Master of Science (MS), Ohio University, 2020, Environmental Studies (Voinovich)

This study investigated pollinator use across areas of the channelized Hocking River's banks in different stages of ecological succession, according to when each area last experienced a mowing disturbance. These successional stages of growth—an associated pollinator use—were compared according to each area's community structure using metrics such as diversity, leaf area index (LAI), greatest height, percentage of native plants, and percentage of noxious plants. Each successional stage was monitored over time to assess seasonal change in both vegetative growth and pollinator use. Each area was also evaluated for both actual and hypothetical roughness scenarios to determine what impact mowing regimes—and lack thereof—might have on flood potential. Considerations were given to past studies that examined community perceptions of the channelized river, as well as precipitation and flood trends. Ultimately, this study investigated whether alternative mowing practices could be socially, economically, and ecologically beneficial, without jeopardizing flood protection. The study concluded that the ecosystem service benefits of actively managed growth outweigh the risk of flooding in the channel. It recommends that further studies, including a review from the Army Corps of Engineers, be undertaken to begin the process of restoring the channelized Hocking River's riparian zone to a more sustainable and ecologically beneficial state.

Committee: Natalie Kruse Daniels Ph.D. (Advisor); Rebecca Snell Ph.D. (Committee Member); Amy Lynch Ph.D. (Committee Member) Subjects: Biology; Botany; Civil Engineering; Conservation; Ecology; Engineering; Entomology; Environmental Management; Environmental Science; Environmental Studies; Geography; History; Horticulture; Hydrologic Sciences; Hydrology; Landscape Architecture; Management; Plant Biology; Plant Sciences; Pollen; Wildlife Conservation; Wildlife Management

Doctor of Philosophy, The Ohio State University, 2018, Entomology

While numerous factors currently impact the health of honey bees and other pollinating Hymenoptera, poor floral resource availability due to habitat loss and land conversion is thought to be important. This issue is particularly salient in the upper Midwest, a location which harbors approximately 60 percent of the US honey bee colonies each summer for honey production. This region has experienced a dramatic expansion in the area devoted to crop production over the past decade. Consequently, understanding how changes to landscape composition affect the diversity, quality and quantity of available floral resources has become an important research goal. Here, I developed molecular methods for the identification of bee-collected pollen by adapting and improving upon the existing amplicon sequencing infrastructure used for microbial community ecology. In thoroughly benchmarking our procedures, I show that a simple and cost-effective three-step PCR-based library preparation protocol in combination with Metaxa2-based hierarchical classification yields an accurate and highly quantitative pollen metabarcoding approach when applied across multiple plant markers. In Chapter 1, I conducted one of the first ever proof-of-concept studies applying amplicon sequencing, or metabarcoding, to the identification of bee-collected pollen. In this work, we used rudimentary laboratory and bioinformatic methods to apply the method to a single nuclear marker, ITS2. In doing so, we found the method to be highly inaccurate with respect to quantitative inference of the relative abundances of different plant taxa represented within our sample. Thus, in Chapter 2 I used the same methods and turned my attention to two alternative chloroplast markers, matK and rbcL, in addition to ITS2. In this study, I found that the chloroplast markers were more useful for quantification of pollen abundance relative to ITS2. With an improved understanding of the behavior of different plant markers, I began op (open full item for complete abstract)

Committee: Reed Johnson (Advisor); John Christman (Committee Member); Mary Gardiner (Committee Member); Roman Lanno (Committee Member) Subjects: Agriculture; Bioinformatics; Biology; Ecology; Entomology; Pollen

Master of Fine Arts, The Ohio State University, 2018, Art

This MFA thesis explores the threshold of phenomenological perception, audience attention and the mystery of imaginary worlds I perceive between microscopic and macroscopic dimensions. In the BioArt projects and digital immersive environments I present in this thesis, I have found the potential to explore real and imaginary landscapes. This exploration further expands, adding new physical and virtual layers to my work that activate the audience. My work incorporates the synthesis of projection mapping, biological living systems and interactive multimedia. It is the vehicle I use to contemplate the impermanence of time and the illusion of reality.

