Phylogeography and population genetics of key steppe species: Artemisia frigida Willd. (Anthemideae, Asteraceae)

The present thesis elucidates facts about a prominent steppe plant’s evolutionary history (i.e., geographic origin, migration route, distribution of genealogical lineages and polyploidization events) and contemporary population divergence (i.e., genetic diversity and differentiation, impacts of abiotic and biotic factors). Artemisia frigida has been chosen as the target species, with Mongolia as the focus study region. Because A. frigida is widely distributed in the both New and Old Worlds, it was a suitable candidate for the phylogeographic study. Moreover, because of its dominance in many communities in Mongolian steppes and tolerance for cold, drought and mechanical disturbances (grazing), evaluating the effect of environmental factors and grazing pressures on its population genetics was profitable. The overall goal of this thesis was to assess the effects of paleo- and current climate, and land use changes on the distribution of A. frigida’s genealogical lineages and genetic variations. The thesis is divided into two main parts: (i) Chapter 3 focuses on Phylogeography. Within this, section 3.3 depicts a study on the phylogeography of A. frigida, covering samples from its distributional range across the northern hemisphere. The study resulted in Asia being the species’ main origination and diversification center, and the species spread northwards to the Russian Far East and eventually crossed the Bering Strait to North America. Among four geographical regions sampled, seven genetic lineages were found, with Middle Asia having the most diverse populations. According to our phylogenetic analysis, two populations of Kazakhstan in Middle Asia represented the most likely ancestral diploids, and subsequent polyploidization events have occurred on several occasions independently. The observed phylogeographic patterns of the species showed that paleoclimate, especially glaciation events of the Quaternary has predominantly affected species’ current distribution, along with the expansion and contraction of the Eurasian steppe. The second part (Chapter 4) is dedicated to Population genetics to reveal the effects of the current climate and land use on population genetic variation. Three studies were conducted at local and regional levels, focusing on Mongolia. The first study (Section 4.1- review of local literature) was done to offer background information about Mongolian steppes, and the effects of climate and grazing on the steppe vegetation. As a result, steppe vegetation responded to grazing in different ways, depending on the interplay of local environmental factors. In particular, an overall negative effect of grazing was found in desert, dry and high mountain steppes, but no or even positive effects in meadow and mountain steppes. The study highlighted the importance of the interaction effect of local environmental conditions and grazing in Mongolian steppe vegetation. The second study (Section 4.2) employed large scale climatic gradient and local scale grazing gradients to assess the effects of grazing and environmental factors on the population genetics of A. frigida. Precipitation gradient covered 110 – 300mm difference of mean annual precipitation from central to southern Mongolia. While three levels of grazing gradient, such as heavy, moderate, and least grazed sites were examined. According to the study, grazing in overall, had no substantial effect on the genetic diversity of A. frigida, while environmental factors, i.e., summer precipitation and soil phosphorous content, promoted high genetic diversity. Genetic differentiation among populations across large climatic gradients was extremely low, suggesting the existence of considerable gene flow among populations across the steppes of Mongolia. The third study (Section 4.3) employed grazing exclosures to evaluate the genuine effects of grazing. Because Mongolia has a long-term nomadic pastoralism history, and grazing of large herbivores is already an integral part of the steppe vegetation. Thus, we utilized reference site fences along the Trans-Mongolian Railway (TMR), where fences have been built and maintained since 1955, resulting in over 60 years of grazing exclusion. In addition, we supplemented this with data from Hustai National Park (HNP), where three fences were established in 2003. As a result, we found a significant positive impact of grazing on the genetic diversity of A. frigida, implying that a certain level of grazing is beneficial for the species. While no grazing effect on the population genetic differentiation was detected, but climatic and soil variables strongly influenced population genetic structure. In summary, this thesis provided an in-depth investigation of the phylogeography and population genetics of the species A. frigida, which can stand as an exemplar for other Eurasian steppe species. Paleoclimate had largely shaped the current distribution pattern of the species, while contemporary climate and environmental heterogeneity promoted species’ polyploidization and genetic variation. Grazing by large herbivores showed no detrimental effect, or even a positive impact on the genetic diversity of A. frigida. Artemisia frigida populations in Mongolia are thus apparently genetically ‘healthy’, in spite of pervasive grazing in the region. Climate variables and environmental heterogeneity had a substantial impact on the species’ both genetic diversity and differentiation, indicating its higher sensibility to climate change than to land use change. The findings of the thesis could be valuable in understanding species genetic variation under global land use and climate changes.:Summary 4 List of Abbreviations 6 Chapter 1. Introduction 8 Chapter 2. Material and methods 10 2.1. Study region: Mongolian steppe 10 2.2. Focus species: Artemisia frigida Willd. 11 2.3. Molecular markers 12 Chapter 3. Phylogeography 13 3.1. Eurasian steppe and its evolutionary history 13 3.2. Artemisia L. (Asteraceae) as model plant for phylogeography 16 3.3. A case study: Phylogeography of Artemisia frigida Willd. 19 Chapter 4. Plant population genetics under changing climate and grazing……. 40 4.1. Climate – grazing interactions in Mongolian steppe 41 4.2. Climate – grazing interactions on plant population genetics 59 4.3. Effect of grazing exclusion on plant populations genetics 83 Chapter 5. Overarching synthesis and discussion 101 5.1. Molecular markers: pros and cons 102 5.2. A review of phylogeographical studies on Eurasian steppe plants 104 5.3. A review on plant population genetic studies in Mongolia 109 5.4. Outlook 113 Acknowledgements 114 References 115 Curriculum vitae 137 Confirmation 14

