Lab 11: Climate.

I chose to evaluate the NOAA website for this lab. One thing I noticed is that is claimed some things but it didn't seem to present a basis for its findings (no names of who conducted the research) and whenever they had a heading such as "How are Climate and Weather Changing", instead of giving information about that, it promoted its own company for the most part. What little information they did provide did not provide the name of those who conducted the study or those who did the peer review. All of the links that they provided that I clicked on were branches of NOAA, making me question the objectivity of their findings, because there were no outside sources to corroborate their claims.     


In order to find the answers to my questions I could do a couple of things. I could find and talk to a scientist that can prove what they are saying is correct and that their findings and research are sound or I could research on the internet and at the library and see whether or not what their saying is correct and can if it can be proven. It would also be a good idea to find out if they went through a proficient peer reviewing process.

Having a background in Environmental Biology does help me to decide what information about the environment I will accept because, it has taught me to be a skeptical thinker and to look for the evidence supporting something before I take it as fact. It has taught me to search for proof.

                                                            Works Cited.

"Climate." NOAA. NOAA, 20 Mar. 2013. Web. 29 Nov. 2014.

How We Wrecked the Oceans Map

Sorry that it's sideways. I couldn't get it to go the other way.

Verde River assigment part one and two.

Part One:

The dam I chose Whittenton Dam, located on Mill River, in Taunton, Massachusetts. Its location is “Lat 41°53'59", long 71°05'24",” and its geography is “20 ft. upstream from Spring Street bridge in Taunton, and about 0.8 mi upstream from mouth at Taunton River” (http://waterdata.usgs.gov/nwis/uv/?site_no=01108410). According to Wikipedia the river is 37 miles long.

The reason for building the dam was to provide power to multiple different types of mills.

The reasons for decommissioning the dam is because “Concerns over dam owner liability, public safety, and fish passage prompted its removal. A near failure in 2005 that would have caused catastrophic flooding resulted in the evacuation of 2000 people from downtown Taunton. The issues at the dam provided the catalyst for improved dam safety regulations in Massachusetts. This successful project restored a mile of river and floodplain habitat for fish and wildlife” (American Rivers)

The ecology of the river is interesting. Taunton is a free flowing river, which is not very common in that area and the river is home to many different kinds of fish and provides protection to the land from things such as flooding. The native special animals are the American Eel and the River Herring (Dams Being Removed to Better Mill River Ecology). According to Rachel Calabro the native plants are Golden Hedge Hyssop and Red Maple.   

Its current use appears to just be the growth of biodiversity. I also couldn’t find any current threats to the river. It is coming back into good health after the removal of the dam.  

Works Cited

Calabro, Rachel. "Mill River Restoration." Mill River Restoration. Blogger, 1 Oct. 2013. Web. 08 "Dams Being Removed to Better Mill River Ecology." EcoRI News. EcoRI News, 22 July 2013. Web. 08 Nov. 2014.Nov. 2014.

"Projects." American Rivers. American Rivers, n.d. Web. 08 Nov. 2014.

"Taunton River." Wikipedia. Wikimedia Foundation, 24 Oct. 2014. Web. 08 Nov. 2014.

"USGS Current Conditions for USGS 01108410 MILL RIVER AT SPRING STREET AT TAUNTON, MA." USGS Current Conditions for USGS 01108410 MILL RIVER AT SPRING STREET AT TAUNTON, MA. U.S. Department of Interior., n.d. Web. 08 Nov. 2014.

Part two:

For this part of the lab, I chose to use Lynx Lake Dam. 

The drawing below is what I think Lynx would look like if the dam is removed. 

Biotic Community.

My biotic community is mostly a dry desert area with small patches of vegetation. I guess it's characterized as "semi-desert"    

The native plant I chose is the cactus. Its two special adaptions are:

1.         Its stem can hold water for long periods of time, making it able to withstand drought.

      2.        They have spines instead of leaves that make it so that they don’t lose water through     evaporation.    

Understanding Exponential Growth and Wildlife Corridor.

1. Approximately when was the bottle half full? 12pm
2. How much closer? 11:59
3. If you were one of the bacteria, when do you suppose you’d start to worry about overcrowding?

 A quarter to halfway full in the bottle. 1-2 min.

4. Would that leave you enough time to do anything about it?

If it kept replicating it did, no it would not.

5.      Did anything surprise you about these two parts? If so, what?

I was surprised at how fast the bottle filled up.

6. Why do you think people might have trouble or resistance to understanding exponential growth?

It becomes such an immense figure so fast, which can be hard to comprehend. People don’t want to think about the possibilities of how that could affect us.

