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Welcome to the UAF Graduate School's Thesis Repository! Here we will have the digital theses that are given to us by past graduate and doctoral students.
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New theses and dissertations
Theses and dissertations from Summer 2020-present
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The life of my grandmother: Olinka Arrsamquq Michael"Investigations into texts on the history of Kwethluk, Alaska reveal little, with one published account describing my maternal grandmother. Fueled by my own curiosity, I interviewed four women who knew her before she passed away, to learn of her life, her influence on others, and village history. Critical theory underlies my research and is evident in the documentation of the life of a Yup'ik woman through the voices of female informants. Analysis of the interviews revealed primary process codes that include important periods of life, and roles my grandmother held became subcodes. Her roles are tied together by her desire and acts of caring for others, especially women and children. With the increasing presence of Western influence in a Yup'ik village, several of her roles also establish her as a cultural broker. Life history research, through interviews and supporting historical documents and texts, generated a picture of life in Kwethluk in the 1900s"--Leaf iii
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Critical issues in the preparation of Alaska Native teachers : perspectives of cross-cultural education development (X-CED) program graduatesThis study draws upon the experiences of 35 Alaska Native teachers who have succeeded in earning a teaching certificate through the Cross-Cultural Education Development (X-CED) Program to identify issues that affect the preparation of Native teachers for schools in rural Alaska. The guiding question of the study is: What do Native teacher eduation graduates perceive to be the factors that contributed most to their success in a field-based teacher preparation program and as teachers? Components of the question include: Why did Native students pursue a teaching credential? How did the XCED graduates go about achieving their goals? And, how do they perceive their experiences as teachers? It is evident from this study that Alaska Native people face many critical issues in their pursuit of a Bachelors degree and a teaching certificate to teach in their communities. Factors that contribute to the success of the Native teachers interviewed in this study include field-based instructors; locally driven curriculum; and school district, community, family and fellow student support. Implications for future success of Native teacher preparation efforts conclude the study.
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A comparison of surface moisture budget and structural equation models in high latitudes: evapotranspiration and atmospheric driversArctic soil moisture is one of the most impactful and unknown aspects of the Arctic climate system. As the climate changes, surface soil moisture can impact water supplies, wildfire risk, and vegetation stress, all of which have consequences for terrestrial ecosystems and human activities. The present analysis is intended to (1) document seasonal and interannual variations of surface moisture fluxes in the Arctic region and (2) clarify the drivers of variations of net Precipitation minus Evapotranspiration (P-ET) across Arctic tundra and boreal vegetation and permafrost status. Forty-five flux tower sites were examined across boreal and tundra ecosystems across the Arctic and sub-arctic. The surface moisture budget at boreal forest sites in permafrost areas generally shows a moisture deficit in late spring and early summer, followed by a moisture surplus from late summer into autumn. The annual net P-ET is generally positive but can vary interannually by more than an order of magnitude. A factor analysis found the primary drivers of variations in evapotranspiration to be radiative fluxes, air temperature, and relative humidity, while a path analysis found windspeed to have the largest independent influence on evapotranspiration. Overall, the ET at boreal forest sites shows a stronger dependence on relative humidity, and ET at tundra sites shows the stronger dependence on air temperature. These differences imply that tundra sites are more temperature-limited and boreal sites are more humidity-dependent. Relative to nearby unburned sites, the recovery time of ET after disturbance by wildfire was found to vary from several years on the Alaska tundra to nearly a decade in the Alaska boreal forest.
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Brooks Range perennial snowfields : mapping and modeling change in Alaska's cryospherePerennial snowfields, such as those found in the Brooks Range of Alaska, are a critical component of the cryosphere. They serve as habitat for an array of wildlife, some of which are crucial for rural subsistence hunters. Snowfields also influence hydrology, vegetation, permafrost, and have the potential to preserve valuable archaeological artifacts. In this study, perennial snowfield extents in the Brooks Range are derived from satellite remote sensing, field acquired data, and snowmelt modeling. The remote sensing data are used to map and quantify snow cover area changes across multiple temporal scales, spatial resolutions, and geographic sub-domains. Perennial snowfield classification techniques were developed using optical multi-spectral imagery from NASA Landsat and European Space Agency Sentinel-2 satellites. A Synthetic Aperture Radar change detection algorithm was also developed to quantify snow cover area using Sentinel-1 data. Results of the remote sensing analyses were compared to helicopter and manually collected field data. Also, a snowfield melt model was developed using an adaptation of the temperature index method to determine probability of melt via binary logistic regression in two dimensions. The logistic temperature melt model considers summer season snow cover area changes per pixel in remotely sensed products and relationships to several independent variables, including elevation-lapse-adjusted air temperature and terrain-adjusted solar radiation. Evaluations of the Synthetic Aperture Radar change detection algorithm via comparison with results from optical imagery analysis, as well as via comparison with field acquired data, indicate that the radar algorithm performs best in small, focused geographic sub-domains. The multi-spectral approach appears to perform similarly well within multiple geographic domain sizes. This may be the result of synthetic aperture radar algorithm dependency on backscatter thresholding techniques and slope corrections in mountainous complex topography. Results indicate that perennial snowfield extents in the Brooks Range are decreasing over decadal time scales, with short-lived, interannual and seasonal increases. Results also show that perennial snowfields are more persistent at higher elevations over time with notable consistency in at least one of the Brooks Range sub-domains of this study, Gates of the Arctic National Park and Preserve. Climate change may be altering the distribution, elevation, melt behavior, and overall extents of the Brooks Range perennial snowfields. Such changes could have significant implications for hydrology, wildlife, vegetation, and subsistence hunting in rural Alaska.
