Browsing by Author "Knight, Jonathan"
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Item The Effects of Fish Presence and Mixing Patterns on Water Clarity in Lakes: Arco, Deming, and Itasca(2010-04-12) Harren, Steven; Kartak, Jacob; Knight, Jonathan; Lehman, JustinIn the summer of 2009, in Itasca State Park, MN, samples of zooplankton, chlorophyll a concentrations, and Secchi disk readings were studied in three lakes with differing characteristics. Our study sites were Deming Lake (fish, meromictic), Arco Lake (fishless, meromictic), and Lake Itasca (fish, dimictic). Our variables of interest were the presence or absence of fish, and whether the lake was dimictic or meromictic. Our study showed that Arco Lake, a small meromictic fishless lake, had the highest Secchi disk reading. Along with a high level of water clarity there was an abundance of large zooplankton. We contributed this high level of clarity with the absence of fish, and its meromictic stratification. Lake Itasca showed its true dimictic characteristics in our data, showing relatively low fluctuations in temperature and dissolved oxygen levels.Item Mammalogy Diversity Paper (untitled)(2010-12-01) Knight, JonathanThroughout the course of the summer session, the mammalogy class set traps in two types of locations, both of which were unrelated in habitat and topography styles. The two different types of locations were in prairie and in forest communities. These traps were checked often to monitor common trends in diversity themes in each location. The traps were set in a variety of forest types including deciduous and coniferous, as well as more dry and more wet areas. The class also set traps in varied locations including prairies with both wet and dry plots. When initially observing the data of the different communities of both the forest and the prairie, my assumption was that the forest would have a larger diversity of species due to the cover that is provided and the different types of food that I would thought would be more readily available in that environment. After examining and comparing the data that we collected in both the prairie and forest locations, the community with the larger number of species that we collected was the prairie. In the prairie community, we collected a total of eight different species. In comparison, we collected a total of six different species in the forest community. Although the prairie community had a larger species diversity, the forest locations produced 35 more total animals.