Dirt on Dirt

Asthenosphere- below the lithosphere

Lithosphere- outermost shell

Plate Tectonics- large scale-motion of the lithosphere

Tectonic Cycle- the rock cycle, mountains and other forms

Divergent Plate Boundaries- magma rises as the plates separate 

Convergent Plate Boundaries- lowered under another

Transform Fault Boundary- earthquakes occur here, where it glides across

Physical Weathering- erosion through wind, water, and air

Chemical Weathering- erosion through chemicals

Erosion- the weathering of things

Deposition- materials being added to a land mass

Cation Exchange Capacity- the amount of cations soil is capable of holding at dry weight

Base Saturation- basic cations held in soil

Soil Degradation- the worsening of soil over time

Ores-rock that contains minerals

Human Impact: Humans have a large effect on soil and land masses. They can create faults or plates that glide across one another through certain things like fracking. Fracking can cause earthquakes to occur. Also their effect on soil is huge. Soil is degraded through human usage of it. They can overuse the land and cause bad chemicals to be soaked down into it. Along with soil degradation the chemicals can runoff into streams and lakes and create bad environments for the sea-life. Some humans can cause the pH levels to drop into really bad conditions and cause the levels of certain concentrations to exceed the best point.

Environmental Impact: The effect of the bad soil can cause bad situations for plant growth. It can inhibit and stop the community from growing. Also the bad chemicals can runoff to the streams nearby and cause the aquatic life to suffer greatly. It can be harmful to the environment around it and cause a chain reaction. Earthquakes and Tsunamis are also an environmental issue because they can cause certain species to be wiped out. They also effect the plant ecosystems and cause harm to them. Volcanoes are another impact that can wipe out civilizations. Also the magma spurred out can cause inefficient soil for plants to grow.

Economic Impact: When soil is degraded or overused plants have a hard time growing in that area. This can be harmful to farmers if they do not use a specified technique that can be harmful to the soil. It can make them suffer greatly in their farming techniques. Also earthquakes cause buildings to break and fall and can cause a large impact on the pockets of many people in order to recuperate. Along with earthquakes, volcanoes cause civilizations to be wiped out and people have to rebuild from nothing. With the runoff of chemicals from soil into streams and lakes, can cause the fishing industry to suffer because environments will be killed off and that will hurt the industry.

Government Legislation: One act that was passed to promote fertility was the Soil Conservation Act. This act made people use the soil and conserve it in such a way that it allowed improved fertility. It also was made to promote economic use and stop the soil resources from being diminished. The EPA has protection measures for people living in the range of a volcano explosion. It helps people prevent loss and helps for their safety. 

Human Population

CBR- crude birth rate- kids being born per 1000 people

CDR- crude death rate- people dying per 1000 people

TFR- total fertility rate- average amount of children a woman has

Replacement Level Fertility- 2.1 amount of children a mother must have to replace themselves

Population Momentum- a rapid growing population that levels off by lowering the tfr but still experiences growth for a little time longer

Net Migration Rate- immigration minus emigration

Family Planning- controlling the number of children born on intervals

Affluence- abundant wealth

IPAT equation- impact= population + affluence + technology

GDP- gross domestic product

Population Pyramid-

Countries have a bigger environmental impact as they transition through stages. As a country transitions from stage 1 to 2, it has more reliance on agricultural productivity. The environmental impact of this transition is that it uses more of the land at a higher level in order to sustain the population. When a country transitions from stage 2 to 3 it becomes more industrialized. Also the life expectancy of children increases therefore there is a higher population to tend to. When there is a high population to tend to, higher people use materials that cause harm to the environment. Industrialization and Urbanization also leads to harm of the environment. It has a greater effect than that of stage 1 to 2. When the country moves from stage 3 to 4, it has the highest ecological footprint. Because of its high populations, its greater consumption of food, and immense use of fossil fuels, this stage creates the most harmful environmental impact.

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/05/22/opinion/chinas-brutal-one-child-policy.html

The article states that the one-child policy is a harmful one. It strains the poor and the women. It creates a situation in which the family can only have one child, and usually will abort or discard it if its a girl. It provides them with moral decisions that change their course towards a wrong choice. The pros of this policy is that it is stopping overpopulation. It allows the Chinese land mass to support the people already there and the people being born at a steady rate, instead of overpopulating the country. The cons of this are huge. Women have the highest suicide rate here in China because of this policy. Also it strains the poor at extremes. In order to get out of this policy, people must pay a a huge fine and such fine the poor cannot pay, so the rich get out, but the poor are stuck with dealing with abortion or running off to have children illegally. It is a harmful policy that has created a large strain on China.