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Tropospheric reactive bromine and meteorology over the Arctic OceanDuring late winter and spring in the Arctic, unique chemistry produces high levels of reactive bromine radicals (e.g., bromine atomic radicals and bromine monoxide, BrO) in the lower troposphere. These high levels of bromine radicals react with and reduce ambient ozone and oxidize gaseous elemental mercury. These reactive bromine species are chemically released from frozen saline surfaces and are affected by meteorological processes such as transport and mixing. Prior work has proposed that heterogenous reactions on snowpack surfaces as well as on atmospheric particle surfaces contribute to the reactive bromine production. We investigate these hypotheses using an extensive dataset of lower-tropospheric BrO observations from the Arctic Ocean and Utqiaġvik (formerly Barrow). First, we combine BrO observations with meteorological data and use principal component analysis to determine what environmental processes are correlated with BrO. We find that increased levels of reactive bromine under two sets of meteorological conditions: 1) stable, poorly vertically mixed conditions with temperature inversions, and 2) low-atmospheric-pressure conditions with increased vertical mixing. A principal component regression model based on these correlations predicted both the vertical column density of BrO in the lowest 2 km of the troposphere (R = 0.45) and the vertical column density of BrO in the lowest 200 m (R = 0.54). Next, we compare BrO observations to a global chemicaltransport model, GEOS-Chem, which was recently modified to add a blowing snow sea salt aerosol particle source. The GEOS-Chem model including the blowing snow process predicts monthly averaged BrO within experimental error for 9 of 13 total months of observations in Spring 2015 but cannot replicate hourly peaks in observed BrO. The model also predicts BrO during the Fall, which is not supported by the observations, potentially indicating a problem with the blowing snow model. We improve GEOS-Chem by adding a snowpack source of molecular bromine arising from deposition of precursor species such as ozone. Adding this snowpack molecular bromine source improves the agreement between the model and the observed monthly BrO at Utqiaġvik. However, a prior literature form of this model that had assumed an increased daytime yield of molecular bromine due to photochemistry leads to overprediction of radical bromine and is not supported. We find that using both the blowing snow aerosol particle source and the snowpack molecular bromine source together in GEOS-Chem increases model skill in simulating Arctic reactive bromine events. Our global chemical model improvements should improve prediction of the effect of climate change on Arctic reactive bromine levels and help assess their implications for ozone depletion and mercury deposition.
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Using ultraconserved elements to estimate gene flow between Asian and North American avian taxaAlaska is a prime location to study avian speciation, divergence, and gene flow. The area of Beringia, the region extending from the Russian Far East across the Bering Sea though Alaska, has historically experienced periodic cycles of glaciation. These cyclic fluctuations in climate have had genetic consequences on the organisms that reside in this region. In this thesis, I examine the genetic relationships between Old World and New World lineages of Holarctic avian taxa. Specifically, I examine how intercontinental movements (i.e., gene flow) have shaped divergence, speciation, and phylogenetic relationships in several key lineages of Holarctic waterbirds. Using ultraconserved elements (UCEs) as a molecular marker, I implemented population genomic analyses to better understand divergence, speciation, and levels of gene flow among several Beringian waterbird lineages. In the first of the two studies, I examine mitogenomic and nuclear DNA in a small clade of ducks with historically uncertain relationships and species limits: the Eurasian common teal (Anas crecca crecca), the North American green-winged teal (Anas crecca carolinensis), both seasonal migrants, and the sedentary Aleutian green-winged teal (Anas crecca nimia). In addition to the three subspecies of green-winged teal, I included the South American yellow-billed teal (Anas flavirostris), a close relative of Anas crecca, to fully resolve this teal complex. Phylogenetic relationships using nuclear DNA showed the three subspecies of Holarctic greenwinged teal (Anas crecca spp.) to form a polytomous clade with A. flavirostris being sister to this clade. However, mitogenomic data show a different phylogeny, with A. c. carolinensis being sister to A. flavirostris, while A. c. crecca was sister to A. c. nimia. Evidence for divergence with gene flow was present in all three pairwise contrasts of our demographic analyses. Given prior work, gene flow was expected among the Holarctic taxa, but gene flow between North American A. c. carolinensis and South American A. flavirostris, albeit low, was not. Three geographically oriented modes of divergence are likely involved: heteropatric speciation between A. c. crecca and A. c. nimia, parapatric speciation between A. c. crecca and A. c. carolinensis, and (mostly) allopatric speciation between A. c. carolinensis and A. flavirostris. In the second study, I applied genomic methods to estimate gene flow and the magnitude of intercontinental movements occurring in vector species of avian influenza. Many seasonally migratory birds that are vectors of avian influenza (i.e., waterbirds) fly between Eurasia and North America every year, but accurate numbers of birds crossing between continents have yet to be adequately