<p>  </p> <p>Invasive species are a prominent problem throughout the world due to the high economic and ecological impact they have on environments. The spongy moth, <em>Lymantria dispar</em>, is a well-known and intensely studied invasive species within the United States because of the high environmental (<em>e.g.</em>, defoliation) and economic (<em>e.g.</em>, management efforts) costs. Originally introduced in Massachusetts in 1869 their range now covers much of the Northeast and Midwest, with the potential to disperse much further. </p> <p><br></p> <p>The goal of this study is to determine how the landscape has influenced <em>L. dispar</em>’s invasion rate through least-cost resistance modeling. Resistance modeling is a technique that combines the biology of <em>L. dispar </em>and landscape connectivity to potentially explain the invasion rate. Landscape connectivity has varying effects on invasion dynamics depending on the spatial scale. Monitoring efforts for <em>L. dispar</em> have occurred at a small spatial scale throughout the entire range for many years, which now provides the opportunity to look at invasion dynamics at small spatial scales. Identifying the landscape’s influence on invasion dynamics at these scales can assist in targeting management efforts to areas that have a high likelihood of being invaded soon based on the landscape connectivity within the area. This targeted management strategy can potentially help to slow <em>L. dispar</em>’s establishment and dispersal ability and reduce management and monitoring costs.</p>

The interface between protected and communal lands presents certain challenges for wildlife conservation and the sustainability of local livelihoods. This is a particular case in South Africa, where foot-and-mouth disease (FMD), mainly carried by African buffalo (Syncerus caffer) is transmitted to cattle despite a fence surrounding the protected areas.The ultimate objective of this thesis was to improve knowledge of FMD transmission risk by analyzing behavioral patterns of African buffalo and cattle near the Kruger National Park, and by modelling at fine spatial scale the seasonal risk of contact between them. Since vegetation is considered as a primary bottom-up regulator of grazers distribution, I developed fine-scale seasonal mapping of vegetation. With that purpose, I explored the utility of WorldView-2 (WV-2) sensor, comparing object- (OBIA) and pixel-based image classification methods, and various traditional and advanced classification algorithms. All tested methods produced relatively high accuracy results (>77%), however OBIA with random forest and support vector machines performed significantly better, particularly for wet season imagery (93%).In order to investigate the buffalo and cattle seasonal home ranges and resource utilization distributions I combined the telemetry data with fine-scale maps on forage (vegetation components, and forage quality and quantity). I found that buffalo behaved more like bulk feeders at the scale of home ranges but were more selective within their home range, preferring quality forage over quantity. In contrast, cattle selected forage with higher quantity and quality during the dry season but behaved like bulk grazers in the wet season.Based on the resource utilization models, I generated seasonal cost (resistance) surfaces of buffalo and cattle movement through the landscape considering various scenarios. These surfaces were used to predict buffalo and cattle dispersal routes by applying a cumulative resistant kernels method. The final seasonal contact risks maps were developed by intersecting the cumulative resistant kernels layers of both species and by averaging all scenarios. The maps revealed important seasonal differences in the contact risk, with higher risk in the dry season and hotspots along a main river and the weakest parts of the fence. Results of this study can guide local decision makers in the allocation of resources for FMD mitigation efforts and provide guidelines to minimize overgrazing. / Doctorat en Sciences / info:eu-repo/semantics/nonPublished

Made available in DSpace on 2014-12-17T14:58:19Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 FernandoNS_DISSERT.pdf: 5044327 bytes, checksum: 66e88407297dda873c6a6d882b6de312 (MD5) Previous issue date: 2012-08-27 / Conselho Nacional de Desenvolvimento Cient?fico e Tecnol?gico / A batch of eighty-four coupons of low carbon steel were investigated at laboratory conditions under a corrosive, cavitative-corrosive (CO2) and corrosive-erosive (SiO2 + CO2) in an aqueous salt solution and two levels of temperature. The following measurements were made on Vickers (HV0,05, HV0,10, HV0,20) Microhardness tests at three levels of subsurface layer. A turbulent flow collided on the cylindrical sample, with and without mechanical stirring and gas bubbling, with and without fluid contamination by solid particles of SiO2, at two temperatures. Surface Roughness and Waviness, under two conditions "as received, after machining" and "after worn out", as well as gravimetric and electrochemical parameter were measured on the two opposite generatrices of each cylindrical sample, on the flow upstream (0?) and downstream (180?) by Profilometry, Mass Variation and Linear Polarization Resistance (LPR). The results of the Microhardness and Surface Texture of all coupons were subjected to statistical comparison, using the software Statgraphics? Centurion XVI, 95% statistical certainty, and significant differences were observed in some arrays of measurements. The corrosive wear rate measured by LPR and mass variation shown to be sensitive to the presence of bubbles and hydrodynamic fluctuations inside the cell, considering the temperature and contamination of corrosive fluid by solid particles. The main results of visual inspection relative to some topologies of the surface damages involving different mechanisms that were seen to give explanation for some fluctuations in wear rates of the steel experimentally investigated / Um lote de oitenta e quatro corpos-de-prova (CP) de a?o AISI 1018 foi investigado em laborat?rio sob solicita??es corrosivas, cavitativo-corrosivas (CO2) e erosivocorrosivas (SiO2+CO2) em meio aquoso salino e a duas temperaturas. Foram realizados ensaios de microdureza Vickers a tr?s n?veis de subsuperf?cie (HV0,05, HV0,10, HV0,20). Um fluxo agitado colidiu contra os CPs, em todas as condi??es de ensaio, sem e com agita??o mec?nica e borbulhamento de g?s, sem e com contamina??o do fluido por part?culas s?lidas de SiO2, nas duas temperaturas estudadas. A rugosidade e ondula??o superficial, nas condi??es como recebidos, ap?s usinagem e ap?s desgastados , bem como medi??es gravim?tricas e eletroqu?micas foram realizadas em duas geratrizes opostas de cada corpo-deprova, a montante (0?) e a jusante (180?), atrav?s das t?cnicas de perfilometria, varia??o m?ssica e resist?ncia de polariza??o linear (RPL). Os resultados da microdureza e da textura superficial em todos CPs foram submetidos ? compara??o estat?stica, utilizando-se o software Statgraphics? Centurion XVI e, com 95% de certeza estat?stica, diferen?as significativas foram observadas em alguns grupos de medidas. As medidas das taxas de desgaste corrosivo, por RPL e por varia??o m?ssica, demonstraram serem sens?veis ? presen?a de bolhas e ?s flutua??es hidrodin?micas no interior da c?lula, consideradas a temperatura e a contamina??o do fluido corrosivo por part?culas s?lidas. Apresentam-se, tamb?m, os principais resultados da inspe??o visual em que se evidenciam algumas topologias do dano superficial nas geratrizes a 0? e a 180?, involvendo diferentes mecanismos que foram presenciados, para justificar algumas flutua??es nas taxas de desgaste do a?o em estudo