Thesis (M.S.)--Brigham Young University. Dept. of Integrative Biology, 2006. / Includes bibliographical references (p. 27-34).

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Washington, 2006. / Vita. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 140-171).

Thesis (M. Sc.)--University of Canterbury, 2006. / Typescript (photocopy). "June 2006." Includes bibliographical references. Also available via the World Wide Web.

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Background: While entrepreneurship is now seen as an important focus in Egypt to elevatepoverty and improve the economic status, a strong and coherent entrepreneurialecosystem is necessary to achieve this. The Egyptian ecosystem is lacking a lotof principal elements such as access to finance, proper entrepreneurialeducation, and a culture that supports entrepreneurship. Developmentorganizations, whose aim is to sustainably develop the society, have recentlyjoined the Egyptian entrepreneurial ecosystem, equipped with funding,knowledge, and capacity. They aim to contribute to the Egyptian entrepreneurialecosystem and support entrepreneurship as a mean for sustainable development. Purpose: Despite their promising role, development organizations have not beenemphasized in the literature on entrepreneurial ecosystems. This could bereturned to the fact that most of the research on ecosystems is done in the contextof developed countries. Our aim is to shed light on the new role of developmentorganizations in the Egyptian ecosystem, explore what they offer toentrepreneurs, understand their impact, and analyze how they can improve theecosystem further. Method: The study is conducted through a multiple case study approach. Data is collectedthrough in-depth interviews with 21 employees and entrepreneurs from 3different development organizations in Egypt Conclusion: The results show that development organizations have a massive impact on theentrepreneurial ecosystem in Egypt. On the Isenberg model, developmentorganizations have the highest impact on market, support, and finance. Whilethey already impact culture and human capital, more emphasis needs to be puton these two domains to improve the mindset of entrepreneurs and the differentplayers in the ecosystem. Development organizations do not contribute to thepolicy domain since its mostly dominated by the government.

Seagrasses are marine foundation species that form ecologically important habitats in coastal areas around the world. They provide a range of ecosystem services, including coastal protection and the recently recognised large contribution to global carbon sequestration and storage. To date, the majority of published studies on the aforementioned ecosystem services is limited to specific geographic regions and seagrass species. This PhD study attempted to explore and provide the first evidence, to the best of our knowledge, on the role of Scottishseagrasses as carbon sinks and sediment stabilisers. In 2013, shoot dynamics of Zostera noltii plots were monitored biweekly and seasonally in the Forth estuary and digital images of the surveyed plots were taken for the development of a remote sensing technique which would accurately estimate the vegetation cover. In 2014, sediment samples from vegetated and unvegetated plots within beds of Z. marina and Z. noltii were collected from all the major estuaries along the east coast of Scotland, from the Firth of Forth in the south to Dornoch Firth in the north. Samples were analysed for organic matter, organic carbon, radionuclides 210Pb, 137Cs and 241Am, and δ13C in order to determine the organic matter and organic carbon density, longevity and sources of carbon respectively. To explore the role of seagrass in sediment deposition and stability, surface elevation was measured monthly in seagrass plots and bare sediment in the Forth estuary over two years. The results and main mechanisms underlying these findings are reported and discussed in detail in each chapter. In short, the proposed method based on digital images provided estimates of seagrass coverage that are more accurate than observers' estimates, with some constraints when macroalge and/or extreme light are present. Intertidal seagrass meadows in Scotland showed significantly enhanced carbon storage compared with bare sediment. Seagrass plots contained variable quantities of carbon in their sediments with species composition having a significant effect on carbon stocks, whereas depth and seagrass abundance had no effect on carbon stores. Despite their small above-ground biomass Scottish seagrass plots had a strong influence on sediment deposition and prevented erosion. Further research is needed to understand what factors drive large carbon sequestration and storage at some sites, thus contributing policy-relevant information on the prediction of the seagrass carbon hot-spots. Also, long-term datasets on surface elevation change are important in order to understand the effect of all the processes involved on sediment deposition in seagrass beds.

