Ecological restorations have become increasingly important as humans have made irreversible changes to ecosystems; biogeochemical cycle alterations and land use changes have led to degraded conditions (Vitousek et al. 1997a). While some modifications to the environment are unavoidable, society is beginning to realize that changes are necessary. While some ecosystem functions may be beyond repair (e.g., biodiversity loss and extinction of species), it is important that the problem is faced head on and those functions that are still salvageable be restored. These environmental repairs can be done through ecological restoration. I looked at two different ecosystems, prairie streams and agricultural streams, that have undergone restoration to help functions. Patch-burn grazing (PBG) is increasingly used as a management practice on the few remaining tallgrass prairie parcels in an effort to simulate effects of large ungulate grazers. Yet, little is known about potential impacts and recovery of aquatic habitats from this management approach. My objective was to assess the influence of PBG with cattle on prairie streams and build on previous research at this site. I hypothesized that cattle grazing would negatively impact water quality and reduce stream biotic integrity, but riparian fencing would mitigate these impacts. We also assessed stream recovery for two years following the removal of ungulates from the study sites and hypothesized that biological and chemical effects would reverse. Six headwater streams (two controls, two PBG with 10 m fenced riparian zones, and two PBG with unfenced riparian zones) on Osage Prairie, Missouri, were sampled over seven years (2009-2015) encompassing pre-PBG (2 years), PBG (3 years), and post-PBG (2 years) periods. Macroinvertebrates and water chemistry were sampled monthly. Nitrate (NO3-) concentrations increased in the fenced and unfenced watersheds compared to the control watersheds (p = 0.015 and p < 0.0001, respectively) and between the fenced and unfenced watersheds (p = 0.001) during the PBG period relative to pre-PBG. Total phosphorus (TP) increased in the fenced and unfenced watersheds after grazing began compared to the control (both p < 0.0001) but did not differ between the fenced and unfenced watersheds (p = 0.187). Relative Chironomidae biomass and abundance increased in the unfenced watersheds in response to grazing (p = 0.008 and p < 0.001, respectively). No differences were observed in relative Chironomidae biomass and abundance, NO3-, and TP from pre-PBG to post-PBG indicating the recovery of these metrics. Results suggest that the negative effects of PBG on prairie streams can be somewhat mitigated by riparian fencing. Additionally, these streams are relatively resilient to PBG and recovery can take place during a rest cycle as brief as two years. Approximately one billion dollars is spent annually on restorations of degraded stream reaches in the United States. However, few projects are monitored upon completion, or monitoring focuses on a single parameter. Other than modifications to physical attributes of streams, the influence of restoration projects on ecosystem processes remains largely unknown. We sampled eleven Midwestern streams that had undergone habitat restorations from 3-15 years prior to sampling. Restoration techniques included in-stream habitat enhancements, bank stabilization, and riparian restoration. We predicted that gross primary production (GPP) would be lower in restored streams due to decreased nutrient inputs, and that respiration would be greater due to increased litter inputs from restored riparian areas. We also hypothesized that the restored streams would have greater invertebrate richness, abundance, and biomass, as well as high densities of intolerant taxa such as Ephemeroptera, Plecoptera, and Trichoptera (EPT taxa) due to higher water quality and better habitat. Restored reaches and unrestored upstream reaches were sampled for physical characteristics, water chemistry, benthic algal biomass, whole-stream metabolism, and macroinvertebrate communities. GPP in restored sites was marginally higher than unrestored sites (t5 = 2.53, p = 0.05), despite no differences in PO4-3, NO3-, or NH4+ concentrations. Three restored sites were autotrophic (P/R > 1), while four unrestored sites were heterotrophic. Total macroinvertebrate biomass was marginally higher in the restored sites compared to unrestored sites (t10 = 1.94; p = 0.08). EPT biomass was also marginally higher in restored sites than unrestored sites (t10 = 1.91; p = 0.09) but no difference was observed in EPT abundance. Results suggest that stream habitat restorations enhance some, but not all ecosystem processes and marginally enhance macroinvertebrate communities.

