from native and invasive species in managed and unmanaged research plots. The research site contains remnant oak-hickory forest, used in recent history for timber production followed by several decades of disuse. During this period of non-management, several invasive species became abundant throughout the site, including Celastrus orbiculatus vine and Ligustrum vulgare shrub. In addition to infiltration by invasive species, the process of mesophication is underway in some areas of the research site, altering moisture and light availability while driving the community towards a maple-beech dominated composition. In the first chapter of this research, we utilize disturbance-based management practices in invaded forests plots. Our objectives are to (i) investigate how woody plant communities shift with time from treatment and (ii) determine whether treatment effect is contingent upon the passage of time. This research contributes to our understanding of invasive plant management and exemplifies the use of goats as an alternative to fire for the purpose of driving community shifts in invaded oak forests. Research plots were established throughout the site to capture the variety of biotic and abiotic conditions. Each plot underwent one of four treatments: (a) mechanical clearing, (b) high intensity goat browsing, (c) low intensity goat browsing, (d) no tr (open full item for complete abstract)

Committee: G. Matt Davies (Advisor); Stephen Matthews (Committee Member); Horacio Lopez-Nicora (Committee Member) Subjects: Environmental Science

PHD, Kent State University, 2023, College of Arts and Sciences / Department of Biological Sciences

Over the past few decades, the massive anthropogenic increase in PPCP consumption and their subsequent release, ubiquitous distribution, and pseudo-persistence in the environment have compelled many people to monitor PPCPs in rivers, lakes, drinking water, groundwater, and sediments. PPCPs can also enter drinking water treatment plants via either surface water or sometimes through groundwater. Despite their widespread distribution, PPCP monitoring is not mandatory in DWTPs according to federal or state regulations in the US, thereby limiting our understanding of PPCP occurrence, distribution, and subsequent removal in DWTPs. The removal of PPCPs in DWTPs also depends on the specific treatment processes (conventional or advanced) and the molecular structures of the removed compounds. Despite some studies focusing on PPCP occurrence and removal from DWTPs, there is still a significant knowledge gap regarding compound-specific removal of PPCPs both seasonally and treatment-wise (conventional vs. advanced). There is also insufficient knowledge about the removal of mixed PPCPs in sand-anthracite biofilters, particularly for drinking water. Moreover, their effects (microbial and biochemical) on benthic aquatic invertebrates are not well investigated. The overall goal of this dissertation was to understand the distribution of PPCPs in the surface and drinking water, their chemical and biological removal from water, and their effects on benthic aquatic invertebrates. Specifically, I aimed to understand how PPCPs are distributed in the surface and drinking waters of Northern Ohio, how they are removed from the finished waters in water treatment plants, how microbial community changes with the removal and/or interactions of PPCPs from drinking water in sand-anthracite biofilters and finally how PPCPs induce microbial and biochemical changes in freshwater crayfish.

Committee: Xiaozhen Mou Ph.D (Advisor); Laura Leff Ph.D (Advisor) Subjects: Chemistry; Ecology; Microbiology

Master of Arts, Miami University, 2023, Geography

In the Midwestern USA (Southwest Ohio), landscape heterogeneity is changing drastically due to exurbanization. Recent studies suggest that an increase in landscape heterogeneity can have a positive effect on species diversity, abundance, and community composition, making this an exemplary location to research the effects of landscape modifications on species richness and composition. Lepidoptera (butterflies) in particular have been documented to be effective indicators of compositional and configurational landscape heterogeneity shifts which naturally make them a great model organism to study this novel system. Applying the concept of fragmentation per se, I found compositional heterogeneity to be a significant indicator of species richness and diversity. In contrast, configurational heterogeneity did not have an effect on lepidoptera. This suggests that fragmentation per se and increased compositional heterogeneity may have a positive effect on butterfly richness regardless of the configurational heterogeneity. Thus, conservation efforts should focus on diversification of the landscape cover types as well as supporting the conservation of small and large habitat patches.

