ENVS316 Schedule, Assignments, Readings & Questions
Readings should be completed prior to the class, lab, or site visit for which they are assigned. The questions posted for each reading are designed to help you focus on the concepts most relevant to this course (these questions are also useful as a study guide for quizzes). Since the syllabus will undergo minor modifications and readings and questions may be added, you should check below before each reading. PDFs of all assigned readings, except those in J. Gordon’s Planning Research are in folders on Blackboard corresponding to each topic below. Click on the headings below to navigate to each week’s readings and assignments. Unless a different time is specified, assignments are due by midnight on the date indicated.
I. BASIC PRINCIPLES OF SYSTEMS ECOLOGY
1. Week of 9/5/11: Intro to the Ecosystem Ecology and Ecosystem Forming Factors
2. Week of 9/12/11: Ecosystem Forming Factors in North East Ohio
3. Week of 9/19/11: Energy Flow from Biosphere to Physiological Scales
4. Week of 9/26/11: Biogeochemical Cycles
5. Week of 10/3/11: Ecosystem-Level Research
6. Week of 10/10/11: Ecosystem Development, Disturbance, Resilience & Biotic Regulation
II. SYSTEM ECOLOGY APPLICATIONS
7. Week of 10/17/11: Restoring and Engineering Ecosystems
8. Week of 10/31/11: Agroecosystems and Biosequestration
9. Week of 11/7/11: Landscape Ecology
10. Week of 11/14/11: Global Change #1: Climate Change
11. Week of 11/21/11: Methods of Data Analysis
12. Week of 11/28/11: Great Lake Ecosystem and Response to Phosphorous
14. Week of 12/12/11: Poster Presentation
This is the text linked to the second button on the course Blackboard site. Read this completely so that you understand the objectives, expectations and relationship between course structure and function. Bring questions to class.
Terms
to understand: hierarchy, reductionism, holism
Q: What is the
"levels-of-organization concept" and how does it provide a framework
for developing an integrated understanding ecosystems?
Q: What common properties
do all levels of biological organization possess?
Q: What do the
authors argue is deficient with examining levels in isolation?
Q: What is a
hierarchy?
Q: What are emergent properties and
how are they related to the concepts of reductionism and holism?
Terms: pool (aka "stock"), flux
(aka "flow"), process, scale, succession, climax, parent material,
interactive controls, chronosequence, toposequence, functional type (aka
functional group)
Q: How is ecosystem ecology distinct from other sub-disciplines of ecology?
Q: Which of the following are pools (stocks) and which are fluxes (flows):
plant biomass, photosynthesis, rainfall, soil carbon, grazing, soil moisture?
How do the units used for a pool differ from units used for flux?
Q: Of the five that Chapin identifies, which "state factor" is most
important in determining the distribution of world biomes? What kind of study
can be used to assess the importance of different state factors?
Focus on understanding the sections
"The nature of causality" and "An origin of formal and final
agency". Don't worry about the math in the section, "Quantifying the
effects of formal and final causes", or about the concept of "ascendancy".
Q: How do the feedback principles outlined for ecosystem development apply to
other types of systems and to your own experiences?
Q: Distinguish and identify examples of positive and negative feedback, what
roles do each play in systems development? How is positive feedback "scale
dependent"?
Q: Define cybernetics, holism, reductionism, and autocatalysis
Q: Be able to distinguish between, and provide an example of how the four
levels of causality are responsible for experience in your own life
Terms: glacial till, lake till, glacial
erratic, end moraine, ground moraine, kettle hole, Lake Maumee, Lake Whittlesey, Lake Warren, Canadian shield, Cincinnati arch, climax forest
Q: Imagine digging a well in Oberlin. Describe the series of materials you
would pass through and their geologic origin. How might this differ if you were
to drill closer to Lake Erie, on a beach ridge, or adjacent to a river?
Q: If a geologist describes material as being "Devonian" or
"Pennsylvanian", what does this tell you about the age and mineralogy
of the material?
