climate ecology: the study of sun, rain, life, & place plus an aside on wind & water…
TRANSCRIPT
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Climate Ecology:
The Study of Sun, Rain, Life, & Place
Plus an aside on wind & water…
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Recall the underlying principle thatinsolation-intensity is largely a function of latitude…
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…but remember that, for purposes of climate, the “solar equator” moves with the seasons…
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…and so does the rain!(Uh, I’ll spend a lot of class-time talking about this diagram.)
This should make you think about the geographical location of major habitat-types
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Ecologists think of the Earth as divided into biomes.
• A biome is a big piece of real estate having its own characteristic weather, climate, flora, and fauna.
• Biomes are often named.– This tree, for example, is in the
Seasonal Tropical Forest Biome.
• We’ll briefly honor oceanic biomes and then consider terrestrial biomes in more detail.
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As we name & define, remember to keep asking yourself:
“In what ways are biomes models?”
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Oceanic Biomes• Oceans dominate the
surface-area of Earth.
• Water evaporated from them (and carried by oceans of air) is the source of all rain, all fresh water.
• Interacting with sun & air, oceans create climates.
• Oceans provide the major proportion of people’s animal-protein foods.
• Many important aspects of ocean-biology are insufficiently understood:
– Oceanic biodiversity…
– Role in carbon-cycles …
– Role in feeding the world…
– Sustainability of current human impacts….
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People exploit diverse oceanic biomes in diverse ways.
• This won’t be a major course theme, but:
• Oceans are important in our species-history:– First, seashores & estuaries…– Then continental shelves, then open
oceans…– …food, migration, commerce….
• Until recently, most people assumed that oceanic resources were inexhaustible.
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Terrestrial biomes: the world we inhabit
• The diversity of terrestrial biomes is mediated by latitude, altitude, proximity to oceans, and soil-types.
• The most important of these can be integrated into axes of temperature and moisture (next slide).
• People spread across most habitable biomes in < 40,000yrs.
• Human residence is becoming increasingly concentrated; human impact is becoming increasingly widespread.
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Summary graph of terrestrial biomes
• Axes of heat and moisture roughly define the structure of the land-biotic world.
• The names are not standardized, but if you learn these, you’ll recognize the others.
• Next slide, more complex, will show biomes’ approximate geographical locations.
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Very approximate locations of terrestrial biomes
• Biomes interdigitate; biomes are patchy; biomes change over time.
• See Google’s maps for more accurate (& enlargeable) locations.
• Next slide shows a simplistic model of biome-locations in the tropics.
Note the overall complexity!
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Tropical biomes
• Locations of tropical biomes are controlled mostly by convective rain.
• Convective rainfall is largely a function of latitude, proximity to oceans (theoretically, more on east coasts), and mountain ranges.
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Tropical Rainforest(to be extensively considered later)
• Typically equatorial.• Not strongly seasonal:
– Most months potentially rainy (> 10cm); total rainfall perhaps 2m/year.
– Daily lows and highs perhaps 28-30oC.
• Ecosystems:– Nutrients “invested” in biomass rather than
“banked” in soil.– Energy fixation very high but production
usually low.– Low species density, high species diversity.– Many complex interactions.
• Human economies are typically low-density or unsustainable.
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Seasonal Tropical Forest• Poleward of rainforest (10o-20o).
• Strongly seasonal:
– Seasonality defined by rainfall.
– “Winters” dry; “summers” wet.
– Typically 1.2-1.8m rain/year.
• Ecosystems:
– Soils variable but many nutrients “invested” in biomass.
– Production can be high.
– Some trees respond to predictable seasonality by losing leaves.
– Species less diverse (but perhaps denser) than in rainforest.
• Human economies rely on seasonal agriculture or degrade by too-dense animal husbandry.
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Tropical Savanna
• Poleward of seasonal tropical forest (often 15o-25o).• Intensity of seasonality not always predictable:
– Seasonality defined more by rainfall, less by temperature.
– Nights in mid-dry season cool (<20oC); late dry often hot (>35oC).
– Intensity (and even occurrence) of wet season unpredictable.
• Ecosystems (think unpredictability of good times):– Soils vary; often nutrient-rich; productivity typically high.
– Biomass dominated by plants that can respond to good times.
• Human economies dominated by animal husbandry (over-grazing).
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A little more about tropical savannasThink rainfall, edaphic conditions, and unpredictability.Grasses can be short (15cm), moderate (1m) or tall (2m).Tropical savannas are occasionally named for emergent vegetation:
AcaciaPinePalm
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Thorn scrub
• Between tropical savanna & desert (c. 25o).• Climate is predictably dry (10-75cm rain); fire is typically
excluded; “winter” nights cool; “summer” days up to 40oC.• Ecosystems dominated by species adapted for predictably
dry conditions; responder-plants absent or localized.• Human systems dominated by animal husbandry, poverty.
(Thorn scrub often results from overgrazing of savanna; overgrazing of thorn scrub can lead to desertification.)
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Desert• Desert locations typically @
c. 30o and/or mid-continental.• Seasonality is in temperature;
rainfall predictably < c. 15cm; rare rain has dramatic effects.