determined. Vector species' movements are difficult to quantify, but population genomics can provide baseline rates of these intercontinental movements. My study examined the following species: northern pintail (Anas acuta), mallard (Anas platyrhynchos), greater scaup (Aythya marila), common eider (Somateria mollissima), green-winged teal (Anas crecca crecca - A. c. carolinensis), long-tailed duck (Clangula hyemalis), Eurasian and American wigeons (Mareca penelope - M. americana), and common and Wilson's snipe (Gallinago gallinago - G. delicata). Many of these species are also important as subsistence food for Alaskans, increasing the risk of direct bird-to-human avian influenza exposure. In addition to providing a robust intercontinental framework of movements (i.e., gene flow) for these vector species in the natural virus transport system, I examine them in the context of the importance of each species in Alaskan diets to understand the relative risk of these taxa to human Eurasian-origin avian influenza exposure. The inferred rates of movement between these populations varies greatly among lineages. These taxon-based intercontinental movement rates and relative risk rankings should help in modeling, monitoring, and mitigating the impacts of intercontinental host and avian influenza movements.
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Searching the soil: characterizing the effects of disturbance on soil microbial communities and plant productivityThe effects of global climate change are accelerated and more pronounced in northern regions, and Alaska is at the forefront of that change. Permafrost, which underlies much of the Alaskan landscape, is rapidly thawing and degrading leading to shifts in hydrology, soil chemistry, and nutrient availability. As permafrost thaws, soil microbial communities have the potential to be influenced taxonomically and functionally. However, it is unclear how active layer microbial communities, which play a role in plant-microbe interactions, are affected by increasing soil disturbance, and how soil microbiomes can influence above ground plant communities. In this study, I aimed to understand how soil microbial communities from Interior Alaska are affected by increasing disturbance, and how they in turn drive the productivity of several plants found in boreal regions. Here I used a growth experiment and found that plant productivity was affected by the disturbance level of the microbial inoculant. Plants grown in soils inoculated with microbes associated with disturbed soils demonstrated significantly decreased productivity compared to plants inoculated with microbes from undisturbed soils. Through metagenomic sequencing, I observed broad scale shifts in community membership across the gradient of soil disturbance. I then continued to characterize the microbial communities used as inoculants in the greenhouse growth experiment through 16S rRNA amplicon sequencing. Microbial communities from disturbed soils were significantly more diverse than those from undisturbed soils, and the beta diversity of communities varied significantly based on the disturbance level. We found that within disturbance level community variation can be used to predict plant growth of bog blueberry, low-bush cranberry, and Labrador tea once the disturbance passes a threshold. These results suggest that as active layer microbial communities are affected by climate-driven soil disturbance, above ground plant communities may demonstrate decreased productivity, and consequently, decreased ecosystem health as the Arctic continues to warm.
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Applications of stable isotope analysis to advancing the understanding of brown bear dietary ecologyDietary ecology is one of the most important drivers of brown bear fitness at the individual and population levels. However, researchers do not have an in-depth understanding of the trophic niche breadth, diet composition, and seasonal diet variation for most Alaskan populations. I set out to better understand multiple facets of brown bear dietary ecology using stable isotope analysis (¹³C & ¹⁵N) as the primary tool to infer brown bear diet and gain insights into their trophic niche, dietary seasonality, dietary generalism and specialism, and isotopic trophic discrimination factors. I determined that using sectioned hair samples is the best practice for determining the isotopic trophic niche of brown bears. Additionally, I determined amino acid trophic discrimination factors for brown bears and explored the ability to separate salmon species in bear diets. I also used stable isotope mixing models with sectioned hair samples to infer seasonal dietary patterns of individual bears in five distinct Alaskan ecosystems. Approximately one-quarter of bears relied solely on vegetation over multiple years despite access to other sources of nutrition; these bears could be considered specialists. Other bears, approximately half, switched diets seasonally but had the same pattern of resource use year over year, a foraging class that I termed persistent seasonal generalism. Approximately one-quarter of bears did not have a persistent dietary pattern across years and could be considered true generalists. Most bears appear to have preferred dietary patterns that are persistent through time, which may be indicative of foraging inertia; maintaining foraging patterns even when faced with changing resource availability due to natural fluctuations, disturbance, or climate change. The sum of this work advances our understanding of brown bear dietary ecology from the individual seasonal level to population level degrees of generalism and specialism, and the methods developed can be applied to many species for which dietary ecology information is difficult to obtain.
