Prairies and Rainforests 2012: 2012

Tuesday, April 17, 2012

Sumatran Orangutans at Risk

This video discusses the fate of orangutans in Sumatra.

http://sexyactionplanet.tumblr.com/post/21060024362/forest-fires-video

Friday, April 6, 2012

Towards a New Environmentalism?

Here are links to the articles that I mentioned in class that propose a new way to think about conservation and environmentalism.

Time to reboot: towards a new Environmentalism. by Joe Zammit-Lucia
http://www.iucn.org/knowledge/focus/nature_for_all/?9493/Time-to-Re-Boot-Towards-a-New-Environmentalism

Conservation is not about nature. by Joe Zammit-Lucia
http://www.iucn.org/involved/opinion/?8195/Conservation-is-not-about-nature

These articles are posted on the IUCN's website http://www.iucn.org/.

They regularly post interesting articles on their Facebook page, http://www.facebook.com/iucn.org, so you might want to "like" them so you can receive the regular updates.

Wakatobi Resort listed as #3 Ecolodge in recent survey

Here is a link to an article that I found on CNN online this morning.

15 of the world's best eco lodges- http://www.cnngo.com/explorations/escape/worlds-best-ecolodges-170768?hpt=itr_t1

Wakatobi Resort was ranked as #3 on this list. Take a look at the list and let me know your favorite.

Is it field trip time?????

Wednesday, April 4, 2012

Sustainable Use of Tropical Ecosystems

Here are the two Powerpoint presentations I used to organize and introduce my thoughts about sustainable use of tropical ecosystems.

Sustainable Use of Tropical Ecosystems: Ecotourism
http://www.slideshare.net/MarkMcGinley/sustainable-uses-of-tropical-ecosystems-ecotourism

Take a look at the new slides that I added on ecotourism in the prairie.

Sustainable Use of Tropical Rainforests
http://www.slideshare.net/MarkMcGinley/sustainable-use-of-tropical-rainforests

For Thursday's class. Please read and prepare to discuss the following articles-

Sustainable Palm Oil: Rainforest Savior or Fig Leaf?
http://e360.yale.edu/feature/sustainable_palm_oil_rainforest_savior_or_fig_leaf/2345/

Will REDD preserve forests or Merely Provide a Fig Leaf?
http://e360.yale.edu/feature/will_redd_preserve_forests_or_merely_provide_a_fig_leaf/2277/

No REDD platform issues wakeup call to funders.
http://www.redd-monitor.org/2011/09/22/no-redd-platform-issues-wakeup-call-to-funders/

Wednesday, March 21, 2012

Indigenous Issues- Videos

Hello Everyone,

Before class on Tuesday please take a look at these two videos and come to class prepared to discuss.

The first video examines attempts to build a dam in peninsular Malaysia to provide water for the KL area and the second examines the effects of logging and oil palm plantations in Sarawak, Borneo.

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=4866537776960651262

http://whatrainforest.wordpress.com/2008/10/02/what-rainforest-the-film-now-online/

The articles provide a little more info about the topics

Rising to the Water Challenge
http://thestar.com.my/news/story.asp?sec=nation&file=/2011/3/20/nation/8309079

http://www.internationalrivers.org/files/030309.irnjbic.pdf

Indonesia to set aside 45% of Kalimatan for conservation.

http://ccmin.aippnet.org/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=837%3Aindonesia-to-set-aside-45-of-kalimantan-for-conservation&catid=28%3Aindonesia&Itemid=38

Powerpoint Presentations

Here are the links to the powerpoint presentation that I showed in class (so good it had to be divided into two parts)

http://www.slideshare.net/MarkMcGinley/malaysian-rainforests-and-indigenous-peoples-part-1

http://www.slideshare.net/MarkMcGinley/malaysian-rainforests-and-indigenous-peoples-part-2

Monday, March 19, 2012

Tropical Rainforests

Rhett Butler's material about rain forests in his website Mongabay.com is fantastic, so it is a great place to start to learn more about this ecosystem. Before class on Tuesday please go to the Mongabay website (http://rainforests.mongabay.com/) and read the following sections.