Committee: Amelie Davis (Advisor); Mary Henry (Committee Member); Michelle Boone (Committee Member) Subjects: Biology; Conservation; Ecology; Environmental Science; Geography; Physical Geography; Remote Sensing

PHD, Kent State University, 2022, College of Arts and Sciences / Department of Biological Sciences

Freshwater ecosystems serve as habitats for an array of macroinvertebrates and microorganisms. Macroinvertebrates are an integral part of freshwater ecosystems and their guts serve as habitats for various microorganisms, including bacteria. However, the role of freshwater macroinvertebrates and their gut microbiomes in performing ecosystem functions, including (but not limited to) biogeochemical processes, are relatively less explored than free-living microbiomes. The overall goal of this dissertation is to understand the contribution of freshwater macroinvertebrates towards nitrogen dynamics (denitrification in particular), antibiotic resistance, and the connection of these processes to bacterial community composition and function. Hence, I examined differences in antibiotic resistance gene (ARG) abundances and bacterial community composition among macroinvertebrate guts, sediment, and water microbiomes in an urban Northeast Ohio stream, looked at connection between denitrification functional genes and denitrification rates in crayfish guts, and effect of bioturbation on dissolved inorganic nitrogen, denitrification and bacterial abundance and community composition. Overall, the results showed that macroinvertebrate guts may serve as potential reservoirs of ARGs, however, we did not find evidence to show that macroinvertebrates serve as vectors of ARGs. Furthermore, we found that crayfish guts support both incomplete and complete denitrification while bioturbation by macroinvertebrates having different modes of burrowing influenced dissolved inorganic nitrogen concentration and bacterial community composition differently. Future studies need to focus on extensive sampling to draw generalizations about the role of macroinvertebrates in antibiotic resistance and denitrification in aquatic ecosystems. Additionally, such results when tested in field experiments can have implications on restoration and management decisions, and connect the effect of anthropogenic activi (open full item for complete abstract)

Committee: Laura Leff PHD (Advisor) Subjects: Ecology

PHD, Kent State University, 2022, College of Arts and Sciences / Department of Biological Sciences

Microplastics are a global concern in aquatic ecology and are readily colonized by bacteria in the environment. There is a lack of information on bacterial colonization of eroded and un-eroded microplastics in freshwater. In this study, six types of microplastics were incubated for 8 weeks in microcosms with water from Lake Erie. Microcosms were inoculated with one of three species: Acinetobacter (A.)calcoaceticus, Burkholderia (B.)cepacia, and Escherichia (E.)coli. These bacterial species are ubiquitous in water bodies associated with human populations. Bacterial surface coverage was determined using electron and fluorescent microscopy. Quantifications of EPS and surface roughness were performed by confocal microscopy and measuring contact angles (θw) of water droplets on microplastics, respectively. Analyses revealed surface coverage differed among bacterial species and plastic types after 8 weeks. As the study progressed, E.coli remained the most abundant while A.calcoaceticus gradually decreased on most surfaces. Analyses of microcosms revealed polypropylene disks had lower bacterial abundance. Conversely, eroded polypropylene disks had highest bacterial abundance, indicating importance of surface roughness (lower θw values) and surface physicochemical properties of microplastics in bacterial colonization. Our results demonstrated that bacterial colonization of microplastics is affected by both the physicochemical properties of microplastics and the physiological properties of colonizing bacteria.

Committee: Laura G. Leff (Advisor); Christopher Blackwood (Committee Member); Daniel Holm (Committee Member); Tara Smith (Committee Member); Xiaozhen Mou (Committee Member) Subjects: Materials Science; Microbiology; Molecular Biology; Plastics

Doctor of Philosophy, University of Toledo, 2021, Higher Education

Prior to the COVID-19 pandemic that began in March 2020, few developmental English courses in Ohio community colleges were taught in a virtual format. Then, in the academic year that followed the onset of the pandemic, nearly all of these courses were shifted to various online formats with few exceptions. To this point, limited research had been completed on academic achievement in online developmental English. To begin to understand what influences success in these courses, especially since the time of the massive shift towards remote learning, this dissertation analyzed various input and environmental factors to identify which of these, if any, influence academic success for developmental English students in a range of learning settings. This research was undertaken with Alexander Astin's Student Involvement Theory and his I-E-O data analysis framework in mind. In all, a sample of 403 recent students—all of whom took developmental English during the Summer 2020, Fall 2020, or Spring 2021 terms at one of three Ohio community colleges—completed a 38-item questionnaire related to their experience before, during, and after their course. Qualtrics was used to administer a web-based survey. The results were analyzed utilizing blocked stepwise regression analysis. In the end, nine significant predictors of student success, as defined by students' final grades, emerged from this study, including student-to-faculty engagement variables, academic involvement variables, non-involvement variables, and intermediate educational outcomes. Moving forward, the findings from this research could influence pedagogical, structural, and institution-wide practices at community colleges throughout Ohio and beyond. Future research is still necessary on the impact of shifts in course modality, the effectiveness of specific student-to-faculty engagement practices, and the influence of student-to-student interaction in remote learning settings for developmental English.