Q: What sized particles produce sandstone, siltstone and shale? Explain how
local geological history resulted in a clay rich soil in NE Ohio.
Q: Some regions of the US that were glaciated still have substantial
topographic variation while other regions, like ours here, are very flat. Why?
Q: How does the advance and retreat of glaciers affect the depth of the oceans
and the height of the land surface on which the glacier resides?
Q: How do glaciers advance and retreat and how and in what direction do they
transport material?
Q: Compare the shape of a river flowing over steep and over slight topography
-- which is likely to exhibit a straighter course and why?
Q: In Europe, the primary mountain ranges extend along an East-West direction
(Alps and Pyrenees) whereas in North America and Asia they extend primarily in
a North-South direction (Appalachians, Rockies). Explain how this fact might
explain native species diversity in Europe relative to diversity in North
America and Asia.
Q: What role do bogs play in elucidating the vegetative history of a glaciated
region? What characteristics of bogs facilitate this? What is the natural
ecological progression of a bog over time?
Q: It is believed that tree species in this region became established in the
local post-glacial environment in the order: spruce, fir, pine, birch, oak,
hemlock, hickory, beech. Why this order, what does it have to do with
properties of the individual species?
Q: For species with equal climatic requirements, what type of seed strategy
might lead to faster migration into newly available land?
Q: A number of characteristic vegetative forest formations are defined for this
region: beech-sugar maple, elm-ash-red maple, oak-hickory,
sycamore-cottonwood-red maple. Under what conditions does each of these
formations come to dominate a site (think factors)?
Q: In what ways have humans affected the species composition of the local
landscape?
Q: An "ecotone" is the relatively diverse region that forms as a
gradient between two different kinds of ecosystems. How might one use a similar
concept, but on a larger scale, to explain the relatively high plant diversity
in this region of the country?
Terms: rock cycle, igneous, metamorphic,
sedimentary, aspect, physical and chemical weathering, bulk density, gley, soil
horizon (O, A, E, B, C), texture (clay, silt, sand), oxidation-reduction reaction,
soil organic matter, cation exchange capacity, base cations [Don't bother
memorizing the soil orders].
Q: What processes are responsible for the rock cycle?
Q: Chapin applies the concept of forming factors (he calls these "state
factors") to soils. How do each of the five factors Chapin discuses
influence soil formation?
Q: How do processes occurring within ecosystems (i.e. "interactive
controls") affect soil development?
Q: What factors determine erosion rate? Which of these are most strongly
influenced by human activity?
Q: What is a "soil profile", and what processes cause its
development? Explain how differences in climate, drainage, and biota might
affect profile development.
Q: What are the processes involved in physical and chemical weathering of
soils? Give examples. How do plants affect these processes?
Q: What is soil texture? How and why does it affect ecosystem processes?
Q: What are oxidation-reduction reactions, how are they important in soils?
From the perspective of capturing energy, which commonly occurring chemical
species in soils are the best electron acceptors, which are the worst? What
are the implications?
Q: What is cation exchange capacity (CEC) and why is it important? What factors
determine the CEC of a soil?
Q: If global climate change caused only an increase in average temperature, how
would you expect this to affect soil development?
Note: This chapter goes into a bit more
detail on the climatic system than I care that you know for this course. As
always, use the questions as a study guide
Q: How does the energy that the earth receives differ from the energy that it
emits?
Q: Explain how unequal heating of the earth by the sun and the resulting
atmospheric circulation produce the major latitudinal climate zones.
Q: How does ocean circulation affect climate at global and continental scales?
Q: Specifically how do the greenhouse gasses (“radiatively active gasses”)
affect radiative balance?
Q: How does the chemical composition of the earth’s atmosphere influence
climate?
Q: Why are upwelling areas important for aquatic primary productivity in the
ocean?
Q: How does land cover affect climate, and why is this important? How might
land use changes in tropical and temperate forests alter local climates?