World Rainforests
Rainforest Structure
Rainforest Biodiversity
Canopy
Forest Floor
Rainforest Waters

Poswerpoint Presentations

Here are links to a couple of powerpoint presentations that I made as part of the Malaysian Bat Education Adventure. I hope they provide a nice introduction to the topic.

Tropical Rainforests

http://www.slideshare.net/MarkMcGinley/tropical-rainforests-12072600

Deforestation

http://www.slideshare.net/MarkMcGinley/deforestation-12072424

Thursday, March 8, 2012

Physical Environment, Geography, and History of SE Asia

Here is a link to my quick and dirty, definitely non-expert, view of how the physical environment and geography have helped to shape the history of SE Asia.

http://www.slideshare.net/MarkMcGinley/physical-environment-and-history-of-se-asia-11923636

Tuesday, March 6, 2012

Biodiversity Challenge: Temperate Zone Vs Tropics

Even though Texas is larger and contains more habitat diversity (measured by a greater number of ecosystems), Malsysia contains many more species than Texas. In fact, Malaysia is considered to be a "biodiveristy hotspot".

Why are there so many more species in Malaysia than in Texas? The answer probably has to do with a general phenomenon that scientists have been trying to understand for over two hundred years- the tropical temperate gradient in species richness. There have been over thirty hypotheses developed to explain this pattern and research and debate on the topic is continuing today.

Readings

More General
Latitudinal gradients in diversity- http://www.ecology.info/article.aspx?cid=10&id=69

Latitudinal gradients in species diversity- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Latitudinal_gradients_in_species_diversity

Thorough techical review
Latitudinal gradients of biodiversity: patterns, process, scale, and synthesis. Annula Review of Ecology and Systematics by Mike Willig, Dawn Kaufman, and Richard Stevens
http://hydrodictyon.eeb.uconn.edu/people/willig/Willig_pdf/120.%20Willig_etal_2003.pdf

Powerpoint Presentation

http://www.slideshare.net/secret/9hVZHFohOJijx5

Sunday, February 19, 2012

Dust Bowl on the Llano Estacado

The Dust Bowl was an environmental catastrophe, a natural hazard (multiannual drought) in the 1930s in the Southern Great Plains of the USA, resulting in the activation of a geomorphic process (intense wind erosion) which, when human society could not adapt to it, cascaded into unprecedented agricultural, economic, and societal collapse in its core region. Over the years, the cause of the Dust Bowl has been variably ascribed to specific climatic or meteorological phenomena or land management practices. Drought and wind erosion have been notable phenomena in the Southern Great Plains throughout the Holocene, occurring long before conversion of the land to agricultural use, and still continue today. (Gill and Lee 2006)

Further Readings

Dust Bowl http://www.eoearth.org/article/Dust_Bowl

The Dust Bowl http://www.u-s-history.com/pages/h1583.html

On the cause of the 1930s Dust Bowl. Science 2004 http://www.sciencemag.org/content/303/5665/1855.abstract

NASA explains the Dust Bowl Drought http://www.nasa.gov/centers/goddard/news/topstory/2004/0319dustbowl.html

A critical evlauation of the Dust Bowl and its causes. Gill and Lee. 2006
http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2006AGUFM.A44C..06G

What America Looked Like: The Dust Bowl (2012 in The Atlantic. lots of good photos)
http://m.theatlantic.com/national/archive/2012/02/what-america-looked-like-the-dust-bowl/253220/#slide3

Misery on a Grand Scale: The Drought of today and Yesteryear. Wynan Meinzer is a photographer who teachers photography at Tech. He teaches Wildlife Photography at Junction during Intersession which would be a great experience for all budding photographers.
http://www.wymanmeinzer.com/misery-on-a-grand-scale-the-drought-of-today-and-yesteryear/

Video

Surviving the Dust Bowl. PBS
http://video.pbs.org/video/1311363860/

Sunday, February 12, 2012

History of the Llano Estacado

I have suggested many times that ecology plays an important role in the history of a region. The history of the Llano Estacado is certainly no exception. In order to understand the history of our region we need to study the effect of ecology on the lifestyle and settlement patterns of the Native Americans, the exploration and settlement patterns of the Spaniards, and the ultimate settlement patterns of the Anglo-Americans. Enjoy.