Human Impact: Humans have the biggest impact on everything. We are the population that uses the Earth's resources to our own use. Because of our high population, we are slowly approaching overpopulation. If we reach this, then we will hit our carrying capacity according to the resources that surround us and we will have less and less materials to support us. Humans also cause a ton of pollution as countries move from demographic stages. Because they have moved passed the sustainability of life, they start moving towards luxury and other uses of the resources, such as fossil fuels and cars. These things are a direct release of bad chemicals into the air that cause pollution and it all starts from human invention and use. 

Environmental Impact: As countries progress through the demographic stages, they start to have a higher ecological footprint. The impact on the environment gets higher and higher. This happens because people start to move away from sustaining a future to live, to a more industrialized and urban society in which resources are used to benefit humans, but also tend to pollute the earth. The environment is impacted at its greatest in developing countries because they tend to use resources without caution. They use these resources because they are not stable as developed countries which know how to use the resources at the correct level and with regulations. 

Economic Impact: An increased population can have a large economic affect. The more people the more use of resources that need to be produced and paid for. As people start to live longer and need more, more and more agriculture will be needed to support them. This growth in agriculture will mean more money towards paying for food. A benefit of a greater population is a larger workforce. This workforce can produce higher goods and promote higher intellectuality. 

Government Legislation: In China there is the one-child policy limiting mothers to only have one child to stop the growing population of the country. It allows China to save itself from the future population by stopping the growth now in order to save resources and stabilize their use. The Title X family program also affects the people in the United States. Its a program, mainly for low-income families, that assists families by giving them advice on when to have children and what is the best outcome. This is somewhat of a way to limit birth of children, by giving advice to low-income families, but at the same time it benefits them by giving them the best outcome of having a child.

Unit 4

Species Richness- amount of species in an area

Species Evenness-the proportion of species in an area

Microevolution- evolution below the species level
Macroevolution- evolution that begets a new species and such

Evolution by natural selection- change in genes regarding which species will survive

Evolution by artificial selection- change in genes regarding human breeding

Allopatric Speciation- speciation with isolation

Sympatric Speciation- evolution of one to two 

Genetically Modified Organisms- taking genes from one organism and transferring to another to create a modified organism

Fundamental Niche- ideal environment for a species

Exponential Growth Model- estimates future size of a population

Logistic Growth Model- describes how the populations starts off exponential but then slowly decreases as it reaches its carrying capacity

Carrying Capacity- maximum size an environment can hold due to its resources

Keystone Species- a species that is more important than its abundance says it is

HOTspots- As defined by Myers, a hotspot is an isolated area that contains a high proportion of all the species found on Earth. These are important because they contain species richness and they are also the most threatened areas for plant and animal species.

My hotspot is located in Europe and Central Asia. More specifically, it is the Mediterranean Basin. Shrublands and marine ecosystems are located in this hotspot.

Plant-Aphyllanthes monspeliensis

Animal- Scimitar-horned oryx (Oryx dammahI)

An Endemic Specie is a specie that live in a small area of the world and nowhere else.

Humans have been living in this hotspot for a very long time. The most intense reasons why biodiversity has decreased is because of human impact. Impact includes deforestation, grazing and fires, and infrastructure development. The replacement of friendly environment mechanism has also decreased biodiversity in this area. Along with human impact, the industry of tourism has affected this area. More and more people visit this area, therefore changing the environment into a business.

Romans and Greeks set aside land that was protected and now only 4.3% of the land is considered protective. Some conservation action that is being taken is the European Union's Habitats Directive. Along with the directive, regional cooperative programs have furthered conservation.

Pick a Side-

The fundamental niche of a species is its ideal environment. To determine a species ability to evolve it must be placed in an ideal place. To give the best results of evolving and reproducing, the environments carry capacity must be very high to keep the species exponential growth high. But once it reaches it carrying capacity it will start to decrease and move towards a logistic growth. Before it can reach this logistical growth, the species will overcome specific gene changes and evolve during the period of time. It will go through evolution by natural selection in order to reproduce individuals with the best genes and traits to maximize its survival chances. Allowing a species to grow in an ecosystem will increase the species' richness, and increase its proportion towards the other species, therefore increasing its species evenness. With a greater richness, greater change will occur. More mutations will happen in order to produce the best genotype and phenotypes. Species will adapt to the environment and reproduce to maximize survival in this specific environment and allow the individuals to evolve in this niche.

Human Impact: In the evolution of biodiversity, human impact is large. It can either help the biodiversity increase and prosper or decrease it. Also Humans can impact the populations and its ecology. We can sometimes act as parasites and feed off of the environment therefore harming one species fundamental niche. Take for example, in the observation of an animal's living space, we would turn over a rock to count how many Rolypoly's were there. Thus, humans would be disturbing the community of the animals, even if it was the slightest of movement. This slight adjustment could interfere with the community's ecology and disrupt normal interactions. Humans can also have a beneficial impact on some biodiversity increase such as evolution by artificial selection. Humans can breed the best type of animals with the highest chance of survival or any other trait by using this method therefore increasing biodiversity.

