Early American notions of sympathy, largely shaped by Adam Smith’s theory of rational self-interest and fellow feeling, undergird the period’s dominant narrative tropes, socio-political philosophies, and economic ideologies. In this dissertation, I argue that investment...

The marine leeches of California are found on many host species, but the biology, distribution, and ecology of these leeches is not well understood. In this thesis I describe two previously unknown species: the leeches Mysidobdella californiensis, found on mysid shrimp ...

Here we show that air-sea coupling significantly impacts the simulation of sea surface temperature (SST) variability in the California Current System (CCS). Previous work has shown important differences between coupled and uncoupled models in simulating coastal SST, but...

Oxygen isotope ratios of fish biominerals reflect environmental growth conditions - specifically, the temperature and δ18O values of water. In Holocene ocean sediments, phosphate δ18O (δ18OP) values of small pelagic fish bones and scales can be coupled with abundance da...

Navigation, localization, and targeting while completely submerged in the ocean are all extremely difficult due to the lack of a proficient sensor. The highly conductive nature of salt-water results in severe radio-wave attenuation precluding the use of RADAR. Naturally...

Many infectious bacterial and viral agents exist in the world and are located in areas where humans may come into contact with them. Food, water, and environmental locations may be contaminated with infectious material, and detecting the presence of these harmful biolog...

This thesis examines the economic vs. social and symbolic importance of fish in the foodways of the prehistoric Jomon culture (16,000-2300 cal BP) of Japan. To achieve this goal, quantitative analyses of fish remains excavated from a water-logged midden of the Sannai Ma...