Q: What general factors are responsible for long term (millions – thousands of
years), intermediate term (100s of years), short term (years), seasonal, and
diel (24hr) variability in climate at the surface of the earth?
Terms: food chain, food web, trophic level, primary producers, primary productivity, gross primary productivity, net primary productivity, photosynthetic efficiency, transpiration efficiency, food chain efficiency (= trophic transfer efficiency), assimilation efficiency, exploitation efficiencies, residence time, biomass accumulation ratio, autochthonous vs. allochthonous inputs
Q:
Why do ecologists use the element carbon to trace energy flow through
ecosystems?
Q: What is the “reduced” form of carbon, what is the “oxidized” form? Which
one represents the higher energy state?
Q: What ecosystems are most productive? What ecosystems are least productive?
What explains these differences in productivity?
Q: What is the relationship between trophic transfer efficiency and the number
of trophic levels in a system?
Q: How would you expect the residence time of carbon in detritus to compare
with the residence time of carbon in fresh leaf tissue? Why?
Q: How does trophic transfer efficiency differ in planktonic ecosystems from
forests? What accounts for this?
Q: Under what conditions would you expect detritus based food chains to
dominate over herbivore based food chains and why?
The most eloquent essay on biogeochemical
cycles ever written. To appreciate its subtleties, I suggest that you read
Odyssey after the Ricklefs assignments. Savor this one!
Q: What elements might atom x be? How do you know? Does it change?
Q: Which specific components of the story embody conservation of matter and which
the 1st and 2nd laws of energy?
Terms: Mineralization, source, sink,
compartment model, Nitrogen fixation, ammonification, nitrification,
denitrification, photoautotrophs, chemoautotrophs
Q: Which reactions in the nitrogen cycle require energy, which give off energy?
Which require an oxic environment, which require an anoxic environment? What
two benefits do nitrogen fixing bacteria receive by living in a symbiotic
association with plants?
Q: What are the principle forms of phosphorus? How does phosphorus cycling
differ from N cycling? At what soil pH is P most available? Explain why.
Q: How could it be that a lake has lots of dissolved P and yet the
phytoplankton remain P limited?
Q: Use biogeochemical transformations associated with the sulfur cycle to
explain why the mining of fossil fuels often results in "acid mine
drainage".
Q: Why is the production of N2O (laughing gas) considered of
particular biogeochemical importance?
Q: Explain two alternate scenarios for the possible effects of elevated CO2
on arctic tundra ecosystems.
Q: Explain the energy source for organisms living in hydrothermal vents.
Terms: benthic, pelagic, littoral zone,
epilimnion, hypolimnion, emergent vegetation, macrophyte, microbial loop,
dissolved organic matter (DOM), nutrient spirals in streams, estuary, Redfield
ratio, oxic, anoxic
Q: Explain the energy source for organisms living in hydrothermal vents.
Q: Describe the principle differences
between nutrient cycling in terrestrial and aquatic ecosystems with respect to
the physical proximity of dominant producers to nutrients and also with respect
to the importance of anaerobic vs. aerobic processes in the soil or sediment.
Q: How does nutrient cycling differ in shallow and deep water columns and what
are the implications? How does seasonal pattern of stratification in temperate
lakes affect oxygen and nutrient dynamics in the hypolimnion and sediments?
Q: How does the oxidation state of the sediments affect both N and P dynamics
(consider what happens to the important forms of these nutrients under oxidized
and reduced conditions)? What role do the two important oxidation states of Fe
play in P dynamics in aquatic sediments?
Q: Under what nutrient conditions do small phytoplankton dominate? Why? Use the
"microbial loop" concept to explain the ecological effect on trophic
dynamics.
Q: What does it mean for an ecosystem to be heterotrophic or autotrophic? As
ecosystems, are streams and rivers typically heterotrophic or autotrophic? A
certain stream has a narrow upstream, forested section and a wide downstream
section. Speculate on the relative trophic status of these two sections.
