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Master of Science / Division of Biology / David A. Haukos / The lesser prairie-chicken is a prairie grouse native to the southwestern Great Plains that has experienced significant population and habitat declines since European settlement. Ongoing declines prompted the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to list lesser prairie-chickens as threatened under the Endangered Species Act in spring of 2014. In fall of 2015, the listing was vacated on procedural grounds and the lesser prairie-chicken was removed from listing in summer 2016. Despite the legislative change, considerable conservation efforts emerged with the initial listing and have continued following the removal of the species from the threatened and endangered species list. Understanding how lesser prairie-chickens use landscapes and how management actions can influence their space use is important for long-term strategies to meet conservation goals. I modeled lesser prairie-chicken habitat selection relative to landscape mosaics of vegetation patches generated through patch-burn grazing, microclimate, and vegetation characteristics across their range. I captured, attached GPS satellite or VHF radio transmitters to, tracked, and measured vegetation characteristics used by and available to female lesser prairie-chickens across the northern portion of their range in Kansas and Colorado. Female lesser prairie-chickens use all patch types created in a patch-burn grazing mosaic, with female selecting greater time-since-fire patches (>2-years post-fire) for nesting, 2-year post-fire patches during the spring lekking season, 1- and 2-year post-fire patches during the summer brooding period, and 1-year post-fire units during the nonbreeding season. Available vegetation structure and composition in selected patches during each life-cycle stage was similar to the needs of female lesser prairie-chickens during that life-cycle stage. To assess their selected microclimate conditions, I deployed Maxim Integrated Semiconductor data loggers (iButtons) at female flush locations and across a landscape inhabited by lesser prairie-chickens. Females selected locations that minimized thermal stress at microsite, patch, and landscape scales during peak midday temperatures during summer. Females selected midday locations based on vegetation characteristics; where selected sites had >60% forb cover and <25% grass cover, or >75% grass cover and <10% forb cover. In addition, females selected sites with greater visual obstruction. I measured vegetation composition and structure at use and available sites at four study areas located along the precipitation gradient characterizing the full extent of the lesser prairie-chicken range. Vegetation structure use by females varied in relation to long-term precipitation patterns. Females used sites with lower visual obstruction than available during the fall and spring. However, they used vegetation composition that was similar to available within each study area. Overall, my findings indicate that lesser prairie-chickens require structural and compositional heterogeneity to support a suite of habitat needs throughout the year. Therefore, management should focus on providing structural and compositional heterogeneity across landscapes. Greater heterogeneity in vegetation conditions can be achieved through management practices that allow domestic grazers to select grazing locations, such as patch-burn grazing or increased pasture area.

As the ecological importance of prairies is becoming more recognized, the number of prairie restoration projects is increasing worldwide. One of the major challenges in restoring any disturbed ecosystem is the successful establishment of native species at the expensive of invasive species. While some weedy species are gradually replaced as other, more desired, species become established, there are invasive species that, due to their level of dominance, may out-compete native species indefinitely. The objectives of this study were 1) to quantify the impact of Ambrosia trifida (giant ragweed) on the plant community of a newsly established prairie, 2) to assess any difference in effectiveness between management practices (cutting versus pulling) of A. trifida, and 3) to establish a baseline vegetation survey to be used in future evaluations and research of the prairie. In March of 2011, 30 plots (each 3 m2) were established within the 20 acre prairie including 10 control plots [C], 10 plots where A. trifida was selectively cut approximately 10 cm above ground level [Rc], and 10 plots where A. trifida was selectively pulled [Rp]. Treatment (cutting/pulling) was applied three times (April, June, and August) during the study, and in order to compare the effectiveness of the treatments, the number of removed A. trifida was recorded for the first two applications. Between April and June, the number of A. trifida decreased by a mean of 34.9 individuals in the cut plots, and increased by a mean of 12.4 individuals in the pulled plots suggesting (albeit, not significantly) that pulling may disturb the ground and promote the germination of more seeds from the seedbed. Final biomass data collection was conducted in mid August by removing the above ground biomass of all plants excluding A. trifida from four subplots within each of the 30 main plots, followed by drying and weighing of all biomass. A total of 172 plants from 30 species were removed for a total biomass of 1735.10 grams. In the control plots the mean biomass was 6.73g and the species diversity (H') was 0.037. In the treatment plots, the corresponding values were 83.39g, and 2.093. This twelve-fold difference in biomass suggests that the presence of A. trifida has a remarkable impact on the overall community of this newly established prairie and that the correct management of A. trifida could expedite the restoration process.

