A 16S & ITS Soil Microbiome Analysis of Native & Old-World Bluestem Invaded Soils of Kansas Grasslands

Invasive species are becoming an increasing problem throughout the world. Their effect on local ecosystems is detrimental and widespread, harming productive efforts such as biomass accumulation, forcing native species (plant, animals, microbes) out, and ultimately, reducing biodiversity. Investigations of how invasive plants spread are widely studied; however, there has been little to no examination of how native plants influence the microbiome in the surrounding soil. In this study, I performed a fungal and bacterial metagenomic analysis of the soil and root microbiomes of both native grasslands and grasslands invaded by Old-World Bluestem Grasses to help determine if they influence the soil microbiome to assist in their invasion. Old-World Bluestem Grasses are grasses in the Bothriochloa genus, namely Bothriochloa ischaemum and Bothriochloa bladhii. Utilizing the QIIME2 software platform, I performed a variety of comparative diversity analyses between the two types of grasslands sampled across Kansas. The fungal portion of the microbiome seemed mostly unaffected by species of grass and their native vs. invasive status; however, location played a much large role in which fungi were present and their abundance. The bacterial component was also mostly unaffected by any variable; these being species, nativity, and location. This result may have been strongly influenced by both poor read count and the number of operational taxonomic units that could be assembled. In conclusion, location was what affected the fungal microbiome with nativity showing a measurable but insignificant effect; the bacterial portion was inconclusive due to the poor read counts and operational taxonomic unit assembly

Ecological libertarianism: the case for nonhuman self-ownership

2016 Spring.Includes bibliographical references.To view the abstract, please see the full text of the document

The Modern Urban Neighborhood: the Role of Dwelling in Neighborhood Revitalization

Today\u27s architects, planners and urban designers are tasked with the goal of the revitalization of cities and the primary ring of neighborhoods which surround them. These neighborhoods are vital to the life of the city and due to the phenomena of suburbanization many lay dormant as dismal reminders of the once prosperity of the city. The purpose of this exploration is to create a model for the revitalization of urban neighborhoods by looking at the role of dwelling in the process of revitalization. The idea that an urban dwelling is not just your home but it is a series of connected environments which are used by a person is the basis for redesigning these derelict urban neighborhoods. Studying how these environments can form community by fostering interaction among its users is vital to understanding how urban neighborhoods work as a unified whole in supporting the city

SAAH Scaping

Time outside of class is an opportunity to reflect and refresh. My studies in 3D Design have taught me how a space should serve its function. In this honors project I chose to conceptualize an outdoor landscape that takes into account its role for students and connects the University of Iowa Art Building West and Visual Arts Building using plants native to Iowa to motivate and inspire students in Art and learning new techniques in computer aided design to clearly depict my concept. I began by shooting reference pictures of the art buildings and compiling maps and textures to draw inspiration for how I would organize the space.To make the space feel open and inviting for students to engage with or simply enjoy passing through between classes, I designed my paths to reflect the feeling of exploration I get from the subordination of right angles in the Art Building West. The paths surround flower beds which I intended as a reflection of the concept of porosity that inspired Holl Architects’ layout of the Visual Arts Building. I also include open lawn grass areas for recreational activities as well as for outdoor studying and relaxing. To reflect Iowa’s history and create a sustainable space, I researched plants native to Iowa. My references for plant life in Iowa City were the Natural History Museum in Macbride Hall, the local flower shop Earl May, the Hickory Hills Forest, and the University’s Facilities Management. I found plants that grow in the respective zone that thrive in areas that are often exposed to the sun and modeled and textured each plant asset using a computer aided design program known as Blender. I chose this program over Maya and 3ds Max due to its efficient and effective realtime renderer, Eevee, which enabled me to render my images with realistic lighting and textures more efficiently than with a ray tracing render. To reducing the complexity of the models while maintaining their likeness, I removed unseen faces and vertices that did not contribute to the overall silhouette in the model. Each leaf I acquired from either royalty free websites, I painted, or photographed and edited to have a transparent background in photoshop. The transparency allowed me to give leaves complex edges while using simple geometry. I used a translucency shader to make faces opposite light sources higher in saturation and shifted in hue just as real plant textures respond. Once all my assets for the environment were created, I placed each plant one at a time around the space. To reduce the amount of data in the environment, each repeated asset was duplicated as an instance. I took into account variations in density that would realistically support a plants ability to grow and be viewed.Lighting was important for presenting the scene realistically and complementing the level of detail in the environment. I used a high definition image for the sky background from hdrihaven.com and edited it in photoshop to create a sky realistic to the spring environment. Through the research, design, and modelling process I developed a more thorough understanding of the needs, structure, and geometry of the plant life and relevant space. I also learned about the variety of plants native to Iowa and the criteria for making plants grow in specific environments. I hope that this work will inspire others to continue to improve the University of Iowa’s landscapes. These tools and skill I learned and practiced in this project will be pertinent to my future in design 3d modelling and conceptualization

Returning Home: Collective Dwelling Through Incremental Architecure

Thomas Moore defined home at three scales: the psyche which shelters our souls, the physical place that we make domesticity in, and the broader metaphysical context in which we find our culture, history, and selves within. Today however, housing in the United States is birthed by economic interests, creating modernized "units" that are detached from humanity and the way we dwell. Consequently, the "American Dream" for new generations has been disintegrated, and our built environment has lost its ability to relate to the broader contexts of our lives. To combat the consequences of an inflating housing market, the federal government has created economically reductive social housing projects, exacerbating the issue through "efficient" architecture and inhumane impositions that manifest even more inhumane conditions. The most notorious examples of this approach are the failed housing projects at Pruitt-Igoe, in St. Louis, Missouri. This thesis reexamines the process of creating home as one intrinsically related to dwelling. By providing a community with foundational facilities to support its growth over the old site of Pruitt-Igoe, this project explores the possibility for incremental interventions across the site that may be developed to create tangible connections between the residents themselves and the broader context of home at its various scales

Multistep greedy algorithm identifies community structure in real-world and computer-generated networks

We have recently introduced a multistep extension of the greedy algorithm for modularity optimization. The extension is based on the idea that merging l pairs of communities (l>1) at each iteration prevents premature condensation into few large communities. Here, an empirical formula is presented for the choice of the step width l that generates partitions with (close to) optimal modularity for 17 real-world and 1100 computer-generated networks. Furthermore, an in-depth analysis of the communities of two real-world networks (the metabolic network of the bacterium E. coli and the graph of coappearing words in the titles of papers coauthored by Martin Karplus) provides evidence that the partition obtained by the multistep greedy algorithm is superior to the one generated by the original greedy algorithm not only with respect to modularity but also according to objective criteria. In other words, the multistep extension of the greedy algorithm reduces the danger of getting trapped in local optima of modularity and generates more reasonable partitions.Comment: 17 pages, 2 figure