Doctor of Philosophy, The Ohio State University, 2016, Entomology

The unifying thesis of my dissertation is that the biology of a honey bee colony cannot be understood apart from the landscape in which it lives; this influence of landscape applies especially to honey bee foraging biology and toxic exposure, and consequently to apicultural outcomes. In Chapter 1, I present and elaborate this thesis in the context of existing literature and lay out the scope of my dissertation accordingly. In Chapter 2, I describe a study in which I collaborated with volunteer beekeepers to measure the success of honey bee colonies surrounded by different types of landscape in Ohio, USA. The results of this study showed that the most successful colonies tended to be those surrounded by agricultural land as opposed to those in forested or urban landscapes, which was contrary to the prevailing opinion that agricultural landscapes are too dominated by crop monocultures and too contaminated with pesticides to support healthy honey bees. This led me to hypothesize that the relationship between honey bee success and landscape is driven mainly by the availability of certain key floral taxa that, in Ohio, occur most abundantly in the interstices of the agricultural landscape. Chapter 3 further pursues the question of whether honey bees prefer agricultural or urban land use by setting up a foraging choice test between these two landscape types. Using a combination of dance language analysis and pollen identification, I monitored the spatial and taxonomic patterns of honey bee foraging at an apiary located on the interface of urban and agricultural land use. The results indicate a strong and consistent preference for the agricultural landscape, corroborating the results of Chapter 1 with an independent data set and using different lines of evidence. In Chapter 4, I turn my attention to the issue of toxic exposure, constructing a critical review of existing approaches to modeling toxic exposure in honey bees. All existing approaches suffer from seriou (open full item for complete abstract)

Committee: Reed Johnson (Advisor); Casey Hoy (Committee Member); Mary Gardiner (Committee Member); Karen Goodell (Committee Member) Subjects: Biology; Ecology; Entomology; Toxicology

Master of Science (MS), Wright State University, 2015, Biological Sciences

White-tailed deer are a species of great economic and ecological concern. Foresters sometimes leave logging debris known as slash on the forest floor with the intent to protect seedlings from deer herbivory and promote forest regeneration. I examined the effects of slash on rates of deer browsing on sugar maple seedlings in a forest of northern Wisconsin and measured deer foraging behavior using giving-up density and vigilance rates by employing trail cameras. Rates of browsed stems were almost twice as high in the open as within and adjacent to slash. These findings underscore the usefulness of slash for mitigating the effects of deer on tree seedlings.Deer vigilance did not vary by night and day but photos were rarely taken during dawn and dusk. These results may suggest that rather than using reactive vigilance behavior, deer are using proactive antipredator behavior and avoiding the study site at high-risk times.

Committee: Thomas Rooney Ph.D. (Advisor); Jeffrey Peters Ph.D. (Committee Member); John Stireman III Ph.D. (Committee Member) Subjects: Animals; Biology; Ecology; Forestry

Doctor of Philosophy (PhD), Ohio University, 2002, Biological Sciences (Arts and Sciences)

In both the Old and New Worlds, independent clades of sit-and-wait insectivorous birds have evolved. These independent radiations provide an excellent opportunity to test for convergent relationships between morphology and ecology at different ecological and phylogenetic levels. First, I test whether there is a significant adaptive relationship between ecology and morphology in North American and Southern African flycatcher communities. Second, using morphological traits and observations on foraging behavior, I test whether ecomorphological relationships are dependent upon locality. Third, using multivariate discrimination and cluster analysis on a morphological data set of five flycatcher clades, I address whether there is broad scale ecomorphological convergence among flycatcher clades and if morphology predicts a course measure of habitat preference. Finally, I test whether there is a common morphological axis of diversification and whether relative age of origin corresponds to the morphological variation exhibited by elaenia and tody-tyrant lineages. The general results were this: 1) Morphology significantly predicted the foraging behavior in both NA and SA flycatchers. 2) North American and Southern African communities are concordant with respect to the ecomorphological relationships. 3) I found that there are lineage-specific positions in morphological space when examining synoptic morphological samples of Old and New World flycatcher clades. 4) There were fundamental differences in the orientations of morphological disparity of Old versus New world flycatchers. 5) The results of separate principal components and common principal component analyses reveal a larger morphological volume being occupied by older lineages, but 6) Macroevolutionary patterns exist within constituent clades that are inconsistent with a Brownian motion evolutionary hypothesis. Hence, the differences in morphological disparity observed in flycatchers are most likely due group-specific f (open full item for complete abstract)

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

Bachelor of Arts (BA), Ohio University, 2024, Geography

In a world where foraging is as popular as ever, it is becoming increasingly important for management agencies to develop strategies to address this activity. The response by management agencies has not been uniform, nor has their effect on the foraging community. Because of this novelty and irregularity, it is important to study the political ecology of foraging policy. In this study, I take a closer look at the people who harvest nontimber forest products (NTFPs), the people who manage forests, and the relationship between these two groups.