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Impacts of climate change on mass movements in Denali National Park and Preserve, AlaskaThe northeastern portion of Denali National Park and Preserve (DENA) is a high-altitude (800 m - 1400 m asl), subarctic (63°N) environment where climate is now changing rapidly. This landscape is underlain by discontinuous permafrost (perennially frozen ground), and the recent surge of mass movements occurring there could be the result of permafrost thaw. Some of these mass movements have the potential to damage the Denali Park Road, alter the flow of groundwater and stream systems, destroy vegetation cover, and endanger the half a million visitors that DENA receives every year. The purpose of this study to understand how mass movements in DENA are being affected by different aspects of climate change, to assess the role of permafrost thaw in their dynamics, to determine when DENA's landscape experienced periods of geomorphic instability in the past, and to better understand the potential trajectory of the landscape changes now occurring. Results show that many ongoing mass movements in DENA are reactivations of landslides that were active earlier in the Holocene (the last 11,700 years). A representative example is the Mile 35 landslide, a complex mass movement initiated along the Park Road during the summer of 2016 after a quiescent period of around 4000 years. I use a combination of remote sensing and field surveys to establish a four-year timeline of this landslide's movements and then compared these observations to records of weather and climate. Results suggest that freeze/thaw processes and extreme rainfall events strongly affect the initiation and subsequent movements of the Mile 35 landslide. Looking farther back in time, lichenometric dating of rockfalls in DENA suggests their frequency peaked 100 to 200 years ago during the initial stages of climate warming at the end of the Little Ice Age. These findings suggest that warming climate triggers a predictable sequence of mass movement responses in DENA, with the initial warming triggering a bout of more frequent rockfalls, and then, as warming penetrates deeper into the ground, causes deep-seated mass movements like the Mile 35 landslide. These results suggest that cycles of hillslope stability and instability in response to climate change are characteristic, long-term features of DENA's ecosystems and dynamic ecosystems and landscapes.
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Plasma transport and magnetic flux circulation in Saturn's magnetosphereThe magnetospheres of outer planets are very different than the terrestrial magnetosphere. The magnetosphere of Saturn is rapidly rotating, and has its own plasma source. Enceladus located around 4Rs is the main source of plasma. The strong magnetic field of Saturn's magnetosphere picks up the plasma which experiences a strong centrifugal force in the non-inertial reference frame. The plasma produced in the inner magnetosphere has to be transported radially outward and lost to the solar wind. The transport of plasma in Saturn's magnetosphere is not fully understood. It is believed that transport is centrifugally-driven, occurring via flux tube interchange motions in the inner magnetosphere and via plasmoid expulsion in the magnetotail due to reconnection. It has been found that these mechanisms are not sufficient to explain the transport. We tried to determine different possible transport mechanisms that could exist in the outer planetary magnetosphere. Ma et al. (2019a) showed the low-specific entropy plasma with a narrow distribution in Saturn's inner magnetosphere and suggests a significant nonadiabatic cooling process during the inward motion while high specific entropy suggests the nonadiabatic heating during the outward transport. We have estimated the outward plasma transport rate about 55 kg s⁻¹. The calculation of magnetic flux transport and analysis of magnetic field data indicates that plasma transport in the Saturn magnetosphere could be dominated by small scale magnetic reconnection.
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A nonlethal, whole oocyte approach to determining spawn readiness in Pacific sand lance, Ammodytes personatus, in Southeastern AlaskaKnowing when a fish spawns is fundamental to understanding and sustainably managing it. The annual reproductive cycle of the iteroparous, total-spawning sand lances and sandeels (Ammodytidae) has been described almost exclusively using gonadal macroscopy and gonadosomatic indices (GSI), with little attention to gamete changes indicative of imminent ovulation and spawning. The latter was the focus of this study, in which spawn readiness of a southeastern Alaska population of Pacific sand lance (Ammodytes personatus) with unknown spawning phenology was assessed using light microscopy of whole oocytes. Oocytes were cannulated from spawning-capable females age-3 to age-9, measured for diameter, and classified into five developmental stages based on the coalescence of lipids and the position and integrity of the germinal vesicle. Oocyte maturation lasted 5-6 weeks, as determined by weekly cannulation of captive females. Diameter and developmental stage of oocytes were more precise metrics of readiness to spawn than macroscopy or GSI and indicated spawning in early- to mid-December. The examination of nonlethally collected whole oocytes is a quick, easy, and low-cost approach to the accurate and reliable assessment of spawn readiness in Pacific sand lance and offers the potential of success with congenerics and other total-spawning fish species.