Committee: Ron Opp (Committee Chair); Rebecca Fleming (Committee Member); Barbara Schneider (Committee Member); Debra Brace (Committee Member) Subjects: Community College Education; Higher Education; Higher Education Administration; Teaching

Master of Science, Miami University, 2021, Biology

Zooplankton represent an important link for the transfer of energy in aquatic food webs. Reservoirs and lakes are key sentinels and integrators of environmental changes because they are sensitive to terrestrial inputs. Here we use a 24-year (from 1996 to 2019) dataset to analyze the long-term seasonal responses of rotifer zooplankton biomass and phenology (using center of gravity, COG) to long-term trends and interannual variability (IAV) in temperature, discharge, turbidity, and biotic factors in a eutrophic reservoir. Rotifers decreased while cyclopoid copepods increased over the 24-year period. Rotifer community composition shifted, and this change was more drastic during the spring than summer. The only rotifer genus showing a significant change in COG was Brachionus, which was later in both seasons. The correlations between the IAV of rotifer biomass and environmental drivers were species- and season-specific. The phenology (COG) of rotifer biomass was positively correlated with the COG of environmental factors. Short-term correlations did not provide strong support for either top-down or bottom-up control of rotifer biomass changes. Interannual correlations often did not support long-term correspondence of rotifer measures with environmental drivers, and our results suggest that different mechanisms likely underly interannual vs. long-term trends in rotifer biomass and phenology.

Committee: María González (Advisor); Michael Vanni (Committee Member); Seonjin Kim (Committee Member); Craig Williamson (Committee Member) Subjects: Aquatic Sciences; Biology; Ecology; Environmental Science

MA, Kent State University, 2020, College of Fine and Professional Arts / School of Music

This thesis explores the role and function of the Bandung Philharmonic as a unique impression in the symphony orchestra world and how its ventures into multicultural education forms bridges from the local to the global community. It further demonstrates the unique negotiations that the Bandung Philharmonic has to make in order to create an Indonesian identity through the utilization of the medium, and I argue that the orchestra's commitment to working with local composers, building a unique symphonic orchestra repertoire, and prioritizing the formation of a distinctively Indonesian orchestra, rejects the concept of orientalism and could be considered a marker of Indonesian identity. I begin by documenting the establishment of the orchestra in the modern era to understand how this newly formed orchestra situates itself in Indonesia while having full agency over its medium without a colonialist influence. I then examine its connections with the local community and show how the orchestra is dedicated to building a lasting legacy in Indonesian symphony orchestra music. Lastly, I reflect on the Bandung Philharmonic's endeavors as a professional symphonic orchestra deeply engaged in the community while revealing the option where an orchestra, of and by the community, can be successful by displaying the unique characteristics of its people.

Committee: Jennifer Johnstone PhD (Committee Chair); Jungho Kim DMA (Committee Member); Priwan Nanongkham PhD (Committee Member) Subjects: Ethnic Studies; History; Multicultural Education; Music; Music Education; South Asian Studies

Doctor of Philosophy, The Ohio State University, 2020, English

Composition scholars and writing instructors have mobilized developments in theories about audience, rhetorical labor, and the rhetorical situation to help students examine and interact with exigences outside the classroom. Pedagogies such as service-learning, client-based teaching, and community-engaged writing situate students with(in) communities, clients, and/or partners for the purpose of immersing them in "real-world" rhetorical contexts. Although collaborating across rhetorical situations that expand beyond the classroom can create educational opportunities and meaningful projects, such an undertaking comes at a cost. Successfully understanding, managing, and delegating labor within client- and partner-based composition pedagogy can be a challenge to coordinate effectively. Misunderstanding complexity in client- and partner-based composition courses can result in unsatisfactory or unfulfilling outputs, unethical authority imbalances, and marginalized course participants and partners. Addressing these challenges depends on localized and inductively derived frameworks to navigate this labor distribution well. From my case study of a partner-based digital composition course, I posit two frameworks for comprehending and executing ethical and successful client- and partner-based composition courses: a "macro-rhetoric" model to understand and strategize rhetorical labor, and an authority|collaboration matrix to negotiate distributing that rhetorical labor. I developed these frameworks inductively using institutional ethnographic strategies to gather data and grounded theory to analyze it. Macro-rhetoric emerges from this study as a localized theory that explains the complex interaction of components in a rhetorical situation. In essence, a macro-rhetoric model of labor in client- and partner-based composition courses encourages participants to explicitly think about and strategize their partnership as a networking endeavor. Thus, macro-rhetors in a client- a (open full item for complete abstract)