Committee: Harold Perkins (Advisor) Subjects: Geography

Master of Science, The Ohio State University, 2023, Evolution, Ecology and Organismal Biology

Hypoxia, or low concentration of dissolved oxygen in the water, is becoming a more frequent and extensive phenomenon in many aquatic ecosystems around the world, impacting the ecology of lakes, estuaries, and marine fishes. This often-recurring state of low oxygen degrades habitat quality, affects fish physiology, and can lead to changes in the behavior and distribution of species. Hypoxia can alter predator-prey dynamics through species-specific responses to low oxygen and changes spatiotemporal distributions of populations. The central basin of Lake Erie experiences seasonal hypolimnetic hypoxia every year due to a combination of natural thermal stratification and human practices. Lake Erie supports ecologically important and lucrative recreational and commercial fisheries, so considerable research has gone into understanding the impacts of hypoxia on the Lake Erie ecosystem. In the last decade, adult yellow perch (Perca flavescens) catch in the central basin of Lake Erie has significantly declined, raising questions about the drivers of decreases in yellow perch catch. The goal of this research was to gain better understanding about how hypoxia and other environmental variables associated with the hypoxic season (i.e. higher temperatures) influence adult (2+) yellow perch distributions and overall abundance as well as their diets and foraging behavior. Towards this goal, we conducted hydroacoustic surveys, analyzed data from 2021 annual Ohio Department of Natural Resources – Division of Wildlife trawl surveys, collected data on environmental variables, quantified adult yellow perch stomach contents, and collected data on zooplankton and benthic macroinvertebrates. In the first chapter, we used paired bottom trawl-hydroacoustic surveys to investigate the effects of hypoxia on adult yellow perch distributions. We compared where yellow perch were located in the water column (both fish and site depth) and yellow perch densities between sampling months. The second cha (open full item for complete abstract)

Committee: Elizabeth Marschall (Advisor); Stuart Ludsin (Committee Member); Roman Lanno (Committee Member) Subjects: Biology; Ecology; Environmental Science; Freshwater Ecology

Master of Arts, The Ohio State University, 2017, Anthropology

Resource specialists have low dietary diversity and a high reliance on certain food sources due to behavioral or morphological adaptations. Specialists, who rely on a narrow range of habitats or food sources, tend to have restricted geographic ranges and are vulnerable when their preferred foods diminish. Identifying the relative vulnerability of resident primate species is of vital importance as anthropogenic disturbances and large-scale climate change alter the availability of potential food sources. Long term data indicate that several species of East African red colobus (Piliocolobus tephrosceles, Piliocolobus rufomitratus, and Piliocolobus kirkii) display significant inter and intra annual dietary variation. Much less is known about the extent of variation in the diets of West African red colobus. This study examines long term feeding data from one groups of Western red colobus (Piliocolobus badius badius) ranging in Cote d'Ivoire's Tai Forest to test the hypothesis that changes in phenological productivity have resulted in significant changes in dietary diversity. All data were collected by Amanda Korstjens (2001) and assistants of the Tai Monkey Project. Feeding profiles were created through hourly scan samples, which indicate whether an individual was feeding and if so, what species and plant part was consumed. Phenological data were collected from 59 tree species on three transects biweekly; each tree was given an abundance score of 0 - 3. Shannon-Weiner Indices indicate significant decreases in dietary diversity between 1997 and 2015 (p<0.01). It is clear that fewer plant species are comprising a greater bulk of the diet over the study period. However, no apparent changes in phenological patterns of any individual plant parts were revealed. Further analysis of nutritional components and other elements of selectivity is needed to identify why specific plants are so vital to the diets of P. badius badius. Identifying those elements of the red colobus diet th (open full item for complete abstract)

Committee: W. Scott McGraw (Advisor); Kristen Gremillion (Committee Member); Mark Hubbe (Committee Member) Subjects: Animal Sciences; Ecology