A series of modern sediment samples from seven sites and five sediment cores collected in central and southern Biscayne Bay were analyzed for benthic foraminifers. The goal of the research was to determine important foraminiferal assemblages in the modern environment, and use these data to assess the distributions of marine ecosystems over the past 100-400 years. Two of the cores are from localities in the mid-bay, whereas three represent near-shore sites. The latter cores were collected under the supposition that near-shore sites may be more sensitive to recent ecosystem change that may not be so readily apparent at the mid-bay sites. Seven assemblages were identified from these data that appear robust enough to be recognized at the regional level in Biscayne Bay. The assemblages identify a range of haline environments in Biscayne Bay both presently and in the recent past. None of the assemblages is typical of a continental shelf assemblage after Rose and Lidz (1977), but the conditions within Biscayne Bay include assemblages indicative of polyhaline-euhaline restricted circulation environments and mesohaline brackish environments. The near-shore cores reveal a pattern of assemblages indicative of increasing salinity. There is clearly a natural component of the ongoing Holocene marine transgression. However, there are key data which show sudden increases in salinity via rapid changes to the benthic foraminiferal assemblages. At Middle Key, salinity increases at the time of construction of the Key West Extension of the Florida East Coast Railway. Increased marine species at the top of the core corroborate the findings of Ishman et al. (1998) from a core in Manatee Bay. The foraminiferal assemblages near the top of the cores at Black Point North and at Chicken Key show a shift toward higher salinity conditions. Ostracode and mollusk data in Wingard et al. (2004) reveal an increase of genera that are tolerant of wide ranges of salinity. This manner of salinity fluctuations is not correlative to any patterns observed historically in any of the cores from Biscayne Bay. Recent changes to the marine ecosystems in Biscayne Bay reflect both natural and anthropogenic changes. It is necessary to determine appropriate restoration of natural sheet and groundwater flows to Biscayne Bay as part of the ongoing Everglades restoration to reduce the high stress of salinity fluctuations that are a recent alteration to the natural ecosystems in Biscayne Bay.

The purpose of this study is to show the importance of the geography of demand in ecological economics and to provide guidance for future research efforts to incorporate it. The analysis examines gaps in the literature that deal with the spatial variability of potential beneficiaries to ecosystem services and demonstrates the quantitative importance of defining the geography of demand. Since ecosystem service value is anthropocentric, incorporating those who receive benefits into the economic accounting method is a necessary requirement. As the total benefits received from ecosystem functioning declines over space, so too does its economic value. There are two study areas in Illinois used in the analysis. The first is the Des Plaines River wetlands in the Chicago metropolitan area and the other is the Cache River wetlands in rural southern Illinois. This study finds large ranges of value for ecosystem services when the decay of value over space is incorporated. Also, these findings suggest a minimum spatial requirement depending on the scale of aggregation. For a county level scale, a minimum economic jurisdiction of 1,000 km is suggested. Finally, the presence of large numbers of beneficiaries near an ecosystem has the greatest influence on value when the economic jurisdiction is spatially limited. From the steepest distance decay function to the shallowest the Des Plaines wetlands returned a range of values from approximately $971,000 to $2.3 billion and the Cache wetlands values ranged from $0 to $2.5 billion. This paper is not intended to be a case study for the economic valuation of a specific area but rather a demonstration of the necessity for a spatial economic framework that accounts for the delivery and receipt of ecosystem services over space.