7.Whenever you hear that something is growing by some percentage, or that something is growing steadily, what rule should you remember in order to understand the rate of growth? Explain this rule.

Rule of 70. 70 divided by the percentage of growth gives the doubling time (the amount it grows exponentially). 

8. “When our consumption of a resource (energy, for instance) grows steadily, the doubling time takes on an even scarier meaning.” What is that scarier meaning?

We use up more of the resources than ever before. 

9. “…if we keep increasing our energy consumption like this, we’ll use more energy in the next 25 years than we’ve produced _in all of history up till now._____________.”

10. “There are those who say we don’t need to worry about running out of oil, because there’s still lots of oil left in the ground. Experts believe that over the past 150 years we have used up about half the total oil on Earth. In other words, our oil supply “bottle” is still half full.” But if we keep doubling our population, what will happen?

We will consume all of the oil and there will be none left. 




Part Two:

For my corridor to help stop the habitat fragmentation of natural land and the impediments it places on the diversity of the area, I decided to build something to connect the Granite Dells above the highway (a bridge over crossing). The Granite Dells are a rocky outcropping of tan colored rocks that have a road slicing through the middle of them. It is a desert-like area with not much vegetation. I would build a rock bridge formation to connect both sides of the dells, using sculpted rocks and concrete, with natural grasses on top of the corridor bridge. The bridge would be made out of granite rock and it would have concrete running along the edges with grass along the sides to help obscure the concrete and make it look more natural. This process is all part of adaptive management.     

For this report, I chose to use the Ring-tailed Cat as my target species. Its binomial name is Bassariscus astutus.

My species needs a corridor for a couple of reasons. It is a threatened species. The IUCN Red List of Threatened Species says that, “The ringtail is legally trapped for fur in Arizona, New Mexico, Colorado, and Texas, where it is also caught incidentally in traps set for valuable fur-bearers such as foxes and raccoons. In recent years about 4,000 have been taken annually in Arizona, and about 1,000 in New Mexico. In Texas 45,000~50,000 ringtails were trapped each year from 1979-1985. As in the case with raccoons, the number of ringtails trapped for fur has declined since a peak in 1979, when approximately 135,000 pelts were sold. Ringtail fur is of poor quality (thin, non-durable, and subject to fading), and pelts have usually sold for less than $5 each although they have brought as much as $12. The justification for trapping ringtails for fur is weak, especially since in none of the states where trapping is legal is there sufficient knowledge of population levels and trends on which to base valid harvest regulations (Glatston, 1994). Threats to the ringtail include also automobiles (Glatston, 1994).” If the ring-tailed cat has the corridor to use and cross, it will have far of a less chance of getting hit by cars. The Ring-tailed cat can have up to four babies but two is most common amount (http://bigbearzoo.org/ringtail/), so they would benefit from a corridor because I would think it would help keep the babies safer, thus producing more offspring in the long run. This helps with maintaining a healthy birthrate for the species. Also with a road cutting through their core habitat it lessens the amount of space available to them and most like increases their inbreeding and it increases geographic isolation. If the Corridor is built is will hopefully increase the amount of genetic interchange between individuals in the population that would have not have had the opportunity without the corridor. Building the corridor in this area will help with the mitigation of the land that has been commercialized and prevent further harm around the temporal and spatial area.        

The design of my Wildlife Corridor is fairly simple. The bridge itself will be about 1000 feet wide and made of sculpted granite, concrete and natural grasses. It high enough up that that there will be little to no light pollution on the bridge and the Dells are also pretty good shelter from light pollution. I would put signs along the side of the road, warning people of the existence of the Corridor, hopefully to avoid any damaging edge effects. There is very little of my plan that doesn’t involve abiotic structures.   

This species is a rock-dwelling species, therefore the corridor will provide more nesting places for the animal and allow it to cross safely from one side to the other to find food and water. They are small, so I doubt they can travel very far at one time. They most likely will venture further into the rock outcroppings.

  

Works Cited.

"Bassariscus Astutus." (Ringtail). International Union for Conservation of Nature and Natural Resources., 18 Oct. 2014. Web. 18 Oct. 2014.

"Ringtail." Big Bear Alpine Zoo. Big Bear Alpine Zoo, 2013. Web. 17 Oct. 2014.



Below is a drawing of my Wildlife Corridor. It includes the warning signs, concrete wall, natural grasses and granite rocks, with the road passing underneath.

 

Below is my poster for the Watchdog Campaign: