Women and the American Wilderness: Responses to Landscape and Myth

Women and the American Wilderness: Responses to Landscape and Myth explores three, middle to upper-class white women\u27s responses to wilderness from texts published between 1823 and 1939. Through an exploration of James Fenimore Cooper\u27s heroine Elizabeth Temple in the novel The Pioneers (1823), Isabella Bird\u27s published letters entitled A Lady\u27s Life in the Rocky Mountains (1873), and Muriel Rukeyser\u27s reaction to the Gauley Bridge Tragedy of the 1930s in her book of poems The Book of the Dead (1939), I show that women\u27s responses to the American wilderness not only included a reaction to the physical terrain but also to the developing or established masculine myth of the American wilderness and concept of Manifest Destiny. In chapter one of my study, I show that Elizabeth Temple counters the developing masculine myth of the wilderness through her active engagement with the outdoors and challenges the passive, home-bound femininity being espoused in the 1820s. Despite her challenge to hegemonic gender norms, however, she does not challenge the established patriarchal power hierarchy but utilizes her class privilege within it to gain her own desires, thereby often reinforcing the racism and classism of her time. As I argue in chapter two, the real life Isabella Bird had to carefully negotiate between her own desires for wilderness adventure and socially-sanctioned standards of femininity. In order to maintain a respectable front, Bird capitalized on doctor-prescribed travel as her mode of escape from a home-bound life, and her careful self-representation and depictions of others along her route reinforces her feminine respectability as she climbs a mountain, takes long, solitary horseback riding excursions, and embraces solitude. Yet in her text Bird also does not challenge the masculine paradigm of the wilderness myth but uses her femininity to protect her character and justify her wilderness travels, thereby garnering the freedom associated with the wilderness for herself. As I argue in chapter three, however, Muriel Rukeyser\u27s depiction of the historical American wilderness undermines the masculine myth by highlighting the role of the other in America\u27s development. I also show how her text links the historical racism and classism undergirding the myth of the wilderness and concept of Manifest Destiny to the exploitation of lower-class workers, especially migrant African-American workers, who died from work-induced silicosis at Gauley Bridge, West Virginia, during the 1930s. Together, Cooper\u27s novel, Bird\u27s letters, and Rukeyser\u27s sequence of poems highlight the complexities that race, class, and gender bring to women\u27s reaction to wilderness and help us to begin to explore the multi-layered responses that women had to the American wilderness and wilderness myth in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries

Roosevelt Wild Life Annals

https://digitalcommons.esf.edu/rwlsannals/1004/thumbnail.jp

Exploring The Biogeography Of South American Rainforest Understory Birds Using Morphological Variation In The Wedge-Billed Woodcreeper (glyphorynchus Spirurus)

Tropical rainforests in the Amazon Basin show an extraordinarily high degree of biodiversity, the reasons for which are poorly understood. A number of biogeographical models have been proposed to account for the variation present within and among species, including birds. This study tests the predictive ability of six major historical vicariant biogeographical models (Andean uplift, marine incursion, Amazonian lake, river barrier, refuge, and river refuge) using a large data set of morphological characters in the Wedge-billed Woodcreeper (Glyphorynchus spirurus), a small understory songbird found mostly in terra firme tropical rain forest. It also characterizes variation in key morphological characters and tests the validity of the fourteen current subspecies in this species. Canonical discriminant analyses paired with cluster analyses and goodness-of-fit tests were used to test the biogeographical models, and discriminant function analyses were used in the subspecies revision. In all cases, measures were taken to address geographic uncertainty. We discovered that none of the six tested models fully predicted the observed morphological patterns in this species, that the marine incursion, lake, and Andean uplift models could be excluded entirely, and that the river barrier, refuge, and river refuge models showed predictive power in limited locations but not across the entire range. We also found that extensive clinal variation exists in the characters under study, and that at a diagnosability level of 95% only one current subspecies remained valid, but that several more exist as distinct entities at 90% and 75% levels of diagnosability. The use of a very high diagnosability level may impede the recognition of existing geographic variation and should be carefully considered. Various sources of geographic uncertainty were not found to have any effect on the trends discovered, but sparse sampling in some areas remains a problem. These results corroborate recent genetic studies which have questioned the current subspecies rankings, but they fail to recover the same biogeographical patterns found in other studies. Morphological variation in this species captures such a complex history that no single biogeographical model can be distinguished, a phenomenon which we name the palimpsest model

