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Since the 1960s Latin America has experienced a religious transformation, with several countries developing significant Protestant populations. These religious changes have influenced the political processes of several Latin American nations, playing a prominent role in elections and the formation of political platforms. Several theories attempt to account for the recent growth in religious pluralism, particularly social anomie theory and religious market models. These theories ignore or downplay the role of conflict between the state and civil society, especially violent confrontations between the government and the Roman Catholic Church. This study focuses on four case studies with varying amounts of church-state conflict and differing religious pluralistic growth rates: Colombia, Guatemala, Haiti, and Southern Mexico. This study finds that church-state conflict serves as a catalyst, and in some cases a useful predictor, of growth in religious pluralism.

The Abacoa community enjoys the unique social, economic, environmental, and aesthetic benefits of a 267-acre greenway system. The Abacoa greenway provides habitat for the threatened gopher tortoise and other endemic wildlife, and a system for water management. I am collaborating with Dr. Jon Moore to develop an educational field guide to the Abacoa greenway. For my part, I am developing the body text and contributing scientific illustrations of select flora and fauna species. The content of the guide will be drawn from the compilation of research and materials herein. My research essay explores the various aspects of the greenway, including the history of the site, the social and environmental significance of the greenway, gopher tortoise conservation, the ecology of pine flatwoods and wet lands ecosystems, and ongoing greenway management. The subsequent section provides tables listing greenway species. In the final section, select species are featured in a series of captioned illustrations.

The Gull-billed Tern is a globally distributed species. Distribution in the United States is limited, however, with the majority of breeding birds being found in Texas. The remainder can be found scattered throughout the southeastern states. Florida has a mere 1.6% of the breeding birds in the U.S. This study has accumulated all breeding records of the Gull-billed Tern in Florida since 1973, and distribution trends were analyzed. Since 1973 the population of these birds has fluctuated widely and experienced an alarming decline of about "95% between 1975 and 1999" (Smith, in press.). I determined that the current status of this bird in Florida mandates that further conservation efforts occur rapidly in order to protect its diminishing population. This study examines those conservation measures already in place, and those pending, such as my petition to list this species as "threatened" under the endangered species provisions of the Florida Wildlife Code (Chap. 39 F.A.C.).

The recent explosive growth of Protestantism in Latin America has led a number of scholars to predict that the region may be on its way to reaching a significantly higher levels of socioeconomic development and democracy. These are important claims for a region that has struggled with both economic development and democratic consolidation. This thesis argues that Protestantism in Latin America does not follow the classical Weberian pattern of development. Because the majority of Protestant growth in the region is Pentecostal, the causal assumptions of the--culture and development school do not hold. Furthermore, a context of neoliberalism, a significant colonial legacy, and wide income disparities continue to hinder the potential for development. Based on a review of secondary sources and specific data from the case of Guatemala, this thesis argues that while individual Protestants may experience some upward social mobility, the growth of Protestantism has done little to advance the socioeconomic and political development of the region.

In Florida, loggerhead sea turtle (Caretta caretta) nesting populations are in decline, and human presence on beaches during nesting season can create an array of problems for the sea turtles. Volunteers and workers from the Loggerhead Marinelife Center collected nesting data from 2001 to 2005 along a 9.7 km stretch of Jupiter and Juno Beach, in Palm Beach County, Florida. Using these data, I found that human presence appears to have a negative impact on false crawl rates. The rate of false crawl was significantly higher on weekends than on weekdays(χ2 = 6.3, p < 0.05), and in areas with continuous public access than in areas with no public access(χ2 = 69.0, p < 0.0001). However, there was no significant difference in the number of nests laid on weekends versus weekdays(χ2 = 0.6, p > 0.05), although there are still other, less obvious negative effects caused by false crawling, and even nesting, while humans are in the vicinity. Even though it is impractical to try to keep people off the beach at night, it is important to increase awareness of the negative impacts that human presence may have on sea turtle nesting in order to help reverse the decline in the population of loggerhead sea turtles.

While studies have considered the presence and impact of logrolling (vote trading) on legislative actors, little work has questioned the possibility of judicial logrolling among Supreme Court Justices. Supreme Court Justices are usually assumed to be free from constituencies and political party pressures. This assumption is derived from life-long appointments that do not require the endorsement of reelection. However, public choice would predict the presence of logrolling in cases where intense differences in preferences exist among justices. We only expect to see logrolling when vote trading has the potential to change voting outcomes. Thus, to study the probability of logrolling plurality, majority, and unanimous decisions must all be considered. Essentially, I will be altering previous models of legislative logrolling in accordance with the conditions of the Supreme Court to describe possible logrolling scenarios. This study does not aim to prove the existence of logrolling among Supreme Court Justices, only that it is a possibility.

The commercially important queen conch, Strombus gigas, has been observed copulating with multiple partners and laying multiple egg masses during a reproductive season (Randall, 1964). While multiple paternity has been confirmed using microsatellite based genetic analysis for a variety of other gastropods, this technique has not been employed for S. gigas. Determining whether or not this species is capable of multiple paternity is important to understanding and maintaining genetic diversity of natural and captive populations. While an assessment of multiple paternity is the ultimate goal of this study, for my thesis, I have completed preliminary work which includes perfecting methods of tissue collection, DNA extraction, and DNA amplification with six non-labeled polymorphic microsatellite molecular markers, using cultured Strombus gigas animals. In addition, I collected tissue and extracted DNA from three wild S. gigas adult females and their egg masses from Pelican Shoal in the Florida Keys.

Ants are ubiquitous and ecologically important, yet little is known of ants within Pakistan. I studied ants collected from houses and apartments in Karachi, Pakistan to determine which ants are common indoor ants. Ants were attracted by spilling syrups and sodas on the floor which were left overnight. The following morning the ants were collected using an aspirator. A total of eleven species were found. Of these eight were well-known pest ants with worldwide distributions: Paratrechina longicornis, Tetramorium simillimum, Monomorium pharaonis, Monomorium subopacum, Monomorium destructor, Tapinoma melanocephalum, Pheidole megacephala, and Tetramorium bicarinatum. Three others, Camponotus sp., Pheidole sp., and Solenopsis sp., not identified to species were probably native species. Paratrechina longicornis and M. subopacum were the two most dominant species that were found in the highest abundance.

A method for estimating the size distribution of magnetite nanoparticles from their magnetic properties is presented. The 10 nm diameter particles were coated with poly(acrylic) acid and prepared as a water-based suspension. A vacuum-dried sample was placed in a transmission electron microscope (TEM) so that the physical sizes of the particles could be estimated. The particle magnetization was measured by a superconducting quantum interference device (SQUID) in magnetic fields up to 25 kiloOersted and temperatures ranging from 5 to 370 Kelvin. The magnetic moments in the sample were estimated by fitting those measurements to a Langevin magnetization model, weighted by a log-normal distribution with unknown parameters.The best-fit procedure yielded particle volumes smaller than those observed by transmission electron microscopy, suggesting the existence of a magnetically inactive layer of atoms. In addition, our particles exhibited stronger spin-wave behavior than expected for particles of similar size, as evidenced by the lower saturation magnetization and higher Bloch coefficient.