Q1) Distinguish between each of the following:
- Ecologist and environmentalist (give a Canadian example of each): An ecologist is a person who studies the complex relationships between living organisms and their surroundings. These surroundings can be living like human beings, plants, animals, etc. or non-living like the climate. They are concerned about maintaining the integrity of ecosystems as a whole. Ecology is a very vast field and covers areas like food chains, biomes, etc. Pierre Dansereau is a well-known Canadian ecologist. Environmentalists, on the other hand, are concerned with protecting the environment from harmful human actions. David Suzuki is a famous Canadian environmentalist.
- Primary Succession and Secondary Succession: Succession is how ecosystems change with time and events. Primary succession is when colonization starts in the absence of soil. The organisms and their characteristics start changing and adapt to these changes. Examples in Canada would be around Great Lakes where winds and waves setup the sands along the shore. Secondary succession occurs when after a sudden disturbance like hurricane or wild fire, sequential development of species occurs. But in this case, some of the primary features like soil and water bodies remain. Southern Saskatchewan would be an example where the forest fires cause changes in tree growth.
- Food webs and energy flow in ecosystems: By the process of photosynthesis, plants (producers) capture chemical energy. Only 10% of this energy is available to primary consumers for example grasshoppers. In a food chain, energy is lost, and only a small part of the original energy reaches the consumer. Food webs are complex or interconnected food chains. This means that some consumers feed on multiple levels of energy. For example, human beings eat can be herbivores, carnivores or omnivores, thus eating at multiple energy levels. Thus, simple food chains lead to better consumption of solar energy and are better for the systems than food webs.
- Rain shadows and upper canopy biota in rain forests: Precipitation levels are dependent on mountain distribution. When warm air rises over mountains, it cools down, and this leads to precipitation over this windier side. Then this dried air warms up and goes down the other side of the mountain leading to a prairie, and this causes a rain shadow on one side of the mountain. Upper Canopy is the upper region of forest tree leaves and the atmosphere. Due to direct sunlight, these areas photosynthesize rapidly and thus are most important sources of vegetation. However, they also block the sunlight for the relatively lower levels leading to spare vegetation below them. Due to their height, they consume more nutrients and thus get the best, and the lower levels lose out and have limited tree growth. Thus, “rain shadows” lose out to windier mountainsides but upper canopy biota take up the sunlight and nutrient quota of lower levels.
- Spaceship earth and Frontier world view: Frontier world-view is a selfish school of though which asserts that humans have absolute right on the environment and other species and are free to use it, harm it, manipulate it according to their needs. This view is what has led to the environmental deterioration. Spaceship earth view, as the name suggests, is the view of planet earth from a spaceship. This view asserts that we as human beings have a responsibility and ability to protect the environment, and we should do this using technological advances. This educates that it is our responsibility to preserve the world for the future generations.
- Reasons for treeless plains in the high arctic and southern Saskatchewan: We have read about Biomes in our second chapter. Biomes are vast geographical areas with a group of self-sustained ecosystems, which are climatically controlled. Changes in climate and environment, affect all these individual systems. Examples are grasslands, forests, tundra, and desserts, etc. environments. Arctic tundra biome extends from group of islands all the way to the Arctic Ocean that surrounds the North Pole. This is an exceptionally cold area with temperatures falling to -40 Celsius in January. It receives very less sunlight and even in the warmest month in July; sunlight hits at a very low angle. One of the characteristics of this region is its “permafrost soil”, which is permanently frozen. Such soil is always below 0 Celsius. Due to this there is no drainage of water and percolation. Therefore, trees are not able to spread long roots and grow to heights. This is the reason; high arctic tundra (meaning treeless) is a treeless plain. South Saskatchewan lies along the “Old Man River” and is one of the few moist areas in Grassland biome. This biome is an extremely dry area with low precipitation rates of 25-75 per year. Even though, southern Saskatchewan is relatively moist, trees can hardly grow due to prairie fires and frequent draughts.
Q2) Write a paragraph describing a typical terrestrial or aquatic ecosystem near your home.
In the first line of the paragraph, identify the chosen ecosystem and its location. You should take frequent walks in this ecosystem and we encourage you to take photographs of its topography and some of the dominant biota. The area could be a small forest or wood lot, a pasture or meadow, a city park or urban ravine, a pond or small lake. You might include comments on key producers, consumers, and decomposers in your chosen ecosystem. you could also comment on whether or not the plants you see are endemic (have evolved in Canada) or exotic (accidentally or deliberately introduced into Canada from other parts of the World). If your chosen ecosystem is terrestrial, you could examine the soil and comment on its characteristics.
I have picked a park near my house for this question. The park has play fields for kids with a lot of sand. There is a baseball and soccer field too. Additionally there are two swimming pools. A jogging track runs through the park. The park is shadowed by a lot of trees. There are several maple and pine trees. These trees are native to Canada. There are several small plants in this park. Due to the large number of trees and plants, there are a lot of producers in the park. The greenery allows good photosynthesis from the sunlight and thus it is an active ecosystem. During the rains and moist weather, there are several insects with short lifespan. Once these insects die, birds feed on them. There is some silica sand in the park where kids usually play. It is fine particle sand and sometimes there are earthworms and insects crawling in the ground. The earthworms help the soil fertility. Grasshoppers are frequently seen over the grass. Hence, there are several decomposers working on the soil in the park.
WORKS CITED
Beckett, P.J, G, Pierce, and J.D., Shorthouse, Canadian Environmental Biology. Sudbury: Laurentian University, 1993. Print.
"David Suzuki Biography." Woopidoo!. Web. 2 Oct 2014.
< http://www.woopidoo.com/biography/david-suzuki/index.htm>
