Lab 10

Part 1: Fearsome Frogs

I know that sometimes it seems like I’m being really glib, but I assure you I am not when I say this: I had no idea frogs could climb mesh fences. It’s one of those things that I guess should have been blatant, but when the gentleman from the video talks about the frogs climbing his fences, the mental picture nearly sent me rolling out of my chair giggling like … There’s really no appropriate way to finish that simile is there? Anyway, on to solutions: There really isn’t one to be honest. I know it sounds sad and really dismal, but once we screw something up like this, we can’t really fix it. The most direct fix would be bounty slayings to wipe them out (like we’ve done with larger predators on several occasions), but the lessons of that type of “fix,” have been hard learned, and held little variation: they always hurt the situation in small (or at times huge) ways. It turns out that if you cause an overpopulation, then reverse it to zero population or low population, something else winds up starving, dying, or combusting spontaneously. Okay, I’m kidding about the combustion thing, but it really can be startling when you realize that your actions have lead to some species of something that the animal you just got rid of interacted with has suffered and/or disappeared entirely from the region. To be completely honest, I think the best thing to do (even given my opposition to such behavior) would be a closely controlled bounty based culling to try to avoid throwing something else out of whack the other direction. I suppose option B would be convincing Arizonians that frog is tasty (which for the record it is) and rely on the sudden surge of interest in eating them (which couldn’t possibly result in something even worse). Look, the real lesson here is this: we really shouldn’t mess with this kind of thing simply because we fancy ourselves some kind of magical curator of nature; the fact is we rarely guess what our actions will result in correctly, and it seems like everything we alter (even when we’re trying to help) simply winds up in a worse way than when we found it due to some unforeseen variable or ripple effect started with intentions of pure gold.


Part 2: Sampling Lab

Random Sampling Data			Actual Data
Grid Segment (number and letter)	Number of Sunflowers		Total number of Sunflowers   228  (count by hand) Average number of Sunflowers (divide total by 100) Per grid 2.28 (about 2)
B4	2
E7	2
I8	1
G3	4
J9	1
H5	2
B1	3
G9	2
C6	1
B2	2
Total Number of Sunflowers	20
Average (divide total by 10)	2
Total number of plants in meadow (multiply average by 100)	200

 

1.      Compare the total number you got for sunflowers from the SAMPLING to the ACTUAL count.  How close are they?  The two averages are within .28 of one another (certainly close enough to be considered accurate). The total count (correlating with the average of course) is off by 28 flowers, again the sample count is definitely close enough to the actual count to be considered accurate.

2.      Why was the paper-slip method used to select the grid segments? The paper slip method was used in this lab to make sure the samples were legitimately random, and demonstrate the importance of randomizing your samples (rather they come out of a cup or are collected in person).

3.      A lazy ecologist collects data from the same field, but he stops just on the side of the road and just counts the ten segments near the road. These ten segments are located at J, 1-10. When she submits her report, how many sunflowers will she estimate are in the field?  She would report an average of .7 flowers per block (or 1 depending on her personal preference). Her estimate for total flowers would be around 70, which is (of course) quite off.

4.      Suggest a reason why her estimation differs from your estimation. Her estimation varies so greatly from mine because all her data was collected in one spot.  You (of course) can’t do this, because you have no idea if that one spot is in any way representative of the actual population over a broad area. It may not be perfect, but wander sampling can yield much more accurate results (and can alert the gatherer of said information of polar variations and their causes).

5.      Population sampling is usually more effective when the population has an even dispersion pattern. Clumped dispersion patterns are the least effective.  Explain why this would be the case. Any population that is evenly dispersed is easier to get a general count of. If you know that Wild Corn Vines (yes I just made that up) grow pretty evenly across a large area, it shrinks the area you must traverse to collect sample information; or at the very least makes your results tend to be more accurate. Now on the other hand, if the Wild Corn Vine (not giving it up) is known to clump together where it sprouts up (being a giant root and all) getting an accurate count can be a huge pain, because you may simply find a clump every other mile (where you happen to stop) then assert that there are thousands of Wild Corn Vines in that area, not realizing that your results have been tainted by their population being really clumped up, and in fact, the Wild Corn Vine is nearly extinct.

6.    Describe how you would use sampling to determine the population of dandelions in your yard. Unfortunately, I can answer this right now: there are zero :( However, if we were counting anything anywhere, the best ways are either mark out a map with a grid and make counts of each randomly selected square (or for fun, you and the team I’d hope you’d have for this type of work can each pick a square), or mark out the ground itself using chords or tape to create your grid. Suffice to say, the grid is the key.