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Ocean and stream ecology of adult hatchery and wild pink salmonIn this thesis I investigate potential interactions of hatchery and wild pink salmon (Oncorhynchus gorbuscha) at sea and on the spawning grounds, in the context of the ecological and economic importance of modern Alaskan hatcheries. Although hatchery and wild salmon are known to interact, the nature and outcome of those interactions remain unclear. Here, I identify potential mechanisms of competition and hatchery salmon fitness with two datasets from Prince William Sound, Alaska, home to the largest pink salmon hatchery program in the world. First, I compared fitness-related traits such as body length, return timing, instream lifespan, and egg retention between straying hatchery and homing wild pink salmon to identify potential barriers or bridges to gene flow with over 120,000 individuals sampled over six years (2013-2018). Predicted lengths of hatchery and wild fish depended on the even or odd year lineage, return timing, and sex. Odd year pink salmon were smaller on average than even year pink salmon, odd year hatchery fish were smaller than wild fish, odd year length decreased over the season, and odd year males tended to be larger than females. In even years, hatchery pink salmon were larger on average than wild pink salmon, length increased over the season, and hatchery females were larger on average than any other group. I found no statistically significant differences in instream lifespan (2017: t-test (₂₀.₅₄), P = 0.41; 2018: t-test(₆.₂₆), P = 0.556) or egg retention (x²₍₂₎= 4.5, p = 0.11; 2017 and 2018 combined) between hatchery and wild fish. In contrast, I detected significant differences in stream life of the wild fish between two different sized streams in a manner consistent with observed black bear (Ursus americanus) predation; specifically stream life was shorter in the smaller stream with markedly higher predation. Second, I used stable carbon and nitrogen isotope analysis to test the hypothesis that hatchery and wild pink salmon have distinct foraging niches during their last months at sea, which could underpin observed differences in length between hatchery and wild pink salmon. Using data from 2015, I fit linear models and detected no difference in broad-scale foraging locations (delta¹³C values) of hatchery and wild pink salmon. However, trophic positions (delta¹⁵N values) for hatchery and wild pink salmon were inversely related to size where large wild salmon and small hatchery salmon tended to have the highest delta¹⁵N values. Because delta¹³C values and delta¹⁵N values of wild fish were positively associated with body size, it is likely that hatchery and wild pink salmon have size-dependent, yet still overlapping foraging niches. Overall, these results are consistent with the potential for hatchery and wild pink salmon to compete for resources on the spawning grounds and at sea to the extent that resources are limiting.
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The mineralogical associations, distribution, and mineral zoning of cobalt in the Bornite deposit, southwest Brooks Range, AKThe Bornite Cu-Co deposit is predominately hosted in dolomitic marble with interstratified phyllite; the mineral resource is restricted to the Upper, Lower and South Reefs. Cobalt is primarily from carrollite (ideally CuCo₂S₄), cobaltite (ideally CoAsS), and cobaltiferous pyrite ((Fe,Co)S₂). The Co minerals can contain significant Ni, and the Ni rich endmembers, millerite (NiS) and gersdroffite (ideally NiAsS), also rarely occur. Detailed handheld XRF analyses on 15 drill holes, coupled with reflected light petrography, electron microprobe-based compositional maps, and electron microprobe analyses (EPMA) have shown complex compositions, textures, associations, and spatial distribution of the Co minerals in the Bornite deposit. Carrollite compositions and textures vary with the Cu-sulfide assemblage: carrollite with bornite is commonly porphyroblastic and approximated by Cu(Co,Ni)₂S₄, whereas carrollite lacking associated bornite is interstitial and represented by (Cu,Ni)(Co,Ni)₂S₄. Cobaltite occurs in two generations: early As-depleted, Ni-poor, and metastable ((Co,Fe)As₀.₅S₁.₅ to (Co,Fe,Ni₀.₀₆)As₀.₈₈S₁.₁₂), and late near stoichiometric ((Co,Fe,Ni₀.₀₁)As₀.₉S₁.₁ to (Co,Fe,Ni₀.₉₄)As₁S₁). The latter rims and (or) replaces the former. The virtual lack of cobaltite in assemblages containing bornite + pyrite, along with carrollite compositions, suggest a gradient in Cu and Co activity that increased with increasing fS₂. Distinct carrollite zones associated with higher Cu grades are present in the high-grade zone (Number One Orebody) of the Upper Reef and the South Reef. Decreasingly Cu-rich assemblages dominated by chalcopyrite + pyrite and cobaltite are outside the carrollite zones. The Lower Reef has lower Cu grades, lacks a carrollite zone, and variably contains cobaltite. Due to these different Co mineral distributions, the Bornite deposit cannot represent dismemberment of a single homogeneous body. Bornite pyrite can contain Ni and Cu (both inversely correlated to Co) and As (maximum 5.6%, generally correlates with Co). Compositions of Co-pyrite lacking significant As (up to 8.5% Co) and late cobaltite suggest temperatures of 400-500℃, consistent with Upper Blueschist to Greenschist conditions. Pyrite compositions can be extremely variable within a single sample and even within a single grain: nearly half of all EPMA pyrite analyses yield < 0.25% Co. Clearly metamorphic (porphyroblastic) pyrite displays concentric oscillatory Co + As zonation. Average Co content in pyrite generally increases with Cu grade, which suggests Devonian Co and Cu deposition occurred simultaneously. Co deportment is a function of location in the deposit, which correlates with Cu grade and Co mineral zonation. Based on metal balance calculations, more than half (on average 57%) of the Co in South Reef intervals with > 0.5% Cu is due to Co-pyrite. In the Lower Reef the proportion is much higher: 55-93%. High Cu grade intervals typically yield increased carrollite abundance and decreased cobaltite. Carrollite consistently reports to the Cu concentrate, however, cobaltite recovery is variable and can report to the tails with Co-pyrite. Thus, maximizing Co recovery from Bornite will require producing a pyrite concentrate in addition to the Cu concentrate.