Q: Explain why estuaries typically have such high rates of gross primary
productivity.
Q: Why does a salt marsh have high rates of denitrification? In designing the
Living Machine, how and why have we attempted to copy the biogeochemistry of
nitrogen transformations in natural wetlands? (FYI, many years ago, John Todd,
the designer of our LM, was a scientist at Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute).
Q: A large volume of pure carbohydrate (no N or P) is delivered to relatively
oxic sediment. Explain how this might result in the release of dissolved
phosphate into the water column.
Q: Many estuaries are thought to oscillate between nitrogen and phosphorous
limitation seasonally. Assuming you have seasonal data on the concentrations of
inorganic nitrogen and phosphorous, how could you use the "Redfield
ratio" concept to create a graph depicting likely nutrient limitation over
the course of the season?
Q: The so called "Geritol hypothesis" advocates fertilizing the
southern oceans with iron in order to reduce the global concentration of
atmospheric CO2. What assumptions about limiting nutrients and about
carbon cycling are implicit in this hypothesis?
Q: The importance of N and P limitation are different in fresh and salt water
environments. What principle mechanisms do scientists invoke to explain this
difference?
We will run samples on the type of ion chromatograph described in this paper. Get a sense of how it works.
This assignment is a large page count, but pages in this exceptionally concise explanation of the research process are small and writing is easily digested. Questions below are organized by chapters
1) Importance of written plans
Q: what is it important to have a study plan?
Q: What are the key components of a study plan?
2) Scientific method
Q: what are the distinctions between applied and basic research and qualitative vs. quantitative research?
Q: What are the key elements of the scientific method
Q: What is the distinction between inductive and deductive logic and what are some of the limitations of each?
Q: What is the null hypothesis and why isn’t it a mechanistic hypothesis?
Q: what is a mechanistic hypothesis?
3) Useful views of science
Q: What criteria does Karl Popper use to distinguish between science and non-science?
Q: Explain what is meant by “normal science”. From Thomas Kuhn’s perspective, what is a paradigm and what is a revolution?
Q: What factors induce a scientific revolution?
Q: What does Gordon see as the distinguishing features of ecological science from the rest of science, i.e. parts of the paradigm (end of chapter).
4) Stating problems and objectives clearly
Q: explain the “gap-in-knowledge” and Decision-maker models for identifying problems to research
Q: What role to the objectives play in the research plan?
Q: What are the functions of the title of a research plan?
5) Creating hypotheses and models
Q: explain the “gap-in-knowledge” and Decision-maker models for identifying problems to research
Q: What role to the objectives play in the research plan?
Q: What are the functions of the title of a research plan?
Creating hypotheses and models
Q: What is the value of hypothesis formulation?
Q: Explain the rational for maintaining multiple working hypotheses.
Q: what, in Gorden’s view is a model and what are its values in research planning?
6) Designing experiments
Terms to understand: Treatment, control, experimental unit, replication, randomization, experimental error, adaptive management
Q: distinguish between: laboratory experiments, field experiments, natural (i.e. “found”) experiments.
7) Communicating study plans
Follow these good suggestions on writing!
This paper provides rare insight into the role of creativity in the
Scientific process.
Q: According to Loehle, what are the four
requirements for a successful career in science?
Q: What is the "Medawar zone"? How is this relevant to your research
project?
Q: What roles do walking, sitting, staring out the window and procrastination play
in Loehle’s research process?
This is an example of a successful research proposal (funded for $812K). Not important that you understand the particular research, but I want you to flip through this to get a sense of what proposals look like. The format was very constrained by the questions that that granting organization provided.
I would like you to take a quick look at the paper and at the exchanges with the editor. I am not so concerned that you understand the content of the paper; focus instead on developing and understanding of the process of writing and publishing a manuscript as illustrated by this example.
Q: How do the two reviewer evaluations of this paper differ?
Provides
excellent general intro to the scientific process.
Q: What does IMRAD stand for? Specifically what does and does not go into each
section of a traditionally constructed research paper?