Image makers are often--and rightly--held to task for what they produce. This is a necessary lesson, but the time has come for us to cast a critical eye on the processes that lead up to the creation of that image in the first place, especially as it relates to sustainability and environmental cost. When asking the question of "what does this work say and who is it saying it to?" we must concurrently ask "what is the environmental cost of making this work and is that cost balanced by what it is saying?"

Prairie dog control was found to be economically feasible on the Conata basin in South Dakota with future annual maintenance control to prevent re-invasions. The large difference between the present net worth values of the two viewpoints ($2587 for the U.S. Forest Service acting as an agent of the sovereign and $109,011 for the ranchers ) was due to the added costs of environmental considerations included in the U.S. Forest Service control program, but assumed not to be included in control by ranchers. In order for prairie dog control to remain economically feasible, annual maintenance control for the U.S. Forest Service must be below 5 percent of the total initially controlled acreage in the control program (9 percent for the rancher viewpoint). Sun sedge (Carex heloiphila) constituted the major cattle forage increase from control in this study while western wheatgrass (Agropyron smithii), the dominant mid-grass in the area, showed no increase in production after five years of prairie dog elimination. Overall, 84 pounds per acre of usable cattle forage was gained from control.

The onsite costs and benefits of conservation tillage in the Camas Prairie Region of Northern Idaho were estimated. The evaluation of these costs and benefits included a measurement of the long-term effects of soil erosion on cropland productivity. A model developed by Daniel Taylor (1982) was used as a base for estimating the onsite costs and benefits of conservation tillage. Although the agronomic relationships of this model were theoretically and empirically consistent, the variable and depreciation cost trends were not. Therefore, this model was revised. A technique for generating site-specific variable and depreciation costs was developed and incorporated into the original Taylor model. The depreciation cost calculation was modified to include Salvage value and modified to correspond with the crop yields used in this analysis. An algorithm to model changes in output prices was added to the model. Heavy tillage, reduced tillage, and no-till were simulated. Reduced tillage was projected to be the most profitable tillage system for farmers with planning horizons of 75 years or longer and personal discount rates of under 7%. Heavy tillage was projected to be the -most profitable tillage system for farmers with planning horizons shorter than 75 years. No-till was always the least profitable tillage system, although the highest yield projections were produced under no-till. A summer fallow crop rotation was simulated and the results were compared with the results of an annual cropping rotation. The summer fallow rotation was projected to be less profitable than the annual cropping rotation. No-till and reduced tillage subsidization and cross compliance pricing were examined as two potential policies which could be used to induce farmers to adopt conservation tillage. Subsidies ranged from zero to $22.97 per acre annually, depending on the planning horizon and personal discount rate of the farmer. Cross compliance prices 11% higher than the normalized prices used in this analysis were needed to induce farmers to adopt no-till practices. / Graduation date: 1984

The prairies of North America have undergone substantial changes since European settlement in the 1800's, with some estimates suggesting that 96% of the tallgrass prairie has been converted. Multiple factors contributed to reduction in prairie, including: grazing, row-crop farming, depressed fire regimes, and exotic grass species introduction. In Texas, 35% of the historic grassland ecosystems have been either altered or converted. Introduced in the 1940's, exotic grass species such as Bermuda grass (Cynodon sp) have displaced native grass species throughout Texas. Introduced grass species can alter the existing plant communities degrading habitat for birds and other animals. Grassland birds are declining faster than any other bird group within North America; due in part to a reduction in suitable breeding habitat. I addressed this issue by comparing nesting success of grassland birds between exotic grass sites and restored native grass sites in the blackland prairie region of east-central Texas during 2007-2008 breeding seasons. I conducted point counts and nest searching from March - July. Point count data indicate no difference in species richness between sites. Dickcissel (Spiza americana) nests represented 89% of the nests found (n = 104). Dickcissel abundance was 44% higher in restored sites and 76% of nests were located in restored sites. Daily survival (DSR) for dickcissels in restored sites was 0.895 (SE = 0.013) and for exotic sites was 0.930 (SE = 0.017). I used an independent samples t-test to compare mean nest height, which was 56% higher in restored sites than exotic sites (n = 83, x bar = 38.0 cm plus/minus 1.90; x bar = 15.2 cm plus/minus 2.19, df = 81, t = -6.31, P = 0.001), and mean nest substrate height which was 58% higher in restored sites than in exotic sites (n = 83, x bar = 118.8 cm plus/minus 6.50; x bar = 46.5 cm plus/minus 4.77, df = 81, t = -6.08, P = 0.001). Although dickcissel abundance was greater in restored sites than exotic sites, their observed nesting success and DSR was lower in restored sites. This is indicative of an ecological trap, which occurs when an organism is attracted to a habitat that negatively impacts the organism. Some research suggests that restored fields in other states are acting as traps for dickcissels, and according to my results restored sites I sampled may also be acting as ecological traps for dickcissels in Texas.