A Brief History of the Llano Estacado
http://www.slideshare.net/MarkMcGinley/history-of-the-llano-estacado

Thursday, February 9, 2012

Examples of EoE Articles Written by Tech Students

Sunday, February 5, 2012

Playa Lakes

Playas are an interesting, and relatively unique, ecosystem found on the Llano Estacado.

Readings

http://www.jstor.org/stable/pdfplus/1311091.pdf?acceptTC=true

http://www.eoearth.org/article/Playa_lake

From the Sibley Nature Center

Playas http://www.sibleynaturecenter.org/habitats/playas/index.html

To see a good powerpoint presentation (1) click on the above link, (2) scroll down to the section entitled "Related Resources, and (3) click on the link "Playas and Playa Lakes" listed under "Overview".

Playa Lakes of the southern Llano Estacado: Southern High Plains http://www.sibleynaturecenter.org/habitats/playas/masternaturalistreport.pdf

Great Reference

Loren Smith, a former TTU professor, has written the best scholarly reference about playas.

Playas of the Great Plains. 2003. Loren Smith. University of Texas Press

Thursday, February 2, 2012

South East Asia

Although we will not start our in depth study of SE Asia until next month I thought that it might help to show you a few maps that will hopefully help us to become oriented.

Map of Southern Asia

Map of SE Asia

This map superimposes a map of the Indonesian Islands over the map of the continental US. I find that this map helps me to get a better understanding of the size of the region.
Remember that Malaysia is about the same size as New Mexico.

Saturday, January 28, 2012

Prairie Resources

Thursday, January 26, 2012

The Influence of the Abiotic Environment on the Dominant Plant Types

Here is a link to a slideshow I prepared exploring the physical environment (primarily precipitation and temperature) affect the dominant plant types. This seems like a great place for us to start out exploration.

Deserts, prairies, and forests http://www.slideshare.net/secret/aVrFdv9S7038HJ

Biomes

Biomes organize the biological communities of the earth based on similarities in the dominant vegetation, climate, geographic location, and other characteristics. Aspects of the physical environment such as precipitation, temperature, and water depth, have a strong influence on the traits of species living in that natural environment, and thus biological communities experiencing similar environmental conditions often contain species that have evolved similar characteristics. There is no single classification of biomes that is agreed upon by all scientists because different scientists wish to emphasize different characteristics by their definition. Historically however, biomes have been identified and mapped based on general differences in vegetation type associated with regional variations in climate and terrain.

Readings

Biome http://www.eoearth.org/article/Biome?topic=58073

Terrestrial biomes http://www.eoearth.org/article/Terrestrial_biome

Deserts http://www.eoearth.org/article/Deserts

Desert biome http://www.eoearth.org/article/Desert_biome?topic=58071

Grassland biome http://www.eoearth.org/article/Grassland_biome?topic=58071

Forest biome http://www.eoearth.org/article/Forest_biome?topic=58074

Rainforest http://rainforests.mongabay.com/

Saturday, January 21, 2012

Ecoregions of the Southern High Plains

Ecoregions

According to the WWF, an ecoregion is a relatively large unit of land or ocean that contains geographically distinct assemblage of natural communities with boundaries that approximate the original extent of natural communities prior to major land use change. Ecoregions (i) share a large majority of their species and ecological dynamics,(ii)share similar environmental conditions, and (iii)interact ecologically in ways that are critical for their long-term persistence.