Committee: Ken Rinaldo (Advisor); Amy Youngs (Committee Member); Alex Oliszewski (Committee Member) Subjects: Art Criticism; Art Education; Art History; Biology; Computer Science; Dance; Environmental Studies; Fine Arts; Music; Plant Biology; Pollen; Spirituality

Master of Science, Miami University, 2017, Cell, Molecular and Structural Biology (CMSB)

The cohesin complex is an essential set of proteins required for sister chromatid cohesion, which enables the proper segregation of chromosomes during mitosis and meiosis. In this study, we characterized the epistatic interaction between WAPL and CTF7, two proteins involved in the control of cohesion in Arabidopsis thaliana, Atctf7 homozygous mutant plants display stunted vegetative growth and complete sterility. Inactivation of both copies of Arabidopsis WAPL in Atwapl1.1wapl2 plants results in no significant growth defects, but causes reduced fertility. Co-inactivation of both WAPL and CTF7 in Atwapl1.1wapl2ctf7 plants rescues the ctf7 vegetative growth defects and partially restores fertility. Atwapl1.1wapl2ctf7 plants display higher levels of fertility than Atctf7 plants. While inactivation of WAPL had a profound effect on ctf7 associated defects, CTF7 inactivation, interestingly, had little impact on the Wapl phenotype. In this study, we further characterized two genes in Arabidopsis thaliana: AtMMDL1 and AtMMDL2 that contain a plant homeo domain. Plants containing heterozygous mutations in either MMDL1 (Atmmdl1+/-) or MMDL2 (Atmmdl2+/-) as well as double heterozygous mutations (Atmmdl1mmdl2+/-) resulted in reduced male and female fertility. In contrast, plants homozygous for mutations in either MMDL1 or MMDL2 resembled wild type, but the double homozygous mutation (Atmmdl1mmdl2-/-) resulted in lethality.

Committee: Christopher Makaroff (Advisor); Richard Edelmann (Committee Member); Eileen Bridge (Committee Member) Subjects: Biology; Cellular Biology; Molecular Biology; Plant Biology; Pollen

Doctor of Philosophy, The Ohio State University, 2017, Evolution, Ecology and Organismal Biology

Among flower-visiting insects, bees are widely-considered the most important pollinators of many crop plants and wildflowers, but they are under threat from multiple anthropogenic stressors. Researchers and policy-makers promote wildflower plantings as a bee conservation strategy, but our understanding of how bees use restoration sites relative to other potential foraging habitats is incomplete. Pollinators are mobile and may exploit resources from multiple habitats to meet their nesting and nutritional requirements. Therefore, the efficacy of pollinator habitat restoration depends strongly on the amount and distribution of other suitable habitat in the surrounding landscape. In the heavily forested region of southeastern Ohio, former coal mines reclaimed to grassland are a major component of the landscape and may increase the amount of bee foraging habitat. If they provide favorable habitat, reclamation sites may act as `resource islands' that support conservation of regional bees and plants. Further, the re-establishment of wildflowers and their bee pollinators may also be an indicator of the success of the reclamation process at restoring basic ecosystem services like pollination to these degraded, post-industrial lands. Through four field studies, I investigated the influence of reclamation of former coal mines to grassland on bee abundance, diversity, foraging behavior, and reproduction. I evaluated the extent to which bees use reclamations versus adjacent natural foraging habitats to determine how valuable reclaimed mined lands are as pollinator conservation habitat, and whether their importance to bees increases as reclamation sites mature from ruderal grassland to old field habitat. A core group of bee genera that appeared on all sites, regardless of age class, seemed to establish quickly after reclamation, considering the scale of the initial ecological disturbance and that mine sites often occur in isolation from other suitable bee foraging habi (open full item for complete abstract)

Committee: Karen Goodell Dr (Advisor); Robert Klips Dr (Committee Member); Allison Snow Dr (Committee Member); Carol Landry Dr (Committee Member) Subjects: Animals; Biology; Botany; Conservation; Ecology; Plant Biology; Pollen; Zoology

