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Ecology

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Causal Patterns in Ecosystems: Lessons to Infuse into Ecosystems Units... Ecosystem Change. Effects of Predation on the Niche of Lizards. Some Animals Are More Equal than Others: Keystone Species and Trophic Cascades. The Nitrogen Cycle Game. The Nitrogen Cycle Nitrogen is an element that is found in living things like plants and animals, dead things like fallen leaves and dear animals, and non-living things like air and water.

The Nitrogen Cycle Game

The nitrogen cycle is one of the biogeochemical cycles and is very important for ecosystems. Nitrogen cycles slowly, stored in reservoirs such as the atmosphere, living organisms, soils, and oceans along its way. British Columbia's Mountain Pine Beetle. Beetle Devastates Yellowstone Whitebark Pine Forests. March 2010 Pine trees dying from an outbreak of mountain pine beetle infestation in the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem.

Beetle Devastates Yellowstone Whitebark Pine Forests

To view these forests on Google Maps, enter the degrees of 43.775189 latitude and -110.170233 longitude. Photo: U.S. Forest Service.

Mysis Shrimp Cascade in Flathead Lake

Lake Trout Cascade effect. The biology behind the lodgepole pine’s blue stain. By Dr.

The biology behind the lodgepole pine’s blue stain

Joanne Stolen – Summit Daily News The term symbiosis comes from the Ancient Greek “syn” — “with” — and “bíosis” — “living” — and is the close and often long-term interactions between different biological species. Often this interaction is obligate, in that neither can live without the other. One classic example is the lichen, a combination of a fungus and green algae. Blue Stain Fungus and Mountain Pine Beetles. Blue Stain Fungus and Mountain Pine Beetles.

NPineBeetleFinal. Edworthy-et-al-woodpeckers-respon-fem. New hope for beetle-killed landscapes. From the air, they look like brittle, dead landscapes: millions of acres of scratchy brown pipe cleaners and toothpick logs.

New hope for beetle-killed landscapes

Since the 1990s, naturally-occurring bark beetles have multiplied under the effects of drought, climate change and fire-repressed forests, leading to outbreaks that have ravaged forests and left land managers scrambling to deal with a glut of dead trees. But 2015 may prove a turning point. 1981Cole_Some%20Risks%20and%20Causes%20of%20Mort%20in%20MPB.pdf. Rocky-Mountain-Forests-at-Risk-Full-Report.

Ecosystem services

Earth - Your life on earth. Explore BBC Earth's unique interactive, personalised just to you. Find out how, since the date of your birth, your life has progressed; including how many times your heart has beaten, and how far you have travelled through space. HHMI’s BioInteractive. Test%203%20%20Atmosphere%20and%20Biogeochemical%20cyles.pdf. Top 10 Environmental Issues. Top 10 environmental Issues according to Planet Earth Herald Although the top 10 environmental issues that face the planet can be at best “subjective” we have attempted to aggregate and prioritise the list in order to put things into perspective.

Top 10 Environmental Issues

We have also accompanied each of the environmental issues with a video that explains the matter in depth. You can view the clip by pressing the play button on the image. 1. Population: Press “Play” to watch the clip. Pine Beetle Epidemic. One chilly morning in October 2013, Diana Six parked her white Subaru at the edge of a pine forest in southwestern Montana’s Big Hole Valley.

Pine Beetle Epidemic

Beneath snow-tipped peaks, lodgepole pines in four different colors draped the hillside—a time line of carnage. The gray ones, now just trunks and branches, had died in 2009. Light red trees, still holding needles, had succumbed in 2011. Darker, auburn trees had perished in 2012. Even the seemingly healthy green trees, said Six, a ponytailed, bodybuilding, beer-brewing entomologist at the University of Montana, were not what they seemed. The Geologic Carbon Cycle. Earth Systems Activity. Liz Hadly Tracks the Impact of Climate Change in Yellowstone. Exploring Biomes in Gorongosa National Park. The Tragedy of the Commons. Garrett Hardin + Author Affiliations Abstract The population problem has no technical solution; it requires a fundamental extension in morality.

The Tragedy of the Commons

Energy in Ecosystems

Gamers Going Green: New Video Game Turns Players Into Biofuel Farmers. Fields of Fuel inspires discussion among Wisconsin college students.

Gamers Going Green: New Video Game Turns Players Into Biofuel Farmers

Image courtesy of Heather Heggemeier / Wisconsin Energy Institute. For many people, the allure of video games is unparalleled. These games provide hours upon hours of entertainment for dedicated players, many of whom are enticed by the prospect of hunting zombies and defeating alien empires. But of course, video games aren't just about fun these days.

Since the late 1980s, video games have been used as teaching tools in the classroom, at home, and in other informal education settings. Although there is general agreement that we should be growing crops that can be turned into biofuels, scientists and farmers are still debating the best way to proceed. The fields on the left are populated by corn and switchgrass; at right, graphs show the farm's sustainability over time in terms of ecology, income, and energy production. It doesn’t take long to figure out that maximizing your score isn’t straightforward. Related.

Symbioses

Gorongosa National Park Interactive Map. A partnership between the nonprofit Gorongosa Restoration Project and Mozambique’s government has been instrumental in developing plans to sustain the restoration of Gorongosa National Park after its wildlife was ravaged by a civil war that engulfed the country from 1977 to 1992.

Gorongosa National Park Interactive Map

The restoration effort affords important research opportunities and provides a case study in ecology and conservation science. Use the interactive map to explore the key features of the park’s design, including diverse environments and ecosystems, conservation features, and community and tourism resources that provide opportunities for local residents and incentives for sustaining the environment for future generations. This interactive map was updated in December 2014 to include a past and future view of the park, which show, respectively, how the park boundary has changed over time and the vision for creating a protected corridor linking Gorongosa to a nearby nature reserve.

Worth.