ENVS 200 Final

Reproductive strategies

• R Species: small organisms, many offspring, shorter life expectancy

• K Species: large organisms, few offspring, longer life expectancy

Ecological communities

• an assemblage of populations of at least two species interacting directly or indirectly.

Species interactions

• Intra specific interactions: between the same species

• Inter specific interactions: between different species.

• Resources: that may be consumed by an organism and as a result becomes unavailable to another.

Types of competition

• Direct or indirect interaction of organisms leads to a change in fitness when they share a resource.

• Interference: directly compete for resources.

• Exploitation: interact indirectly through their shared resources.

• Apparent: do not directly compete for the same reosurces but instead connected through a predator.

What can be done about competition

Ecological niche: is the position a species can inhabit in the environment based on biotic and abiotic factors. 

Ecological effects

1. Competition excludes species from areas that they could be in: realized vs fundamental niche. 

2. Scale: species coexist at some spatial scale but are separate at another. 

3. Experiments are needed to determine competitive exclusion. 

Niche differentiation

• Refers to the process by which natural selection drives competing species into different patterns of resource.

• Realized niche: combination of conditions and resources that allow species to exist, grow, and reproduce in the presence of others.

• Fundamental niche: combination of conditions and resources that allow speices to exist, grow, and reproduce in isolation.

Competitive exclusion principle

• If two competing species coexist in a stable environment- then they do so as a result of niche differentiation. 

• If there is no such differentiation or if it is precluded by the habitat, then one competing species will eliminate or exclude the other. 

Character displacement

• Character displacement is the evolutionary outcome of niche differentiation. 

• The process where closely related species with similar fundamental niches evolve distinct traits when they coexist in the same environment. 

Predation

• True predation: kill their prey- eat many. 

• Grazers: attack many- eat part. 

• Parasitism: attack one or few- eat part. 

• Salicornia will out compete the arthrocnemum. 

Species interactions

• Commensalism: neutral and happy. 

• Amensalism: neutral and sad. 

• Antagonism: happy and sad. 

• Mutualism: happy and happy. 

• Competition: sad and sad. 

Symbiotic relationship

• Symbiosis decribes any type of interaction between two different speicees that occur. 

• e.g. Coral-dwelling crabs: research has found that certain coral-dwelling crabs can help heat stressed and wounded corals by reducing tissue loss. 

• Facultative: species can survive apart. 

• Obligate: species can not survive apart. 

• e.g fig wasps enter figs to lay eggs inside the fig and pollinate the fig.

Primary & Secondary production

Rate of biomass production per area per time.

Rate of production of biomass by heterotrophs.

Fate of primary productivity

• The amount of energy in primary productivity- there is more energy in photoplankton that is transferred to the zooplankton. Energy decline in transfer- 10% law. 

• Consumption effieceny: the amount of energy that gets consumed by heterotrophs. 

• Assimilation efficiency: how much of that energy is absorbed in the gut. 

• Production efficiency: the percentage of energy that is left over that then goes into increasing biomass within the heterotrophic- ability for the next trophic. 

• Trophic transfer efficiency= CE (consumption energy) x AE (assimilation energy) x PE (production energy). 

Biogeochemistry

Biotic controls on chemistry of environment and the geochemical control of the structure and function of ecosystems.

Phosphate

• An essential nutrient for animal and plants. 

• Sediment driven cycle. 

• Phosoprous present in crust is slowly made avaible- erosion. 

• Land based: circulates phsopruous between plants and soil. 

• Water based: takes a few weeks. 

• Can lead to pollution & eutrophication. 

Carbon cycle

• Carbon cycled through an ecosystem. 

• Producers are the agents of carbon through photosynthesis. 

• During cellular respiration plants release carbon. 

• Carbon is added by animals as a byproduct of respiration. 

• Animal waste. 

• Overtime fossil fuels turn into gas- released as carbon. 

• Revoirs are sinks that prevent carbon access: deforestation,  

• Oceans have more carbon than the atmosphere. 

Paleoclimate data

• Provides insights into past climate conditions.

• Collected from natural records like ice cores, tree rings, and sediments.

• Art

Challenges with paleoclimate data

• Incomplete or fragmented records. 

• Interpretation complexity. 

• Dating uncertainty. 

• Spatial and temporal variability. 

Radiative forcing

• Radiative forcing is the change in energy balance of the Earth’s climate system due to natural or human induced factors.

• Positive forcing: greenhouse gases. 

• Negative forcing: cooling.  

Drivers of climate change

• incoming radiation

• Flunctations in solar energy

• Orbital patterns

Ocean acidification

• Ocean becomes more acidic because of increased carbon in the ocean. 

• CO2 in the water = carbonic acid. 

• 30% more acidic: 1950- now  

Methane cycle

• greenhouse gas

• More effective for radiation & heat. 

• Prokaoryes: act as a sink. 

• Atmospheric oxidization: as a sink. 

Nitrogen cycle

• Nitrogen is converted into multiple chemical forms. 

• Lots of gas in the air can’t be abosped by plants. 

• Inmutialized means it’s been absorped. 

• Nitrogen has a strong link between bacteria and it circles the environment. 

