Climate change has been changing plant community systems worldwide. These observations can be seen over a broad range, when resurveyed. Recording these changes in plant community structure is necessary if future plant migration studies are to be done. Herbarium data was expanded using historically s

Global climate change-driven changes in phenology affect populations of alpine meadow wildflowers and their pollinators through direct and indirect effects. Earlier snowmelt in montane regions, caused by a warming climate, results in earlier blooming date and longer blooming period of wildflowers su

For years the standard of care in burying beetles has been a male and female, bi- parental care, but is it really? The intent of this experiment was to measure the success of burying beetle larvae produced under four different parental conditions after carcass preparation; 50 pairs of Nicrophorus in

Increasing urbanization has led to the expansion of human infrastructure, including road networks. Current research has shown that roads have important ecological effects, ranging from habitat fragmentation to contamination of water runoff. This study examined the potential effects of roads on the r

Plants systems rely on a variety of resources to survive and reproduce. The amount and quality of pollen a flower receives can determine not only the number of seeds that are produced, but also whether they will be viable or not. The purpose of the study looked at the relationship between the amount

Roads potentially impact nearly one-fifth of the continental United States. Runoff, traffic disturbance, and maintenance associated with roads can affect both the abiotic and biotic features of roadside ecosystems. Species along unpaved roads are particularly susceptible to road dust effects. Plant

Dietary specialization on “toxic” or unfavorable pollens has multiple evolutionary origins in many bee families, despite such pollen being unsuitable for most generalist bee species. Pollen specialization on unsuitable pollen types must confer other evolutionary benefits; an anti-­‐parasitism functi

Plant-­‐fungal symbioses are found in ecosystems worldwide, but relatively little is known about how these two organisms affect each other. This study sought to shed light on this topic. The first experiment tested to see if the presence of an endophyte (genus Epichloë) effected the decomposition ra

Global climate change can disrupt ecosystems by impacting the interactions between organisms. I investigated the impact of early snowmelt and warming on the dioecious perennial herb Valeriana edulis, as well as their indirect effects on the aphid species Aphis valerianae and the ants that tend the a

Plant reproduction is highly dependent upon phenology, or biological timing, of flowering. However, little is known about how individuals vary in their flowering schedules relative to the population as a whole or how this variation could lead to differences in reproductive success of individuals. He

Species distribution modeling is a powerful ecological tool that combines remotely sensed data with known presence locations to yield habitat suitability predictions that can be applied to a variety of hypotheses and conservation planning efforts, and can also be used on a smaller scale to examine i

Describing and quantifying animal personality is now an integral part of behavioral studies because individually distinctive traits may have ecological and evolutionary consequences. Yet, to fully understand how personality traits may respond to selection, one must understand the underlying heritabi

“The Rocky Mountain region has fascinated me ever since I traveled to Glacier and Yellowstone National Parks as a teenager, and saw for the first time such wonderful birds as ospreys, American dippers, and Lew­is’s woodpeckers.” This book is in part based on the author’s earlier Birds of the Rocky M

Spontaneous combustion is a serious safety hazard in underground coal mines, particularly in mined-out areas (e.g., gob). It is estimated to be the cause of more than 20% of coal mine fires. Pressure balancing is a ventilation technique that can be used to reduce or eliminate the ingress of oxygen t

Pollinators are attracted to flowers based on the sensory information they gather concerning the flower they pollinate, and decide to visit the flower, or not. Closely related plants have similar traits because of their similar genetics, and consequently will attract similar pollinators. The abundan

Due to climate change, wildflowers are blooming earlier and earlier and suffering lower reproductive success. There are two general, non-mutually-exclusive hypotheses about why this lower reproductive success may be occurring. One is that plants are blooming before their pollinators and therefore ar

Didymosphenia geminata, a stalk-producing diatom has increased in frequency worldwide. The nuisance stalks that D. geminata forms, may create an environment preferable to oligochaetes such as Tubifex tubifex. Previous studies have shown that oligochaetes abundance is higher in areas with higher perc

To date there are few studies that have carefully studied the impact that varying pollen quantity and proportion of heterospecific pollen has on reproductive rate of a flowering plants. My project aimed to assess the relationship between pollen quantity and composition on the subalpine larkspur, Del

Abiotic and biotic factors have been known to affect plant communities. How these factors affect root-colonizing fungus such as arbuscular mycorrhizae (AM) and dark septate endophytes (DSE) fungal communities is still novel to ecology. Nitrogen addition has been shown to either increase or decrease