Ecological communities are subsets of larger-scale species pools. Community assembly may be due to ecological drift, resulting in communities with a random set of species and functional traits. However, ecological selection ...

Deicing salts, widely utilized for snow and ice management, are recognized for their potential adverse environmental consequences, primarily associated with elevated chloride levels. These excessive chlorides in freshwater ...

Human activity represents a novel environmental challenge for wildlife, even for human-tolerant species that reside in human-dominated landscapes. Our long-term study of California ground squirrels (Otospermophilus beecheyi) ...

Anti-predator signals are common for animals living in social groups, for they act as a warning to conspecifics. Vocalizations, such as alarm calls, are common signals produced when social animals are faced with potential ...

Specific leaf area (SLA) is an important trait to analyze when looking at trends in plant investment strategies as it correlates with whole plant growth. Our research looked at three species of sunflowers as a model organism ...

Polyploidy is a condition in which organisms possess multiple sets of chromosomes as a result of nondisjunction events during meiosis. In most organisms, polyploidy results in sterility or lethality, making it difficult ...

Leaf detritus is an important energy source for streams. After initial decomposition by microorganisms, macroinvertebrates known as “shredders” feed on leaves and break them into small fragments. These fine particulates ...

Community assembly is the result of ecological selection processes, dispersal processes, and random drift processes. Selection processes can cause coexisting species to be more similar or more different in traits, depending ...

Antibiotics are produced by microorganisms to inhibit or kill other microorganisms, and they can be modified to be used against human pathogens. The same few classes of antibiotics have been continuously modified, and ...

Scientific literacy involves development of skills and knowledge to better understand how science works and what scientific evidence can tell us about the world. The UW-EC Liberal Education Framework addresses scientific ...