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Broad whitefish (Coregonus nasus) ecology and habitat use in Arctic Alaska: spawning habitat suitability, isotopic niches, life-history variations, and climate change risks to subsistence fisheriesBroad Whitefish (Coregonus nasus) is a critically important subsistence species for Alaska's Indigenous communities, yet little is known about the basic ecology of this species at the individual level. Understanding habitat use by Broad Whitefish is challenging due to their mobility and our limited ability to track fish throughout their lives as they move among a suite of habitats that are spatially dispersed, change over time, and are often temporary. The Arctic is undergoing major landscape and ecosystem transformation from climate change and oil and gas development, which may threaten Arctic ecosystems used by Broad Whitefish. This dissertation presents new information on the ecology of Broad Whitefish captured in the Colville River, Alaska. In Chapter 1, an intrinsic potential (IP) model for Broad Whitefish was used to estimate the potential of streams across the watershed to provide spawning habitat. Results were compared with movement patterns of radio-tagged prespawn Broad Whitefish. In Chapter 2, ecological niches utilized by Broad Whitefish were investigated via stable isotope analyses of muscle and liver tissue and otoliths from mature fish. In Chapter 3, strontium isotope (⁸⁷Sr/⁸⁶Sr, ⁸⁸Sr) otolith chronologies across individuals' lives were used to quantify life-history attributes and reconstruct migration patterns of fish. Finally, in Chapter 4, the current understanding of ongoing and future changes to the habitat, productivity, and behavior of Broad Whitefish were summarized to assess risks facing Arctic freshwater ecosystems and fishes more broadly. IP model results showed the majority of habitat with high IP (≥ 0.6) was located within the braided sections of the main channel, which encompassed > 1,548 km, and starting in mid-July, prespawn fish used habitats in the middle and lower watershed. Stable isotope analysis revealed a range of [delt]¹³C (-31.8- -21.9‰) and [delta]¹⁵N (6.6- 13.1‰) across tissue types and among individuals. Cluster analysis of muscle tissue δ¹³Cˈ, δ¹⁵N, δ¹⁸O, and δD indicated that Broad Whitefish occupied four different foraging niches that relied on marine-and land-based (i.e., freshwater and terrestrial) food sources to varying degrees across the summer period. Strontium isotopes revealed six main life histories, including three anadromous types (59%), one semi-anadromous type (28%), and two nonanadromous types (13%), suggesting greater complexity in life-history types than previously documented. Climate change is expected to continue to alter Arctic hydrology and, therefore, suitability, connectivity, and availability of habitats critical for Broad Whitefish population persistence. Warming and lengthening of the growing season will likely increase fish growth rates; however, the exceedance of threshold stream temperatures will likely increase physiological stress and alter life histories, which is likely to have mixed effects on Arctic subsistence fishes and fisheries. This information on Broad Whitefish spawning intrinsic potential, foraging niches, and life histories provides crucial knowledge to understand critical habitats used across time and space, which will help managers and conservation planners better understand the risks of anthropogenic impacts, such as climate change and oil and gas development, and help conserve this vital subsistence resource.
