Thesis (Ph. D., Environmental Science)--University of Idaho, June 2008. / Major professor: Sanford D. Eigenbrode. Includes bibliographical references. Also available online (PDF file) by subscription or by purchasing the individual file.

Thesis (M.A.)--University of Montana, 1999. / Typescript. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 76-81). Also available online.

Thesis (M.S.)--University of Wisconsin, 1951. / eContent provider-neutral record in process. Description based on print version record. Includes bibliographical references.

Thesis (M.S.)--University of Wisconsin, 1951. / Description based on print version record. Includes bibliographical references.

We reached the edge of that forgotten dock and jumped, arms raised, into knee-deep grass. We wore rubber boots, and carried a camera strung to a kite. The dock was the unfinished fragment of a bridge. After crossing a dried up coulee it ended abruptly, two feet above the grass and some unknown depth above solid ground. How many tourists, after detouring hours off the highway to visit the park, had stopped here, startled by the deep murk below, perhaps taken a snapshot, sighed at the immensity, then turned back to the car? What more could be out there? It was empty. A Place in the Grass offers a series of reflections on how we navigate empty space and make our place in it, how measures amass into patterns, and perceptions ultimately become places. It reflects on how the elements of place unfold on the landscape to orient us, and blind us. It unpacks the instruments that harness a Prairie we’ve yet to discover. I’m searching in the margins of our measures, beyond our instruments, for fragments where the unknown not only survives, but evolves. I’m operating on a hope (as all Prairie endeavors do) that these fragments, gathered together, might expand that empty park and its deep grass into an atlas, a quilt of marginal places where one can still get lost. There is a fine line between belonging and being lost, a possibility that they are one and the same, and a fear that we are unable to distinguish them. In this context, anchoring ourselves against the undertow of empty space, we build.

Increasing interest among restoration ecologists exists in developing strategies that stimulate biotic interactions and promote self-regulation in restored systems. These approaches should target above- and belowground organisms because they interact to regulate ecosystem pattern and process. In the following dissertation, I compare the ability of organic amendments to alter above- and belowground biological community structure and function to promote prairie establishment on Castle Drive Landfill in Garland, Dallas County, Texas. Treatments included altering the location of organic amendments in the soil profile, either applied to surface or incorporated, and varying the amount applied. Plant community composition, grass population dynamics, soil nutrient conditions, and soil biological parameters were monitored for three growing seasons. Aboveground, the surface treatments were superior for the establishment of desired and undesired plant species. Plant density patterns can be attributed to the amelioration of physical conditions and the accidental burial of seed during incorporation. Grass population dynamics suggest that surface-amended plots supported establishment, but high-volume incorporated treatments were better for enhancing survival through seasonal and long-term drought. Belowground biological responses were affected by the plant community, and not by the amendment treatments. Soil microbial biomass and carbon mineralization potential were larger in those treatments with greater plant density. The structure of the nematode community suggests that decomposition in the surface-amended plots was directed through bacterial channels while decomposition in the incorporated plots was through fungal channels. It is likely that the higher rates of plant productivity in surface treatments stimulated root exudation, thereby favoring bacteria and the nematodes that feed on them. Treatment differences in decomposition pathway were attenuated after 17 months. The soil quality indicators, Cmic/Corg, qCO2, nematode family richness and nematode density, were not affected by the restoration treatments or plant density, but did increase over time. The results of this study suggest that restoration managers should direct their energies into establishing and promoting a high-quality plant community. This can be manipulated with amendments, but care is needed not to exceed thresholds within location treatments.

This thesis examines processes of identity construction as they are represented in four contemporary prairie texts. In his book The Protean Self: Human Resilience in an Age of Fragmentation, Robert J. Lifton describes a process of identity formation that he terms proteanism, which denotes a certain “responsive shapeshifting” (Lifton 9) that allows the self to maintain fluid or malleable relationships with the various forces that affect or influence its construction. Through this analysis I intend to show how the authorial personae created in The Kappa Child by Hiromi Goto, Esi Edugyan’s The Second Life of Samuel Tyne, Steppe: A Novel by John Weier and City Treaty by Marvin Francis demonstrate, in their identitarian struggles, protean forms of resilience when dealing with the forces of genre and formal convention, as well as with the politics of postcolonialism, ethnicity, authenticity and authority that impress upon their identities and surge within their narratives.

This thesis examines processes of identity construction as they are represented in four contemporary prairie texts. In his book The Protean Self: Human Resilience in an Age of Fragmentation, Robert J. Lifton describes a process of identity formation that he terms proteanism, which denotes a certain “responsive shapeshifting” (Lifton 9) that allows the self to maintain fluid or malleable relationships with the various forces that affect or influence its construction. Through this analysis I intend to show how the authorial personae created in The Kappa Child by Hiromi Goto, Esi Edugyan’s The Second Life of Samuel Tyne, Steppe: A Novel by John Weier and City Treaty by Marvin Francis demonstrate, in their identitarian struggles, protean forms of resilience when dealing with the forces of genre and formal convention, as well as with the politics of postcolonialism, ethnicity, authenticity and authority that impress upon their identities and surge within their narratives.

We reached the edge of that forgotten dock and jumped, arms raised, into knee-deep grass. We wore rubber boots, and carried a camera strung to a kite. The dock was the unfinished fragment of a bridge. After crossing a dried up coulee it ended abruptly, two feet above the grass and some unknown depth above solid ground. How many tourists, after detouring hours off the highway to visit the park, had stopped here, startled by the deep murk below, perhaps taken a snapshot, sighed at the immensity, then turned back to the car? What more could be out there? It was empty. A Place in the Grass offers a series of reflections on how we navigate empty space and make our place in it, how measures amass into patterns, and perceptions ultimately become places. It reflects on how the elements of place unfold on the landscape to orient us, and blind us. It unpacks the instruments that harness a Prairie we’ve yet to discover. I’m searching in the margins of our measures, beyond our instruments, for fragments where the unknown not only survives, but evolves. I’m operating on a hope (as all Prairie endeavors do) that these fragments, gathered together, might expand that empty park and its deep grass into an atlas, a quilt of marginal places where one can still get lost. There is a fine line between belonging and being lost, a possibility that they are one and the same, and a fear that we are unable to distinguish them. In this context, anchoring ourselves against the undertow of empty space, we build.

Thesis--University of Wisconsin. / Typescript. Bibliography: leaves 98-107.