Coggle Unit 2

  1. Wild Species and Biodiversity
  1. Ecosystems: Energy, Patterns, and Disturbances
  1. The Human Population + 9. Population and Development
  1. The Value, Use, and Restoration of Ecosystems

What is ecological succession and what are the types? What role does fire/other disturbances play in succession?

What are biomes? Be able to identify different biomes and what factors control where they occur. Which biomes are the most productive and why?

Discuss ecosystem disturbances.

Why are terrestrial trophic levels not as efficient as those found in aquatic systems? How many trophic levels do most ecosystems support?

What do we call small zones in the environment where the climate differs from the overall climate?

What are the main differences between terrestrial, aquatic, and detrital food webs/pyramids?

Define a tipping point.

What are the different trophic categories/levels in a food chain/web?

What is the millennium ecosystem assessment and what were its findings?

What are examples of habitat destruction?

Define acronym “HIPPO” and what it indicates.

What particular areas harbor the most biodiversity? Why?

What are the different types of pollutants discussed in class?

What are the consequences for losses in biodiversity?

What is fragmentation? How does this differ from simplification?

What is the difference between instrumental and intrinsic value?

Why do the mountains of Haiti look so different from its neighboring country, the Dominican Republic?

What is biological wealth? Biodiversity?

What are invasive species? Be able to identify and describe 1 particular invasive species. Why do they invade? What are some examples of the issues they invoke on the environment?

What are the conclusions noted from the Global Forest Resource Assessment?

Name and describe forms of forest system management. What are sustainable strategies for this?

What is the most productive type of ecosystem?

What is an ecolabel? Provide an example.

What is an ecosystem’s Maximum Sustainable Yield (MSY)? What is the optimal population level for this to occur? How does this relate to the precautionary principle?

What are the consequences of deforestation? Which areas in particular are most affected?

Name the different types of rights of tenure of land and their levels of restrictions.

What particular ecosystems are under pressure or being exploited – why and how?

What are the different types of ecosystem use? Give me an example.

What are some problems with aquaculture? How can we make this more sustainable?

What is the difference between conservation and preservation? Give me an example.

What are the main problems with marine systems?

What are the categories of ecosystem use? Be able to come up with an example.

Identify lands that are currently being protected by law in the US.

What are population profiles and what do they tell us?

Discuss what population momentum tells us about the future population of a nation.

What is the IMPACT or IPAT formula and what does it tell us? How does affluence affect our environment? What about impoverishment? Both have impacts but they are usually different.

Define total fertility rate (TFR) and how it applies to replacement-level fertility. Which countries have the highest TFR?

What are the different phases of the demographic transition? What phase are we in? What phase are most developing countries in?

What is the link between poverty (per capita income of a nation) and fertility rates?

What are the components of the demographic transition? How do countries move through the demographic transition?

What are the environmental and social consequences of rapid population growth in rural, developing nations? Developed?

What factors lead to smaller families? Large families?

Describe the different revolutions that have promoted population growth. How did they result in growth?

Describe the poverty trap.

What is the estimated carrying capacity for humans?

What is the demographic dividend and how does this relate to a dependency ratio?

What is demography?

Quaternary Consumer --- Tertiary Consumer --- Secondary Consumer --- Primary Consumer --- Primary Producer (big to small)

Aquatic ecosystems are reverse compared with terrestrial pyramid (terrestrial have point on top )

Thought the efficiency of energy transfer between trophic levels is usually greater in aquatic systems as less biomass is locked up in bone and skeletal materials compared to to flesh.

System Equilibrium: species interact constantly in well-balanced relationship – Often respond to disturbances

Succession: transition of one biotic community to another (Primary vs. secondary)

Biome: large geographical biotic community

"microclimates"

situation in human impacted ecosystem where small action catalyzes major change in system state

Governing board • Four year project involving 1400 scientists

  • Invasive species – organisms not native to
    area that causes environmental damage

Compared to the Dominican Republic, the area of flat land good for intensive agriculture in Haiti is much smaller, as a higher percentage of Haiti's area is mountainous. There is more limestone terrain, and the soils are thinner and less fertile and have a lower capacity for recovery.

Habitat fragmentation is defined as the process during which a large expanse of habitat is transformed into a number of smaller patches of smaller total area isolated from each other by a matrix of habitats unlike the original

Chemical: nutrients / endocrine disrupting compounds (EDCs) / industrial waste

Invasive species

• Hellbenders: giant aquatic salamanders threatened by habitat loss • Southeast US and the Ozark

Places closer to the equator harbor the most biodiversity. Due to warm climates that survived the ice age, creatures were able to prosper.

Declining
– North America and global extinction on the rise

Intrinsic value: Value for own sake

Biological Wealth: biota and their ecosystems
– Makes up our ecosystem capital

Wilderness - à given greatest protection • 109 million acres of land (4%)

Bottom trawling: Almost like clear cutting a forest – Trawl nets float at bottom of ocean to capture fish

  • Bottom trawling: Almost like clear cutting a forest (Trawl nets float at bottom of ocean to capture fish)

(productivity reduced) (reduction in nutrients and biomass) (biodiversity reduced) (soil erosion increased) (alters hydrology) (CO2 sequestration lost)

Ecolab is the global leader in water, hygiene and energy technologies and services.

