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Science notes topic 2 (Natural Disasters-Bryan (Forest Fires (Prevention…

- - - - Dry areas, like after a pine beetle infestation are a perfect location for a forest fire to begin. The entire area could go up in flames if a camp fire went out of control due to the dry environment. Dry summers and lightening storms are both catalysts for wildfires as well. after the fire, the ecosystems will slowly rehabilitate but the soil's pH levels will take years to return to normal.
    - - Setting and following guidelines then forests are at risk
      - Fire bans
      - Controlled burns monitored carefully
      - Laws set in place (bcwildfire.ca)
      - Fines
    - - The cause of forest fires can be Naturally or Intentionally. Lighting being one of the most common natural fire starters. Lighting can strike randomly 100 times each second all over the world, or 3 billion times each year and has caused some of the biggest wildland fires across western Canada and the United states. Intentionally cause fires can range from camp fires, to cigarettes and even controlled blazes, grass fires and agricultural fires.
  - - - The word "tsunami" comes from the Japanese word "tsu" (harbour) and the word "Nami" (Wave). a tsunami is cause by underwater disturbances like earthquakes above or near he ocean, volcanic eruptions, submarine landslides, and costal rock falls. Though they can also be cause by large asteroids hitting the water or tectonic plate movement.
    - - Depending on where the event occurs, the effects can be disastrous. the magnitude 9.0 earthquake that hit off the coast of japan flooded a large section of the nearby community causing around $200 billion worth of damage and causing the loss of 16,000 lives. after the event Rehabilitation occurs through the surrounding ecosystem and city. The shoreline habitats and aquatic ecosystems slowly stabilize and go back to their original state.
    - - Warning systems set in place
        
        Setting up a warning system to evacuate the area or seek shelter in Tsunami shelters.
      - Natural Barriers against Tsunamis
        
        Coral reefs can act as natural breakwaters, providing a physical barrier that reduces the force of the wave before it reaches the shoreline. Mangrove forests can act as a natural shock absorber and can act as a buffer against coastal erosion.
      - Build away from water
        
        Site buildings on infrastructure away from flood zone or on a higher ground.
      - Slow Water down
        
        Forests, slopes, ditches or berms can slow down the waves, though the success of this method depends on the force of the Tsunami.
      - Steering
        
        redirecting the water with angled walls or ditches to reduce the impact of the wave and redirect it in a different direction.
      - Blocking
        
        Full on blocking the wave with the use of Berms, parking structures, walls, or hardened terraces.
  - - - The Mountain Pine beetles may be the biggest insect blight in North America, and Climate change has contributed to the severity of the outbreak. The outbreak may have a large effect on how capable the Northern forest are at removing CO2 from the atmosphere, the warm summers and mild winters play a huge roll in the insects survival and the intensification of the outbreak. Colder winters would reduce the beetle population and slow the spread of infestation, but the insects are capable of recovering quickly and can resume their attacks on the otherwise healthy forests.
    - - Pesticides
        
        Pesticides are sprayed on infested areas to create an uninhabitable environment for the beetles, this could have a huge impact on the ecosystem and could kill off many other populations in the affected area.
      - Sanitation Harvesting
        
        Removing singularly infected trees to control the beetle population in that area.
      - Pheromone Baiting
        
        Baiting the beetles with synthetic hormones mimicking the sent of female beetles, allowing for more containment of the beetles where they can be killed.
      - Controlled, or Mosaic Burning
        
        Burning large areas of Beetle infested trees to control the spread of the population.
    - - Mountain pine beetles lay eggs under the bark of the pine tree and introduce a Blue fungus into the sapwood that prevents the tree from repelling the beetles with pitch resin, the fungus also prevents water and nutrients transport in the tree. The beetles population can increase very quickly and kill off large amounts of trees in a wide area
  - - - Each time a volcano erupts, it emits water vapor(H2O), Carbon Dioxide(CO2), Sulfur Dioxide(SO2), Hydrogen Chloride(HCI), Hydrogen Fluoride(HF), and Ash (Pulverized rock and Pumice) into the stratosphere which can go to heights of 16-32 kilometers above the surface of the earth. Gas emissions from volcanoes are a natural contributor to acid rain, on top of this is the effect that magma has on the environment surrounding the volcano. When Mount St.Helens erupted in Washington in 1980, it proved to be the deadliest and most economically destructive volcanic event in the history of the United States destroying habitats, people, and costing the city billions of dollars of post event restoration costs. Soil pH changes and land is uninhabitable for many years post event.
    - - Evacuation plans for nearby cities
      - Warning systems set in place
      - Constant monitoring of active volvanos
      - Directing lava with barriers
    - - The lithosphere is composed of 17 major Tectonic plates that float over a hotter, softer layer in the earths mantle. Plate boundaries are where the tectonic plates meet and are the most common places for volcanos to occur. Volcanos are basically an opening in the ground which magma and dissolved gasses it contains are discharged.
- - - - there are 3 main things that animals do when adapting to an environment
      - if organisms don't evolve they will go extinct
- - - - soil to grow pioneer species, next intermediate species such as grasses, shrubs, pine and young oak and hickory trees. Next, Climax community is formed by mature species such as oak and hickory.
    - - predator prey cycle
      - fluctuations in population keep each other in balance
        
        key stone species = especially important species within a community. For example, the sea star is a keystone species within the coral community as it keeps the mussel population in balance.
        