7.    In an area that measures five miles by five miles, a sample was taken to count the number of desert willow trees. The number of trees counted in the grid is shown below. The grids where the survey was taken were chosen randomly. Determine how desert willow trees are in this forest using the random sampling technique. Show your calculations. Well, based on the information below, there were 25 areas 5 of which were counted for a total of 35 Desert Willow Trees in the sample group. So, to find the average, we take our 35 Desert Willow Trees and divide that number by the number of samples taken, in this case: 5 (35 / 5 = 7) resulting in an average count of 7. Since there are 25 areas total, we multiply the average count by the total number of areas (7*25=175) resulting in an estimated region population of Desert Willow Trees of 175.

	7
				3
			5
11		9

 

Reference

 

Biology Corner. Random Sampling. 2014 Apr 6. Web.

 

Lab 9: A River Reborn

The Elwha River

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

A neat web series about the river: http://www.nps.gov/olym/naturescience/restorationoftheelwha.htm

 

LOCATION AND GEOGRAPHY:

The Elwha River is located in the Olympic National Park of Washington State. The land the river carves through is considered forest biome. The river is 45 miles long, running from the Elwha snow finger in the Olympic Mountains located prominently in the (surprise) Olympic National Park. Little known fact I stole from Wikipedia: The River is one of the few in the Pacific Northwest to house (?) all five species of Pacific Salmon (also delicious)!

DAM HISTORY:

In 1910 a haphazard dam was erected to supply power to the surrounding area; the dam however promptly collapsed due to it not being anchored to the bedrock (it also entirely lacked fish passages as every possible corner was cut). In 1926 The Elwha Dam was finished being built again and was in service for many years providing power to the surrounding region in tandem with the Glines Canyon Dam (which is also fifty percent removed at this point).

REASON FOR DAM REMOVAL:

The dam was torn down to restore the indigenous habitats of native fishes and shore/water dwelling mammals. There was also some debate about its usefulness as the generators it housed were quite dated, which also lent to the idea that the river would be better used for animals and recreation.

ECOLOGY:

Western Sword Fern(Polystichum munitum): An evergreen fern native to the American northwest, where it is incredibly abundant.

Western Skunk Cabbage(Lysichiton americanus): is found primarily in swamps, wet woods, and along streams in the North West. Commonly referred to as the Skunk Cabbage for its distinctive skunk-like smell during its bloom.

Fishers (Martes pennanti): (a type of mink otter monster) Are a medium sized forest dwelling mammal in the mustelid family. The Fishers were reintroduced to The Elwha River from 2008 to 2010 with great success. They had all but disappeared from the area prior to the dam’s destruction.

Banana Slugs (Ariolimax columbianus): Are large air-breathing land slugs that belong to the Ariolimax family. The Banana Slug (which is a common name for three different species in reality) gets its name for its remarkable yellow color, this vibrant yellow is sometimes broken up with brown spots making it even more banana looking.

 

Bonus Animal:

Olympic Marmot (Marmota Olympus): Aside from having a name that must be hard to live up to, the Olympic Marmot is a small rodent found in the Olympic National Park. The Olympic Marmot is what is referred to as a folivore, as its diet is comprised of primarily of meadow flora and dry grass (someone has to eat it).

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

CURRENT USE: The Elwha River is currently dedicated to animal conservation and recreation. The recreational use seems to be under the fairly close supervision of the park and conservationists. Luckily for the Elwha, it is in Washington, which is a pretty good place to be in terms of local efforts for conservation etc.

CURRENT THREATS: The only notable threat to the Elwha currently is probably its recreational use. Nothing screws up a habitat faster than people, we have a nasty tendency to thank nature for its offerings through littering, polluting, and (sometimes) burning it down.

 

Another neat series of videos about the river: http://earthfix.kcts9.org/water/article/an-undammed-rivers-sediment-flush-delivers-new-hab/

More of the series above: http://kcts9.org/undamming-elwha

 

 

SOURCES CITED: --remember to make these into citations!—

Park info and my primary source: http://www.nps.gov/olym/index.htm

Fisher Picture: http://blog.ctnews.com/dennis/files/2010/12/fisher7.jpg

Fisher Information: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fisher_(mammal)

Sword Fern picture: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Polystichum_munitum_(Jami_Dwyer)_001.jpg

Skunk Cabbage picture: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:WesternSkunkCabbage.JPG

Marmot Picture: http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2064/2102230203_0a9d899acd.jpg

Marmot Info: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Olympic_marmot

Slug Picture: http://25.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_l362gvrTvC1qzko9ko1_500.jpg

Slug Info: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Banana_slug

Fern Info: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polystichum_munitum

Lab 8: Biomes and Oceans

Lab 8 Part 1: Biomes using Google Earth.