Q: According to Kuyper, what are the critical traits of an effective paper
describing research?
Q: What did Amy Johnson find at the Vermilion river/Chance creek forest with respect to changes in tree species diversity and how does this relate to the patterns Chapin et al. discuss?
Review this (or some other surficial geology text) so that you are able to explain the processes by which rivers move over time and how they erode, transport and deposit sediments.
Q: First published in 1969, this remains
one of the classic papers on ecosystem development. Most of Odum's
generalizations on ecosystem development have stood the test of time, but some
better than others. As you read this paper, consider how concepts and theories
of ecosystem development are relevant to the field of restoration ecology.
Q: What general changes are evident during ecosystem development with respect
to energetics, community structures, life history, nutrient cycling, and
reproductive strategy?
Q: With respect to energy and biomass in particular, what trends in the ratio
of GPP/R and GPP/biomass during ecosystem development and why?
Q: During what portions of ecosystem development would r and K selected species
be expected to dominate?
Q: According to Odum, what role does biotic control over nutrient cycling play
in ecosystem development?
Q: What do you make of the notion that an ecosystem might have a “strategy”?
Q: What is an ecosystem engineer?
Q: How does the concept differ from keystone species?
Q: What are the differences between “allogenic” and “autogenic” engineers?
Q: How might the introduction of
mycorrhizal fungi into an ecosystem that had not experienced this group of
organisms, or the removal of mycorrhizal fungi from a community that
historically developed with these organisms alter ecosystem function?
Q: The authors site four key categories of effects that species can have on
ecosystem function: resource dynamics, trophic structure, disturbance regime,
and indirect effects. Explain each.
Q: What logical arguments are advanced to explain why species diversity should
increase stability? Is a clear and consistent relationship between diversity
and stability evident across ecosystems?
Q: So far, what general category of human activity has had the largest impact
on species diversity? What other anthropogenic effect is likely to exert
increasing effects on species diversity?
Q: "No two species are ecologically redundant, even if they appear similar
in their ecosystem effects under one particular set of environmental
conditions". Explain.
Q: Why might high latitude ecosystems be particularly vulnerable to damage from
climate change?
Q: Many restoration ecologists focus on
techniques for establishing appropriate plant species. In what ways does an
ecosystem perspective on restoration differ from this horticultural
perspective?
Q: Restoration ecology is conceptually based on the notion that restored sites
should be self-sustaining. How would a systems ecologist define sustainability?
Q: What key attributes (variables) might a systems ecologist focus on in
considering the success of a restoration project? How would these differ from
the success criteria of a more horticulturally oriented ecologist?
Q: Ehrenfeld and Toth emphasize the importance of boundaries and fluxes. What
criteria might a systems ecologist apply in considering how a restored
ecosystem interacts with surrounding ecosystems?
Q: What factors can be manipulated in order to control energy flow through a
restored ecosystem?
Q: What important ecosystem-level research questions can be addressed through
restoration ecology?
Terms: Ecological engineering,
self-organization (= self-design)
Q: Compare and contrast ecological engineering with traditional engineering. In
what principle ways would an ecologically engineered system differ from one
designed through traditional engineering approaches?
Q: Compare and contrast ecological engineering with biotechnology (genetic
engineering).
Q: What role does self-design play in ecological engineering?
Q: Describe the range of scales in ecological engineering projects that have
been undertaken. Which of these scales corresponds with our "living
machine"?
Q: Mitsch argues that a conservation ethic is fundamental to ecological
engineering. From a Q: strictly pragmatic perspective, explain why is this so.
Q: How does ecological engineering contribute to basic ecological knowledge?
Q: What three key ecosystem services are
provided by wetlands?
Q: What site attributes and restoration approaches optimize each of these three
wetland services? Is it feasible to maximize all three on a given site?
Explain.
Q: What have been the negative environmental impacts of large-scale conversion
of natural ecosystems to farmland on aquatic ecosystems?
