Ecology and the Environment

Hello all, I'm preparing a lit review on plant-animal interdependance and I was just wondering if anyone knows of any key papers on the subject; or if you yourselves could impart any key examples. I'm excluding direct trophic links (like dietry dependencies) from the review in order to narrow things down a bit.

"I've got this theory, and the only cure, is more cowbell." Most human population models are of two kinds. 1. There are the friendly models, popular with the UN, where all the countries of the world eventually achieve mutual prosperity and stable fertility rates and the world population eventually reaches a steady state where the new people being born is in balance with the number of people being 'lightly killed'. 2. There are the fruit fly models, popular with others, where all of the people of the world breed like fruit flies until they use up all of there resources and then their population crashes, assuming of course they are not able to escape and find more fru…

Well, maybe I'm heartless but I don't worry about what's becoming extinct. If they're becoming extinct, then they should be. That's how this thing works. By the way, aren't we in the middle of a mass extinction right now?

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20060711/ap_on_sc/new_gecko;_ylt=AnY.XHUPrycm0ljiwEovOmMPLBIF;_ylu=X3oDMTA0cDJlYmhvBHNlYwM- Why are the geckos doing this? Does it have to do with global warming? Or is it because they need more room? Thanks in advance.

I am just wondering, what do you think is causing global warming and why?

Global warming is taking its toll, altering weather patterns. Africa is not the only place drying up, American cities are running out. If the town of Los Vegas, New Mexico {pop 18,000}doesn't get normal rainfall, it could dry up in a few months.

If there was a planet with bodies of water, but there was no atmosphere, could life still survive? Assume the sun that planet orbits is at the right distance. I also realize that a planet with water would also have a thin atmosphere of water vapor, but this is still less than what Earth has. Earth also has oxygen, nitrogen, and an ozone layer protecting life from harmful rays.

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…

Hi all, Experimental observations in the lab revealed that the larvae of an insect species experiences a constant rate of mortality regardless of its age. That is qx is constant. However, the time from egg hatching to pupation increase in a linear manner with the density at which the larvae are raised. In this example is larval survival (number pupating/number hatched) density dependent? i was just wondering you thoughts on this question... i think that larval survival is density dependent, but the answers say otherwise, would anyone be able to help explain this too me? thanks Sarah

http://gristmill.grist.org/story/2006/5/17/15336/5459 WHAT. THE. ****. Watch these ads. I dont even know how to respond to them. I cannot understand that 1) somebody actually wrote an ad like that and 2) people thought that producing and airing these ads would be a good idea. Please please tell me that the average person will realize how stupid these ads are? That commentary site is right, this looks exactly like satire.

The other day my girlfriend was laughing at a spikedhumor video in which Bush said something to the effect of: We need to end our addiction to fossil fuels ... the answer is coal! This morning I woke up and saw an article on fox (http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,193624,00.html), of all places, talking about how peak oil may have just recently hit or, or that it may, if we're lucky, hit in around 20 years - though fox also cites estimates that we would need to prepare 20 years in advance to avoid consequences! I was being a little tongue-in-cheek when I implied that the end is nigh. Still, things are coming to a head, in my humble opinion, when fox decides to star…

The headlines read, "Isn't it ionic, air purifiers make smog". I came here to get some answers from people who know a thing or two about science and physics to see what you believe on this subject. I became interested in air cleaners 5 years ago when I found out from an engineer at the Hard Rock hotel (friend of mine from college) that they pump ozone into the casino to create oxygen and get rid of cigarette odors. I thought ozone was bad to breath, so I started to study the subject. Since then, I've become one of the top air cleaner and air purifier sellers in the US and get calls and e-mails all the time from doctors who use ozone therapy to cure incurable disease…

Well i am making a huge project that concerns the testing of water quality in a rural and city environment. It is obvious to assume that a city location will have more acidic concentration, more nitrate, iron, and chloride concentration then a rural environment. My question is that i need to make a null hypothesis on this topic (null means that it can be disputed or refuted) can anyone help me in making a null hypothesis on this topic. Thanks alot everyone

I have been reading up on global warming recently, and other then the rising temperatures and depleting ozone, it seems rather silly. Almost 1960's science fiction silly. Rising oceans? What about them? Humans have lived on an Earth with small ice caps and larger oceans then are present now. I'm pretty sure that with our modern technology, this does not pose as serious a threat as people imagine. Maybe we'll lose a few cities. Big deal. Move inland. Mass exctinctions? Maybe if the temperature was increasing even faster then it is now. Sure, whole new species take millenia to evolve, but heat tolerence is not a new species. A century is plenty of time, especially f…

I was just woundering what is the effects of nitrogen and phosphorous fertilizers running into a body of water, I heard it negatively effects life. Could someone explain why to me. I read a topic about this but was not explained the reasons why. thanks alot everyone.

