The Environmental Science and Design Symposium, formerly the Land and Water Symposium, is a multidisciplinary forum that promotes the exchange of ideas related to the resiliency of natural and built systems. This year’s theme, Complexity of Environmental Legacies, reflects the challenges of developing sustainable systems in landscapes transformed by decades of modification and contamination. Speakers from a wide range of disciplines (fashion, geology, geography, architecture, and ecology) will address topics related to urban, sustainability, restoration, and the integration of design with biological systems.

Browse the Environmental Science and Design Research Initiative 2019 Collections

« Previous | 11 - 15 of 56 | Next »

  • Ecotone effects on flying invertebrate communities in a temperate hardwood forest

    03/21/2019
    Transitional areas between ecosystems, called ecotones, are areas of biotic and abiotic change often leading to differences in plant communities and soil conditions. Invertebrate communities taking advantage of surrounding plant and soil conditions are likely to structure their own communities around favored resources. Flying invertebrates have the unique advantage of avoiding ground obstacles giving them a larger range to gather and utilize resources. As a result, flying invertebrate communities should be less strictly structured based on surrounding plant communities or abiotic factors. To test this, we conducted a survey of the flying invertebrate communities to compare to existing tree and soil surveys. We used baited traps to collect invertebrates during 4 separate collection time points, preserved samples in ethanol, and then sight-identified to lowest practical taxonomic level. This study was conducted in Jennings Woods, a temperate hardwood forest in NE Ohio comprised of unique ecosystems – riparian, upland, and bottomland forests – separated by elevational gradients, each with its own particular soil parameters. We found that, in general, the flying invertebrate community is not structured around the tree community nor the soil, as expected. However, community structure did show a relation to ecosystem type. We also found that diversity and richness were significantly different between ecosystems and dates. This suggests that there are ecosystem and time differences structuring flying invertebrate communities, but they are not limited by the surrounding soil and tree communities.
    Author:
    Format:
    Conference Proceeding

  • Epidemiology of Staphylococci collected from Boston-area wild rodents

    03/21/2019

    As Staphylococcus aureus strains evolve and gain resistance to antibiotics, the risk of bidirectional transmission of resistant strains between humans and animals increases. The objective of this study was to identify and type S. aureus among wild rodents in Boston, Massachusetts, to examine their genetic relationship to common human and animal isolates. A total of 168 bacterial isolates collected from 45 Brown rats (Rattus norvegicus) in Boston proper were analyzed. Polymerase chain reaction was used to detect the mecA and PVL genes. All S. aureus isolates were spa typed. A subset of isolates was characterized via multi-locus sequence typing (MLST). All S. aureus isolates were tested for antibiotic susceptibility. Overall prevalence of S. aureus was 11.9% (20/168). Of all S. aureus, 5.0% (1/20) were MRSA (based on detection of the mecA gene which encodes methicillin-resistance) and 95.0% (19/20) were methicillin-susceptible S. aureus (MSSA). All isolates tested resistant to benzylpenicillin. Two isolates were resistant to erythromycin and one isolate was resistant to four antibiotics, including oxacillin. Of the 20 isolates, 75.0% (15/20) were spa type t933. MLST results to date show that these are sequence type (ST) 1094. Additional molecular testing is ongoing. Our results indicate that wild rats from Boston, MA are carriers of S. aureus. Additional study is needed to examine the distribution of t933/ST1094, an uncommon strain previously found in ewes in Tunisia. Further research is warranted to identify and characterize lineages of S. aureus strains in order to minimize the risk of Staphylococcal infection from city rodents.
    Author:
    Format:
    Conference Proceeding