I live in the Forest (specifically Great Basin Conifer Woodland) in beautiful Prescott Arizona (in fact, the exact spot where pictured below). Chanterelle (Cantharellus Cibarius) is my favorite tasty neighbor, although I’m not totally sure they are native to this area. Outside the White Mountain areas, my property and my immediate neighbors yards (that I’ll bet they wish I’d stay out of) are some of the few places I see them. It makes sense that assorted fungi would like our yards as we are at the bottom of a good incline that shields the backyard from sun, the whole area is artificially fertilized and watered, and we have a lot of trees on our collective property. Like any Fungi it has adapted to be very good at sucking up nutrients from the niche it serves, and it has the capability to totally die off to dried spores waiting for another rainy season to ensure its survival. Another funny feature is its similarity to its (non-lethal) disgusting cousin the False Chanterelle (Hygrophoropsis Aurantiaca). False Chanterelle is usually found around the same area and looks quite similar to the tasty Golden Chanterelle I mentioned earlier. I can assure you, (while this kind of humor is best left to people that have a good knowledge of fungus for safety sake) this has resulted in more than one joke on the less knowledgeable nerds out there.



Awesome. Just remember, they are very vibrant orange/yellow. The pale orange/yellow ones are evil imposters.



I am here.

 

 

Lab 8 Part 2: How We Wrecked The Oceans

The People Problem Lab

Exponential Growth

1. Proceed through the tutorial. Answer this question when you reach it: “Approximately when was the bottle half full? “ On the "clock of time," (as I'll refer to it hence forth) the bottle was half full at approximately 12:00

2. Then answer the next question. The next question's answer is 11:59 (first try on both).

3. Did anything surprise you about these two parts? Negative, although it's only due to prior knowledge.

4. “Any time living things are allowed to reproduce freely, their numbers increase exponentially not linearly. And when people talk about "steady growth," they mean exponential growth then, too.” Why do you think people might have trouble understanding exponential growth? I honestly don’t know, the premise of anything exponential has never been very difficult to grasp for me. Unless people simply don't make the connection when they are first introduced to the idea. It could be similar to probability (IE a 5% chance is a 5% chance no matter the repetition of events) in the sense that if you aren't really thinking about it, it can slip right past you. Either that or people deliberately use the term "steady growth," to minimize the presentation of the problem to the general public (always a possibility).

5. 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. The Rule of 70: (which I hadn’t heard of till now) is as follows: you may divide seventy by either growth percent, or doubling time to get the value of one another. 70/x = y where x can be growth or time, and y becomes the opposite value.

6. “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? The scarier meaning of this (or horrifying, whatever) lay in the fact that we use up more of the finite resources available to us during any given doubling, than were produced in all history prior to that particular time.

7. “…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 to now

8. “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? If we have half way depleted the Earth's total oil reserve up to this point in time, reason dictates that we will use up all the remaining oil over the course of our next doubling (although one would HOPE that we’d be off fossil fuels before then).

The People Paradox Video

About India

1. Compare the education of the residents of north and south India. How does this correlate with the number of children women bear? The residents (especially the women) of northern India tend to be undereducated, and closely policed reproductively (either socially or domestically). These circumstances, combined with gender preferences in children and poverty, typically correlate with high birth rates and excessive family size, which result in a colossal population, which (again usually) propagates the afore mentioned issues.

2. Who are the “gatekeepers to health services” in India? Husbands and Mothers-in-law tend to have more control over the health service of their wives/daughters-in-law than the wives/daughters-in-law do themselves.

3. Why might sons be preferred in India? As is the case historically in many developing countries, there is a pressure to produce sons for socio-status reasons (the antiquated view that passing on one's lineage is only possible through male offspring, which is scientifically just plain silly). In India it's also the case that male offspring are expected to take care of their elderly parents, as there doesn't seem to be any other way to safely retire in India at this time (sons fill this void in elderly care in other words).

4. India demographic pyramid? What implications does this have? Nearly one half of India's age demographic is comprised of individuals under 25 and reaching re-productive age. The obvious risk of having a half re-productive populous is the next generation (potentially) winding up double the size if the paternal pairs don't limit their family to two children (thus replacing themselves in the population and not increasing size and density).