Different groups have attempted to identify and classify ecoregions. At a global scale, WWF has divided the world into 867 distinct terrestrial ecoregions. The US EPA has classifed 106 ecoregions in the United States.

According to the WWF, most of the Llano Estacado falls within the Western Short Grasslands ecoregion. At a finer scale, some of the EPA ecoregions in the area include Rolling Sand Plains, Canadiian/Cimmaron High Plains, Llano Estacado, Shinnery Sands, and Arid Llano Estacado ecoregions.

Readings

Ecoregions http://www.eoearth.org/article/Ecoregion

Western Short Grasslands http://www.eoearth.org/article/Western_short_grasslands

Ecoregions of Texas (EPA) http://www.eoearth.org/article/Ecoregions_of_Texas_(EPA)

FYI

Here is a link to a Powerpoint Presentation that compares the WWF ecoregions of Texas to the ecoregions of Malaysia.

http://www.slideshare.net/MarkMcGinley/wwf-ecoregions-of-texas-and-malaysia

The Llano Estacado

The local region surrounding Lubbock is known as the Llano Estacado. There are a lot of people with interests in this region who know much more about it than I do, so rather than me introducing the topic to you during class I would like you to read the following article and view the following Powerpoint Presentation.

Readings

Llano Estacado http://www.tshaonline.org/handbook/online/articles/ryl02

Powerpoint Presentation

Here is a link to a powerpoint presentation on the Habitats of the Llano Estacado prepared by Sibley Nature Center in Midland.

To access this presentation click on this link http://www.sibleynaturecenter.org/habitats/index.html

and then click on the link "Habitats of the Llano Estacado".

Thursday, January 19, 2012

The Physical Environment- Global Patterns

Introduction

The physical environment can have a profound influence on ecology at a variety of levels. For example, the physical environment can act as a strong selective presssure to produce adaptations or can influence the rates of nutrient cycling through an ecosystem. For our simple purposes here, the two most important components of the physical environment are temperature and precipitation. I suggest that we can predict a lot about what is going on ecologically in an environment if we know something about temperature and precipitation patterns.

From watching the nightly news we all know how difficult it is for the local weatherperson to accurately predict what the weather is going to be like tomorrow. Fortunately, it is much easier to understand broad patterns of variation in temperature and precipitation.

Temperature

The dominant global temperature pattern is that it tends to get cooler as you move away from the poles. The cause of this is relatively simple. Because the earth is so far from the sun, the light rays hitting the earth are basically paralell to each other. Because of the curvature of the earth, sunlight hitting the earth near the equator falls over a smaller area than sunlight hitting near the poles. Because the same amount of light energy is hitting a smaller area near the equator, the concentration of energy/area is greater near the equator than the pole thus resulting in higher temperatures.

Elevation is another factor that influences global temperatures. Because there is less insulating atmosphere above areas of high elevation temperatures tend to decrease as you go up in elevation.

Large bodies of water can mediate temperature variations. For example, seasonal and daily variation in temperatures are much lower in areas near the ocean (maritime climates) than they are in areas far from the ocean (continental climates).

Global temperature patterns can also be affected by patterns of ocean circulation. For example, the west coast of continents are often cooled by cool water flowing from the poles to the tropics while the east coasts of continents can be warmed by warmer water from the tropics to the poles (e.g., the Gulf Stream). If you have ever been to the beach in southern California you surely noticed how cold the water was; east coast beaches at similar latitudes have much warmer water.

Precipitation

In order to understand global precipitation patterns you need to understand global patterns of atmospheric circulation. Hopefully, after studying the article on atmospheric circulation you will be able to explain-

1. why there tends to be high precipitation in tropical regions and

2. why precipitation tends to be low at 30 degrees North and South of the equator.