Q: How do restored ecosystems tend to differ from natural ecosystems in terms
of both structure and function?
Q: What is "adaptive management" and how does Zedler suggest that it
should be applied to wetland restoration?
TERMS: green revolution, monoculture,
polyculture, intercropping, pest complex, planned diversity, no-till
agriculture, integrated pest management (IPM), biological control
Q: Compare and contrast natural and modern agricultural systems in terms of
each of the ecosystem forming factors.
Q: Compare and contrast soil in natural versus modern agricultural ecosystems
in terms of both chemical, physical and biotic properties and regulation.
Q: What are the various effects of plant diversity in agro-ecosystems on
ecological function?
Q: What effects do modern agricultural systems have on adjacent
"natural" ecosystems, and what effects do the natural systems have on
the agricultural ecosystems?
Q: Why is soil organic matter important and what practices can be use to
increase it?
Q: Discuss environmental problems associated with increased use of irrigation.
Q: Who was Justin von Liebeg, and how did
his revolutionary insight relate to scale?
Q: What's wrong with having tenant farmers, or renting farmland out? How much
of U.S. farmland is rented out?
Q; Why/how did WWII have a profound effect on agriculture? Come up with several
examples.
Q: What are the environmental costs associated with the physical separation of
population centers from agricultural centers and of plant from animal
production?
Q; What specific problems with modern agriculture do Foster and Magdoff cite?
What specific solutions do they offer?
Q: What are the primary differences
between old-style farming and modern farming in terms of inputs, pest control
and nutrient cycles? Which type more closely matches the processes in natural
ecosystems?
Q: What is "the green revolution", and what key technologies made it
possible?
Q: Describe five important consequences of the specialization that has occurred
in modern agriculture.
Q: What key risks does Altieri associate with the release of genetically
engineered crops?
Q: What does Altieri view as the alternatives to modern agricultural practices.
What are the goals? What are the primary obstacles to instituting alternatives?
This less than 1 pg editorial provides context for the Jansson paper below
Terms Soil organic carbon (SOM), Soil
inorganic carbon (SIC), sequestration, biochar
Q: from the perspective of the entire terrestrial portion of the biosphere,
distinguish between the concepts of annual Gross Primary Productivity (GPP),
Net Primary Productivity (NPP), Net Ecosystem Productivity (NEP) and Net Biome
Productivity (NBP)
Q: How does NBP relate to climate change?
Q: What is the difference between a C3 and C4 plant
Q: In what critical stock is most terrestrial organic matter stored?
Q: How/why could it be argued that new storage of carbon belowground in the
soil is more important than storage of aboveground biomass?
Q: What are the properties of biochar? Explain the potential role of biochar
in sequestration
Q: How/why are photoliths, durable wood products and wood burrial potentially
important to C sequestration?
Q: Why are biomass crops considered carbon neutral?
Q: From the perspective of phytoremediation, what plant attributes are targets
for enhancement through genetic engineering?
Skim the sections of this fine review of P and focus on those sections most relevant to human modifications of the P cycle and the importance of P in agriculture. Use questions below to help you focus
Q: In what ways is P a key element for life? In terms of biogeochemical cycling, how is it fundamentally distinct from other important biorelements?
Q: How was fire used by early agriculturalists to affect the P cycle?
Q: What did the Chinese learn 5,000 years ago as a mechanism for replenishing P in agricultural systems
Q: How did development of large permanent human settlements and the ‘Sanitation Revolution” associated with the industrial revolution fundamentally alter the global P cycle?
Q: How did the Green Revolution alter the global P cycles
Q: Explain why some people argue that phosphorous represents a greater constraint on the human population than fossil fuels.
Q: What are the options available for averting a phosphorus crisis?
Terms/concepts: landscape, heterogeneity,
patch, fragmentation, connectivity, metapopulation, shifting steady state
mosaic
Q: What properties of patches are important in determining landscape-scale
dynamics?
Q: Does the degree of fragmentation and connectivity influence function?