Committee: Christa Teston (Committee Chair); Jonathan Buehl (Committee Member); Beverly Moss (Committee Member) Subjects: Composition; Rhetoric; Technical Communication

Doctor of Philosophy (PhD), Ohio University, 2020, Plant Biology (Arts and Sciences)

Human activities have greatly impacted terrestrial ecosystems through various forms of habitat modification including the creation of powerline corridors. The routine maintenance of powerline corridors to prevent vegetation interference with electricity transmission lines leads to the emergence of early successional vegetation surrounded by a forest matrix. An analogous situation emerges in the creation of openings for wildlife management purposes. To determine the ecological consequences of human-modified landscapes, I investigated the effect of environmental gradients generated by these landscape modifications on floristic composition. I also examined edge effects along three powerline corridors with different management histories and investigated pollination dynamics of goldenrod Solidago canadensis within a powerline corridor and around wildlife openings. Powerline corridor habitat had more species and greater Shannon diversity than adjacent forest habitat. Powerline corridor and adjoining forest habitat had 69% mean Jaccard similarity coefficient, and species richness declined sharply within 10 m from the corridor edge. Invasive plants were more abundant within powerline corridor, along powerline corridor edges, and along wildlife opening edges compared to forest habitat. More frequent disturbance at wildlife openings facilitated recolonization by other insect-pollinated plants, which meant that some goldenrod patches there experienced more pollinator visits compared to those within powerline corridors. However, pollen viability and amount of fruit set did not differ between the two landscape elements. This work further strengthens the case of managing for biodiversity within powerline corridors as evidenced by greater species richness and pollination dynamics within this human-modified landscape.

Committee: Brian McCarthy (Advisor); Glenn Matlack (Committee Member); Jared DeForest (Committee Member); James Dyer (Other) Subjects: Ecology; Plant Biology

MS, Kent State University, 2019, College of Arts and Sciences / Department of Biological Sciences

Land managers across the Appalachian region have been dissatisfied with the progress of native temperate forest regeneration on surface mines reclaimed under Surface Mining Control and Reclamation Act of 1977 (SMCRA) protocols. These sites are commonly colonized by invasive plant species and have inadequate soils. Many of the nearly 50 former surface mines located within Cuyahoga Valley National Park (CVNP), Ohio, underwent reclamation following SMCRA protocols as an effort to restore native forest habitat, but park staff have also found succession to occur at a far slower rate than originally anticipated. While many studies have been conducted on acidic coal mines, reclaimed sites in CVNP were mined for non-coal resources and are alkaline. Here I investigated the plant communities and soil chemistry of reclaimed surface mines in CVNP to determine the implications of SMCRA protocols on the landscape on sites with alkaline soils. First, I analyzed how vegetative communities on reclaimed surface mines at CVNP changed over a 28-year chronosequence with particular regard to woody species and invasive species. Natural succession of sites was occurring slower than park staff anticipated, as the presence of woody species did not increase significantly over time. However, this did not appear to be a result of invasive plant colonization because exotic plant presence decreased over time, pointing toward inadequate soil conditions rather than interactions among the plant community withholding the growth of woody species. Results imply that SMCRA reclamation protocols do not improve site conditions sufficiently to facilitate natural succession as a tool to return native forests to mines within the timeframe envisioned by land managers. Second, I observed the effects of early colonization of woody nitrogen (N) fixing individuals on soil nutrient concentrations and vegetative communities at the mines. I compared an invasive N-fixing species, autumn olive (Elaeagnus umbel (open full item for complete abstract)

Committee: Chris Blackwood Ph.D. (Advisor); David Ward Ph.D. (Committee Member); Oscar Rocha Ph.D. (Committee Member) Subjects: Ecology