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Liberal deradicalization in the adaptation of novels to film: defining antiheroes, from Heathcliff to Walter WhiteUsing research from the history of the Victorian novel and recent media, I demonstrate the value in re-examining the critical importance of the antihero. Using a methodology of combining neo-Marxian analysis, adaptation studies, and a re-thinking of what constitutes novels and television serials, I explore how antiheroes are defined and why those definitions are often not inclusive to controversial, but seemingly definitional antihero examples. As informed by a critique of how antiheroes are defined, I use my research to discuss the underlying characteristics of the antihero across genres. From a perspective of critiquing liberalism adopted from Emily Brontë's Wuthering Heights and Vince Gilligan's Breaking Bad, I structure textual evidence in support of antiheroes being identified according to three traits: sympathy, violence, and radical speech. The literary and real-world impact of each trait is argued according to evidence qualified by a neo-Marxian methodology, using an original synthesis of Louis Althusser's aleatory politics and the Marxist cultural critiques of Raymond Williams. Finally, these three traits are strongly evinced in the real-world systemic critiques of liberalism represented in both Heathcliff and Walter White.
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Stable isotope ecology of an Arctic raptor guildAs top predators in a rapidly changing environment, Arctic raptors serve as indicator species of ecosystem health. The degree to which populations exhibit dietary plasticity and partition resources on an interspecific basis under dynamic ecological conditions may be indicative of climate change resilience. It is therefore crucial to develop accurate and broadly applicable methods for characterizing the diets of wild populations. In this dissertation, I assessed the performance of Bayesian stable isotope mixing models (BSIMMs) as a method of characterizing diet in free-living raptor populations, developed novel methods to refine their accuracy and applicability, and applied an isotopic approach to address broad trophic hypotheses within an Arctic raptor guild. First, I evaluated the use of BSIMMs in a population of Gyrfalcons (Falco rusticolus) by comparing modelled diet estimates to high-accuracy nest camera diet data. I found that the isotopic method effectively characterized diet at the population level and accurately identified temporal shifts in Gyrfalcon diet on a seasonal and interannual basis. Second, I developed a novel method for the estimation of trophic discrimination factors (TDFs) in wild populations and tested it in three published datasets. The new method outperformed other methods of TDF estimation in all cases, ultimately increasing the accuracy and applicability of the BSIMM approach under certain circumstances. Third, I applied an isotopic approach to characterize interspecific niche overlap and individual specialization in an Arctic raptor guild (Gyrfalcons, Golden Eagles [Aquila chrysaetos], and Rough-legged Hawks [Buteo lagopus]) under varying degrees of resource abundance. I found the three species overlap in their isotopic niche, but that overlap was reduced when more prey types were available (i.e., an influx of cyclic arvicoline rodents). In Gyrfalcons, the level of individual specialization increased with increasing population niche width in accordance with the niche variation hypothesis.
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"I wonder when we'll be in civilization again": women, Alaska and the 1910 Seattle to Ophir travel letter of Cinthia "Addie" RieckMainstream Alaskan history has largely ignored women's role in the development of the state during the early 20th century. Although mainly a male endeavor, the multiple Alaskan gold stampedes from 1899 to 1914 brought a migration of women, and they played a role in the development of the territory. The current literature of women in the north focuses primarily on the Canadian Klondike stampede of 1897-98 which saw women traveling to the gold fields for a variety of reasons, such as to support their husbands in their ventures, seek their own business opportunities, or just seek adventure. The same reasons brought women to Alaska. Their experiences are well documented in literature of the period, through magazines, newspapers, published accounts, and autobiographies. These sources provide insight into everyday events of what could be considered the ordinary, but they paint a picture of what life was like for the female population and include details and descriptions not discussed by their male counterparts. The 1910 unpublished travel letter of Cinthia 'Addie' Rieck exemplifies a woman traveling to a remote area of Alaska. Her writings capture and document her experiences in traveling from Seattle, Washington, to a newly founded gold camp in the Innoko district of Alaska. Through Addie's travel letter, her descriptions bring to light previously unexplored topics of social etiquette, travel, and women's roles in early Alaskan mining communities as well as providing information about the Innoko district of which little published information is available
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Breeding biology of storm-petrels at Wooded Islands, AlaskaFork-tailed and Leach’s Storm-Petrels were studied at Wooded Islands, Alaska, 59°52‘ N, 147°25’W, to document and compare their breeding biology. Measurements of both species from California to the Aleutian Islands showed clinal variation; current subspecies divisions are not justified. Fork-tailed Storm-Petrels nested in a wider variety of habitats, arrived earlier at night, nested earlier, and fledged young in a shorter period than Leach’s Storm-Petrels, apparently because of their different oceanic distributions. River otter predation was the major cause of nest failures. Nesting success was higher within an exclosure than in areas exposed to predation. Predation was greater at low than high nest densities, and greater in soil than in rock habitat. Continued otter predation may decimate soil-nesting populations. Fork-tailed Storm-Petrel chick growth patterns did not vary between habitats, or nest densities. Mid- and late hatched fork-tail chicks grew faster, attained heavier weights, and had shorter nestling periods than early hatched chicks.