Q: Provide examples of spatial heterogeneity at different scales – e.g. what
environmental variables are patchy at 1 m, 10 m, 1 km and 100 km scales and how
does this patchyness affect function? If heterogeneity at each of these scales
disappeared, how would the function of the systems change?
Q: What are the major natural and human induced processes that cause spatial
heterogeneity? How do interactions among these processes affect landscape
dynamics?
Q: What processes are most strongly affected by landscape pattern?
Q: What issues must be considered in extrapolating processes measured at one
scale to larger scales of time and space?
Terms: Grain, extent, ecological
neighborhood, domain of scale
Q: Use the arguments presented by Wiens to explain why the "mosaic
steady-state" concept is scale dependent (he does not discuss this concept
by name, but you should be able to figure this out).
Q: "If we study a system at an inappropriate scale, we may not detect its
actual dynamics and patterns but may instead identify patterns that are
artifacts of scale. Because we are clever at devising explanations of what we
see, we may think we understand the system when we have not even observed it
correctly." (390) Explain.
Q: Two species of birds are negatively correlated on scales of 3-hectare plots
(i.e. they are not often found together), yet positively correlated on a
larger, regional scale (i.e. they ARE found together). What logical explains
the scale-dependence of co-occurrence?
Q: Provide examples of phenomena in which variability at small scales gives
rise to stability at larger scales.
Q: Explain how an organism may have several "ecological
neighborhoods" (see page 391) associated with different functional
attributes?
Q: Skim the first chapter to get a sense of the different contexts in which GIS has been used to manage and analyze landscapes. Fig. 1.2 provides a good conceptual model of how GIS works. What data maps would be used to generate a map of soil erodibility?
Q: What is "georeferenced data"?
Q: The author argues that, "the most important aspects of data quality are accuracy, precision, time, currency and completeness" (pg. 35). Explain.
Q: "A good model is the simplest model that correctly and consistently predicts the behavior of the real world for the phenomena of interest." (pg 37). Explain.
Q: What are the "two fundamental components" of geographic data
Q: What are the four components of a geographic information system?
Note: I assume that most of you have a decent basic grip on climate/global change issues. The second and third articles below provide excellent (if slightly dated) summaries. In recent years the issue of adaptation to climate change has become controversial. The first article below address some of the more recent thinking in terms of adaptation and its relationship to mitigation.
Q:
What three approaches do the authors see as critical to effective mitigation
strategies for addressing rapid environmental change now underway?
Q: The authors argue that prior examples of human adaptation to environmental
change have often addressed short term problems but created additional
vulnerabilities over the longer term. How do they propose avoiding this?
Q: The authors distinguish between “buffering adaptation” and “fully aligned”
adaptation and be “techno-fixes” and behavioral changes. Explain these
distinctions and why the authors see these as important.
Q: The authors argue that adaptations involving tech-fixes often eliminate
short term ecological feedback in ways that increase vulnerability to longer
term change. Explain.
Skim
the Overview Section, focus on Science and Impacts section. I am assuming that
this is largely a review for most of you. Glance through the rest of this
excellent summary of the state of our knowledge to ensure you understand the
basics.
Q: What are the documented and predicted effects of elevated greenhouse gasses
(GHGs) on: temperature, fresh water supply, sea level, storm intensity,
agricultural productivity and disease, polar ice cap, glaciers, snow pack,
ocean temperatures, and mosquito-borne disease?
Q: Figure 3 in the Overview section depicts the so-called “wedge” model
published by Pacala and Socolow in 2004. What is expected to happen to GHG
emissions between 2005 and 2055 if no action is taken? Explain the wedge
concept of reducing GHG emissions. What do the authors suggest as some of the
possible wedges?
Q: How do per person emissions differ between U.S. citizens and citizens of Europe?
Q: During what period have the ten warmest years in human history occurred?
Q: What is a “cap and trade” policy and how does it stimulate emissions
reductions?