The arboriculture of West Country parks and gardens, 1660-1730

This investigation seeks to determine the appearance of West Country designed landscapes in the post-Restoration period, with particular emphasis on the use oftrees at each site. It also examines how earlier garden designs were adapted to reflect the new fashions of the late 16th and early 17th centuries and studies the physical evidence remaining in the field today. Contemporary illustrations (including 63 engravings by Kip and Knyff), garden treatises and other maps and documents are analysed for information on tree use. These sources, as well as fieldwork at six sites in Bristol and Gloucestershire, reveal that most West Country gardens were not created in the Franco-Dutch Grand Manner but were more restrained and simple. Their development was not only influenced by' fashion but by many other factors, including the physical nature ofthe site, the status of the owner and the meaning he wished to .give to his landscape. The main motive for tree-planting was to make a profit from wood and timber but trees were also used extensively in ornamental features (avenues, groves, rows and woods) which formed the skeleton on which the rest ofthe designed landscape was based. Much more survives ofpost-Restoration planting - in the form of living and dead trees, planting pits and other earthworks - than previously thought. /EThOS - Electronic Theses Online ServiceGBUnited Kingdo

Multiple responses by Cerulean Warblers to experimental forest disturbance in the Appalachian Mountains

The Cerulean Warbler (Setophaga cerulea) is a mature forest obligate and one of the fastest declining songbird species in the United States. This decline may be related to a lack of disturbance within contemporary forests; however, the consequences of disturbance on the species have not been rigorously evaluated. Thus, we assessed multiple responses by Cerulean Warblers to a range of experimental forest disturbances across the core of their breeding range in the Appalachian Mountains. We quantified individual and population responses to these manipulations, and assessed the potential consequences of disturbance on the sexual signaling system. Male ceruleans were strongly attracted to intermediate and heavy disturbances at the stand scale. Despite attraction to disturbed habitats, nest success declined in these conditions, particularly in the highly productive Cumberland Mountains of northern Tennessee. Taken together, these opposing responses suggest that anthropogenically-disturbed forests may act as local ecological traps, but the impact of these local traps on the global population is dependent on several unestimated parameters. At a finer scale, selection for habitat features varied spatially. Males consistently selected for territories near canopy gaps and on productive slopes, but they displayed inconsistent territory selection in regards to tree diameter, basal area, overstory canopy cover, and canopy height. Females were more consistent in their selection of features within territories, selecting nest patches with large, well-spaced trees near disturbances. Floristically, female ceruleans consistently selected for sugar maples (Acer saccharum), white oaks (Quercus alba), and cucumber magnolias (Magnolia acuminata) as nest trees and they selected against red maples (A. rubrum) and red oaks (Q. rubra). Disturbances had little effect on male age structure, but males that occupied disturbed forest habitat were in better condition than those in undisturbed habitat. Parental behavior differed among disturbances, with birds in more highly disturbed habitats provisioning their young at greater rates, but bringing smaller food loads, potentially helping to explain the decrease in nest survival in disturbances. Finally, we found that male ceruleans displayed various plumage ornaments that signaled individual quality. However, the relationship between breast band width and body mass was contingent on habitat, and only existed in intermediate disturbances