        predator adaptations= adaptations within a predatory species that helps them to capture prey.
        
        prey adaptations = help prey escape
- - - - Survival of the fittest is based on being the strongest out of the group or not being the weakest link, evolution is based of a lot on this.
  - - - Genetic Drift
        
        when random genes propagate in random selection and multiply
        
        for example a bottle that has a bunch of yellow and blue balls (representing genes) and when one gene with many yellow balls comes in it changes the makeup of that species and their genes.
      - Gene flow
        
        the movement of genes into an out of the gene pool
        
        Migration of an organism into a different area can cause shifts of the organism
      - Mutation
        
        this is when pieces of genes mutate or change, and it is a big part of natural selection
        
        mutation doesn't always mean that it will visibly change the characteristics of an organism, or that the organism will change drastically
        
        but mutated genes can be passed to offspring and it will affect changes in that family tree.
        
        Non Random Mating
        
        Non Random Mating is when to organisms inbreed, it is a nonpopular form of mating, when a particular organism is in a closed group of the same organisms there larger chances of inbreeding/
      - natural selection
        
        this happens when a particular organism leaves behind more offspring than others.
        
        the individual organisms that produce more offspring than others can pass on their genes in a larger amount of their population than organisms that don't produce very much offspring, or their offspring dies
        
        organisms that produce more offspring than others have a higher chance of dominating the population and passing on genes that are more resistant to deaths and disease.
        
        Charles Darwin's theory on natural selection is that the organisms that produce better offspring, pass on certain survival characteristics give the future organisms a better chance of surviving and reproducing better offspring.
        
        Darwin's theory was based on four observations
        
        different members of a population have different variations.
        
        many of these variations will be inherited to their offspring
        
        some populations can reproduce more than they have resources for and this can lead to a struggle for existence.
        
        heritable traits that can lead to better survival and reproductive rates.
        
        Darwin's theory was based on artificial selection to explain natural selection. such as in how many different dogs we have artificially created
        
        the Galapagos island finches, are an example of Natural selection and different environments. on one island finches have thick beaks are more adapted for breaking seeds, this is where their environment changes their characteristics and what they eat. finches from a different island, have thin beaks ate insects and birds with thin and long beaks ate cactus fruit.
        
        finches increased 'fitness' to meet their environment.
        
        Fitness in biology means reproductive success.
        
        3 types of Natural Selection and specific Examples
        
        Directional selection
        
        this is when an environment changes in a particular way
        
        this causes certain species to change in response to these environmental changes. while rare mutant black moths of the same species were quickly picked off, because of their bad camouflage.
        
        an example is the peppered moth, they are light colored are well camouflage from birds and other predators against the pale bark of birch trees
        
        in the industrial area, birch trees that were close to these areas became black from pollution causing the mutant black peppered moth to grow and become common, and the white peppered moth slowly died out and soon became rare.
        
        example 2. Anti-Bacterial resistance. antibiotics kill Bacteria but sometimes certain Bacteria can become resistant to the antibiotics.
        
        Stabilizing/normalizing selection
        
        this happens when an environment doesn't change. Natural selection doesn't have to cause change.
        certain environments that won't change doesn't create pressure for a well adapted species to change
        
        fossil studies show that some species don't change for long periods of geological time.
        
        one of the most stable geographical environments is the deeper part of oceans
        
        an example of this is the Coelocanth, thought to be extinct for 70 million years. a living member of this particular fish was found in the net of a troller in 1938. this species has not changed in all of that time, proving that if there is a normalized/stabilized environment the species in that environment won't change because there is no need to.
        
        disruptive selection
        
        this is when an environment changes and creates selection pressures that favor two extremes of a characteristic
        
        example, sickle cell onimia, people who have this recessive gene usually die before reproducing. the red blood cells become abnormally shaped and stick to their capillaries. people with this allele are usually at a disadvantage.
        
        it's frequency is high in parts of the world that have high amounts of the disease Malaria
        
        in some places it's about 20% of the people in that population will carry that particular gene, making them actually more resistant to malaria than others.