University of Wyoming Open Journals
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Cone type majorization and its strong linear preservers
No full textThis study introduces a novel notion, cone type majorization and characterizes the same. Further, the structure of linear preservers and strong linear preservers of this cone type majorization have been studied
Can variability in response to environmental change buffer organisms from anthropogenic change?
No full textAnthropogenic activities are greatly altering our natural environment. Environmental changes can occur rapidly, such as when non-native species are introduced. Faced with these rapid changes, organisms may not be able to evolve quickly enough to persist. Phenotypic plasticity, the ability of individuals to alter their traits within their lifetimes in response to variable environments, is a possible mechanism to buffer organisms against large and rapid environmental change. Evolutionary theory predicts that extreme, novel conditions induce more variable traits (greater variation in phenotypic plasticity) than natal habitats. This mechanism may increase the chances that populations will survive rapid environmental change because some individuals will produce traits that are appropriate to the new environment. These theoretical predictions have rarely been tested in nature, yet if true, this resiliency in the face of environmental change could mean the difference between population persistence and local extirpation. To test these predictions in nature, I contrasted the amount of among-individual variation of six populations of freshwater snails between their home (natal) environment and five novel, non-natal environments. I reared snails from all populations in both natal and non-natal environments containing novel crayfish predators and novel environmental conditions (e.g. water chemistry, temperature, flow rate, etc.). Crayfish induce phenotypic plasticity in the morphology, behavior, and life histories (e.g. rates of growth and reproduction) of multiple types of freshwater snails. Non-natal conditions also differ physiochemically from the natal environment and thus are also novel conditions that may induce changes in trait variability. Currently, I am completing the final stage of data collection: assessing variation in shell shape, shell structure, and growth rates in response to these novel environments. Ultimately, my research will enhance our understanding of how organisms respond to environmental changes and elucidate a potential mechanism of population resilience to anthropogenic alterations.
Featured image by Tony Webster on Flickr (https://flic.kr/p/2ncmHGn)
‘You know all them things’: Nostalgia, Idealization, and Speech in Working-Class Poems by Seamus Heaney, Gwendolyn Brooks, and Lucille Clifton
No full textThis essay examines nostalgia, idealization, and speech in poems from the latter half of the twentieth century in the US and the UK that convey working-class experience, identifying nostalgia as a binding feature of such poems and tracing it to the 18th -century ‘nostalgia poem.’ I will first establish briefly how nostalgia in poems by Philip Levine, James Wright, and Robert Hayden results in idealizations that resist sentimentality and then demonstrate that the various forms of local speech employed in some other post1945 poems about working-class life by Seamus Heaney, Gwendolyn Brooks, and Lucille Clifton act as a stay against such idealization, effectively transforming them into more explicitly anticlassist –and, in the case of Brooks and Clifton, antiracist and antisexist –forms of social critique and defiance. Their poems interrupt and complicate the idealization of the familiar working-class surroundings they seek to reenter, familiar and familial realms that are not just temporal and spatial but linguistic. They honor their characters’ fortitude in the face of working-class encumbrances not by idealizing them but by concentrating on their working-class characters’ linguistic origins. Manifestations of local speech in these nostalgic poems amount to a poetic resource that disrupts idealizations of working-class experience, critiquing, in that process, classism and, in Brooks and Clifton, revealing classism’s intersections with racism and sexism. These poems don’t just desire to go back to earlier worlds but do go back linguistically to working-class, nonstandard languages – their particular forms of original local speech–that refuse the conditions that would subordinate those languages and the people who speak them
Obligations to the Future
No full textFreedom is considered one of America’s most cherished values. Most Americans agree that freedom requires order, justice, security, opportunity, fairness, absence of harm, absence of undue interference, and a variety of rights. But while Americans may agree on these things in broad, abstract terms, they are often divided over their precise definitions. In this article, the authors emphasize how a variety of societal problems—including climate change, racial inequality, poverty and economic inequality, concentrated disadvantage, intergenerational transmission of privilege and disadvantage, and the undermining of truth and expertise—are issues of freedom. The authors discuss the connection between these issues and freedom, and the need to demand action from elected representatives in order to enact true freedom for all Americans
Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem wildlife approach study
No full textEvery year, millions of people visit parks and protected areas to view wildlife. Human-wildlife conflicts typically occur when people approach animals at inappropriately close distances. Bison are involved in more dangerous interactions than any other species in the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem (GYE), and conflict between people and elk is becoming increasingly concerning to managers. Most of these incidents occur when people approach bison at proximities less than the GYE regulation of 25 yards. Developing effective communication programs can aid in addressing peoples’ perceptions about wildlife. The purpose of this study is to explore the effectiveness of distance-related human-wildlife interaction communication messages currently, and potentially employed by Grand Teton National Park and Yellowstone National Park. Additionally, this study will explore the effect that emotions have on park visitors’ ability to estimate distances. The results of this study will inform solutions that managers can implement to prevent resource degradation and enrich visitor experience and safety.
Featured image by Anna Cressman, taken from the UW-NPS photo collection