Evaluation of Aerial Surveys to Monitor Fall-Winter Waterbird Populations in South Carolina

Aerial surveys are effective and cost-efficient for quantifying population size and habitat use of waterfowl and other waterbirds across vast and especially inaccessible landscapes. Surveys and associated data are critically important to understand population dynamics and to guide habitat management, land acquisition, and conservation decision-making. Due to cessation of the Midwinter Waterfowl Survey in 2016 and need for reliable surveys to monitor wintering waterbird populations in South Carolina, I evaluated fixed-wing, 250-m wide aerial strip-transect surveys during fall–winter 2016–2019. My objectives were to design efficient and affordable aerial survey methodologies to estimate waterbird abundance, distribution, and habitat use in South Carolina. To my knowledge, South Carolina currently is the only state in the Atlantic Flyway conducting probability based aerial surveys inland of the Atlantic Ocean. I revised survey strata following 2016–2017 surveys to reduce variation and increase survey efficiency. Overall, I reduced surveyed area by 38% but captured and retained 95% of waterfowl and other waterbird detections from 2016–2017 surveys. I used design-based analyses to estimate population indices (Î; abundance not corrected for detection bias) of dabbling ducks, diving ducks, total ducks, geese and swans, coots and gallinules, pelagic and piscivorous waterbirds, wading birds, and raptors. I desired an a priori goal of precision at coefficient of variation (CV) ≤ 15–20%. My January 2018–2019 estimates for total ducks (74,504 ≤ Î ≤ 102,421) were similar to estimates reported for Midwinter Waterfowl Surveys 2012–2015. However, I did not achieve desired precision for waterbirds during most surveys. Therefore, I estimated a theoretical survey effort to achieve CV = 20%. Increasing survey effort three-fold (i.e., ~66 flight hours = 7.5 days) theoretically would provide desired precision across all waterbird taxa. Furthermore, I suggest additional survey stratification of high density waterbird areas, optimal allocation of transects, geographically strategic increases in survey effort, and simulations to evaluate proposed variance-reduction methods. Moreover, I developed and advocate an adaptive monitoring framework to elicit and evaluate goals, improve precision, and optimize survey efficiencies of future waterbird surveys in South Carolina. I acknowledge population indices are inherently biased because they do not account for imperfect detection. Thus, we implemented two tandem-team simultaneous aerial observers in January and February 2018 and I analyzed data as replicated counts using N-mixture models to estimate detection probability, abundance, and species-habitat relationships for dabbling ducks, diving ducks, pelagic waterbirds, and wading birds. Model-based inference generally was comparable and more precise for dabbling and diving ducks (11% ≤ CV ≤ 27%) compared to single-observer, design-based estimation (17% ≤ CV ≤ 36%). However, both front- and rear-seat observers exhibited low detection probabilities across all taxa (p ≤ 0.35) and detection probability varied among habitats (i.e., open water, intermediate emergent marsh, and forest/scrub-shrub wetlands). Thus, I suggest using methods such as double or repeated sampling to minimize detection bias during aerial surveys for wintering waterfowl. Additionally, habitats influencing waterbird abundance were temporally dynamic between January and February 2018. Managed and non-managed historic rice fields influenced dabbling and diving duck abundances positively in January 2018 but not in February 2018. Complete drawdowns of managed impoundments following waterfowl hunting in late January may have influenced duck-habitat relationships in February 2018. N-mixture models provided benefit of estimating abundance, detection probability, and habitat associations in one consolidated analysis. Our results suggest these, and other hierarchical analytical approaches are promising, and similar methods could be adopted to improve monitoring and estimation of highly aggregated wintering waterbird populations. In summary, aerial surveys and analytical approaches used in my thesis have provided repeatable methodologies and advanced knowledge for monitoring wintering waterfowl and other waterbirds in South Carolina and elsewhere. I recommend continuance of these or integrated aerial and ground surveys in South Carolina

CO₂ Capture for Industries by Algae

The increased usage of fossil fuels has led to increase in the concentration of CO2, which is a greenhouse gas responsible for global warming. Algae-based CO2 conversion is a cost-effective option for reducing carbon footprint. In addition, algae-based CO2 mitigation strategy has the potential to obtain valuable products at the end of the process. In the present study, freshwater algal species were isolated and identified for CO2 capture, such as Hydrodictyon, Spirogyra, Oscillatoria, Oedogonium, and Chlorella. The algal strains were screened based on different parameters like fast growth rate, high rate of photosynthesis, strong tolerance to the trace constituents of other gases (gaseous hydrocarbons, NOx, SOx, etc.), high temperature tolerance, and possibility to produce high value products, etc. The study involves integrated methods for utilizing 90–99% CO2 from a natural gas processing industry (GAIL India, Ltd.) as well as 13–15% of CO2 from flue gas of thermal power plants (Chandrapura and Santaldih Thermal Power Station) as carbon nutrient source along with the additional nutritional supplements. A 400-ml and 25-l flat panel photo-bioreactor (PSI Photo-bioreactors) was used for CO2 capture. After CO2 capture, the algal biomass was used to extract value-added products such as amino acid rich feed, algal oil, algal pellets, etc