You know the big naval battles between germans and british and americans and japanese during WW2? I wonder, how big was the impact on the ocean environment? ships blowing tons of artillery straight to the water, massive sinking ships that must leak alot of petrol when they get hit and sunk by other ships artillery and also airplanes crashing into the water they too, leaking petrol. I have certainly not heard about it, but come to think of it it must have had a negative effect on the sea ecology, but how big?

I am curious about how much food you need to survive in the woods? What sources of food might be most useful? How many calories you might actually get from different sources such as bugs, bark tea, grasses, flowers, etc.? Also, they say you cannot survive on lean meat like rabbits because they have no carbohydrates, except in the liver, and very little fat, like 5% maybe. Is this true? How long could you survive on a no carb diet? I understand that all of the cells in your body can metabolize fatty acids except your brain cells, but that your body can make glycogen from protien. My own feeling is that you have some fat and muscle on you to begin with and stay…

Are there any good arguements against the theory of global warming? I've heard things along the lines of "we're currently coming out of an ice age and the earth would be warming naturally anyway", "there is warming in some regions, not in others", "we only have records of temperatures over the past century from the USA and some parts of Europe", ...and perhaps some others I can't remember. ..are any of these arguements reasonable? Are there any other evidence/arguements contradicting the theory of warming?

What's up with biofuels. Seems to me to be the wrong way to go, except perhaps in specific situations. I am thinking specifically about growing corn to make ethanol or growing canola to make biodiesel, or even the way we manage woodlots for cordwood, which is often no better than clearcutting, but on a smaller scale. Reasons I am opposed to biofuels: 1. The yield per acre is very poor compared to wind energy and solar energy. 2. We tend to burn alot of fossil fuels growing and processing these biofuels. 3. They are often grown in such a way that reduces biodiversity, reduces total biomass, and leads to soil degradation and ultimately erosion, desoilification, and d…

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/4660938.stm This article deals largely with the melting of the Arctic ice sheet. Throughout the entirety of the article, the cause is attributed to global warming. This is one of innumerable stories which have been published throughout the past few years drawing the connection between global warming and melting Arctic ice. But wait a second, what about Antarctic ice? If global warming is the problem, why don't we hear anything about that? The answer is because there is no progressive trend in summer ice coverage in the Antarctic, only aimless fluctuation. Now, ask yourself: if global warming is the problem, why is the ic…

I have made this thread for two reasons; it will help me on a homework assignment, and more importantly to get you to help the environment more. In this thread all you have to do is list ways to easily help the environment. I'll start: 1.) Recycle- By recycling, factories will use only 30% of the energy needed to make new goods from scratch. 2.) Use your car less- Try walking or riding a bike to get to places with short distances. It will not only help the environment by burning less fossil fuels, but will save you money on gas and give you some exercise. 3.) Start a community garden- Get your friends and family involved in a community garden. It will save…

My prof gave us this definition for life-history traits: "a set of rules used to allocate energy and time between reproduction and growth." I think this is a bad definition. I didn't like the Wikipedia one either, although it's better: "key maturational and reproductive characteristics that define the life course." What do you think? Is there a better definition or am I just being picky?

A species concept is basically a hypothisis that's used to demarcate seemingly distinct living populations from one another. In other words it's a definition; and it's purpose is to allow for distinct living populations to be defined objectivily (i.e. free from value judgements) by testing such populations against various opperational criteria. This is obviously of importance to taxonomy but also is a significant tool for ecology and biology. I was just wondering what people's thoughts were on what defines a species. There are over 20 concepts/hypotheses out there at present - as of yet no universally accepted concept has been developed - and each concept can yeild d…

I'm just interested to hear people's ideas on the primary cause on global biotic diversity patterns. There is an obvious lattitudinal relationship with increased rates of species diversity with a decrease in lattitude (i.e. the tropics harbour greater diversity than more temperate regions). Any thoughts?