Graduate Theses & Dissertations

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Reintroducing species in the 21st century
Climate change has had numerous impacts on species' distributions by shifting suitable habitat to higher latitudes and elevations. These shifts pose new challenges to biodiversity management, in particular translocations, where suitable habitat is considered crucial for the reintroduced population. De-extinction is a new conservation tool, similar to reintroduction, except that the proposed candidates are extinct. However, this novel tool will be faced with similar problems from anthropogenic change, as are typical translocation efforts. Using ecological niche modelling, I measured suitability changes at translocation sites for several Holarctic mammal species under various climate change scenarios, and compared changes between release sites located in the southern, core, and northern regions of the species' historic range. I demonstrate that past translocations located in the southern regions of species' ranges will have a substantial decline in environmental suitability, whereas core and northern sites exhibited the reverse trend. In addition, lower percentages (< 50% in certain scenarios) of southern sites fall above the minimal suitability threshold for current and long-term species occurrence. Furthermore, I demonstrate that three popular de-extinction candidate species have experienced changes in habitat suitability in their historic range, owing to climate change and increased land conversion. Additionally, substantial increase in potentially suitable space is projected beyond the range-limits for all three species, which could raise concerns for native wildlife if de-extinct species are successfully established. In general, this thesis provides insight for how the selection of translocation sites can be more adaptable to continued climate change, and marks perhaps the first rigorous attempt to assess the potential for species de-extinction given contemporary and predicted changes in land use and climate. Author Keywords: climate change, de-extinction, ecological niche models, MaxEnt, reintroduction, translocation
ADAPT
This thesis focuses on the design of a modelling framework consisting of loose-coupling of a sequence of spatial and process models and procedures necessary to predict future flood events for the years 2030 and 2050 in Tabasco Mexico. Temperature and precipitation data from the Hadley Centers Coupled Model (HadCM3), for those future years were downscaled using the Statistical Downscaling Model (SDSM4.2.9). These data were then used along with a variety of digital spatial data and models (current land use, soil characteristics, surface elevation and rivers) to parameterize the Soil Water Assessment Tool (SWAT) model and predict flows. Flow data were then input into the Hydrological Engineering Centers-River Analysis System (HEC-RAS) model. This model mapped the areas that are expected to be flooded based on the predicted flow values. Results from this modelling sequence generate images of flood extents, which are then ported to an online tool (ADAPT) for display. The results of this thesis indicate that with current prediction of climate change the city of Villahermosa, Tabasco, Mexico, and the surrounding area will experience a substantial amount of flooding. Therefore there is a need for adaptation planning to begin immediately. Author Keywords: Adaptation Planning, Climate Change, Extreme Weather Events, Flood Planning, Simulation Modelling
Growing Up in Postwar Suburbia
Growing Up in Postwar Suburbia: Childhood, Children and Adolescents in Canada, 1950-1970 This dissertation explores the intersections between the suburban landscape both `real' and imagined, childhood, children and adolescents. I contend that there was a richness and diversity in the experiences of children and adolescents in postwar Canada that resists simplistic stereotypes that often depict suburbia as primarily middle-class, dull, homogeneous, conformist, and alienating for residents of all ages. Suburban living has become the definitive housing choice for the majority of Canadians since the end of World War II. Suburban homes and communities were critical in shaping the everyday lives of young people in this period. These young lives were predominantly safe, comfortable, and enriched in their homescapes. Yet this was not a universal condition. While class and gender were important factors shaping childhood and adolescence, my research findings also show that children and adolescents exercised their agency in this period, and they were active participants in their lives on personal, educational, community, and municipal levels. Young people were monitored, regulated and disciplined, but they were not passive receptacles in a world dominated by adults. This interdisciplinary study uses a wide range of archival, visual and documentary sources, and also integrates oral histories as a key methodology. These oral histories have added important reflections on childhood and adolescence in postwar suburbia, providing insight into how memory constructs multiple meanings associated with the dissertation's key themes. Ultimately, I offer a pan-Canadian view of changing images and constructions of childhood by delving into more specific topics to children and adolescents using postwar Calgary suburbia as a focal point in order to understand the heterogeneity of suburban life. In studying the intersections of place, space, age, class, sexuality, `race,' and gender, I demonstrate that the lives of children and adolescents are woven into the fabric of postwar Canadian social and cultural history in a profound and meaningful way. Author Keywords: adolescence, adolescents, childhood, children, history, suburbs