Q: What is the Kyoto protocol and to what extent is the U.S. participating in it?
Q: What two factors related to climate change explain rising sea levels?
Q: What are the three main greenhouse gasses?
Q: The authors write that, “the true costs of greenhouse gas emissions are not
reflected in the market price.” Explain what they mean.
Q: Activities that take place within the built environment (i.e. buildings) are
responsible for about what fraction of the total CO2 emissions? What fractions
are due to transportation and industry?
Q: What does “carbon sequestration” mean and what role might it play in
stabilizing GHGs?
Q: What are the primary options available for reducing the GHG emissions
associated with buildings?
Q: What are the primary options available for reducing the GHG emissions
associated with transportation?
Q:
In what ways has human transformation of land affected
biodiversity and climate?
Q: What are humans major impacts on the coastal zone and
ocean?
Q: How do we know that most of the increase in CO2 in the
atmosphere has resulted from burning fossil fuels?
Q: How have humans changed the nitrogen cycle and why is this
important?
Q: What is meant by the term "biological invasion"
and how and why are these invasions important?
Q: What sequence of biological and legislative events have taken place in Lake Erie following restoration efforts initiated in the 1960s?
Note: PDF is an entire publication, but I only want you to read one paper in it
Context: This paper has become a bit of a classic in considering the environmental impact of buildings and human dominated landscapes. It’s 10 years old now, but the numbers have not changed much.
Q: I don’t expect you to memorize statistics, but get a good sense of the ecological impact of buildings and human activities and what the authors propose to do to minimize the ecological impacts of the built environment
Context: This paper was published when Oberlin’s “Campus Resource Monitoring System” was first being developed.
Q: Considering this study, in what ways is the built environment, including human occupants of buildings, similar to and different from other kinds of ecological systems?
Q: How is feedback been employed? How would you diagram the causal loop diagram that explains feedback loop employed in this study?
Context: This is not a peer-reviewed journal paper, but an article I was recently asked to write for a magazine called “High Performance Buildings” that is published by the American Society of Heating, Refrigeration and Air-Conditioning Engineers. HPB is targeted towards architects and engineers.
Q: In what ways is the AJLC similar to and different from other kinds of ecological systems?
Q: In what ways would you say that the AJLC is like an organism, in what ways is it like an ecosystem.
Q: Assuming our goal is to create a more ecologically sustainable built environment, what are the features of ecological systems are most important for us to mimic within the built environment?
The Ecological Society of America (ESA)
is a professional organization for ecologists that publishes the prestigious
journals Ecology, Ecological Monographs, and Ecological Applications. This
piece is part of a series, “Issues in Ecology” that ESA began publishing for
lay audiences a few years back (“Issues” gets distributed to politicians and
promoted for education). As the other reading for this week discusses, this
particular volume of “Issues” generated considerable controversy within ESA.
Q: What are the primary factors responsible for loss of biodiversity?
Q: Explain the idea that there are several different levels of biodiversity.
Q: According to the authors, why is it challenging to use observational studies
of existing ecosystems to assess the effect of biodiversity on ecological function?
Q: According to the authors, what conclusions can be drawn from experiments
that have assessed the effect of decreased biodiversity on productivity?
Q Explain the difference between the proposed “sampling effect” and
“complementarity effect” mechanisms.
Q: According to the authors, what conclusions can be drawn from experiments
that have assessed the effect of decreased biodiversity on ecosystem stability
and predictability? What mechanisms are invoked to explain this?
I am primarily interested in your
understanding the dispute here - why are the authors of this paper so upset by
the publication of the "Issues" paper?
Q: Explain the two schools of thought on the effect of biodiversity on
ecological function
Q: What principle criticisms do the authors offer to discount experiments that
have purported to demonstrate relationships between biodiversity and ecosystem
function?
Q: The authors of this paper argue that the folks who wrote the
"Issues" paper set up a house of cards that could ultimately damage
attempts to preserve biodiversity. Explain the logic of this position.