Review of Folksongs of Another America: Field Recordings from the Upper Midwest, 1937–1946. 2015. Produced, compiled, and annotated by James P. Leary. Dust-to-Digital, CDs (5), DVD, DTD-43.

Founded by George Cavender in 1971, the Big Ten Band Directors Association is one of the oldest associations of its kind. With a membership consisting of each institution’s Director of Bands, Athletic Band Director, and all other band faculty, the stature of its members, both past and current, is clear. These band directors are leaders in the profession and have helped the field develop into what it has become today through their positions at their respective flagship institutions of the Big Ten Athletic Conference. The BTBDA meets each year at the Midwest International Band and Orchestra Clinic in Chicago, IL, and its investment in sponsoring quality sessions at the clinic is well documented. The association has sponsored twenty-one sessions since 1986, featuring prominent composers such as Michael Colgrass, Karel Husa, Warren Benson, Gunther Schuller, and Frank Ticheli. Additionally, the association has shown its dedication to the advancement of the band repertoire through commissioning seven new works from 1986-2014, four of which were born out of a commissioning contest that spanned from 1998-2005. This study is the first of its kind to document a band association formed of members bound by a specific athletic conference. Research of the Big Ten Band Directors Association shows numerous examples of how a band conference association can contribute to different facets of the field (e.g. commissioning, clinic session sponsorship, etc.). The profession’s knowledge of the BTBDA is important as it highlights how these associations are contributing to the landscape of the field.

The agriculture industry has high rates of injury and illness. Furthermore, the average age of US farmers is 58 years old. Chronic conditions are more common among older populations and often require management by a health professional. Farmers face barriers when seeking healthcare. These barriers include limited free time, shortage of providers in rural areas, limited funds, and poor health insurance. In addition, lack of quality health insurance and concerns about paying for healthcare are identified as barriers to healthcare-seeking behavior among farmers. More research is needed to examine the impact of type of health insurance on utilization of specific types of healthcare services among this high-risk population. The goal of this study was to examine the association between a farmer’s type of health insurance and their healthcare-seeking behaviors. A brief, in-person, self-administered survey was used to identify the types of health insurance Midwest farmers were using and how this affected what type of healthcare services they utilized, specifically looking at preventive healthcare services. A second survey, administered online, was used to identify pre-existing conditions farmers had and the specific healthcare preventive healthcare services they utilized. The online survey found that type of health insurance was significantly associated with usage of preventive services. Other associations were found in the in-person survey between type of health insurance and stress over health insurance as well as stress over injury on the farm. These results can be used to inform future health and safety programs about the impact of health insurance on farmer’s healthcare-seeking behavior. However, additional research should be done with a larger sample.

While the great poet, James Whitcomb Riley, a native poet from my hometown of Greenfield, has a strong sense of Indiana and his Hoosier-ness. I compare myself to Whitcomb Riley, only in the sense of place, because my understanding of poetry was shaped around his work growing up in Hancock County. I am personally influenced by other poets such as Sylvia Plath, Walt Whitman, and James Wright in style and in content. My poetry contains a mixture of confessionalism and pastoral poems and doesn’t shy away from critiquing every aspect of place, family, and mental illness. These intersecting ideals and styles (confessional and pastoral in fixed forms/free-verse) place me at a crossroads of my own, where navigating my position within these frameworks alters my view of the Midwest and how a mental illness may, in fact, be worse off because of the isolation, dissociation, and perception.

