Journal of Undergraduate Research

Angel Mirae Morris, P. Jeff Maughan, Bryan G. Hopkins and Neil Hansen, Plant & Wildlife Sciences Introduction Chenopodium quinoa is native to the Peruvian Andes and has been an important food crop for more than 5,000 years. C. quinoa can adapt to a wide variety of climates and altitudes, making it a viable food source […]

Austin Hopkins and Dr. Neil C. Hansen, Plant & Wildlife Sciences This project identifies remote sensing practices to conserve water by optimizing nitrogen (N) fertilization and irrigation strategies. Turfgrass is the most irrigated crop by area (163,800 km2 ), accounting for 1.9% of the continental U.S. This causes negative environmental impacts and puts the future […]

Rebeccas Frei and Banjamin Abbott, Plant & Wildlife Sciences I conducted a project assessing the components of aquatic ecosystems to characterize their resilience to ever-increasing nutrient pollution. Since the Industrial Revolution, humans have more than doubled nitrogen inputs, and quintupled phosphorus inputs. Some of these nutrients run off into streams and rivers, resulting in an […]

Hyrum Eddington and John M. Chaston, Plant & Wildlife Sciences Introduction: Autism Spectrum Disorder is a neurodevelopmental condition which significantly affects an individual’s social behavior and ability to function in daily living. Although there is a genetic component to the disorder, current research suggests that there are other factors that influence the onset of the […]

Claire Poore and Faculty Mentor: Ryan Stewart, Plant and Wildlife Sciences Introduction Agave and Yucca species are both cultural and economically important in the south western United States and Mexico. As desert plants, Agave and Yucca have adapted to hot and dry conditions and with increasing global temperatures, have the potential to fill even more […]

Kennedy Christian, Mena Nicolas and Faculty Mentor: J. Ryan Stewart, Plant and Wildlife Science Introduction With the global human population spiraling upward and the intensity of climate-change-induced drought events increasing, there is a growing need for identifying and developing highly productive, stress-tolerant crops that can be cultivated in marginal lands (Yang et al., 2015). Species […]

Austin Hopkins and Faculty Mentor Dr. Neil C. Hansen, Plant and Wildlife Sciences This project identifies turfgrass practices to conserve water by optimizing nitrogen (N) fertilization and irrigation strategies. Turfgrass is the most irrigated crop by area (163,800 km2), accounting for 1.9% of the continental U.S. This causes negative environmental impacts and puts the future […]

Benjamin Hoose and Faculty Mentor: Matthew Madsen, Plant and Wildlife Sciences Sagebrush seed agglomerates (referred to as ‘agglomerates’ in the remainder of the report) are small balls of seed, clay, and compost that allow us to treat sagebrush seeds with germination enhancers. The goal of my project was to determine whether we could use the […]

Alexander E. Chu and Faculty Mentor: Eric N. Jellen, Department of Plant and Wildlife Sciences Introduction The central dogma of molecular biology teaches that the information of life is stored in DNA, a linear chain of nucleotide molecules. The information in DNA nucleotides is then transcribed into RNA, which encodes the amino acids needed to […]

Anthony Caruso and Faculty Mentor: John Chaston, Plant and Wildlife Sciences Introduction It has been established by past scientific research that the gastrointestinal microbiome plays a defined role in many human diseases. Some of these diseases include inflammatory bowel disease, autism, hypertension, and even cancer. A common symptom seen in many of these diseases is […]