The experience of wilderness and of homesteading on the prairies provided the primary subject matter for Canadian prairie fiction in the final decades of the nineteenth century and the first decades of the twentieth century. My thesis uses ecocriticism to make a connection between the cultural values embedded in this literature and the ecological consequences of European settlement. It uses the philosophical concepts of bioregionalism, deep ecology and ecofeminism as the ideological framework for a study of novels and short stories published prior to 1930. It uses the theoretical concepts of cultural materialism to analyze, from a socio-ecological perspective, the power relationships within this body of literature. More specifically, it looks at the way in which English-speaking writers privileged the values of civilization above wildness and the values of western European culture above the cultures of Metis and indigenous peoples. My thesis divides early prairie fiction into the categories of wilderness romance and homesteading romance. It looks at representative samples of these genres, and concludes by discussing two examples of early prairie realism. Throughout the entire thesis I view the fictional treatment of European settlement from the perspective of current ecological thinking and, in doing so, provide a critique of both past and present attitudes to the prairie environment.<p> The introduction provides a philosophical and critical approach to my study of literature and of its historical context. It traces the anthropocentric values of "old world" immigrants to the dominant ideology that developed in post-Medieval Europe: the Western Judaeo-Christian worldview of dominion over Nature, the faith in science and technology, and the materialist ideals of capitalism and economic progress. It considers the role that prairie fiction played in creating the cultural values that led to the modification of the natural prairie landscape, and explores the potential of critical theory to provide oppositional interpretations of the European settlement story. It then discusses the philosophical and theoretical framework of the ecocriticism that I use in my study of the interface between immigrant settlers, aboriginal people and the land.<p> Chapter One introduces the wilderness romance. It defines the terms which I use to describe immigrant, aboriginal and mixed-blood peoples. It points out that the transcendent nature of the romance makes it an ideal form for a body of literature that privileges civilization above wildness and culture above Nature. It shows how the quest structure of the wilderness romance endorses the values of Western civilization, and uses a legend from one of these romances in order to illustrate the way in which they empower the dominant culture. Chapter One concludes by showing how the English-language definitions of "wild" and "civilized" work to elevate the culture of "old world" immigrants above the traditions of a semi-nomadic wilderness people.<p> Chapter Two looks at the ambivalence to wildness apparent in two examples of the wilderness romance: R. M. Ballantyne's The Young Fur Traders, or Snowflakes and Sunbeams: A Tale of the Far North (1856) and William F. Butler's Red Cloud: A Tale of the Great Prairie (1882). It discusses both authors' use of Edenic imagery in their descriptions of the great Northwest, their differing views of aboriginal people and their pragmatic conclusions to the heroes' wilderness quest. It examines the implications of the protagonists' return to a prosperous, mercantile civilization, and points out that Ballantyne and Butler failed to recognize the incompatibility of their simultaneous images of the West as pristine wilderness and future home of a flourishing industrial economy.<p> Chapter Three looks at the civilizing impact of Victorian Christianity in two examples of missionary fiction: R. M. Ballantyne's The Prairie Chief: A Tale (1886) and Egerton Ryerson Young's Oowikapun or How the Gospel Reached the Nelson River Indians (1896). It suggests that both novels privilege civilization above wildness by equating Christianity with the order and domestic virtue of Victorian culture and by equating native spirituality with untamed Nature. Since Christianity was an unquestioned good in the Victorian hegemony, and native spirituality a threat to Christian dominance, the values of civilization basked in the reflected virtue of Anglo-Protestant ideology while wilderness and Nature were tarnished by their association with pagan superstition and evil. Chapter Three shows how the successful achievement of the heroes' wilderness quests involves bringing the light of Christian civilization to the darkness of the heathen wilderness.