What is the relationship between environment and tribal sovereignty, and what is the value of tribally-controlled land in the twenty-first century? This dissertation turns to the Meskwaki Nation, the only resident Native American community in Iowa, to provide a long-term perspective on the benefits and pitfalls of tribal land reclamation. Rather than focusing on dispossession, it emphasizes how one tribe reacquired its land base following removal. In the process, it shows how environment and sovereignty are sources of political and economic leverage for Native communities. They are useful categories for organizing Native histories and understanding how environmental, political, and economic interactions have shaped and been shaped by Indigenous struggles for sovereignty and self-determination. This work examines how the unique status of the Meskwaki “settlement,” which is not a “reservation” because the tribe purchased it with tribal money in 1857, has expanded the tribe’s capacity for self-determination. The Meskwaki story confirms that increasing tribal land holdings—as well as tribal control over them—provides an anchor from which tribes can maintain their sovereignty, creates opportunities for self-determination, and offers tribes political and economic leverage. But land reclamation is not a silver bullet that can solve the many problems faced by Native Nations today. Rather, tribal land (and by extension, the environments on it) is a political tool that can be deployed in defense of tribal sovereignty. By recognizing the potential of tribally-controlled land to create leverage within the paradigms of state/tribal and federal/tribal politics, tribes can utilize their land bases as sovereign, political territory and pursue economic and political strategies that can empower their continuing recovery from the processes of colonization.

This research focuses on a rural Iowa meatpacking community and the ways diverse residents negotiate belonging in this context. People with various lengths of local residence, racial/ethnic identities, social classes, language proficiencies, and education levels all reside together in Meatville and many engage in face-to-face daily interactions with one another. I argue that the combination of rurality and low-wage industrial employment influences how residents manage belonging and social participation even as they engage in activities that appear unrelated to meatpacking. Identities connected to industrial work extend beyond the factory into the social relationships among community members, including those who are not plant employees. Paradoxically, economic development in the form of a meatpacking plant challenged residents' ability to see themselves as a "community" with shared experiences, values, and identities. The rural context presents a unique sense of place as well as practical challenges and opportunities for belonging. My fieldwork combines observations in the domains of school, families and households, and public events to explore how interpersonal and institutional mechanisms affect inclusion or exclusion.

During the eighteenth century, African slavery played a fundamental role in the lives of settlers in the Illinois Country. The master class viewed slavery in terms of control meaning the complete domination of the slave system. Lawmakers, first the French bureaucracy and later (to a lesser extent) the Americans, pursued control through legislation. The most notable slave code was the French, Code Noir de la Louisiane, which tried to specifically address every conceivable slave situation. French settlers in the area also sought control of the slave system through the selective implementation of the law. African-descended people viewed slavery in terms of power. Slavery created imbalances in the lives of these people that they tried to rectify through accessing both spiritual and temporal power. The mode of accessing spiritual power that African-descended enslaved people in the Illinois Country used demonstrates a West-Central-African mindset and is best understood within the context of the African Atlantic Diaspora. Though the Illinois Country changed colonial hands several times from 1673 to 1818, the population makeup and slave system remained relatively unchanged until the massive influx of American settlers at the turn of the nineteenth century. During the beginning of the American administration of the Illinois Country, some French slaveholders integrated into the American indenture system, others remained aloof, and most moved to the Missouri side of the Mississippi River. The coming of the Americans eventually brought about the end of the French settlers and their enslaved people as separately identifiable entities in the Illinois Country.