Moving North
Since their successful reintroduction, the eastern wild turkey (Meleagris gallopavo silvestris) has expanded its range north. Due to different and potentially more severe limiting factors, management approaches generalized from studies within the historical range may not be appropriate to apply to northern populations. To better understand northern wild turkey ecology, GPS and VHF transmitters were used to track habitat selection and survival of female turkeys at the species northern range edge in Ontario, Canada. These northern turkeys exhibited larger seasonal home range sizes relative to those in their historical range, and selected deciduous forest and pasture and fields within the study area. Supplemental food was also selected by turkeys when choosing autumn and winter ranges. The northern turkeys also suffered a low annual survival rate, and high mortality from predation. These findings underscore the challenges of maintaining turkey populations in northern environments, and will help inform management strategies. Author Keywords: Eastern Wild Turkey, Euclidean distance analysis, Habitat selection, Meleagris gallopavo silvestris, Northern range edge, Survival
EXPLORING THE EFFECTS OF WATERPOWER OPERATIONS ON RIVERINE ECOSYSTEMS ACROSS NORTHERN ONTARIO
In this study, we attempt to enhance current knowledge of ecological responses to riverine alterations from waterpower by using a bottom-up food up approach. A series of extensive and intensive study components were performed across northern Ontario, Canada, where biological (nutrients, dissolved organic matter (DOM) and periphyton) and physical (water level and thermal regimes) ecological indicators were examined in regards to alterations from dams and waterpower facilities. Overall, we found that the water levels and thermal regimes deviated from their reference condition at sites below the dams, whereas the biological indicators were more resilient to river alterations. Our results suggest that the characteristics of the watershed were influential in controlling the variability of nutrients and DOM resources in rivers within the boreal watersheds of northern Ontario, as well as the for the downstream recovery patterns of the physical indicators. The recovery of the periphyton communities downstream of the dams were also predicted to be cumulatively related to the physical alterations, nutrient availability and the possible displacement of invertebrate communities. Therefore, our bottom-up food web approach was not effective for better understanding how ecological responses from waterpower cascade through aquatic food webs, and instead multiple indicators should be used for examining the ecological responses in these particular river systems. Author Keywords: dissolved organic matter, ecological indicators, river alteration, waterpower facilities
Human Activity and Habitat Characteristics Influence Shorebird Habitat Use and Behaviour at a Vancouver Island Migratory Stopover Site
Pacific Rim National Park Reserve's 16 km of coastal beaches attract many thousands of people and shorebirds every year. To identify locations where shorebirds concentrate and determine the impact of human activity and habitat characteristics on shorebirds, I conducted shorebird and visitor surveys at 20 beach sectors during fall migration in 2011 to 2013 and spring migration in 2012 and 2013. The probability of shorebird presence decreased with increasing number of people at a beach sector. The time that shorebirds spent at a sector increased with increasing sector width. Close proximity to people increased the proportion of time shorebirds spent moving while shorebirds spent more time moving and less time foraging on wider beaches than on narrower ones. My findings suggest that placing restrictions on beach access and fast moving activities (e.g., running) may be necessary to reduce shorebird disturbance at Pacific Rim and similar stopover areas. Author Keywords: habitat use, human disturbance, predation risk, prey availability, shorebird, stopover
Learning From One Another
Biomaterial technology and utilizing bioproducts can contribute to Canada's economic growth while moving towards sustainable development. Canadian bioproducts are commonly developed within universities but Canada's record of transferring university technology to market has been less than optimal. In an attempt to offer new ideas for improvement, qualitative data analysis from comparing stakeholder interviews in Canada and Brazil regarding university technology transfer through biomaterial spin-off development identifies the enablers and barriers to success. This thesis offers modality changes that if implemented will contribute to increasing university spin-off development in Canada to achieve economic growth and sustainable development. These modality changes include: 1) Create research network alliances; 2) Incorporate university commercialization activities into faculty performance measurement; 3) Implement a general business class as a pre-requisite to all degree requirements; 4) Restructure funding programs from one time sums to phase based implementation; 5) Establish a pre-incubation program in addition to the traditional incubator. Author Keywords: biomaterials, Brazil, Canada, policy, university spin-off, university technology transfer