Patterns of precipitation can also be influenced by the presence of mountains. As air masses containing moisture hit a mountain they are forced upward. Because rising air cools and cool air

holds less moisture, precipitation occurs on the windward side of mountains. Once the air mass has passed over the mountain in falls to lower elevations and gets warmer. Because most of the moisture has been lost as precipitation on the windward side of the mountain and the warmer air holds more moisture there is very little precipitation on the leward side of the mountain resulting in a "rainshadow desert".

Let's think about Lubbock!

Let's see if we can use our newfound understanding of some of the factors influencing temperature and precipitation to make predictions about what the climate should be like in Lubbock. What information do we need about the geographic location of Lubbock to help us understand the climate? First, we need to know the latitude; Lubbock is located approximately 33 degrees north. Second we need to know something about the proximity to the ocean. As an old beach boy, I can guarantee you that we are a long, long way from the ocean in Lubbock. Third, where is Lubbock in relation to mountains? Lubbock is located to the east of the southern extension of the Rockies.

Why is all of this important?

1. What can we learn from the latitude of 33 degrees North? This latitude is still close enough to the equator to be warm so we expect relatively high temperatures. Because Lubbock lies near the 30 degree zone of low precipitation we would predict relatively low precipitation. At 30 degrees North we would predict that Lubbock would receive predominately winds from the west.

2. From the continental location of Lubbock we would predict fairly extreme daily and seasonal fluctuations of temperatures.

3. Because Lubbock lies in the Westerlies most of the precipitation that is arriving in Lubbock comes from the Pacific Ocean. Because these winds have passed over the Rockies we would predict that Lubbock would lie in a rainshadow, again causing low precipitation.

How did we do. If anyone has ever been in Lubbock (especially in the spring time) you would know that the wind almost always blows in from the west. Temperatures are relatively warm but there is fairly large seasonal and daily variations in temperature. Lubbock has a semi-arid climate and receives on average about 18 inches of precipitation per year. Thus, with just a little bit of knowlege about the factors that influence global patterns of temperature and precipitation we were able to fairly accurately the climate in Lubbock. Thus, I would expect that organisms native to Lubbock should be well adapted to the low precipitation, continental climate of the region (the short grass prairie was the dominant vegetation type presettlement).

See use these patterns to understand climate in your town (note climate patterns in Texas are complicated in central and eastern Texas becasue of the influence of air masses coming up from the Gulf). Compare the temperature and precipitation of your town with that if very divergent locations around the globe.

Further Reading

If you would like some more detailed information about factors affecting climate and the atmosphere you can check out the Atmosphere Chapter in Michael Pidwirny's online Physical Geography textbook http://www.physicalgeography.net/fundamentals/contents.html.

Powerpoint Presentation

Click here to see the powerpoint presentation "Factors Influencing the Physical Environment".
http://www.slideshare.net/secret/EaVq4nm5KuSsBI

Expected Learning Outcomes

At the end of this course a fully engaged student should be able to

- describe global patterns of variation in temperature and precipitation and be able to explain the causes of these patterns

- for any location in the world, use your knowledge of the factors that affect global patterns to preict the local climate

Wednesday, January 18, 2012

Encyclopedia of Earth- Student Science Communication Project

The Encyclopedia of Earth (EoE- http://www.eoearth.org/) is an online source of information about the environment. The EoE differs from most other online sources because all articles are written by experts in the field and all articles are peer-reviewed before they are published. The EoE recently published its 7000th article and currently receives about 400,000 visitors each month.

The Student Science Communication Project (SSCP) at the EoE (http://www.eoearth.org/article/Student_Science_Communication_Project) allows undergraduate and graduate students to collaborate with scientists to write articles that can be submitted for review and if accepted, ultimately published in the EoE. Students at Texas Tech were among the first to participate in the SSCP and thus far Tech students have authored over 30 published articles!

Most of your writing assignments this semester will be aimed at producing information that can be submitted to the EoE. When your articles are published you will have something notable to add to your resume, or at least have something for your parents to hang on the fridge.