Large carnivores in the United States are making a comeback following decades of systematic eradication. Black bears (Ursus americanus), cougars (Puma concolor), and gray wolves (Canis lupus) may recolonize the midwestern United States provided there is substantial suitable habitat. However, viability of large carnivore populations is as dependent on social acceptance as on biological factors. I developed individual and combined models of suitable habitat for black bears, cougars, and wolves in 18 midwestern states using geospatial data, expert-opinion surveys, and multi-criteria evaluation. I also assessed attitudes and perceptions of Illinois citizens about large carnivores via a mail-in survey. Experts indicated land cover was the most important variable for predicting potential habitat for black bears and cougars; human density was the most influential variable for wolves. Large, contiguous areas of suitable habitat comprised 35%, 21%, and 13% of the study region for wolves, bears, and cougars, respectively. About 12% of the region was considered suitable for all 3 species. Arkansas, Minnesota, Texas, and Wisconsin had the highest proportions (>40%) of suitable habitat for black bears; Arkansas, Michigan, Missouri, Texas, and Wisconsin had the most (≥20%) suitable cougar habitat; and only 4 states in the study region contained <29% suitable wolf habitat. Models were validated by comparing suitability values of independent sets of known carnivore locations to those of random locations, and models appeared accurate. More than 70% of survey respondents (n = 791) were male and their average age was 60; 55% were hunters. Approximately 40% were unsure about the population status of large carnivores in Illinois; of the remaining respondents, most (ranging from 20% for black bears to 41% for cougars) believed the presence of all 3 species had increased over the past decade. More residents supported protection (43%) and increasing numbers of large carnivores (39%) than opposed them (26%), although support for black bears was slightly higher than for cougars and wolves. Rural residents and livestock owners were the most likely to want carnivore numbers to decrease and least likely to support their protection; higher levels of education corresponded to positive attitudes toward large carnivores. My research provides the foundation for well-informed management plans, policy decisions, and educational initiatives for large carnivores in midwestern states where large carnivore populations have been absent for decades.

When inhaled, bioaerosols exacerbate respiratory symptoms and diseases. Mitigating the negative health impacts of bioaerosols requires a robust understanding of the temporal and spatial dynamics of bioaerosols in the atmosphere as a function of their type (e.g., bacteria, fungal spores, plant pollens) and particle size, which determines their penetration into the respiratory tract. While it is known that bioaerosol concentrations vary by location, season and meteorological conditions, major gaps remain in understanding the co-occurrence of bioaerosols with one another, their size in the atmosphere, and their mass contributions to PM. Overall, research presented in this thesis advances the current knowledge about bioaerosols (including fungal spores, pollens, and bacteria) in following ways: 1) defining background and urban levels of bioaerosol concentrations in the Midwestern US across four seasons, 2) characterizing ambient bioaerosol and co-pollutant mixtures, 3) determining the influence of meteorology on their concentrations and size distributions, and 4) estimating bioaerosol contributions to PM mass. The spatial analysis of respirable particulate matter (PM10) across urban and background sites in Iowa demonstrated that urban areas are a source of fungal glucans, bacterial endotoxins and total proteins, which gives rise to significantly enhanced bioaerosols in urban locations compared to background sites. Similar urban enhancements in calcium—a crustal element—and its correlation with endotoxins suggested that wind-blown soil is likely the origin. Seasonally, fungal spores peaked in summer with temperature, while bacterial endotoxins peaked in autumn during the row crop harvesting season. Fungal spores, bacterial endotoxins, plant and animal detritus all peaked during the growing season, such that maximum exposures to multiple bioaerosol types concurrently. Under the influence of rain chemical tracers of pollens peaked and decreased in size from coarse (2.5-10 µm) to fine particles (< 2.5 µm), likely due to the osmotic rupture of pollen grains upon wetting. While fine-sized fungal spores also increased during rain events, maximum spore levels were observed in coarse-sized particles post-rain. The comparison of spring to late summer measurements demonstrated these influences of precipitation on bioaerosols also occur during late summer, when fungal spore levels are high and ragweed is the dominant pollen source. The ability to apportion PM mass to bioaerosols was advanced through the development of chemical profiles of pollens and their integration with chemical mass balance (CMB) source apportionment modeling, for the first time. In late-April to early-May in 2013, pollens were estimated to contribute 0.2 - 38% of PM₁₀ (0.04 – 0.8 µg m⁻³) while fungal spores contributed 0.7 – 17% of PM₁₀ (0.1 – 1.5 µg m⁻³). Collectively, this thesis provides insight into spatial, seasonal and daily variations of bioaerosols, and shows elevated outdoor exposures to bioaerosols among urban populations, with maximum levels occurring during growing seasons, periods of high temperature, and during/immediately following rainfall.