Fire is an agent of ecosystem change that has played a critical role in shaping the tallgrass prairie ecosystem. Periodic prescribed fire maintains the prairie by removing woody and invasive plant species, and stimulating growth of native herbaceous species. Fire’s beneficial effect on the tallgrass prairie aboveground community, in terms...
Once widespread throughout southern Wisconsin, Quercus savannas are now one of the most endangered communities due to fire suppression and increasing landscape fragmentation. These plant communities are also highly susceptible to invasions by nonnative, exotic species. Understanding the mechanisms of exotic species invasion has been the focus of numerous studies....
Hybridization is an important evolutionary pathway to genetic diversity, fitness, and ultimately to the emergence of new species. In contrast, hybridization between a native and an introduced species can lead to a loss of locally adapted gene complexes and ultimately to the extinction of the native. In the last decade,...
Underutilized crops have the potential to economically benefit developing countries and to improve global food security. Breadfruit (Artocarpus altilis, Moraceae) is one such crop that can provide essential nutrients and requires relatively low-energy input to maintain compared to major crops. Humans have selected for many cultivars of breadfruit since its...
With increasing urbanization and creation of novel habitat types, green roofs can provide usable habitat for many species. To date, most research on green roofs has focused on minimizing the environmental impacts of buildings but little is known about the ecological services they provide. Previous research has shown that although...
The underutilized tropical fruit tree, “cempedak” (Artocarpus integer (Thunb.) Merr. , Moraceae), is a major crop in Malaysia but the distribution of genetic diversity in the crop and its putative wild progenitor, “bangkong” (Artocarpus integer var. silvestris Corner), have not been studied. To investigate the diversity and origins of cempedak,...
The introduction of non-native pests in general, and invasive plants in particular, has been receiving increasing interest by scientists, environmental groups, and to a certain extent the general public. Deleterious effects from the release of such alien species include threats to the environment, national economies, and even human health. The...
Plant-aphid systems provide a valuable opportunity for studying the ecological consequences of land use change for interacting species. The North American tallgrass prairie has undergone severe reduction and fragmentation due to agricultural development. The prairie perennial Echinacea angustifolia, a model system for studying population-level effects of habitat fragmentation, hosts a...
Current ecological restoration efforts seek to restore a target community, maximize biodiversity or provide habitat for rare species. In practice, restoration ecology is often initiated and sustained without knowledge or reverence to the belowground ecosystem processes, though these processes often subtend the long-term sustainability of aboveground and belowground ecological communities.
The environmental and plant physiological correlates of plant growth and reproductive effort in the locally threatened orchid, Cypripedium candidum Muhl. ex Willd were examined in the context of a conceptual model of demographic and reproductive trade-offs, focusing on three Illinois populations. This study addresses the current status and long-term trends...
Nitrogen (N) deposition can alter belowground microbial communities, especially ectomycorrhizal (ECM) fungi, resulting in a reduced ability of associated trees to access organic nutrients. This study tested whether N addition decreases ECM species richness and shifts ECM species composition across spatial scales in a subtropical slash pine (Pinus elliottii) plantation...
Identifying factors that shape the spatial distribution of genetic variation within and among natural populations is crucial to understanding many population> and landscape>level processes. In this study, I characterize the strength and extent of spatial genetic structure in Oenothera harringtonii (Onagraceae), an insect>pollinated, gravity>dispersed herb endemic to the grasslands of...
Habitat fragmentation can alter the conditions of natural plant populations, introducing novel selective pressures. The ability of a population to respond to environmental change can be inferred by assessing the population’s genetic diversity and the heritability of traits thought to be under selection.
Two experiments were conducted to assess the germination, growth, and survival of Cirsium pitcheri Torr. ex Eaton T & G in the Chicagoland region. The first experiment involved growing seeds from various native populations to determine tolerance for the current Chicagoland climate. The second experiment tested three of the populations...
Pollination is a reproductive necessity in the majority of the world’s flowering plants. Pollen limitation threatens plant reproduction, particularly in self-incompatible species. Although assessing pollen limitation usually requires pollen supplementation experiments, alternative methods support the findings of traditional pollen supplementation experiments.
Pollination is a reproductive necessity in the majority of the world’s flowering plants. Pollen limitation threatens plant reproduction, particularly in self-incompatible species. Although assessing pollen limitation usually requires pollen supplementation experiments, alternative methods support the findings of traditional pollen supplementation experiments.
Past efforts to reintroduce the native legume species Desmodium glutinosum and Lespedeza violacea into restored woodlands have not produced self-sustaining populations. Proposed factors preventing reintroduction include herbivory, persistent environmental effects of invasive shrubs, poor performance of commercial Rhizobium inoculants, and competitive displacement associated with elevated nitrogen availability. To address these...
This data was used to compare the performance of a urine point-of-care assay and interviewer-administered timeline follow-back to the gold-standard for measuring recent and longer-term adherence of pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP) in dried blood spots (DBS). This data was used to produce the research findings presented in the peer-reviewed journal cited...
At her first press conference, Eleanor Roosevelt, uncertain of her role as hostess or leader, passed a box of candied grapefruit peel to the thirty-five women journalists. Nearly sixty years later, Hillary Clinton, an accomplished professional woman and lawyer, tried to mollify her critics by handing out her chocolate-chip cookie...
Data for manuscript submission to PLoS ONE entitled:
Prior Uncertainty Impedes Discrete Locomotor Adaptation
Authors:
Jiang, Aojun
Grover, Francis M.
Bucklin, Mary
Deol, Jasjit
Shafer, Anna
Gordon, Keith E.
We all—users, businesses, governments, and the general public—expect internet platform companies, like Meta, Alphabet, and Amazon to govern their users. Without platform governance, we all experience disasters like foreign election interference, vaccine misinformation, counterfeiting, and even genocide.
Unfortunately, the platform companies have failed. To this day, despite the lessons from...
This project utilizes QCI Inc.’s Qatalyst quantum optimization tools to find the most optimal solution to a randomly generated maze. The maze is traversed and mapped into a spanning tree and then transformed into a set of linear constraint functions. The constraint functions and an objective matrix are used to...
Utilizing a quantum computer and Microsoft Q# SDK to create a quantum neural network aimed to recreate a predetermined dataset that contains feature map parameters. The algorithm was used to simulate solar system models closely resembling real life, visualized using the 3D modeling engine Blender and Unreal Engine 5.
The...
The aviation industry is set to see another significant leap in new technology, namely electric aircraft. As of the time of this research, both 9-seat and 19-seat aircraft would be ready to be launched by air service providers under the Essential Air Service (EAS) program. While electric aircraft manufacturers are...
The objective of this project is to build an implementation of the Prisoner’s Dilemma game that takes advantage of quantum properties. Besides the two options we see in a classical prisoner’s dilemma, to confess and to not confess, we introduce an additional quantum option that gives both players a better...
Data and Fortran code for Figures 2 and 3 of "Phase Separation and Ripening in a Viscoelastic Gel" by Tine Curk and Erik Luijten, Proc. Nat. Acad. Sci (2023).
Manuscript available at arXiv:2305.10226
Abstract:
In this study we will show a new method of polishing for Nb3Sn cavities known as centrifugal barrel polishing (CBP). Using this method, Nb3Sn coated samples are polished to a surface roughness comparable to a traditional Nb cavity after electropolishing (EP). We also investigate different...