<p> Chapter Four examines the process of cultural genocide in two fur trade novels. It looks at the way in which Agnes Laut uses the captivity narrative in Lords of the North (1900) to illustrate the savage behavior of the uncivilized Indian, and the way in which Hulbert Footner uses the adventure story in The Fur Bringers: A Story of the Canadian Northwest (1920) to portray native and mixed-blood people as either wicked and cunning or naive, childlike and dependent. It shows how the authors attempt to invalidate the traditional culture of a wilderness people by comparing its apparent weaknesses with the stronger, morally superior culture of their white protagonists. Both novels thus validate the obliteration of aboriginal traditions and their replacement by the values and institutions of Western civilization.<p>Chapter Five uses three novels to explore the way in which romance writers used stories of native "rebellion" to justify the suppression of political resistance. Joseph Collins, an ardent Canadian nationalist, wrote Louis Riel The Rebel Chief (1885) to inflame Eastern opinion against the Metis "rebels" who threatened to destroy his vision of a strong and united nation; this chapter looks at his use of historical misrepresentation, inflammatory language and tragic melodrama to discredit the "barbarian" forces that threatened imperial law and order. Ralph Connor's later account of an abortive 1885 Indian uprising, in Corporal Cameron (1912) and The Patrol of the Sun Dance Trail (1914), is more sympathetic towards native people but it, too, privileges white civilization by equating the interests of immigrant ' settlers with the public good. By further associating the Indian and Metis "rebels" with the disorder and chaos of wild Nature, Collins and Connor helped to invalidate native resistance and to ensure Anglo-Canadian victory over the degraded "savages."<p> Chapter Six looks at the connection between patriarchal power and the "old world" social order in Harwood Steele's Mounted Police romance, Spirit-of-Iron (1923). It shows how Steele privileges civilization above wildness by glorifying a para-military hierarchy based upon "masculine" strength and adherence to the values of Empire. Power accrues in Steele's novel to men whose fists and nerve and endurance enable them to enforce their will on women and Nature and weaker men. Chapter Six looks at the way in which this power hierarchy helped to convert an unproductive wilderness into a prosperous British colony, and reveals the enormous costs that women unwittingly pay for the privilege of supporting key (masculine) players in the drive towards "progress."<p> Chapter Seven explores the connection between patriarchal man's dominance of woman and Nature in Douglas Durkin's The Heart of Cherry McBain (1919) and The Lob stick Trail (1921). It illustrates the symbiotic relationship between male dominance and economic progress in the building of two important patriarchal institutions--the railway and the mining industry. Durkin's novels cast a romantic glow over the men who risked life and capital to build roadbeds and to develop the mineral resources of the Northwest; Chapter Seven, however, shows how the rules which govern this development empower men at the expense of women and Nature, and reveals the high human and ecological costs of denying integrity to both the feminine and the natural world.<p> Chapter Eight introduces the homesteading romance. It notes the conflicting impulses behind popular images of the West as pastoral utopia: the settler wants to create both an arcadian garden in the wilderness and a prosperous outpost of a mercantile civilization. It discusses the philosophical origins of the industrial market economy, and looks at the social, economic and ecological costs of commercial, export-oriented agriculture on the Canadian prairies. Chapter Eight notes the absence of indigenous and mixed-blood people in the homesteading romance, and discusses the unrealized potential of traditional Metis culture to provide immigrants with an ecologically appropriate response to the "new world". It discusses one French-Canadian novel, Georges Bugnet's Nipsya (1924; trans. 1929), which provides the only significant study of Metis culture in early prairie fiction.<p> Chapter Nine looks at two novels which served as homesteading manuals for would-be immigrants. Both Alexander Begg's "Dot It Down;" A Story of Life in the North-West (1871) and W. H. P. Jarvis's The Letters of a Remittance Man to His Mother (1908) provide advice on farming for profit. Chapter Nine looks at the development of export agriculture on the prairies, and considers the role that Begg's and Jarvis's novels played in promoting high production and prosperity as the goals of farming. It points out that neither novel considers the economic climate created by a national policy which privileged business interests above the interests of farming, and concludes that they are therefore not only flawed guides to the development of sustainable agriculture but also unrealistic proponents of a materialist utopia.