5. Why are daughters often considered a burden in India? Daughters in India tend to be look at as “someone else’s problem / resource.” This is attributed to both their role in the home and, and the fact that parents still arrange marriages in India; which forces the parents of the bride to sweeten deals with cash and goods (that they likely aren't exactly rolling in).

6. How did Abidi Shah change the lives of the young women in the village? Abidi Shah has changed the lives of many young Indian women by teaching them vocation and about their own health. She has also done much to convince them to seek education and better themselves. More importantly (perhaps), she began setting a precedent that the women can in fact work and be a member of a provisioning team.

7. What are the obstacles for women and employment in India? In India, the greatest modern challenge women face in employment (or in general for that matter) is the simple fact that they are tragically undereducated.

8. What is the knife-edge that India sits upon? India is in danger of a population explosion the like of which history has never seen prior. To prevent this, India needs to find a way to hit the 2 child sweet spot or they simply won’t have access to food, water, work, etc.

About Japan

1. What is the “revolutionary change” that is happening in Japan? Japan's revolutionary change is both a social and individual one. Women in Japan have started living their own lives, in a fashion they see fit (imagine that). As a result, women are waiting to have families until the time is right, marrying at higher ages, or skipping family life entirely for professional careers. This naturally leads to greatly decreased birthrates as time, money, and personal freedom are all tossed into the mix when it comes to the decision to settle down or not.

2. If fertility stays at 1.3, Japan’s population will shrink in _________.     half.

3. What are two reasons Japanese women want to work? If they work they can be independent (and they want careers). They do so to keep their family middle class (because kids are stupid expensive in Japan).

4. The newswoman and her family had problems with childcare arrangements. What is the relationship between declining birth rates and childcare? I think this is mainly a matter of having little time. It rains on your child having parade to know that your child will be in daycare 13 hours a day while you work, and are then consequently too tired to sleep (also people tend to really dislike the idea of their kids being raised by strangers).

5. Who cares for elders in Japan? From what I gather from the video, the elderly care for the elderly in Japan (although the government seems to think it should be the daughters / daughter in laws).

6. What does Japan’s age structure look like? Japan's age structure is the exact opposite of India's, the old dramatically out number the youngsters.

7. How might immigration help solve this problem? Japan could knock off the racial/cultural purity garbage and allow legitimate easy immigration. This would increase the number of young workers which means more consumers, which means taxes, which means the government can have money and the elderly can be cared for (not trying to be insensitive to the ethnic Japanese, but seriously, come on guys).

8. What is the average family size worldwide? The average global family size is at or below two children

9. Many countries encourage families to have more children. It has been found to be easier to ______ fertility than to ________ it.     Cut than raise.


Sub-Saharan Africa

1. What does sub-Saharan Africa’s age structure look like? What implications does this have? The population of sub-Saharan Africa is truly unique. It's made up of primarily super young, and their population will double over this century.              2. What situations create tremendous pressures to immigrate?

3. Describe the demographic transition as exemplified in Kenya (starting at 40:21 and in text). In Kenya death rates are rising, not falling. This is primarily due to their willingness to engage in family planning and stuff. It’s totally sweet (joke aside it really is).

4. Death rates from HIV/AIDS life expectancy has declined from 65 to ______years.    49

5. Women in Africa might have to make a choice between ________ and ________. Women if Africa have the unfortunate choice between kids and aids. Really it sounds like it tends to be both, since having kids in a poor community may lead to prostitution to support them, which ultimately leads to AIDS anyway.

6. Explain the how the economic gains of Asian Tigers came about. The "Asian Tigers," are several Asian cultures that have been extraordinarily successful economically. It was a demographic phenomenon, they kept fertility down, invested in their young working people, and profited.

7. The key to population stabilization key is the ____________ and ______________ of women. Education and liberation.

8. Why should we care about other countries? We use the rest of the world as a model for what not to do. Better we observe the mistakes of others than endure all the same hardships they do.

9. What are two things that struck you most strongly about the situations in this video? I found The Rule of 70 interesting, I had no idea that was a thing. Also: I was unpleasantly surprised to hear that jackass Indians are apparently setting women on fire in record number. I probably shouldn't call them jackasses, but seriously, it's 20-effing-14 and people are setting people on fire out of pure disregard for a "lesser being?" Humanity sure does make me sick sometimes.