The effects of urbanization and Co2 car emmissons on local bee abundance and species richness. Testing to see what drives bee populations and if there is a negative correlation between Co2 levels and bees' in urban, agricultural, and natural settings and which areas provide the most abundant resources.

My research project took place at the Arcata Marsh looking at two diving duck species (Greater Scaups and Buffle Heads) and determining whether water temperature or water clarity effect the the duck's duration underwater.

My research investigated further into the feeding preferences of hummingbirds, particularly on individuals in the Humboldt Botanical Garden. I focused on how hummingbirds select flowers to feed on based on color, as well as how they select which garden patch they feed at.

Cellulose composed of glucose monomers is the most abundant biopolymer on earth, as the primary component of the plant cell wall. The enzyme cellulase breaks down the polysaccharide through hydrolysis at the β-1,4-glycosidic linkages. As cellulose is the most ample renewable biological resource and has a low-cost energy source based on energy content. The objective of this study is to evaluate clones of putative cellulases for their activity compared to commercially available products and identify potential cellulase protein activity found in cow rumen in order to optimize biofuel production.

North American river otters are a regular sight to see in the Arcata Marsh and Wildlife Sanctuary and have been observed to exhibit different behaviors and activities in various locations of the marsh. By using ArcGIS Pro, visual observations of river otters made by Jeff Black over the course of two years have been mapped out depending on their behavior and activity. I focused on mapping three main behaviors that otters exhibit in the marsh: fishing for fish or invertebrates, hunting for birds, or traveling to/from or through the marsh.

Iron concentrations in the ocean are important for the health and success of the ocean because it is an essential micronutrient for phytoplankton. However, iron is insoluble in oxygenated seawater and so most iron precipitates and sinks out of the water column. Here we present a method to analyze these low concentrations of iron using flow injection analysis, which we built following Lohan et al. (2006).

The California Floristic Province (CFP) is a global hot-spot of biodiversity. Creating a database of plant distributions for the CFP is pivotal to define species’s conservation status. Students associated with the Herbarium used R to create precise polygons for the range of 62 species in the CFP. We accessed publicly occurrence repositories for our target species and used a protocol to remove outliers. Using these cleaned coordinates, we created polygons of the ranges and inferred the area in square kilometers. This information was used to create a preliminary histogram for CFP plant distribution, highlighting a high percentage of plant taxa with ranges smaller than Humboldt county.

Examining Corvus brachyrhynchos (American crow) habitat selection is valuable in understanding how this generalist species adapts to human-altered environments. Objectives of the study: Are crows utilizing a specific type of anthropogenic environment significantly more than the other? Is human and vehicle presence at the sites is significantly affecting crow abundance? I recorded observations of crow abundance at four sites in Arcata, CA, USA representing two habitat types; urban and agricultural. Analysis of my results showed that crows are significantly selecting urban sites over agricultural.

Consumption of human food by black bears (Ursus americanus) is a common and challenging problem for wildlife managers dealing with the species, because bears will readily use human-associated foods as an easily attainable energy source, especially when natural food sources are scarce .The result of human expansion is increased rates of encounters between humans and bears, particularly if bears are being forced to search farther and wider outside their home ranges for food. In this study I assessed variation in anthropocentric foods in bear diets. To accomplish this, I compared scat samples collected in Humboldt, CA from suburban and rural areas.

A new one-dimensional ocean wave model was derived and applied to the Humboldt Bay Channel. This model consists of the continuity equation and momentum equation which describe the incomprehensibility and movement of sea water. This model was digitized on a computer using the Octave programming language and simulations were ran for five different ocean swell scenarios. Wind generated this swell ranging in speed from 10 to 50 nautical miles per hour, yielding wavelengths in the range of 8.5 to 212 meters with wave speeds in the range of 2.8-14.8 meters/second. In all cases the measured speeds agreed the the theoretical shallow water wave speed.