Social Identity Theory as a Framework for Understanding the Effects of Exposure to Positive Media Images of Self and Other on Intergroup Outcomes

Based on the tenets of social identity theory, a two-study experimental design was conducted which examined the influence of exposure to positive Latino media exemplars on ingroup (Latino) and outgroup (white) consumers. Specifically, the impact of exposure on interethnic evaluations as well as perceptions of self and other was evaluated. Results from Study 1 and Study 2 suggest that although exposure to positive media depictions of Latinos can prompt more favorable evaluations of ingroup and self among Latinos, the same cannot necessarily be said for the effects of exposure to affirmative messages on judgments about Latinos among outgroup members (i.e., whites). Instead, these data indicate that for whites, ingroup (racial/ethnic) identification is a potent factor in media-related interethnic evaluations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR

Molluscicidal effect of biogenic silica and botanical pesticides for the control of Achatina fulica (giant African land snail) and Laevicaulis alte (garden slug)

The molluscicidal effect of silica synthesized from rice husk ash (RHA) on snails (Achatina fulica Bowdich) and slugs (Laevicaulis alte Férussac) was assessed under laboratory conditions. The silica particles derived from RHA were also coated with leaf extracts (botanical pesticides): Azadirachta indica A. Juss, Pongamia pinnata (L.), Nicotiana tabacum (L.), and Calotropis procera (L.). The silica coated with plant extracts and the uncoated silica were applied to the molluscs in dust or slurry form. Inactivation, mortality, and body fluid loss in A. fulica and L. alte were observed over 24 h and recorded. The body fluid losses were 25%–42% for snails and 37%–62% for slugs that had been dusted with silica. During the experiment it was also noted that as the concentration of silica increased (0.15, 0.20, and 0.25 g), the time required for inactivation and mortality was reduced. The dust application was more effective than the slurry. The lower concentration of silica in the slurry (0.05 and 0.10 g) did not have any significant effect on A. fulica or L. alte. For A. fulica the biopesticide-coated silica particles were more effective when coated with neem, followed by tobacco and karanj; for L. alte, the particles were most effective when coated with tobacco, followed by neem and karanj. The plant extract (liquid as well as dry powder) without silica showed no molluscicidal effect on A. fulica and L. alte, except for some temporary inactivation, particularly with tobacco extract. The application of common salt, a practice often used by farmers, was also tested. It was observed that the effects of common salt on A. fulica and L. alte were less significant than those of silica coated with botanical pesticides.

Enhancing carbon sequestration in soil with coal combustion products: a technology for minimising carbon footprints in coal-power generation and agriculture

Coal-fired power generation and agriculture account for more than half of global greenhouse gas emissions, but the coal fly ash (CFA) produced in the former can be a resource for reducing emissions from agriculture to minimise environmental footprints in both industries. Our aim in this study was to test how acidic and alkaline CFA addition could minimise loss of C and N from acidic soil, with or without added manure. We determined composition and structural characteristics of acidic and alkaline CFA for their capacity to adsorb organic carbon, but observed poor adsorption because of low concentrations of cenospheres and unburnt carbon as the primary absorbents in the ash. Addition of CFA had no impact on the loss of carbon or nitrogen from unmanured soil in which concentrations of these nutrients were low. Loss of carbon from manured soil was reduced by 36% with alkaline ashes and by 3-fold with acidic ashes; while loss of N was 30–50% lower with acidic ashes, but 28% higher with alkaline ashes, compared with no ash treatment. The increases in C sparing with CFA addition were achieved not by direct C absorption but by restraining microbial population and respiration, and potentially emissions. Alkaline CFA increased soil pH and if used to substitute just 10% of lime for ameliorating soil acidity would reduce CO2 emission associated with the mining of the lime and its eventual dissolution in soil by ~ 2.66 Tg or 2.8% of Australia’s annual agricultural emissions. High concentrations of oxides of phosphorus, silicon, titanium and clay particles in acidic ashes, and oxides of cations in alkaline ashes, were associated with potential for promoting C storage and acidity amelioration in soil

Site-specific seeding using multi-sensor and data fusion techniques : a review

Site-specific seeding (SSS) is a precision agricultural (PA) practice aiming at optimizing seeding rate and depth, depending on the within field variability in soil fertility and yield potential. Unlike other site-specific applications, SSS was not adopted sufficiently by farmers due to some technological and practical challenges that need to be overcome. Success of site-specific application strongly depends on the accuracy of measurement of key parameters in the system, modeling and delineation of management zone maps, accurate recommendations and finally the right choice of variable rate (VR) technologies and their integrations. The current study reviews available principles and technologies for both map-based and senor-based SSS. It covers the background of crop and soil quality indicators (SQI), various soil and crop sensor technologies and recommendation approaches of map-based and sensor-based SSS applications. It also discusses the potential of socio-economic benefits of SSS against uniform seeding. The current review proposes prospective future technology synthesis for implementation of SSS in practice. A multi-sensor data fusion system, integrating proper sensor combinations, is suggested as an essential approach for putting SSS into practice