Clear-cutting (even) / uneven cutting (selective cutting) / (shelter-wood cutting)

  • Particularly marine and forest systems
  1. 2005 forest over 30% of total land area --- 2. Deforestation rate 7.3 million HA/yr --- 3. Used for production of wood --- 4. 13.5% nation parks or reserves (increasing) --- 5. Role in climate change --- 6. Insects and pests are increasing forest damage

Forest ecosystems - à most productive system lands support

Maximum Sustainable Yield (MSY) –Can apply to maintenance of parks, air and water quality, and soils

  • Consumptive: harvest food, shelter, tools, fuel, and clothing - Common in developing countries and even in rural US

Consumptive: harvest food, shelter, tools, fuel, and clothing • Common in developing countries and even in rural US

Demographic dividend - dependency ratio

  • Demographic Transition
    – Birth and death rates

• Intensifying cultivation - Small farms cannot support
families (can lead to families having more kids to support farm or little to ensure their survival)

  • Demographic Transition
    – Birth and death rates

Population Momentum – current age
structure effect on future populations

Population profiles: bar graph depicting age structure of
males and females in a population

• Formula for human impact on environment: I = P x A x T

  • Total fertility rate (TFR): average # of children
    a woman has over her lifetime

Countries with poverty tend to have higher fertility rates. And opposite for higher income nations which tend to have lower fertidity rate.

Medical Revolution: treatments / medicines to cure diseases > decrease death rates

7.6 Billion

Demography: field of collecting, compiling, and presenting information about human populations

Produced reports on state of Earth’s ecosystems – After assessment: “At the heart of this assessment is a stark warning. Human activity is putting such a strain on the natural functions of the Earth that the ability of the planet’s ecosystems to sustain future generations can no longer be taken for granted.”

Tropical forests have the highest biodiversity and primary productivity of any of the terrestrial biomes.

  1. Secondary: area cleared by fire, human activity or flooding and then left alone, is reinvaded by plants and animals from other ecosystems
  1. Primary: area lacking plants and soils is initially invaded by plants when soil forms

Succession: transition of one biotic community to another • Primary vs. secondary

  1. Aquatic: soil particles eroded from land or plant detritus build up in ponds or lakes, eventually filling them

Fire and Succession • Some pine species require fire • Resilience: ability of ecosystems to return to normal after disturbance • Tipping Point: situation in human impacted ecosystem where small action catalyzes major change in system state

A detrital food web consists of a base of organisms that feed on decaying organic matter (dead organisms), called decomposers or detritivores.

Aquatic foods means foods grown in or harvested from water including all types of fish

A terrestrial food web is a diagram showing the transfer of energy between different species in a land ecosystem.

Instrumental value: Value for humans
– Anthropocentrism

Tropics are highly diverse – Extinction of species particularly problematic here – Deforestation

52% MSY, 16% overexploited, 8% depleted • Other issues like plastic pollution!

• Preservation: ensure continuity (of ecosystem
or species), regardless of potential utility

• Conservation: management and regulation of ecosystem use

Productive: exploitation for economic gain
• Enormous source of revenue

• Optimal population • Precautionary principle • Common-pool resources may be problem – “Tragedy of the Commons”

Maximum Sustainable Yield (MSY): highest possible rate of use system can match with own rate of replacement/maintenance

Researchers who study this is a demographers

Green Revolution: After WW II > chemical peptides/ fertilizers / GMO / crop breeding

Industrial Revolution: fossil fuels / electricity > farm more land and have more time

Environmental Revolution: robotics / green nanotech - reduce environmental foot print and stabilize population

Use census data to prepare -/- High (Sweden) vs. low income (Burkina Faso) nations’ population profiles are very different

• Positive momentum = Burkina Faso or other low income nations • Negative momentum = throughout Europe and Japan

Poverty > Environmental Degradation> High Fertility > . . .

(dwindling resources divided among more people) - (lack of contraceptive) - (overusing resources for survival)

  • Ratio of nonworking to working age population
  • Important for low income countries
  • Larger families + more of need to use
    marginal land - Poor soils/farming

(Smaller families tend to be more rich and comfortable in life who tend not to worry about survival) -/- (Big families can be poor and ensure survival of children by having more kids to support each other)

  • Epidemiologic Transition: discovery of modern
    medicine, death rates have decreased dramatically (we are in this phase)
  • Fertility Transition: reproduction decrease in low
    income countries.

Countries tend to start with Fertility Transition and lead to Epidemiologic Transition

Population (P), affluence and consumption patterns (A), and technology in society (T)

(Due to wealth) -/- (Small population = large impact) – (Stewardship in developed countries > can moderate environmental impacts)

  • Replacement-level fertility: fertility rate replacing population of parents (2.1 for high income countries) (Higher in low-income countries (child mortality))

Neolithic Revolution: 12k years ago / hunter-gather > fathers > crops/livestock

(overconsumption of resources) -/- (focus more on life than environment) -/- (some cases similar to poverty trap)

  • Productive: exploitation for economic gain • Enormous source of revenue

Consequence of the rights of tenure (property rights)

  1. Private ownership 2. Communal ownership 3. State ownership 4. Open access (leads to over exploitations)

EX: Green Seal / Degree of Green / Eco-Living Seal

  • Forest ecosystems > most productive = most exploited

Populations (humans)

Habitat destruction

Pollutions

Over-exploitation

Biological: pathogens / parasites

Physical: sediments / light / noise / thermal

Habitat simplification is the action of changing a landscape from containing a diverse range of both plant and animal species into an area where only a few species can now exist. It can be caused by bushfire, grazing or any human interaction with a landscape.

  • Reasons for invasion? 1. Accidental 2. Deliberate 3. Gradual

Example: Feral Pigs / Spotted Lantern Fly

maximum of four trophic levels