<p> Chapter Ten looks at the contribution of two English novelists to the anthropocentric ideal of mastering wild Nature. Harold Bindloss's and Mrs. Humphrey Ward's prairie fiction portray strong, virile man who carve farms from the wilderness and transform "wasteland" into wheatfields. Guided by a dream of dominion over the natural world, they are rewarded both by wealth and by marriage to well-born English maidens. Bindloss and Ward celebrate the heroism of the stalwart men whose agricultural victories provide prosperity for the Canadian North West and bread for the people of England; Chapter Ten, however, traces the cultural roots of current environmental problems to anthropocentric values such as those embedded in their novels.<p> Chapter Eleven examines the part that literature played in integrating "foreign" immigrants into an essentially British society. It looks at the process of assimilation in four prairie novels: Ralph Connor's The Foreigner: A Tale of Saskatchewan (1909), Flos Jewell Williams's New Furrows: A Story of the Alberta Foothills (1926), Eric Gill's Love in Manitoba (1911) and Laura Goodman Salverson's The Viking Heart (1923). These novels equate becoming a good Canadian with adoption of the mercantile ideals of economic progress and with rejection of the peasant ideals of self-sufficiency. As Chapter Eleven points out, they helped to obliterate the values of an "old world" peasantry which viewed land as sacred and simultaneously strengthened the Western imperative of human dominion over Nature.<p> Chapter Twelve discusses the industrialization of agriculture in Robert Stead's Grain (1926). It points out that although Stead was critical of the greed and materialism that accompanied Western settlement, his novels reflect the anthropocentrism endemic to early prairie fiction. It looks at Stead's treatment of the homesteader's "sacred" mission to subdue the earth. It examines the historical context in which Grain is situated, and it discusses Stead's ambivalent--although ultimately favourable--response to the phenomenon of farm mechanization.<p> Chapter Thirteen contrasts Western man's quest for wealth and power with woman's oppositional quest for healing community. Using Martha Ostenso's Wild Geese (1925), Arthur Stringer's Prairie trilogy (1915-22) and representative fiction of Nellie McClung (1908-25) as texts, it explores the way in which these writers privilege nurturing relationships above the exploitative relationships that characterize prairie agriculture. Stringer's heroine condemns her husband's obsession with money and power, and proposes an alternative ideology based upon love of family and home. Ostenso's Judith Gare rebels against patriarchal tyranny. McClung's protagonists serve as compassionate caregivers who view the land as a resource that provides sustenance--not wealth--for its human inhabitants. In their common opposition to an androcentric culture based on power over women and the land, these novels portray the feminine quest for healing community and for harmony between humans and their prairie home.<p> Chapter Fourteen looks at two examples of early prairie realism--Frederick Philip Grove's Settlers of the Marsh (1925) and Our Daily Bread (1928). It discusses Grove's love for the prairie landscape, his admiration for the self-sufficient man of the soil, his distaste for economic ambition and his tragic view of life. It contrasts the tragic realism of Our Daily Bread with the comic spirit of reconciliation in Settlers of the Marsh, and suggests that the latter proves better adapted than tragedy as a form in which to cast the heroes' quest for nurturing community. <p>The Conclusion examines the role of the critic as social prophet and revisionary historian. It discusses the role of myth in influencing the course of history, summarizes the cultural impact of the myth of progress created by the wilderness and homesteading romance, notes the existence--and importance--of an oppositional quest for a harmonious relationship with the land, and reviews the role of bioregionalism, deep ecology and ecofeminism in providing the philosophical basis for a sustainable culture appropriate to the prairie bioregion. It considers the responsibility of both homesteaders and turn-of-the-century business entrepreneurs for current environmental degradation, and concludes that the dominant interests of urban politicians, consumers and business people have always been the impetus to agricultural expansion and the continuing depletion of prairie soils.

