ECOLOGY Elizabeth Matarese, CPH Anne Arundel County Master Gardener Program 2013
Sylvan Kaufman • Dr. Kaufman consults, writes, teaches, and lectures on ecology, botany and restoration topics. She is also active on the board of the Chesapeake Conservation Landscaping Council. Sylvan has a BA in Biology from Vassar College and a Ph.D. in Ecology and Evolutionary Biology from Rutgers University. She has worked as a researcher at Harvard University and as the curator and land manager at Adkins Arboretum. Sylvan co- authored “Invasive Plants, Guide to Identification and the Impacts and Control of Common North American Species.”
LEARNING OBJECTIVES
This presentation should help you gain an understanding of: • A global perspective on ecology and our place in it • Our local climate and geology and their influence on plant and animal communities • The effects of land-use practices • The interactions of plants and animals • Changes in these communities and the implications • The flow of energy and nutrients through the land and the effects of human influence
Some Basics • Ecology is the study of organisms and their environment. • There are biotic and abiotic elements in the environment. Biotic means living. Abiotic means without life. – Plants, animals, viruses, bacteria, fungi – Soil, temperature, light, minerals, climate, moisture, elevation
Biomes and Ecosystems • The Biosphere supports life. Within the biosphere are Biomes. Within biomes are Ecosystems. • Ecosystems are communities of biotic and abiotic components. These components are interdependent, linked together through nutrient cycles and the energy generated through their activities.
Examples of Ecosystems • Rainforests • Coral Reefs • Deciduous forests • Aquatic environments • Riparian zones • Estuarine environments
INTERDEPENDENCIES • Ecosystems within biomes share many characteristics • There are a number of definitions of “ecosystem.” Drawing a finite line around a set of properties or characteristics has proven difficult. • Ecologist Ariel Lugo and co-authors identified ten characteristics for effective classification of ecosystems. They posited that the definition should be based on ecosystem processes.
INTERDEPENDENCIES .........continued • Within biomes, ecosystems must remain in balance • Temperature and precipitation are two of the most important factors affecting this balance • Geography influences these differences on both the global and local scale
Impacts on the Biosphere Major natural and human-caused changes have global impacts: • El Niño and la Niña • Depletion of the ozone layer • Rising average temperatures reflected in the revised hardiness zone map • Sea level rise effects • Weather extremes
Impacts on the Biome • The biosphere contains large areas with relatively uniform vegetation. This is determined by a mean annual temperature and precipitation . – Major terrestrial biomes include tundra, desert, grassland, and three types of forests. – Maryland is in the temperate forest biome.
TUNDRA DESERT GRASSLAND TROPICAL FOREST TEMPERATE FOREST BOREAL FOREST
TUNDRA BIOME
TUNDRA BIONOME
BOREAL BIOME
TAIGA OR BOREAL FOREST BIOME Climate: Climate in the taiga is cold, with average annual temperatures from about +5 � to -5 � C. It is interesting to note that one location with a coniferous forest, Yellowstone National Park in Wyoming, has an average annual temperature of only 1 � C! Precipitation varies, from about 20 cm of precipitation per year to over 200 cm. Much of the precipitation, of course, is in the form of snow. The winters are cold and long; summers are relatively short and cool. With snowmelt and low temperatures, there is little evaporation in the summer, so the ground is usually very moist during the growing season. Add to the availability of water the fact that the short summer has extremely long day length at the northerly latitudes and you have a situation for explosive plant growth in the summer. Still the growing season is short, usually less than 3 months.
TROPICAL FOREST BIOME
TROPICAL FOREST BIOME Climate: Warm and wet describes the tropical rain forest climate. The average annual temperature is above 20 � C ; there is never a frost. Rainfall varies widely from a low of about 250cm of rain per year to about 450 cm/year . That means a range from about 8 to 14 feet of rain per year. The tropical rainforests are, indeed, located in a band around the equator from 23.5 � N (the Tropic of Cancer) to 23.5 � S . Because the Earth tilts 23.5 degrees on its axis as it travels around the sun, at some point in the year (the solstices , June 22nd in the north, December 22nd in the south) the sun will be directly overhead on one of these lines. At the equinoxes the sun is directly over the equator. Within this band, solar radiation is most intense, and thus the surface of the planet warms the most. The warmth leads to a lot of evaporation , and as warm, moist air rises, it cools, the water condenses, and the water falls back to the earth as rain . Thus, the warmest areas of the planet also tend to be the wettest , and this sets the stage for the tropical rain forest. Not all of the land in the tropics is tropical rainforest. Some areas are too cold (mountaintops), or are too dry (the far side of a mountain range from the ocean gets less rain). In some places there may be a lot of rain, but it falls seasonally and the long dry season prevents a tropical rainforest from developing.
Another biome similar to the tropical rain forest is the cloud forest. These forests form on mountaintops in the tropics; The forests in Jamaica and Costa Rica are good examples, and they exist in other mountainous areas as well. Because of their elevation, cloud forests are cooler than the tropical rain forests below them; much of the water there does not fall as rain but is instead wrested from the clouds by the plants living in the forest. These forests are critically endangered by global warming; as the planet warms tropical rainforest is able to move up the mountainsides and the cloud forests are displaced into smaller and smaller regions at the tips of the mountains - and if these mountaintops get too warm the entire cloud forest will be replaced by tropical rainforest.
GRASSLAND BIOME Whatever their origins, grasslands today are found in areas of the world intermediate in precipitation between deserts and forests . In the northern hemisphere the main grasslands are the prairies of the Midwestern United States and Canada; in Eurasia the maker grasslands are the steppes of Russia and the grasslands of the mid-east extending from Turkey to India. Grasslands are also found in South America. Africa certainly has grasslands, but the majority of them are classified instead as savannas (a tropical grassland with interspersed trees) and they are treated with the tropical seasonal forests here.
GRASSLAND BIOME Climate: The climate for grasslands is basically dry . Precipitation usually does not exceed 100 cm per year, with a minimum near 20 cm per year . Also, grasslands tend to be in temperate to subtropical areas, often with cold winters and hot summers. As you can see in the diagram below, average annual temperatures range from below 0 degrees C to about 20 � C . The warmer end of this range would probably tend towards tropical savanna . As moisture levels increase, grasslands usually give way to temperate forests or taiga, depending on the temperature. One problem with determining the exact climate for this biome is historical. There is now some evidence that suggests that some prairie (at least that intermixed with forests in the more humid eastern United States) was artificially maintained by native American tribes using fire as a tool. By eliminating trees and creating grasslands they increased biological diversity and populations of such game species as bison and deer. So, the question remains as to what extent grassland habitats are the results of "natural" processes or of human interference.
TEMPERATE FOREST BIOME
TEMPERATE FOREST BIOME
SOME LINKS • http://www.marietta.edu/~biol/biomes/boreal.htm • http://www.marietta.edu/~biol/biomes/troprain.htm • http://www.marietta.edu/~biol/biomes/tempded.htm • http://www.marietta.edu/~biol/biomes/tundra.htm • http://www.marietta.edu/~biol/biomes/desert.htm
The Habitats of Maryland
Abiotics of the Coastal Plain……. Climate Elevation and Temperature. From a few feet above sea level, the Coastal Plain extends and rises gradually to about 150’ MSL…. And extends westward to the edge of the Piedmont Plateau. Thence it rises to 3,360’ in
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