Environmental Impact: In the development of species and the growing number of them, they can have many different impacts on the environment- some good and some bad. An increase of species can result in species richness, but if the numbers get too large then it can overpopulate an area and also cause it to reach its maximum carrying capacity. Once it reaches its max carrying capacity its ability to replenish resources will slow down because more will be used. But a growth in species will create a community with a high biodiversity. It will allow more and more animals to evolve to have better traits to live in that ecosystem. Take for example living in a small area with the necessary resources to reproduce a cricket population will grow and grow, but will slowly die off after it reaches its carrying capacity because it will no longer have the required resources. 

Economic Impact: Economically humans act as parasites to the ecosystem by cutting down trees and using animals to take to zoos. This gives us humans a benefit economically. We use the trees to create boats, lumber, and paper. We also use the animals commercially in zoos to gain profit off of them. A large biodiversity can have many beneficial impacts on the world. It can help increase the population of marine ecosystems and cause the fishing industry to grow. It can also increase the community ecology and therefore creating a system that fixes itself when humans disturb it. Therefore when humans take something from the ecosystem, the ecosystem can repair itself and replenish what was taken thus creating a never-ending cycle.

Government Legislation: The endangered species act protects species that are endangered from humans. It allows them to survive off of what little they have of each individual and possibly reproduce to increase biodiversity. The forestry act has many different aspects. A main one is in section 37 of the act and it limits the number of trees that can be cut by an individual or company. This allows the ecosystem to stay alive and not be destroyed. Then there is certain legislation for national parks and wildlife centers. This legislation states that national parks and centers shall be created to keep the enriched biodiversity of the community at a high, to keep the species alive and well.

Ecosystem Ecology

Ecosystem- a mixture of biotic and abiotic things interacting with each other

Gross primary Productivity- total of solar energy captured in photosynthesis

Net Primary Productivity- GPP - respired energy by producers

Biomass- measurement of amount of energy

Standing Crop- amount of biomass in an ecosystem at one time 

Ecological Efficiency- amount of energy that can be passed through trophic levels

Trophic Pyramid- distribution of biomass between trophic levels

Biogeochemical Cycles- movement of matter in ecosystems involving biological and geological stuff

Macronutrients- Nitrogen, phosphorous, potassium, calcium, magnesium,sulfur

Limiting Nutrient- temporarily or permanently impedes a situation

Leaching- cause pollution of surface water

Disturbance- results in change of population size or community composition

Resistance- measure of disturbance and its affect on energy or matter

Resilience- rate that the ecosystem will replenish itself after disturbance

Instrumental Value- a worth that can be used

Intrinsic Value- a worth independent of human use

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2014/02/140218114311.htm

Intensive organic agriculture can cause large amounts of nitrate to seep through soil into groundwater and pollute it. Demand from the public has led to the use of organic agriculture. This is the reason why the groundwater is getting polluted with nitrate. It has caused drinking-wells to be shut down. It is caused from the nutrient leakage from the compost, and that is what causes the leaching.

Environmental Quote: if the bee disappeared off the face of the earth, then i believe that man would only have 4 years to live. I agree with this quote because bees pollinate. If they were to stop pollinating, then there would be no more plants. if there were no more plants, animals would die off, and therefore we would end up dying off as well. Its all a chain reaction and we would die if bees did not exist.

Human Impact: Humans have had many different impacts on ecosystems and other things in the environment. Humans can cause leaching from polluting soil samples across the land. They can also effect the biogeochemical cycles, by messing with certain traits of the cycle. Humans have impacts on the trophic levels when they mess with consumers, producers, and other levels. Also with biomass, humans can cut down trees which lead loss of biomass.

Environmental Impact: Leaching can pollute water that us humans and other biotic things use. Cycles can have negative impacts on the environment if they were to be messed with. They could alter climate or living conditions in certain areas. Loss of biomass can hurt the environment in its energy levels. Also when forests are cut down, living things can lose their habitats. 

Economic Impact: Cutting down trees is a loss of biomass, but it is an industry for humans. Lumber industry is big and it has instrumental value. It is used by lots of business to make profit. Either for fuel wood, to make boats, or many other uses. It has a large economic impact through its valuable use. Also if water is polluted through leaching, water companies may have problems with purifying their water to sell to people, which would affect them negatively. 

Government Legislation: the clean water act was placed to protect biomass production. It sets a standard to follow. This keeps leaching at a minimum because companies and organizations try to protect the surface water, which means they try to keep it as clean as possible. Also the Environmental Policy Act states that some regulations must be followed to protect the environment.