ESRM Senior Capstone
All ESRM students entering since 2007 are required to complete a 10-credit senior capstone, which can be done in one of three ways: a senior project, a senior research thesis, or the restoration ecology capstone. Faculty advisers oversee the research and projects, and students present their work to the general public. Further details about requirements and registration for students needing to complete capstones can be found on the Senior Capstone Form. Questions? Email or stop by Student and Academic Services, Anderson 116.
Academic Year 2008-2009
Restoration Ecology Capstone (ESRM 462, 463, and 464)
Restoration Design Project for People for Puget Sound and the Port of Seattle.
R. Miller, G. Beaudin, B. Horwitz, et. al. ~ Faculty Advisor: Kern Ewing
Senior Project (ESRM 495) and Senior Thesis (ESRM 496)
Energy Crisis and Catastrophic Wildfires: Can Management of Montana’s Forests Solve these Problems?
T. Lane ~ Faculty Advisors: Dan Vogt and Kristiina Vogt
Mathematical Modeling to Terrestrial LiDAR for Canopy Structure.
P. Johnsey ~ Faculty Advisor: L. Monika Moskal
Crops: Emissions Trading and Carbon Permanence.
E. Tran ~ Faculty Advisor: Sergey Rabotyagov
Disease Transmission in Terrestrial Mammals: A Case Study of Feline Leukemia Virus in Pacific Northwest Cougars.
V. Madison ~ Faculty Advisor: John Marzluff
NEPA for the 21st Century.
D. Brody ~ Faculty Advisor: Clare Ryan
LiDAR as a Tool to Determine Biomass and Ecosystem Services of a Heterogenous Urban Landscape at the Washington Park Arboretum.
B. Neuhaus ~ Faculty Advisor: Soo-Hyung Kim
Thermoregulatory Behaviors of Black Abalone Ecology.
K. Kerr ~ Faculty Advisor: Glenn VanBlaricom
Rain Gardens: Storm Water Treatment from the Ground Up.
B. Scott ~ Faculty Advisor: Gordon Bradley
Amphibian Survey in Discovery Park.
M. Davis, T. Truong, T. Angevine, H. Schulz ~ Faculty Advisor: Steve West
Effects of Wildlife Populations on Seedling Mortality.
J. McCarty ~ Faculty Advisor: Ken Radaeke
Effects of Fire and Stand Management on Early Winter Mule Deer Habitat.
M. Weintraub ~ Faculty Advisor: Aaron Wirsing
Past Senior Project Topics
Ontogeny of scolding in crow fledglings..
S. Pecoraro ~ Faculty Advisor: John Marzluff
Forest fires in the Himalayan Forest and conversation effect from a wet Oak forest to a dry Pine forest.
P. Button ~ Faculty Advisor: Ernesto Alvarado
SPOTLIGHT: Field Guide for Seattle Vivarium. I. Kazcynski
With the grand opening of Olympic Sculpture Park in January 2007, Mark Dion's spectacular Seattle Vivarium was made available for public viewing and interpretation. As Field Guide Project Associate for this piece, I developed all content for a small 40-page field guide to the Seattle Vivarium, including short descriptions of 34 different species associated with nurse logs in the Pacific Northwest and biographies of 19 naturalists who made significant contributions to the science and art of ecology. The field guide can be purchased in the Olympic Sculpture Park gift shop.
Faculty Advisors: Steve West and Bob Edmonds
The role of bioremediation in post-war Kuwait.
M. Welch ~ Faculty Advisor: Sally Brown
Links of Sage grouse (Centrocercus urophasianus) populations to essential habitat.
L. Mallon ~ Faculty Advisor: Dave Manuwal
Sustainable viticulture practices relevant to the Walla Walla AVA.
N. Sherrod ~ Faculty Advisor: Sarah Reichard
The Significance of Nest Site Characteristics on Nest Success of Northern Spotted Owls in Mt. Rainier National Park.
E. Slayton ~ Faculty Advisor: Dave Manuwal
SPOTLIGHT: Behavior and distribution of nutria (Myocastor coypus) within Union Bay. P. Van and F. Tkaczyk We characterized behavior and distribution for nutria (Myocastor coypus) within Union Bay in Seattle's University District. Field observations of morphology, physiology, and behavior were conducted on land and in Union Bay. Sightings from a response network were mapped using Google Maps aerial photograph display on a publicly-accessible website. Predicted geographical distributions were constructed using ESRI ArcGIS against sightings, habitat from the National Wetlands Inventory, and Washington State Department of Fish and Wildlife. Age-structure and abundance were projected with field survey estimates using Leslie Matrix Model. Our results indicated that the population was healthy with breeding individuals; that M. coypus is highly social and tolerated by other species in the study area; and that distribution was strongly associated with the most vegetated areas with minimal distances to manmade structures. This project was awarded the 2006 Annual Research Grant from the Washington Chapter of The Wildlife Society.
Faculty Advisor: Steve West
Effects of the quantity and quality of nature around a school in relation to standardized test scores.
S. Spiker ~ Advisor: Kathy Wolf
New-shoot regeneration of invasive Japanese Knotweed, between treated and untreated riparian sites.
B. Boehm ~ Faculty Advisor: Bob Edmonds
Potential climatic and ecological correlates for West Nile Virus occurrence in the Puget Sound Region.
H. Pecoraro ~ Faculty Advisor: John Marzluff
SPOTLIGHT: Plant selection in public gardens project in Sichuan, China. Riz Reyes I am doing two projects as part of the UW/Sichuan Program. My first project is research in urban horticulture trying to determine the importance of plant selections in public gardens in Sichuan. Second is a collection of ornamental Sichuan Flora that I plan to bring back to the UW Botanic Gardens' Center for Urban Horticulture. I've been traveling to various regions around the province collecting plant material for herbarium specimens, and in some cases the live plants/seeds themselves to be grown back in the states.
Faculty Advisor: Sarah Reichard
