This research traces the nature and impetus of agricultural landscape change from 1910 to 1990, within the northwestern transboundary plains of southern Alberta and Saskatchewan and northern Montana. Using information gleaned from aerial photographs, field survey reports and maps, government staff personal correspondence, agricultural statistics, land settlement records, and local histories, this dissertation describes an evolutionary and regionally-contextual process of landscape transformation. The temporal pattern of landscape change in the northwestern plains region was not linear. The greatest landscape changes took place between 1910 and 1930 when mixed grass prairie was converted to an agricultural landscape over a relatively short breaking-in period that followed initial agricultural settlement. After 1930, landscape changes were more evolutionary. Incrementally, more land was tilled, with little alteration in basic field arrangement and farming systems. Aerial photographic evidence suggests that a common declensionist historiographical narrative of Great Plains anthropogenic land degradation, culminating in the 1930s drought disaster, doesn’t apply to the northwestern plains. Rather, the timing of settlement, coinciding with widespread adoption of farm-based mechanization, and a pre-existing understanding of environmental limits to agricultural viability, impelled northwestern plains farmers to independently adopt scale economy and efficiency principles promoted by government agricultural economists from the 1920s to the 1980s. Furthermore, farmers adapted specifically to regional land and weather conditions using locally-derived soil management innovations. Farmers and in-the-field federal government staff cooperated on research that led to the spread of innovative and successful dryland farming techniques. Government agents of both Canada and the United States played an important role in testing and publicizing the local adaptations. This work establishes a new timeline for northern Great Plains history and reveals the importance of regional context in place history. In the northwestern plains region, the 1930s were not a turning point in the agricultural land use history, but rather a time marker coinciding with the maturing of a highly-mechanized, scaled-up, and responsive ‘modern’ agricultural system.

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No description available.

No description available.

Predation by cougars (Puma concolor) variously can structure ecosystems and preserve biodiversity, engender conflict where livestock and pets are killed, and even drive prey populations to extinction. Effective management requires a firm grasp of the ecological drivers of predation, but these remain poorly understood due to difficulty obtaining sufficient data. My objective was to test hypotheses about drivers of predation in a population of wild cougars foraging in a multi-prey system in west-central Alberta, Canada. To obtain necessary data, I began by refining Global Positioning System (GPS) telemetry cluster techniques to monitor predation. I found that models alone were insufficient and that field visitation was required to estimate kill rate and prey composition accurately, but logistic regression models could direct field-work to improve efficiency, permitting continuous monitoring of cougar predation and generating large sample sizes. I assessed the role of scavenging as a foraging strategy and found that cougars scavenged opportunistically, reducing predation when carrion availability was high. Scavenging also made cougars susceptible to incidental snaring at wolf bait stations, and survival analysis revealed important consequences for cougar population trajectory and harvest management. I evaluated competing hypotheses about the magnitude of cougar predation and the influence of season and prey vulnerability on kill rate and prey composition. Cougars were effective predators, killing ungulates at rates near the upper end of the previously reported range. Cougar kill-rate increased by a factor of 1.5 in summer and cougars shifted prey composition seasonally as predicted by the juvenile and reproductive vulnerability hypotheses. Analysis of a multi-species functional response (MSFR) revealed that cougar impact on small populations of endangered prey is reduced by a tendency towards prey-switching but can be aggravated by the presence of individual specialists. Contrary to expectation, cougar MSFR was not driven by prey density, but rather by cougar demography and relative abundance of various prey. Finally, I reject the notion that cougars are nocturnal ambush predators, demonstrating instead that they hunt actively and make kills frequently during the day, exhibiting activity patterns loosely tied to those of their prey. I discuss the application of my findings for management and conservation. / Ecology

Adaptation is now recognized as an important aspect of responses to climate change. Rural communities in the prairie provinces of Canada are considered to be sensitive to the impacts of climate change due to socio-economic and geographical factors. This study examines the ways in which governance institutions shape the ability of two rural communities in Alberta to adapt. 32 semi-structured interviews were done with decision-makers in the communities of High Level and Canmore, and with provincial-level governance actors. A vast array of secondary documents was also examined. The comparison of these two case studies shows that institutional capacity in Canmore supports proactive adaptation. In contrast, several features of governance institutions in High Level detract from adaptive capacity. Provincial governance institutions were found to contribute both positively and negatively to the capacity of rural communities to adapt to climate change. / Rural Sociology

Thesis (LL.M.)--University of Alberta, 2010. / Title from PDF file main screen (viewed on Apr. 12, 2010). "A thesis submitted to the Faculty of Graduate Studies and Research in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Laws in Dispute Resolution Faculty of Law, Spring 2010, Edmonton, Alberta ... University of Alberta." Includes bibliographical references.

Thesis (M. Ed.)--University of Alberta, 1994. / eContent provider-neutral record in process. Description based on print version record. Includes bibliographical references.

Thesis (M. Ed.)--University of Alberta, 1994. / eContent provider-neutral record in process. Description based on print version record. Includes bibliographical references.

Increased nitrogen (N) deposition onto boreal peatlands and forests is anticipated with further expansion of Alberta's oil sands industry and consequently, an increase in sources of nitrogen oxide emissions. Increased N deposition has the potential to affect peatland flora and alter N cycling patterns in peatlands, therefore it is imperative to investigate at what level of excess N deposition these effects take place. This thesis discusses results from the first two years of a five year N fertilization study being conducted at a peatland complex near the hamlet of Mariana Lake in northeastern Alberta, Canada aimed at quantifying the N "critical load" for these peatland ecosystems. At the study site there are forty-two experimental plots - half in an ombrotrophic bog, the other half in the poor fen - with varying N fertilization treatments ranging from 0 kg/ha/year to 25 kg/ha/year. To investigate nitrogen uptake by plants at the Mariana Lake study site, I measured nitrogen (N) and carbon (C) concentrations of Sphagnum capitulum tissue and vascular plant foliar tissue. For Sphagnum species, I also analyzed C:N ratios and capitulum N storage. To investigate potential growth response of the target Sphagnum species, measurements were taken for linear growth (the vertical elongation of the Sphagnum shoots), stem mass density (the weight of Sphagnum stems occupying a volume after capitula were removed), and ultimately, net primary production (the product of the prior two measurements). Capitulum mass density (biomass) was measured as well to investigate possible changes in Sphagnum capitulum growth. Also, during the height of the growing season (mid-July, 2011 and 2012), the plant communities in each treatment plot were sampled to provide "baseline" data necessary for documenting any shifts in plant distribution or community composition that may occur after N additions.