Date of Award
Fall 2025
Document Type
Thesis
Degree Name
Master of Science (MS) in Geographic Information Science & Technology
Department
Chemistry & Geosciences
Committee Chair
Ross Martin
Abstract
Fragmentation of landscapes has been a growing topic of interest within scientific literature over the past several decades, as the way we as humans affect our planet becomes more apparent as the years go on. As humans, we have shaped the land and what it contains in immeasurable ways, erasing or forever altering entire natural ecosystems. Chief among the drivers altering these ecosystems is the fragmentation of landscapes, which can have all kinds of effects on natural ecosystems, from limiting nutrient transport to providing easier access for invasives to permeate throughout a landscape. Corridors are significant areas of interest regarding landscape fragmentation, though research often focuses on road corridor types, causing knowledge of the effects of fragmentation from other corridor types to be difficult to find and often only pertinent to the areas where the studies were conducted. For trails, this means fragmentation effects are not as widely understood, and subsequently, it makes management of trail systems within ecosystems more difficult. This paper aims to provide a starting point for (1) understanding trail corridor fragmentation impacts by assessing invasive plant species spread and (2) develop a method for identifying potential hotspots along corridors of invasive species spread. The results from this study show strong road effects at the test sites, with two scale types (plot and cell) showing near-road relationship between occurrence and intensity of invasive species. For trails, interestingly, there is higher invasive species intensity in the far bin compared to the near bin, indicating potential effects of usage patterns or trail maintenance along the trail of focus.
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