Accelerated sea-level rise and increased intensity of tropical storm events have challenged the conventional approaches to conservation and restoration of coastal ecosystems. In coastal communities, where survival will depend largely on the ability of species to adapt to rapidly shifting conditions or become established farther inland, historic assemblages may be lost. Seed banks may be an important component of resilience and recovery in response to altered inundation regimes, should they contain species able to adapt or migrate inland. This study assess the ability of seed banks to act as ecological buffers to storm surge disturbances and to instill ecological resilience in degraded and vulnerable coastal ecosystems. Above-ground, seed bank and propagule assemblages were surveyed from historic communities at the Grand Bay National Estuarine Research Reserve. Artificial storm surge experiments revealed that that seed banks were not well distributed throughout the coastal transition communities and that seed bank responses following storm surges are likely to vary among the different plant communities. While some relict species are expected to respond following disturbances, ruderal species are especially dominant in the upland seed bank communities and may, at least in the short term, cause shifts away from the historical assemblages. The apparent absence of seaward species in the upland seed banks may make assisted migration an important tool for the survival of communities unable to keep pace. Community response following translocation of propagule bank application onto highly degraded buyout properties suggested that this technique may be an effective tool in introducing resilience into ecosystems already experiencing the effects of climate change. They resulted in the establishment of diverse and variable communities, containing indicator species from a number of historic communities with varying environmental tolerances. Long-term monitoring of community change and reproductive output of target species may indicate the utility of community translocation in creating resilient and future-adapted communities.

Recent field observations suggest that the radiative forcing of aerosol and clouds in the Arctic may be seasonally regulated by the oceanic emissions of the climatically-important biogenic trace gas dimethylsulfide (DMS). However, the validity of the proposed argument is challenged by the limited spatio-temporal coverage of these earlier studies in this difficult-to-access region. In particular, little is known about the pan-Arctic distribution of the oceanic DMS emissions, its temporal variability, and the impacts of sea-ice biogeochemistry on these emissions. In this dissertation, I investigated these unexplored subjects through numerical modelling. Using a one-dimensional (1-D) column modelling framework, I developed a coupled sea ice-ocean biogeochemical model and assessed the impacts of bottom-ice algae ecosystems on the underlying pelagic ecosystems and the associated production and emissions of DMS. The model was calibrated by time-series measurements of snow and melt-pond depth, ice thickness, bottom-ice and under-ice concentrations of chlorophyll-a and dimethylsulfoniopropionate (DMSP), and under-ice irradiance obtained on the first-year landfast sea ice in Resolute Passage during May-June of 2010. Many of the model parameters for the DMSP and DMS production and removal processes were derived from recent field measurements in the Arctic, which is advantageous over the previous Arctic-focused DMS model studies as their model parameters were based on the measurements in extra-polar regions. The impacts of sea-ice biogeochemistry on the DMS production in the underlying water column and its potential emissions into the overlying atmosphere were quantified through sensitivity experiments. To extend the study domain to the pan-Arctic, I implemented the sea-ice ecosystem and the coupled sea ice-pelagic DMS cycling components of the 1-D column model into a three-dimensional (3-D) regional modelling framework. A multi-decadal model simulation was performed over the period 1969-2015 using realistic atmospheric forcing and lateral boundary conditions. The results of the simulation were evaluated by direct comparisons with available data products and reported values based on field and satellite measurements and other model simulations. The decline of Arctic sea ice was successfully simulated by the model. The magnitude of the pan-Arctic sea-ice and pelagic annual primary production and their general spatial patterns were comparable to other model studies. The mean seasonal cycle and the spatial distribution of the model-based surface seawater DMS climatology within the pan-Arctic showed some similarities with in situ measurement- and satellite-based climatologies. However, at the same time, the comparison of the DMS climatologies was challenged by the bias in the measurement-based climatology, emphasizing the need to update this data product, which was created almost a decade ago, by incorporating data acquired during the recent field campaigns. The analysis of the modelled fluxes of DMS at the ice-sea and sea-air interfaces revealed different responses to the accelerated decline of sea ice over the recent decades (1996-2015). There was no trend in the pan-Arctic ice-to-sea DMS flux due to the counteracting effect of vertical thinning and horizontal shrinking of sea ice that drove ice algal production. In contrast, the pan-Arctic sea-to-air DMS flux showed a consistent increase (about 40 % over the last two decades) driven by the reduction of sea ice cover that promoted outgassing and biological productivity. This finding suggests that the climate warming in the Arctic causes an increase in DMS emissions, and encourages further exploration of the biological climate regulation in the Arctic. / Graduate