• Ecosystems:– Edaphic factors almost
irrelevant; production low.
– Biomass structure variable.
– Organisms adapted to absence of water (& often to heat).
• Human economies formerly involved hunter-gatherers or nomadic herders—always at low densities.
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Transitional (“Mediterranean”)
climates
• “Mediterranean” regions lie beyond the margins of the tropics and are not always classified as biomes.
• Rainfall is not abundant; summers are usually dry.
• Consider southern European countries, southern South Africa, parts of California….
• Traditional human economies included arboculture and animal husbandry.
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Temperate biomes:Is this the world in which
we live?
• Temperate biomes show high diversity (uh, human and otherwise).
• South-temperate & mid-temperate areas are capable of very high agricultural productivity.– Soils often “bank” nutrients, which
farmers have failed to conserve.
• Human cultures in temperate biomes have often held political domination over tropical cultures (see GG&S!).– Tropical cultures have often benefitted.
– But the relationship has almost always worked to the advantage of the temperate cultures.
– Folks, it ain’t been just, it’s seldom been pretty, and U.Meths should be appalled.
• (For convenience we’ll include far-north biomes in this overall category.)
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Mixed temperate hardwoods
• This is the biome most familiar to most of us.
• Seasonality is dominated by temperature.
• Ecosystems are diverse forests, many of which were converted to row-crop agriculture and then often to cities, industry, & suburbs.
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Temperate grasslands• Characterized by hot/cold
seasons and 20-30cm of sporadic rain, this biome was once dominated by responder-grasses and large, nomadic grazers.
• Subjected to increasing human exploitation, this biome:– is, in its original condition,
almost extinct,
– feeds much of the world with its exotic grasses (wheat & maize),
– is currently dominated by irrigation agriculture that may not be sustainable.
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Northern conifer (boreal) forests
• This biome, concentrated in Canada and Siberia, is characterized by cool/cold seasonality; precipitation is often snow. Vast stands of shortleaf evergreens are broken by highly productive small ponds and meadows.
• Human economies are largely extractive (hunting, then some lumbering; increasingly, petro/ mineral resources).
• The global importance of this sparsely-settled biome is not completely understood.
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Tundra • As in boreal forests, seasonality is cool/cold, but precipitation is usually less and is predominantly snow.
• Except for forest enclaves in the south, responder grasses and sedges dominate; chief consumer exploitation is by seasonal rodents and migratory artiodactyls.
• Human economies have always operated at very low densities.– Hunters and nomadic herders
– Explorers and petro/mineral extractors.
• Underlying permafrost makes heat-generating engineering activities problematic.
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Cold mountains• This biome may be hot to
cold in summer; winters are bitter-cold.
• Air-uplift slopes create monsoon forests on seaward side; inland sides are almost always rain-shadow deserts.
• Human economies, always low-density, include hunting and other extractive activities.
• Increasing subsistence agriculture leads to erosion and severe firewood shortages.
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“Human ecology” within wooden walls
On 21 October 1805 Britain secured the seas from Napoleon’s grasp. How?
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HMS Victory• To deploy, on orders,
to any deep-ocean place on earth
• To remain at sea for up to 4 years
• To remain independent of land for up to 4 months
• To fling half a ton of iron per minute (at best), accurately, at targets up to half a mile away
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The Things She Carried
• Gunpowder: 35 tons• Guns: 104 (largest 3.5
tons)• Shot: 120 tons• Water: 300 tons• Stores: 250 tons• Rigging rope: 26 miles• Pulley blocks: 768• Sails: Enough to cover all
Main’s floor space plus roof (heaviest 815 lbs.)
• Living animals (fewer as the voyage continued)
• Crew
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The crew• At full strength: 850• Highly diverse
– 22-24 nationalities
– > 10 languages
• Collectively, skilled at– Sails & rigging
– Navigation
– Gunnery
– Personnel management
– Admiralty law
– Signaling & commo
– Carpentry & repair
– Medicine and surgery
– Law enforcement
– “Housekeeping”
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Considerations of size
• Living-working area about 1/6 of Old Main’s floor space (remember: crew of 850).
• “Bedrooms” 5’6” X 18” X 18”.
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10,000+ years of maritime engineering:
• The ship had to be constructed to withstand six potentially simultaneous sources of stress:– Water pressure
– Load-bearing
– Sea-working
– Wind-sail impulse
– Artillery recoil
– Battle damage
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Natural Resources Required (timber)• 2000 mature oak trees
(that’s about 100 acres—or about one “old Wofford,” denuded):
• Some could be plank-sawed, but others were made into “non-joinable” structures.
• Trees were specially selected & were cut 14 years before construction began.
• Timbers have lasted well!
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Navigation• Maps and charts• Sextants (several!)• Compass (two official)• Celestial charts• Chronometers (two official; rich
captains had another; HMS Beagle, of Darwin-fame, was a charting vessel and carried twenty-two chronometers); can’t know longitude w/o knowing precise time!
• Knowledge of spherical trigonometry (& eventually of calculus) was required.Senior Non-Com: Thomas
Atkinson, Sailing Master