Browsing by Author "Miller, Jennifer"
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Item A comparison of the logical and emotional impacts of the citizens of Houston and Dallas in regards to their NFL teams(Texas Tech University, 2006-05) Miller, Jennifer; Gallagher, Amanda H.; Rodriguez, Ann; Smucker, MichaelThis study applies Aristotle’s theories of logos and pathos to the connections citizens have with the sports team in their city. Focus groups and in-depth interviews were used to determine the differences between the logical and emotional impact the Dallas Cowboys and the Houston Texans have on their fans and the cities they are a part of. This study effectively demonstrated the strong emotional connections between study participants and the sports teams in their cities, as well as confirmed the idea of pathos as possibly having a stronger connection on sports fan than the idea of logos. Overall, this study concludes that Cowboys' fans are more loyal than Texans' fans due to long-standing tradition and community support; however, strong team loyalty is not necessarily linked to financial support of a team.Item Guild-specific responses of birds to habitat fragmentation : evaluating the effects of different coffee production systems in Colombia(2011-12) LaRota-Aguilera, Maria Jose; Young, Kenneth R.; Miller, JenniferHabitat loss and fragmentation are the main drivers of biodiversity loss, especially in the tropics, where the transformation of forested areas into agriculture is predicted to increase dramatically in the next five decades. Although several studies have elucidated the negative impacts of agriculture on biodiversity, recent work suggests that some agro-ecosystems, such as coffee plantations, are potential key environments for maintaining biodiversity and ecosystem services. This study evaluated the role of different coffee production types (sun-exposed, semi-shade and shade in polycultures or monocultures) on the bird communities associated with these agro-ecosystems in the tropical Andes of Colombia. It used a guild-specific approach and nonparametric statistical methods to identify the influence of particular environmental, ecological and landscape variables on the bird community assemblage and to assess potential changes in the species composition among management type. The potential responses of avifauna to fragmentation were studied from three different perspectives: i) from a patch-level point of view, evaluating the effect of local habitat factors (e.g. canopy cover, type of crop and crop management type); ii) from a species point of view, evaluating the role of species ecological traits (e.g. feeding habitat); and iii) from a landscape point of view, evaluating the effect of landscape configuration variables (e.g. patch area and perimeter length). The results indicated that polyculture and shade coffee crops host the most diverse avian communities and that guild representativeness varied among different coffee crop types. The type of coffee production type and the habitat characteristics associated with them seemed to have the greatest influences on families such as flycatchers, hummingbirds and wrens. Finally, coffee plantations can potentially contribute to the maintenance of bird diversity in anthropogenic landscapes; however these benefits are strongly influenced by the type of crop management. The maintenance of traditional coffee production (shade polyculture coffee) is recommended, and should be economically and socially encouraged.Item Masters Recital I and II(2013-05) Miller, Jennifer; Barber, Gail; Meek, Richard; George, Andrew; Chalex-Boyle, AnneThese are the programs for both of my Recitals.Item Past and projected future changes in species distributions as a consequence of climate change(2014-12) Moskwik, Matthew Peter; Parmesan, Camille, 1961-; Singer, Michael; Gilbert, Lawrence; Fowler, Norma; Miller, JenniferRecent climate change has already caused range shifts for many species, and future changes in the climate will likely lead to additional large-scale changes in species assemblages and richness. Most research into the effects of past climate change on species distributions has not accounted for the possibility of additional drivers opposing or working in tandem with climate. Failure to identify additional drivers may lead to inaccurate estimates of the contribution of climate change. Similarly, models used to build future projections of species’ distributions do not incorporate uncertainty into the estimates, which is inherently generated by several user defined parameters during the model building process. Using both field and modeling approaches, I quantified multiple drivers of past range changes in a community of Plethodontidae salamanders in the southern Appalachian Mountains and created future projections, which incorporated estimates of uncertainty, for the salamanders and several species endemic to the southwestern United States. Results from the field component demonstrated that salamanders expanded their elevational ranges due to two independent drivers: forest maturation and a slight cooling trend in the region. The modeling approach suggested that the majority of suitable climate space for salamander species in the southern Appalachian Mountains and several endemic species in the southwestern United States may decrease by mid-century. Further, the results indicate that four model parameters contributed most of the uncertainty to future projections.Item Variation in tick host preference and its epidemiological impact(2014-12) Pierce, Kelly Anne; Meyers, Lauren Ancel; Sarkar, Sahotra; Bolnick, Daniel; Leibold, Mathew; Miller, Jennifer; Williamson, PhillipTick-borne pathogens pose a significant health risk to humans and wildlife. The complex interactions between ticks and their hosts make management of tick-borne pathogens particularly challenging. Many of the most common species of ticks feed on a wide variety of hosts, but transmit pathogens that are only capable of infecting a narrow range of susceptible host species. Prior research has focused on understanding which tick hosts are capable of serving as pathogen reservoir hosts by carrying and transmitting tick- borne pathogens. However, relatively little attention has been given to studying how ticks choose their hosts. Host choice is of particular importance to the epidemiology of tick- borne pathogens when not all hosts are pathogen reservoirs. My dissertation research investigates the nature of host choice and its impact on disease prevalence in two tick species with similar life histories and host ranges: the lone star tick (Amblyomma americanum) and the American dog tick (Dermacentor variabilis). I conducted an experiment to demonstrate that lone star ticks can respond to host scent. Certain host scents, including those from some individual opossums and raccoons, are attractive to ticks. Proximity to scent also influences tick movement. I also looked for evidence that American dog tick populations are genetically structured by host species identity, and found that certain tick genotypes correlate with host species. This suggests that these ticks may have heritable host preferences that influence their feeding behaviors. Finally, I used a mathematical model to predict disease transmission probability and lone star tick preference for reservoir hosts. I considered hypothetical wildlife communities with different reservoir host relative abundances, and found that changes in relative abundance influence both disease transmission probability and tick host preference estimates. The model also suggests that lone star ticks must parasitize reservoir hosts more frequently when those hosts are less common. These results highlight the importance of host choice and host community composition as determinants of tick-borne disease prevalence.