Information fusion for automated question answering

Until recently, research efforts in automated Question Answering (QA) have mainly focused on getting a good understanding of questions to retrieve correct answers. This includes deep parsing, lookups in ontologies, question typing and machine learning of answer patterns appropriate to question forms. In contrast, I have focused on the analysis of the relationships between answer candidates as provided in open domain QA on multiple documents. I argue that such candidates have intrinsic properties, partly regardless of the question, and those properties can be exploited to provide better quality and more user-oriented answers in QA.Information fusion refers to the technique of merging pieces of information from different sources. In QA over free text, it is motivated by the frequency with which different answer candidates are found in different locations, leading to a multiplicity of answers. The reason for such multiplicity is, in part, the massive amount of data used for answering, and also its unstructured and heterogeneous content: Besides am¬ biguities in user questions leading to heterogeneity in extractions, systems have to deal with redundancy, granularity and possible contradictory information. Hence the need for answer candidate comparison. While frequency has proved to be a significant char¬ acteristic of a correct answer, I evaluate the value of other relationships characterizing answer variability and redundancy.Partially inspired by recent developments in multi-document summarization, I re¬ define the concept of "answer" within an engineering approach to QA based on the Model-View-Controller (MVC) pattern of user interface design. An "answer model" is a directed graph in which nodes correspond to entities projected from extractions and edges convey relationships between such nodes. The graph represents the fusion of information contained in the set of extractions. Different views of the answer model can be produced, capturing the fact that the same answer can be expressed and pre¬ sented in various ways: picture, video, sound, written or spoken language, or a formal data structure. Within this framework, an answer is a structured object contained in the model and retrieved by a strategy to build a particular view depending on the end user (or taskj's requirements.I describe shallow techniques to compare entities and enrich the model by discovering four broad categories of relationships between entities in the model: equivalence, inclusion, aggregation and alternative. Quantitatively, answer candidate modeling im¬ proves answer extraction accuracy. It also proves to be more robust to incorrect answer candidates than traditional techniques. Qualitatively, models provide meta-information encoded by relationships that allow shallow reasoning to help organize and generate the final output

3D Remote Sensing Applications in Forest Ecology: Composition, Structure and Function

Dear Colleagues, The composition, structure and function of forest ecosystems are the key features characterizing their ecological properties, and can thus be crucially shaped and changed by various biotic and abiotic factors on multiple spatial scales. The magnitude and extent of these changes in recent decades calls for enhanced mitigation and adaption measures. Remote sensing data and methods are the main complementary sources of up-to-date synoptic and objective information of forest ecology. Due to the inherent 3D nature of forest ecosystems, the analysis of 3D sources of remote sensing data is considered to be most appropriate for recreating the forest’s compositional, structural and functional dynamics. In this Special Issue of Forests, we published a set of state-of-the-art scientific works including experimental studies, methodological developments and model validations, all dealing with the general topic of 3D remote sensing-assisted applications in forest ecology. We showed applications in forest ecology from a broad collection of method and sensor combinations, including fusion schemes. All in all, the studies and their focuses are as broad as a forest’s ecology or the field of remote sensing and, thus, reflect the very diverse usages and directions toward which future research and practice will be directed