Master of Science (MS), Wright State University, 2019, Biological Sciences

The coral reefs within Indonesia's Wakatobi Marine National Park support a high diversity of reef-building hard corals and associated marine fish. Climate change threatens to dramatically affect coral reef ecosystems by altering the interactions between reef fish and the specific microhabitats they depend on for survival. To examine the spatially varied effects of habitat complexity on the community composition and trophic structure of marine fish assemblages, I analyzed fish community and habitat complexity data across reef zones. Habitat complexity metrics were: structural complexity, the percentage of hard coral (HC) cover, HC genera richness, HC genera diversity (Shannon index), and HC growth form diversity (Shannon index). The community composition of fish assemblages was significantly positively related to habitat complexity, reef zones, and reef systems. This study found that the overall direction and strength of relationships between the fish community and coral reef habitat complexity data varies spatially between reef zones. Marine conservation and restoration efforts need to include specific management plans that vary among reef zones based on how varied habitat complexity and fish communities are at local scales.

Committee: Volker Bahn Ph.D. (Advisor); Thomas Rooney Ph.D. (Committee Member); Lisa Kenyon Ph.D. (Committee Member); Leonard Kenyon M.S. (Other) Subjects: Biology; Ecology; Environmental Management; Environmental Science; Natural Resource Management; Oceanography

Doctor of Philosophy, The Ohio State University, 2019, Evolution, Ecology and Organismal Biology

The drivers of plant diversity and community composition are often influenced by deterministic mechanisms, such as existing environmental conditions, including landscape-level topographic features. In addition, evidence suggests that stochastic mechanisms can also play a critical role in plant community assemblage. Therefore, I investigated how diversity and composition are distributed through space in a mid- successional mixed hardwood forest in northern lower Michigan, USA. This region has been heavily influenced by its glacial past, which resulted in geographically and abiotically distinct glacial landforms that have been shown to influence spatial dynamics of forest communities. Vegetation sampling plots (n=87) were established at the University of Michigan Biological Station (UMBS). Vegetation data of the overstory (>9cm dbh), sapling (1.5-9cm dbh) and groundcover (% cover) layers were collected. Abiotic variables, including elevation, pH, and soil nutrients, were collected in a subset of plots (n=40). I conducted various multivariate statistical analyses to assess the difference in plant communities and abiotic condition, including ANOVA, Variation Partitioning, PERMANOVA, NMDS, and RDA. Variation Partitioning results demonstrated that both deterministic and stochastic mechanisms influenced the community composition of all vegetation layers, however the overstory was mostly influenced by stochastic mechanisms, while the sapling and groundcover layers were opposite. ANOVA results showed strong differences in diversity between glacial landforms. Additionally, PERMANOVA and Non-metric Multidimensional Scaling (NMDS) showed strong differences in community composition between the glacial landforms. Redundancy Analysis (RDA) revealed a strong influence of abiotic variables on composition, with the strongest effects coming from elevation and O horizon depth (O_depth). My findings indicate a large influence of glacial landforms on the production and maintenance of loc (open full item for complete abstract)

Committee: Peter Curtis (Advisor); Maria Miriti (Committee Member); Stephen Hovick (Committee Member); Luke Wilson (Other) Subjects: Ecology; Plant Biology

Master of Science, Miami University, 2019, Microbiology

Communities of microorganisms play an important role in nutrient cycling within aquatic environments as they transform nutrients from organic and dissolved forms to inorganic forms. In wastewater treatment plants, this role is utilized to remove excess nutrients and clean the wastewater. In eutrophic freshwater lakes, microorganisms support the higher food web through the microbial loop. In this study, the microbial communities in the aeration tank of seven wastewater treatment plants as well as in the water column and sediment of two eutrophic lakes are determined and compared using next generation sequencing techniques. The microbial communities in the wastewater treatment plants are very similar, indicating the same microorganisms are carrying out the same processes. The microbial communities in the sediments and water column of both lakes are different from each other while overlap could be detected between the communities in the water columns and sediments of the different lakes. While the wastewater treatment plants and eutrophic lakes are high nutrient aquatic environments, the environmental factors in each are different and result in different microbial communities adapted to the conditions in each environment.

Committee: Annette Bollmann (Advisor); Rachael Morgan-Kiss (Committee Member); Xin Wang (Committee Member) Subjects: Microbiology