This dissertation is a study of animal categories and the concept of the intercategory in Volume One of the ninth-century polymath Al-Jah[dotbelow]iz[dotbelow]'s Kitab al-H[dotbelow]ayawan, or Book of Animal Life. This volume consists of an introductory debate between Al-Jah[dot…
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Tokuichi Shiraki and Masamitsu Oshima were the first entomologists who studied termites in Taiwan in the early 1900s.The identification of Coptotermes species in Taiwan and southern Japan was a controversial issue that involved several Japanese entomologists as well as European …
This practice-led research project explores English and French sentimental jewellery of the Victorian period. ‘Sentimental jewellery’ or ‘message jewellery’ denotes jewellery created to function as a tangible expression of feeling between donor and recipient, mediated through co…
Lernaeocera branchialis (L., 1767) is a parasitic copepod that parasitises a range of gadoids by anchoring in the proximity of the branchial chamber of its host, deriving nutrition from the blood of its host and causing serious pathogenic effects. This study investigates the tax…
The red imported fire ant, Solenopsis invicta Buren, is non-native, invasive ant that arrived in the United States in the 1930s. It is now distributed throughout the southern US where it is found in both urban and rural habitats. The American dog tick, Dermacentor variabilis (Sa…
Theraphosidae, commonly known as tarantulas, represent some of the most charismatic spiders on the planet. With almost 1000 described species, they have colonized the subtropics of every continent and have adapted to fill many of ecological niches. I address gaps in our understa…
Sirenids are enigmatic in their biology, behavior, and phylogenetic relationships. These eel-like salamanders are morphologically unique, with slender bodies and absent lower extremities. Species in the genus Siren all maintain this body plan, with some slight variation in pheno…
Comparative phylogeography is the study of the effects of biogeography and evolutionary history on the spatial distribution of genetic variation of codistributed species. This approach allows investigation of the links between population processes and regional patterns. Here, I …
Loasaceae (21 gen., 330 spp.) are distributed across western North America and the Andes mountains in South America. Plants often grow in stressful environments such as gypsum soils, limestone outcrops, and rocky scree slopes. The two largest sub-families, Mentzelioideae and Loa…
Researchers have historically placed taxa in the Cymbellaceae based on features such as shared apical axis asymmetry, stigmata, raphe morphology, and apical pore fields. The genera Cymbella, Encyonema, and Cymbopleura traditionally accommodated large numbers of taxa, until pract…
Morphology is one of the oldest branches of science, encompassing the form, structure, and transformation of natural materials, whether biotic or abiotic. In the context of contemporary Biology, morphology may be most broadly conceived as the qualitative and quantitative theory …
Platanthera is one of the largest genera of temperate orchids and exemplifies a lineage that has adaptively radiated into diverse habitats within North America, Asia, Europe, North Africa, Borneo, and Sarawak. Major centers of diversity in this genus are western North America an…
The subfamily Oraseminae (Hymenoptera: Chalcidoidea: Eucharitidae) is a circumtropical group of parasitoid wasps that specialize on ants in the subfamily Myrmicinae (Hymenoptera: Formicidae). Multiple phylogenetic inference methods, including parsimony, maximum likelihood, Bayes…
The endemic Hawaiian flowering plant genus Hibiscadelphus was described by Joseph F. Rock based on two species found on Hawaii island and one species from Maui in 1911. In the years since, five additional species have been described, one from Hawaii island, two from Kauai, and o…
Questions about taxonomic diversity and biogeography of Eastern Tarsiers were addressed with mtDNA and recordings of vocalizations. A transect was plotted from the Sangihe Islands, north of Sulawesi, to the Togian Islands of Tomini Bay in the south. The transect was over 1000 km…
This dissertation is a history of how microbial culture techniques reframed nature’s order in chemical terms. In the final decades of the nineteenth century, scientific workers developed techniques to study diseases and control fermentations, making chemical activities of microo…
Aplacophorans are shell-less, vermiform, marine mollusks that have a cuticle covered in calcareous scales or spines called sclerites. They are found worldwide in benthic marine habitats and are ecologically important to the deep sea. There has been a recent increase in aplacopho…
The evolution of species radiations has involved two processes: diversification, or the formation of many species, as well as disparification, the differentiation of species in traits associated with differing ecological niches. Extremes of disparification are a hallmark of clas…
During the Cretaceous the Caribbean was home to vast carbonate platforms where rudist bivalves contributed extensively to reef development. Carbonate platforms have been well-studied in Mexico and Texas, but less so in some Caribbean islands. On the island of Puerto Rico, the Ba…