Gendering the Field

The chapters in this book offer concrete examples from all over the world to show how community livelihoods in mineral-rich tracts can be more sustainable by fully integrating gender concerns into all aspects of the relationship between mining practices and mine affected communities. By looking at the mining industry and the mine-affected communities through a gender lens, the authors indicate a variety of practical strategies to mitigate the impacts of mining on women’s livelihoods without undermining women’s voice and status within the mine-affected communities. The term ‘field’ in the title of this volume is not restricted to the open-cut pits of large scale mining operations which are male-dominated workplaces, or with mining as a masculine, capital-intensive industry, but also connotes the wider range of mineral extractive practices which are carried out informally by women and men of artisanal communities at much smaller geographical scales throughout the mineral-rich tracts of poorer countries

M.A.P.S. Digest, vol.17 no.4 (April 1994)

https://ir.uiowa.edu/midamericapaleo/1139/thumbnail.jp

Dinosaur Representation in Museums: How the Struggle Between Scientific Accuracy and Pop Culture Affects the Public Perception of Mesozoic Non-Avian Dinosaurs in Museums

This thesis examines the struggle of museums to keep up with swiftly advancing scientific discoveries relating to the study and display of Mesozoic (approximately 250 million years to 65 million years ago) non-avian dinosaurs. The paper will explore the history of dinosaur discoveries, their display methodologies in museums, and how pop culture, including movies and video games, have influenced museum displays and public perception over time. The lack of updated dinosaur exhibits in smaller local museums leads to disbelief, or an outright denial, of new information such as feathered dinosaurs. Entertainment, such as movies and video games that have non-avian dinosaurs as part of their presentation, are examined over the past thirty years to determine how accurate or inaccurate they are to the understanding of dinosaurs from their respective years. An informal survey was conducted at the Buffalo Museum of Science during April 2019, asking visitors to give their feedback on the Rethink Extinct exhibit. The author visited several museums and included their dinosaur exhibits in this thesis for comparison. These include the Museum of the Earth in Ithaca, New York, The American Museum of Natural History in New York City, and the Los Angeles Natural History Museum in Los Angeles, California. Additional information from the Smithsonian Museum of Natural History is included regarding their process of updating their Dinosaur Hall Exhibit. Comparing museum inaccuracies in both large and small museums, it was discovered that smaller museums are more heavily impacted by pop culture and are less prone to attend to details that offer up to date interpretations of their dinosaur exhibits

'Living from loan to loan': tracing networks of gifts, debt and trade in the Mongolian borderlands

This thesis explores the reliance on diverse economic networks in the margins of the neoliberal Mongolian state. Despite wanting to be included in contemporary economic and political narratives, residents of the border town of Magtaal feel largely neglected by the contemporary state and its political representatives. The remoteness of Magtaal, the recent Mongolian economic crisis and the inflation of cash money have submerged the township into a ‘regime of debt’ (Sneath 2012) manifested in what locals call ‘living from loan to loan’—subsisting off temporally-spaced cash influxes from bank loans and other sources. Yet, residents have appropriated these local economic, political and legal ambiguities through the creation of debt-motivated and/or resource extractive networks that engender monetary returns for the township. Through experience living and traveling with cross-border natural resource bulkers, local moneylenders and debt-based trade participants, this thesis explores debt-motivated economic networks that function to mobilize and distribute diverse sources of value. The power of these lies in their ability to bridge the multiple disjunctures between the bank-based formal system and the temporalities and values of the local social world. For one, these networks are driven by bank-based debt, yet enabled by social-based, ‘gift-like’ (Pedersen 2016) debt. Additionally, these chains can ‘translate’ (Tsing 2015) across moral worlds through the inclusion of local registers of patronage, care, assistance and prestige into economic calculi. As a result, these networks are increasingly utilized and morally sanctioned for their provisioning and distribution functions in lieu of the state. But in doing so, cosmoeconomic narratives are reconceptualized to sanction the increasing monetization, financialization and resource extraction in the Mongolian economic landscape