Heterogeneity, the degree of dissimilarity, is one of the most important and widely applicable concepts in ecology. It is highly related to ecosystem conditions and features wildlife habitat. Grasslands have been described as inherently heterogeneous because their composition and productivity are highly variable across multiple scales. Therefore, biological heterogeneity can be an indicator of ecosystem health. The mixed prairie in Canada, characterized by its semiarid environment, sparse canopy, and plant litter, offers a challenging region for environmental research using remote sensing techniques. This thesis dwells with the plant canopy heterogeneity of the mixed prairie ecosystem in the Grasslands National Park (GNP) and surrounding pastures by combining field biological parameters (e.g., grass cover, leaf area index, and biomass), field collected hyperspectral data, and hierarchical resolution satellite imagery. The thesis scrutinized four aspects of heterogeneity study: the importance of scale in grassland research, relationships between biological parameters and remotely collected data, methodology of measuring biological heterogeneity, and the influence of climatic variation on grasslands biological heterogeneity. First, the importance of scale is examined by applying the semivariogram analysis on field collected hyperspectral and biophysical data. Results indicate that 15 - 20 m should be the appropriate resolution when variations of biological parameters and canopy reflectance are sampled. Therefore, it is reasonable to use RADARSAT-1, Landsat TM, and SPOT images, whose resolutions are around 20 m, to assess the variation of biological heterogeneity. Second, the efficiency of vegetation indices derived from SPOT 4 and Landsat 5 TM images in monitoring the northern mixed prairie health was examined using Pearsons correlation and stepwise regression analyses. Results show that the spectral curve of the grass canopy is similar to that of the bare soil with lower reflectance at each band. Therefore, vegetation indices are not necessarily better than reflectance at green and red wavelength regions in extracting biological information. Two new indices, combining reflectance from red and mid infrared wavelength regions, are proposed to measure biological parameters in the northern mixed prairie. Third, texture analysis was applied to quantify the biological variation in the grasslands. The textural parameters of RADARSAT imagery correlated highly with standard deviation of the field collected canopy parameters. Therefore, textural parameters can be applied to study the variations within the mixed prairie. Finally, the impacts of climatic variation on grassland heterogeneity at a long time scale were evaluated using Advanced Very High Resolution Radiometer (AVHRR) , Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI), Maximum Value Composite (MVC), and SPOT Vegetation NDVI MVC imagery from 1993 to 2004. A drought index based on precipitation data was used to represent soil moisture for the study area. It was found that changes of temperature and precipitation explain about 50% of the variation in AVHRR NDVI (i.e., temporal heterogeneity) of the northern mixed prairie. Trend line analysis indicates that the removal of grazing cattle carry multiple influences such as decreasing NDVI in some parts of the upland and valley grassland and increasing NDVI in the valley grassland. Results from this thesis are relevant for park management by adjusting grassland management strategies and monitoring the changes in community sizes. The other output of the thesis is furthering the remote sensing investigation of the mixed prairie based on information of the most appropriate resolution imagery.

The thesis begins with a notion to design a school of architecture in Saskatchewan. The context, at first, appears overwhelmingly basic: an agricultural grid superimposed on a horizontal plain, under an endless sky. This formulaic description cannot capture what it is to experience the place. Stemming from this archetypal divide between earth and sky, the character of the prairies develops through a series of pairs. Each four-part section begins by setting up a polarity; on one side, a grid, and on the other, a ghost. The intersection of these two elements is illustrated through an interface and a segment of time. With each added layer, the polarities become increasingly entwined. The school of architecture is located, conceptually, in this space of reciprocity. The physical site is an industrial wasteland near the centre of Saskatoon, bounded on the east and west sides by two sets of train tracks. A timber and masonry warehouse, constructed for the John Deere Plow Company in 1910, is located along the end of the spur line to the east. The school of architecture finds itself within this building. The view down the tracks provides a glimpse of the prairie fields; the nondescript site itself alludes to this Deleuzian smooth space beyond the city limits. Even as it precisely situates and contains itself in this physical urban context, the school of architecture internalizes the dream of the prairie landscape. It is an educational institution and an incubator for the architectural imagination.