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Vetting model and satellite-based estimates of regional scale carbon exchange at northern high latitudes using solar-viewing infrared spectroscopyCarbon exchange in the Boreal Forest and its response to a warming climate is a critical process that needs to be understood for more accurate predictions of climate change. Therefore, we established a ground-based long-term monitoring site at the University of Alaska Fairbanks in Fairbanks, Alaska, USA (64.859°N, 147.850°W) operating a solar-viewing Bruker EM27/SUN Fourier transform infrared spectrometer (FTS). This instrument measures vertically integrated column abundances of carbon dioxide (CO₂), methane (CH₄), and carbon monoxide (CO), termed Xgas, i.e., XCO₂. These measurements are directly comparable to satellite-based measurements, for which these ground-based observations provide validation data. Measurements of XCO₂ and XCH₄ have to be extremely precise because variability in atmospheric columns of CO₂ and CH₄ is often less than 1% of the background levels of these long-lived gases. Therefore, the observations in Fairbanks were carefully vetted through comparisons of results from two retrieval algorithms applied to the same observed spectra, comparisons of observations from two EM27/SUN FTS operating side-byside, and comparisons between an EM27/SUN FTS and measurements from a Bruker IFS125HR in the Total Carbon Column Observing Network (TCCON) at Caltech, Pasadena, California. These data are all collected over a period of about 4.5 years. Comparisons of retrieval methods indicate that the results are tightly correlated, but there are offsets that could be corrected with an appropriate scaling factor. Observed biases between two colocated EM27/SUN FTS were in agreement within instrument precision. Biases between the EM27/SUN and TCCON retrievals at Caltech are larger and more variable than biases between the two EM27/SUN FTS in Fairbanks, which may be partially explained by differences in spectral resolution. These biases are also similar to those reported in previous studies. Vetted Fairbanks observations are used in combination with those from two TCCON sites in the Boreal Forest, East Trout Lake, Saskatchewan, Canada (54.354°N, 104.987°W) and Sodankylä, Finland (67.367°N, 26.631°E), to evaluate quality control methods and bias in XCO₂ from the NASA Orbiting Carbon Observatory 2 (OCO-2). This study yielded alternative quality control thresholds and bias correction, tailored to Boreal Forest regions that allow for increased data throughput and reduced seasonality in bias over northern high latitude regions. In particular, increased data throughput in spring and autumn months made it possible to measure XCO₂ seasonal cycles using satellite-based measurements. In this analysis, we found that the Asian Boreal Forest region stood out as having the largest seasonal amplitude and earliest seasonal drawdown of any region. There is also a pronounced west-to-east gradient of increasing seasonal amplitude and earlier seasonal drawdown across the Eurasian continent. Comparisons with two independent global CO₂ models are good, showing high correlation and spatial agreement. Analysis of modeled (GEOS-Chem) surface contact tracer contributions reveals that the largest seasonal amplitudes occur in regions that have the largest contributions from land-based surface contact tracers with 15 or 30 day atmospheric lifetimes, suggesting that accumulations of CO₂ exchanges during atmospheric transport on approximately monthly timescales play an important role in shaping observed XCO₂ seasonal cycles in northern high latitude regions. Furthermore, surface contact tracer contributions from land were more correlated with XCO₂ seasonal amplitude than estimates of total annual fluxes or seasonal amplitudes of flux estimates within a region, emphasizing the importance of understanding the effects of atmospheric transport when interpreting observations of XCO₂.
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On estimating rotor noise generated by small unmanned multirotorsUnmanned aerial vehicles are utilized for missions ranging from wildlife surveillance to delivery of commercial goods. Previous research at the Alaska Center for Unmanned Aircraft Systems Integration (ACUASI) at the University of Alaska Fairbanks has focused on the monitoring of different species of wildlife, and some of this research was conducted utilizing multirotors. This work presents an introductory investigation and analysis of the acoustic noise generated by a single 15-inch rotor and applies this noise model to multiple rotors on a multirotor. The rotor is analyzed utilizing semi-empirical calculations and this work presents the process to continue acoustic analysis through simulation and analytical computation. Although this work studies, specifically, the 1555MR propeller designed by Advanced Precision Composites Propellers, the semi-empirical equations can be applied to other rotor designs. By investigating the analytical process, this work also presents a potential route through theory to identify the sound produced by these multirotors. The flow solution requires computational fluid dynamics software to output the flow on and around the rotors; this output can then be used for the analysis of noise. The total noise generated in stable hover is considered with certain assumptions about the blade geometry and aircraft motion. This work is organized into four chapters that detail the background, motivation, theory, setup, methods, results and conclusion. By utilizing this work and the works cited, readers and the researchers at ACUASI should understand the theory and be able to reproduce the results herein. With the estimation of noise of these multirotors, ACUASI will be able to refine their wildlife monitoring missions to ensure the observed animals are less affected by the noise generated by these vehicles.