The mechanisms underlying convergent evolution in the plumage patterns of birds

Convergent evolution is a central theme in biology. Birds are an ideal system to examine the mechanisms underlying convergent evolution. Although bird patterning is diverse, within-feather patterns have repeatedly converged on the same four types: mottled patterns, scales, bars and spots. Other avian patterns occur, e.g. stripes, but are rare. In my thesis I examine the four main mechanisms underlying convergent evolution in plumage patterns: evolutionary genetics, evolutionary development, natural selection for signaling and camouflage. Japanese quail (Coturnix japonica) is a model system in developmental biology. Examining the developmental basis of pattern formation using molecular techniques, the dorsal patterning of embryonic quail is likely due to activation of the melanocortin-1 receptor, which is a highly conserved pathway in vertebrates. I examined whether a reaction-diffusion based theoretical model of pattern formation may predict developmental constraint in two groups that have different lifestyles and spectacular patterns: waterfowl (Anseriformes) and gamebirds (Galliformes). Tracing the evolutionary trajectory of pattern evolution with Bayesian comparative modeling there was evidence for developmental constraint in pattern evolution. Adaptive explanations may also result in convergence. Cuckoo-hawk mimicry has been demonstrated in the common cuckoo (Cuculus canorus) and the Eurasian sparrowhawk (Accipiter nisus), but may be prevalent in Old World cuckoos. Randomly selecting a parasitic cuckoo from each genera of Old World cuckoos and <8 sympatric raptors, I quantified their barred patterns using digital image analysis and found that parasitism can explain convergent evolution in the patterns of parasitic cuckoos and raptors. Patterns may have evolved due to ecological selection. Examining the patterns of 80% of all avian species worldwide, I found that habitat does not predict patterning, and that all four patterns are found in all habitats. These results demonstrate that the mechanisms of convergent evolution are diverse, and that development and natural selection have contributed to pattern evolution.The Cambridge Commonwealth, European and International Trust, the John Stanley Gardiner Fund, and the Pembroke college graduate research fund

The Victorian Naturalist

v.112 (1995

Roosevelt Wild Life Bulletin

https://digitalcommons.esf.edu/rwlsbulletin/1020/thumbnail.jp

Iowa Conservationist, May/June 2001, Vol. 60, no.3

This newsletter is produced by the Iowa Department of Natural Resources, formally Iowa State Conservation Commission. This newsletter contains news and stories relating to all aspects of hunting, fishing, trapping, conservation and utilizing the outdoor resources of Iowa

Trees to the sky : prehistoric hunting in New Ireland, Papua New Guinea

This dissertation investigates the nature of prehistoric hunting strategies in New Ireland, Papua New Guinea. New Ireland contains the earliest radiocarbon determinations for human occupation and therefore provides an opportunity to investigate colonisation. It also has a depauperate fauna compared to New Guinea and therefore provides an opportunity to investigate subsequent human adaptations. Hunting strategies are investigated through an analysis of the Buang Merabak faunal assemblage. The Buang Merabak assemblage contains prehistoric food refuse including shell and bone midden material and stone artefacts. The results of the faunal analysis are interpreted to investigate issues of resource use, land use and mobility. Resource use is reflected through prey selectivity and provides the opportunity to investigate the nature of hunting specialisation as a mechanism of adaptation. Prey taxa have discrete ecological requirements that are the parameters of their spatial distribution across the island. Notions of human land use are reflected through the spatial distribution of the prey taxa and are interpreted as a reflection of both on site and off site activities. In order to exploit each particular taxon the hunter must interact with the prey within the prey's environment. Therefore within the hunting context, human land use is reflected by the prey they capture and bring back to the site. Mobility is reflected through resource use and land use. The spatial distribution of the prey taxa reflects the distance the hunter must cover in order to capture the prey and return to the site. In this context, mobility is notionally a relative scale that rates the degree of movement required to exploit the resources reflected in the assemblage. The results are brought together to suggest a New Ireland specific model of behaviour that can be tested against further research. This dissertation argues that terrestrial faunas such as Dobsonia sp. bats and the Phalanger orienta/is were an important aspect of the Late-Pleistocene subsistence economy in New Ireland