Fritz Haber

• Created nitrogen fertilizers

• Saved 2.7 billion lives

Feedback loops

• Negative: slows down  

• Positive: increases. 

Biodiversity

• Degree of variation in life.

• Composition (genetic, species richness, individual population) and function.

• Intrinsic value: perphaps a moral or religious duty

• Instrumental value: direct use value & potential

Provisioning Services

• A service that benefits humans extracted from nature.

• Wheat

• Hay extraction to feed animals

• Fuel from trees (fiber and cotton production)

Regulating services

• Things that keep cycles going.

• e.g. planting trees, pollinators, mangroves, bogs/wetlands.

Support service

• Ecosystem services that support all things we use it for.

• Foundation of ecosystem functioning.

• The river popper analogy:

• Airplane = the ecosystem

• Rivets = species.

• How does the removal of rivets impact the plane’s flight safety.

Cultural services

Nonmaterial benefits people obtain from ecosystem through spiritual enrichment, cognitive development, reflection, recreation, and aesthetic experiences.

Habitat fragmentation

• Reserve selection: single large or several small

• Higher edge habitat: more invasive species, greater sunlight, not ideal, smaller area.

Extinction vortex

• small, isolated populations can be exinct even with human intervention.

• Greater change of inbreeding/loss of genetic diversity.

• Genetic drift: if an event were to occur, it could impact genetic diversity.

invasive species

• Species of plants, animals, and microorganisms introduced outside their natural past or present distribution.

• Alien species become invasive when they establish and spread in new environment, and threaten the native species, environment, economy or society.

Epidemiology of invasive species

1. Arrive: pathway

2. Surive (10%): naturalized/established species

3. Thrive (10%): invasive species

   • Only 1% of species become invasive and cause harm.

Managing invasive species

• Prevention

• Manual removal

• Chemical

• Fighting invasives with invasives

• High costs.

Challenges faced by protected areas

• Insufficient management: many protected areas lack resources and management.

• Human pressure: ongoing issues like poaching.

• Fragmentation: isolation of protected areas hinder species migration and genetic diversity.

Role of multiple stressors

• Climate change

• Pollution

• Invasive species

• Habitat degradation

AI & Environment

• Potential in tackling the triple planetary crisis of climate change, nature, biodiversity loss, and pollution.

• Pattern detection: similarities & anormalies in data - predicting future events.

• Environmental monitoring: helps governments, businesses, and individuals make planet friendly choices.

• Efficiency enhancement: optimized energy consumption by analyzing patterns and adjusting systems.

Species ID - AI

• Leaverages machine learning algorithms to accurately identify species from images and audio recordings, aiding in biodiversity conservation.

• Image analysis: processes images to recognize species

• Audio analysis: analyzing sound recordings to detect species

• Data integration: combines data from various sources.

Rare birds

• Ecological data sets often presents skewed distribution.

• ECOGEN is a learning tool designed to generate realistic bird songs

• It uses spectrograms and image generation techniques to create new digital audio.

• Improved samples by 12%.

Animal behaviour - AI

• Detection and classification:

• AI algorithms analyze animal sounds to detect vocalizations.

• Helps in identifying species and understand communication patterns.

The language of birds

• Northern crows in Spain

• Not genetically driven but learned

• Used an AI device to record vocalization and movement data - attached onto the crow.

• Crows make softer sounds

• Building AI to analyze recorded data.

AI in plant distribution mapping

• Scientists use deep learning and data from iNaturalist app to create high resolution maps of plant distributions in California.

• The AI correlates citizen science data with remote sensing images to predict plant species range.

• Predicts the distribution of 2 221 plant species down to a few square meters.

Rainforest connection

• Recycles old phones, solar panels, and AI software.

• Monitors rainforest ecosystems for sounds of illegal logging and poaching.

• Detects suspicious sounds and alerts authorities.

Ecological sustainability

• Disaster preparedness: enhances disaster response system.

• Data driven decisions: levergages complex data sets to inform analysis and predict future.

• Sustainable agriculture: reduces environmental impact by improving practices.

Limitations of AI

• Model biases: biases in training data can lead to error.

• Environmental impact: high energy consumption and carbon emissions from tech, need to efficent algorthms

• Privacy and ownership: concerns about privacy and security.

Water temp

Positive correlation between temp and suspended sediment concentration.

Dissolved oxygen

• Necessary for aquatic organisms and bacteria.

• Fast moving with riffles, rocky substrate have higher DO.

Stream depth & width

Change according to factors such as flooding events, precipitation, and influences upstream.

Velocity

Stream flow affects bank erosion, transport of nutrients, stirs up substrate and impacts aquatic habitat.

Conductivity

• Is a measure of electrical conductance in the water and relates to inogranic ions in the water.

• Conductivity can give an indication of the amount of salt in the water.

TSS

• Total suspended sediments and turbidity are similar parameters.

• TSS is a quantitative measurement of sediment in suspended water.

• Turbidity is a measurement of how clear the water is.

• Affects photosythensis and habitat suitability.

Biological condition

• Richness: number of taxonomic groups.

• Evenness: the relative abudance of each taxonomic group.

• Diversity indices: includes both richness and evenness.