Master of Science, The Ohio State University, 2007, Electrical Engineering

Optimal foraging theory explains adaptation via natural selection through quantitative models. Behaviors that are most likely to be favored by natural selection can be predicted by maximizing functions representing Darwinian fitness. Optimization has natural applications in engineering, and so this approach can also be used to design behaviors of engineered agents. In this thesis, we generalize ideas from optimal foraging theory to allow for its easy application to engineering design. By extending standard models and suggesting new value functions of interest, we enhance the analytical efficacy of optimal foraging theory and suggest possible optimality reasons for previously unexplained behaviors observed in nature. Finally, we develop a procedure for maximizing a class of optimization functions relevant to our general model. As designing strategies to maximize returns in a stochastic environment is effectively an optimal portfolio problem, our methods are influenced by results from modern and post-modern portfolio theory. We suggest that optimal foraging theory could benefit by injecting updated concepts from these economic areas.

Committee: Kevin Passino (Advisor) Subjects:

PHD, Kent State University, 2008, College of Arts and Sciences / School of Biomedical Sciences

Himalayan gray langur monkeys represent one of few primates able to live in temperate or alpine habitats, and little is known about their feeding behavior. I collected behavioral and ecological data on Himalayan langurs living above 3000 m elevation at Langtang National Park, Nepal in 2000 and from 2002-2004. Methods included scan sampling, continuous focal sampling, phenological sampling, and nutritional analysis of foods. Himalayan langurs were found to be largely folivorous, but with marked seasonal changes in diet, activity patterns, and travel distance in relation to changes in food availability or consumption. In addition, the monkeys frequently engaged in extractive foraging, the exploitation of hidden foods, such as the digging of underground storage organs. Such behavior has been considered rare in the Colobinae and is the focus of one major model of primate intelligence. The classical prey model from foraging theory, as modified for patch choice, consistently underestimated langur diet breadth irrespective of whether energy or crude protein was utilized as currency. Other predictions of the model were at least qualitatively supported, and it performed best when its assumptions were more closely approximated. The social prey model, in contrast, predicts differing behavior for group versus solitary foragers while in a depleting patch with two food types. In agreement with the model, langurs were more likely to take two food types from a patch when residence times were longer, and the profitability of the first food taken (energy/time) was significantly greater in social but not solitary foragers. Contrary to the model, the rate of gain before switching to the less profitable food was not lower in increasingly competitive situations. Taken together, these results have implications for current models of primate socioecology and cognition, and for the applicability of simple mathematical models to primate feeding behavior.

Committee: Marilyn A Norconk PhD (Committee Chair); C. Owen Lovejoy PhD (Committee Member); Richard S Meindl PhD (Committee Member); Charles R Menzel PhD (Committee Member) Subjects: Animals; Biology; Physical Anthropology; Psychology; Zoology

Doctor of Philosophy, The Ohio State University, 2013, English

Digital literacy learning has become a fundamental, mainstream concern for teachers and researchers because of the increasingly central roles played by writing in digital environments and multimodal composing in twenty-first century literacy and literacy instruction. Digital composing draws on many of the processes that apply to print composing (planning, drafting, revising, et cetera), but its medium makes additional technical and rhetorical demands on composers which print-based models of the composing process do not fully address. This study describes a process-based approach to group digital composing tasks that accounts for access to digital literacy resources, methods for sharing task responsibilities between group members, and workspaces for digital composing. The material resources (including hardware, software, and physical/virtual workspaces) and intellectual resources (the functional literacy skills to operate these material resources and the rhetorical sensibilities concerning design, mode, and audience according to which composers create digital texts) digital composing relies on recommend approaching digital composing tasks in terms of component parts, while situating these components within complex literacy ecologies. The case studies of student and faculty digital composing groups featured in this study focus on how groups approached and worked through their tasks. I analyze participants' methods of digital literacy resource foraging, task structuring, and workspace selection/structuring to recommend strategies for teaching digital composing. Rather than offering sample assignments or rubrics, this study proposes metacognitive exercises designed to help students draw on the literacy resources present in their literacy ecologies and approach digital composing tasks as learning opportunities. Building on Selfe and Hawisher's work on conditions of access to technology, I offer “foraging&amp;#x201d; as a metaphor for describing how digital compos (open full item for complete abstract)

Committee: Beverly J. Moss (Advisor); Harvey J. Graff (Committee Member); Cynthia L. Selfe (Committee Member) Subjects: Composition; Higher Education; Pedagogy; Technology