Ecology and the Environment

I was recently watching an episode of Animal Face-off involving a saltwater crocodile vs a great white shark; now I'm not a PhD zoologist, but can someone tell me whether or not this fight is at all realistic? I mean I know that great whites are very skilled hunters, as are saltwater crocodiles, but would these two animals even dare go after each other in the wild? I always thought that unless they are defending their young, predators usually avoid attacking other predators that are the same size as they are. And if they did, is there anyway that the shark would even survive that final bite from the crocodile (the two go straight at each other and the croc bi…

Since food chains can be as long as you want them to be, I am wondering what is the longest 'natural' food chain. Also, I don't want humans to be counted in as they are omnivores and can interfere in any part of the food chain! What is the longest food chain known to man?

Nothing bugs me more than global warming deniers except being lied to about global warming. Who exactly is lying is something I can't say, but someone definitely is. I want to start this thread so that I can post articles I've come across contradicting the evidence in support of global warming and/or the anthropocentric account of it. I don't know who to trust and I feel like a helpless child in a custody battle - who gets to convert me over to their side? - and I feel like shouting out "Just tell me the goddam truth!!!" I'll accept the words of the noble scientists on SFN, but that's not to say I won't challenge them. I'll take whatever you say and pit it aga…

According to Scott Denning, prof. of Atmospheric Science at Colorado State University, we don't need to worry about the world's oxygen supply, despite of the thousands of wild fires in the Amazon and other places around the world. https://theconversation.com/amazon-fires-are-destructive-but-they-arent-depleting-earths-oxygen-supply-122369

or try to hunt invasive species to extinction? Doesn't matter if it is carp, in the missisippy or pythons in the everglades or zebra mussels in the great lakes. For some reason humans seek to exterminate any species that moved into a new zone. By this standard we should be eliminating the people who drained the everglades and dammed too many rivers exterminating them of native fish species. So isn't the human the Earths most invasive species and should they be eliminated in order to preserve the ecosystem? Or are ecosystems designed to change which is the reason that 98 to 99 percent of all species are extinct? Food for thought as you step on that anthill

This thread is primarily in response to those who insist that homosexuality is an abomination, or that it harms peoples morals, or any of the other stupid nonsense people say after they've been poisoned by religious teachings. Also, it's just an interesting topic of conversation. http://seedmagazine.com/news/2006/06/the_gay_animal_kingdom.php Male big horn sheep live in what are often called "homosexual societies." They bond through genital licking and anal intercourse, which often ends in ejaculation. If a male sheep chooses to not have gay sex, it becomes a social outcast. Ironically, scientists call such straight-laced males "effeminate." Giraffes have …

Give me your opinions I think it will get colder in Scandinavia because when the ice melts in the North Pole the gulf stream will get colder and it will be colder than before without the warmth of the Gulf Stream. The deserts will expand. I actually have some friends in Australia and they are farmers. They have a lot pf problems because there was nearly no rain at all!! I would love to get your opinions on global warming. Does it effect the way you live?

I was just watching that old movie 'Swiss Family Robinson' and quite frankly, during the scene where the two great danes managed to scare off a fully grown tiger, I actually laughed out loud at first. I'd be absolutely astonished if the dogs could take on a tiger and live to bark the tale, but I'm not a Zoologist so I don't know for sure. The tiger might just decide that it's not worth the trouble and flee, but I'm just curious: is there any realistic chance that were a pair of fully grown great danes to viciously attack a tiger to defend their owners, that they would stand any kind of chance of winning? Or even of scaring the tiger away (which is what happened in the mov…

What do u mean by organic? Any food has to be organic. And what do u mean by bio?any vegetable has to be of biological origin. Some foods are labelled bio-organic; but bio already implies it is organic or vice-versa right?

http://www.michaelcrichton.com/speech-alienscauseglobalwarming.html Well, not really... but Michael Crichton has attempted to relate the Drake Equation to the mathematics underlying climate science, specifically in regard to making outrageous predictions about the future...

I just watched An Inconvenient Truth. That's a scary movie. I had believed in Al Gore's "misconception #1" - that we're not sure if global warming is a real thing, and if it is, how much we're contributing to it. From the data he shows us, we are clear causing global warming every since middle of the 20th century. The sharp increase in CO2 imissions since the 60s/70s is so strongly correlating with the sharp increase in the average temperature of the Earth's atmosphere. And it's increased to about 3 times the temperature it's ever been in hundreds of thousands of years. That ain't no natural occurence. He keeps refering to the "scientists". "The scientists say..." he …