Doctor of Philosophy, The Ohio State University, 2014, Horticulture and Crop Science

Flower longevity is a genetically programmed event that ends in flower senescence. Flowers can last from several hours to several months, based on flower type and environmental factors. For many flowers, particularly those that are ethylene-sensitive, longevity is greatly reduced after pollination. Cellular components are disassembled and nutrients are remobilized during senescence, which reduces the net energy expenditures of floral structures. The goal of this research is to identify the genes that can be targeted to extent shelf life by inhibiting pollination-induced senescence. Identifying and characterizing regulatory shelf-life genes will enable breeders to incorporate specific alleles that improve post production quality into ethylene-sensitive crops. Petunia × hybrida is particularly amenable to flower longevity studies because of its large floral organs, predictable flower senescence timing, and importance in the greenhouse industry. A general approach to gene functional analysis involves reducing gene expression and observing the resulting phenotype. Viruses, such as tobacco rattle virus (TRV), can be used to induce gene silencing in plants like petunia. We optimized several parameters that improved virus-induced gene silencing (VIGS) in petunia by increasing the consistency and efficiency of silencing. They included applying inocula to wounded apical meristems, growing petunias at temperatures of 20 °C day/18 °C night, utilizing the cultivar `Picobella Blue', and inoculating plants at three or four weeks after sowing. As a control for VIGS experiments, an empty vector is frequently used, but severe TRV symptoms often lead to death in petunia. We developed a control construct, which contained a fragment of the green florescent protein. This construct eliminated all severe viral symptoms and served as a better control. This optimized protocol and control construct enabled us to silence many genes and screen for phenotypic results within a few months. (open full item for complete abstract)

Committee: Michelle Jones (Advisor); Feng Qu (Committee Member); Eric Stockinger (Committee Member); Esther van der Knaap (Committee Member) Subjects: Bioinformatics; Biology; Cellular Biology; Horticulture; Molecular Biology; Plant Biology; Plant Pathology; Plant Sciences; Pollen; Virology

Ph.D., Antioch University, 2013, Antioch New England: Environmental Studies

This study investigated a terrestrial climate proxy, phytoliths, as a complimentary approach to documenting the dynamics of present and past vegetation on Sanak Island, the largest island in a small island group in the eastern Aleutian archipelago, and as a new basis by which to interpret Holocene environmental variability in Alaska. A phytolith reference collection was established from 59 selected plant species of maritime tundra belonging to 27 families. The grass species and a sedge species produced abundant phytolith forms whereas the majority of dicotyledons in this study were trace producers of phytoliths. A paleoenvironmental reconstruction from fossil phytoliths recovered from a continuous lake sediment core indicates that sedges and cool season grasses were present on this landscape throughout most of the Holocene suggesting the long-term dominance of maritime climate on island vegetation. Adaptation and resilience of the modern vegetation on Sanak Island to a warming climate is suggested by the densities of silicified stomata recovered from six species of grasses, one species of fern, and one species of horsetail when compared to the paleoenvironmental reconstruction. The changes in stomata frequency in the plants on Sanak Island today may have connections to future changes in regional and global climate through the water cycle. Our changing climate is forcing ecosystems to migrate, acclimate or go extinct demonstrating that new insights into ecosystem responses to present and past environmental variation, and forecasting future ecological change are especially relevant today for ecologic and economic sustainability. The electronic version of this Dissertation is at OhioLink EDT Center, www.ohiolink.edu/etd.

Committee: James W. Jordan PhD (Committee Chair); Charles G. Curtin PhD (Committee Member); Deborah M. Pearsall PhD (Committee Member) Subjects: Archaeology; Botany; Climate Change; Conservation; Earth; Ecology; Environmental Science; Freshwater Ecology; Geology; Limnology; Native Americans; Natural Resource Management; Paleobotany; Paleoclimate Science; Paleoecology; Plant Biology; Pollen