An Application of the Sinc-Collocation Method in Oceanography
In this thesis, we explore the application of the Sinc-Collocation method to an oceanography model. The model of interest describes a wind-driven current with depth-dependent eddy viscosity and is formulated in two different systems; a complex-velocity system and a real-value coupled system. In general, the Sinc-based methods excel over other traditional numerical methods due to their exponentially decaying errors, rapid convergence and handling problems in the presence of singularities at end-points. In addition, the Sinc-Collocation approach that we utilize exploits first derivative interpolation, whose integration is less sensitive to numerical errors. We present several model problems to demonstrate the accuracy, and stability of the method. We compare the approximate solutions determined by the Sinc-Collocation technique with exact solutions and also with those obtained by the Sinc-Galerkin approach in earlier studies. Our findings indicate that the method we utilized outperforms those used in past studies. Author Keywords: Boundary Value Problems, Eddy Viscosity, Oceanography, Sinc Numerical Methods, Wind-Driven Currents
Transcendental Turn
This dissertation traces the concept of transcendentalism from Kant's Critique of Pure Reason (1781) to Michel Foucault's historical a priori and Pierre Bourdieu's field and habitus, with implicit reference to Deleuze's `transcendental empiricism,' and the influence this trajectory has had on contemporary theory and culture. This general conceptual framework is used as the basis for a critical analysis of a series of examples taken from popular culture to highlight their transcendental conditions of possibility and the influence this conceptual paradigm has had on today's theory. The examples include the NFL `concussion crisis,' South Park's problematization of the discourse surrounding it, as well as the literature of Charles Bukowski, as an exemplification of an immanent writer-written situation. It is further suggested that, not only is transcendentalism an epistemological framework for thought, but it also doubles as an ontological principle for the emergence of a constitutively incomplete and unfinished reality. Author Keywords: Bukowski, Concussion, Foucault, Kant, South Park, transcendental
Politics of Muslim Intellectual Discourse in the West
The dissertation explores and defends the theory and practice of a Western-Islamic public sphere (which is secular but not secularist and which is Islamic but not Islamist), within which a critical Islamic intellectual universe can unfold, dealing hermeneutically with texts and politically with lived practices, and which, moreover, has to emerge from within the arc of two alternative, conflicting, yet equally dismissive suspicions defined by a view that critical Islam is the new imperial rhetoric of hegemonic orientalism and the opposite view that critical Islam is just fundamentalism camouflaged in liberal rhetoric. The Western-Islamic public sphere offers a third view, arising from ethical commitment to intellectual work, creativity, and imagination as a portal to the open horizons of history. Author Keywords: Critical Islam, critique, history, Islamic reformation, public sphere, secular
Battle of Maldon
The Battle of Maldon: A Medieval Screenplay History and Heroism in the Cinematic Adaptation of an Old English Poem The Battle of Maldon is an artistic representation of a historical event whose style lends itself to being adapted into a screenplay. This project examines how the poem presents a recent event in an epic heroic style, mixing history with legend, and how the heroism of the men in the poem is celebrated. These explorations lead to the creation of a screenplay which imitates the ways that the poet combines fact and fiction and situates the screenplay within the larger realm of medieval film. Author Keywords: Anglo-Saxon history, Byrhtnoth, film, heroism, Maldon, The Battle of Maldon
Reshaping the Terms of Debate
The Reagan era instigated a fundamentally conservative shift in the political, economic and discursive climate of America. As Ronald Reagan is a highly divisive symbolic figure in American politics, much of the historiography of his presidency has been characterized by polarized interpretations. Over the past decade there has been a noticeable shift towards more favourable and triumphal interpretations of the Reagan era. This thesis seeks to analyze the ideological shifts that have characterized the trajectory of historical writings on the Reagan era. Through employing a careful textual analysis of key works by Michael Schaller, Gil Troy and Sean Wilentz, amongst others, this study demonstrates how historiography serves us less as an objective means of understanding the past and more so as an expanding collective historical artifact that illustrates the changing currents of intellectual and political discourse. In doing so, the notion of scholarly objectivity itself is thrown into question. Author Keywords: Cold War, Conservatism, Historiography, Neoliberalism, Reagan Doctrine, Ronald Reagan

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Graduate student theses produced at Trent University. You may also browse theses and dissertations by year, program, or author.

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Format: 2023/09/29

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