WHY...my big questions is...."WHY is it difficult to understand....that it is indeed us humans who have accelerated the global warming....and still contributing to it?" One of the threads asked for a scientific opinion..so being a budding environmental scientist...let me just try explaining. There are several ways in which we humans have (and are still) contributing to the global climate change (a.k.a global warming). But...lemme just explain one... Now I hope all here accept the fact that Carbon...in most of its form..is a greenhouse gas...and that the more it is in the atmosphere...greater will be the warming. Nature has been, over a period of severa…

Well, at the behest of Pangloss I'm making a new thread for this. He disagreed that the key points of Al Gore's crazy new global warming movie, An Inconvenient Truth, are valid. Actually, there's a few things I do want to address whose validity I dispute (well, not so much validity as scientific knowledge). But I'll try to summarize them here: 1. Global warming is real The general nature of the Earth's radiative imbalanche has been well-understood for over a decade. We know the Earth absorbs more energy than it radiates, so there can be no question of this, really. 2. Anthropogenic forcings are the primary cause Again, there's been little scientific…

Geologically/Ecologically speaking, what types of environments will produce oxidizing conditions, and similarly, which ones will tend to produce reducing conditions? (I understand the chemistry, so I don't need a lecture on redox reactions, I'm just a little naive as to how they are generated on a larger scale)

Hello fellow 'forumites' of Science Forums! I've encountered a little biology question which I've failed to obtain information from Google so please kindly enlighten me. So... the thing is that I would like to know the relationship between a water body (rivers, lakes, reservoirs etc) and the trees growing near it. I've captured an image, primarily for the assignment I'm working on, but I can show a similar one which I've found using Google Image. Source: http://www.a2jlp.co..../capontree.html I suppose that the vegetation around the lake depend on the lake for water and there is actually an ecological cycle involved which I am still seeking an explan…

Vote now. I think that religious people are more likely to believe the whole world is for humans. That human life is good and the more people, the better. But I think that is a very anthropocentric position. I believe the world is very much overpopulated with people. If you fly over the northeastern US, from Boston to New York and beyond you see dense cities that then give way to suburbs but no wilderness, then more dense cities. Flying over the Midwest you see a grid-like pattern of farmlands. All the fertile land is used to feed humans. In the west there is more rocky terrain that can't be farmed. While we can't farm mountainous, rocky terrain we can farm dry area…

I am interested to know how much electricity over a certain amount of time (say instantly to about ten seconds) it would take to kill your average garden type weed (roots and all). How does the electricity actually kill the weed (other than simply frying it)? Do you know of any commercial products that can do this already? Any help would be greatly appreciated.

I have checked several imagery providers none of which seem to to provide imagery of the ocean where on may find a picture of this colossal floating garbage patch. I would quite like to be able to examine this phenomena. If any one has been able to find it, or may know a provider which has such imagery please inform me. Chemkid

I am currently a Gr10 Science student, and we are currently learning about soil. Does anyone have any idea on how to calculate soil's air content? Much help is appreciated. Thanks!

The Earth is swarming with all kinds of animals. Most of these don't seem to help human survival. Why do we want them hanging around? Recently I found a leaflet in my weekly Science magazine. The leaflet was about the Siberian tiger, or some kind of tiger. These tigers are apparently getting scarce. Only 700 left, or something like that. The leaflet exhorted me to pay some money to "sponsor" one of these things, so they wouldn't die out. Well, frankly I don't really care whether they die out or not. They don't seem to be contributing anything to my life. Or human life in general. Who'd miss them? The only animals we'd miss, are the ones we eat. Lik…

Theoretically, what would the effects of an all-fresh-water world be, besides the obvious effects on aquatic life forms? How would the atmosphere be affected, and various other systems, be changed? As far as I can tell, the oceans: - Will be colder because salt water holds heat better - Will be harder to float in because of a lower TDS - Will be able to support larger creatures because of a higher DO content, since cold water holds oxygen better

Is Al Gore right about the effects of global warming? A lot of scientists think that Gore is wrong, but his data seems pretty solid to me. Any thoughts, opinions, facts?

Is there anything to the sunspot theory of global warming.

Hello As a city kid, I have zero knowledge about agriculture. To learn a bit about this, I will spend a few days on a farm at the end of the month to talk with farmers who went from "conventional" agriculture to organic. In the meantime, I'm reading a bunch of books about agriculture, both conventional and organic, but am having a hard time finding sound, non-biased, scientific information about... 1. what problems organic agriculture is supposed to solve (too much, too strong pesticides/fertilizer? lower nutrition in food?) 2. whether these solutions really work, and if they have any drawbacks For instance, some organic farmers refer to BS like homeopathy or biodyn…

Global warming is a natural cycle of this planet. The real problem is how can we expect to survive in the future with an expanding population of humans. We cannot solve any other problem without dealing with this one first.