Climate change is considered a major threat to freshwater ecosystems through altering biodiversity, structure, and function. Having a thorough understanding of how diverse ecosystems respond to temperature change is vital to ecosystem management and conservation. During summer 2012, I quantified fish biomass, somatic growth, secondary production, and habitat data for fish communities in 25 Appalachian streams from Vermont to North Carolina. Multiple statistical tests were conducted to determine the relationship between community fish production and air and water temperature, species thermal guild production and air and water temperature, and the relationship between community fish production and diversity. Community fish production estimates ranged from 0.15 to 6.79 g m-2 yr-1 and community P/B ratios ranged from 0.21 to 1.07. No significant differences existed between mean community production estimates at the cold-water, cool-water, warm-water, and extreme northern sites (P=0.19), but P/B ratios in the extreme northern streams were statistically higher than mean community P/B in cold- and cool-water streams in the southern Appalachians (P=0.002). Water temperatures had a positive effect on community fish production (P=0.01) while air temperatures did not (P=0.10). Both air and water temperatures were significant in predicting whether community production would be dominated by cold-water or cool-water fish (P=0.001, P<0.0001, respectively). Community fish production was significantly, positively related to species richness (R2=0.38, P=0.001) and was one of the highest correlates of community production (R2=0.52). As climate change alters freshwater ecosystems, fish communities may transform by means of shifting fish abundance, biomass, and production among species ultimately affecting ecosystem structure, function, and biodiversity. / Master of Science

The deep seabed polymetallic nodules are one the major types of deep-sea ore resources. Oceanic deposits of these raw materials represent a potential source of numerous metals that are in short supply on the land-base deposits at the nearest future. The process of geological survey to the deep ocean floor is considered to be an onset of a quantitatively new stage in the process of mineral resource extraction. Continuation of the on-going work on polymetallic nodule deposits within the Clarion-Clipperton Zone is regarded as a serious task to be undertaken over a period until the year 2025, with a due consideration to advance in designing of an efficient mining unit and application of modern processing technologies for extraction of major metals : manganese, nickel, cobalt and copper. A prerequisite of a rational management of oceanic resources is the preservation of natural oceanic environment. Considered is the extraction's profitability of a concrete deposit within the Clarion-Clipperton Zone, which is the exploration area of the IOM, with annual production scale of 2.2 Mt of wet nodules for the year 2025.