Download or read book Patterns and Trajectories of Postfire Plant Communities in Greater Yellowstone written by Nathaniel Kiel and published by . This book was released on 2024 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Changing global drivers are eroding ecosystem resilience. As change continues, determining the implications of ecosystem transformations must be coupled with "climate change education" and evidence-based undergraduate biology curricula to train the next generation of scientists. My dissertation addresses each need in turn. First, I use remote sensing and field studies to understand the drivers and effects of poor subalpine forest recovery following large, stand-replacing wildfire in the U.S. Northern Rocky Mountains. I ask: (1) how extensive is forest conversion to sparse or non-forest three decades after the 1988 Yellowstone fires, and what drives its distribution? (2) how does forest conversion affect subalpine forest understory plant communities, aboveground carbon stocks, and the potential for forest recovery? and (3) how do anomalously frequent (30-year fire-return interval) stand-replacing wildfires in forests adapted to historically infrequent (125-year fire-return interval) fires alter understory plant communities? I complement these studies with the development and assessment of new undergraduate curricula on systems thinking and biogeochemical cycling, incorporating gameplay and simple simulation modeling to ask: how do student attitudes toward and understanding of the nitrogen cycle change following game- and inquiry-based learning? Subalpine forest conversion 30 years after the 1988 fires was extensive, covering ~41,000 hectares of previously forested area primarily at higher elevations and further from surrounding unburned forest. While much of this area appears "locked in" to sparse or non-forest, other areas may yet recover to forest owing to seed pressure from ex situ and in situ sources. Understory plant communities increasingly resembled meadow communities where tree densities were lowest, and aboveground carbon stock recovery was diminished. Understory communities were also affected by minimal forest recovery following anomalously frequent fire, with shifts toward shade-intolerant species and species from lower elevation zones adapted to drier conditions. Finally, undergraduate students in an intermediate general ecology course self-identified improved attitudes toward and understanding of the nitrogen cycle, largely attributing these changes to gameplay of "The N Game" and active lecture. This research elucidates how changing climate and disturbance will alter forest ecosystems and how evidence-based teaching approaches may help train undergraduate students to address these and other global challenges.
Download or read book Wildland Fire in Ecosystems written by and published by . This book was released on 2000 with total page 92 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Biology Digest written by and published by . This book was released on 1990 with total page 780 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Yellowstone Vegetation written by Don G. Despain and published by Roberts Rinehart Publishers. This book was released on 1990 with total page 268 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A comprehensive view of vegetation types, distribution, and the natural forces that influence plant succession in Yellowstone.
Download or read book After the Fires written by Linda L. Wallace and published by Yale University Press. This book was released on 2004-01-01 with total page 400 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Americans currently choose their president through the electoral college, an extraordinarily complex mechanism that may elect a candidate who does not receive the most votes. In this provocative book, George Edwards III argues that, contrary to what supporters of the electoral college claim, there is no real justification for a system that might violate majority rule. Drawing on systematic data, Edwards finds that the electoral college does not protect the interests of small states or racial minorities, does not provide presidents with effective coalitions for governing, and does little to protect the American polity from the alleged harms of direct election of the president. In fact, the electoral college distorts the presidential campaign so that candidates ignore most small states and some large ones and pay little attention to minorities, and it encourages third parties to run presidential candidates and discourages party competition in many states. Edwards demonstrates effectively that direct election of the president without a runoff maximizes political equality and eliminates the distortions in the political system caused by the electoral college.
Download or read book Wildland Fire Forest Dynamics and Their Interactions written by Marc-André Parisien and published by MDPI. This book was released on 2018-08-15 with total page 342 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book is a printed edition of the Special Issue "Wildland Fire, Forest Dynamics, and Their Interactions" that was published in Forests
Download or read book Disturbance and Ecosystems written by H. A. Mooney and published by Springer Science & Business Media. This book was released on 2012-12-06 with total page 307 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The earth's landscapes are being increasingly impacted by the activities of man. Unfortunately, we do not have a full understanding of the consequences of these disturbances on the earth's productive capacity. This problem was addressed by a group of French and U.S. ecologists who are specialists at levels of integration extending from genetics to the biosphere at a meeting at Stanford, California, sponsored by the National Science Foundation and the Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique. With a few important exceptions it was found at this meeting that most man-induced disturbances of ecosystems can be viewed as large scale patterns of disturbances that have occurred, generally on a small scale, in ecosystems through evolutionary time. Man has induced dramatic large-scale changes in the environment which must be viewed at the biosphere level. Acid deposition and CO increase are two 2 examples of the consequences of man's increased utilization of fossil fuels. It is a matter of considerable concern that we cannot yet fully predict the ecological consequences of these environmental changes. Such problems must be addressed at the international level, yet substantive mechanisms to do this are not available.
Download or read book Knowing Yellowstone written by Jerry Johnson and published by Rowman & Littlefield. This book was released on 2010-06-16 with total page 185 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Visitors to Yellowstone National Park are drawn to the spectacular scenery, unique thermal features, and the large numbers of wild animals easily observed in their natural habitat. The thoughtful visitor to the park cannot help but be captivated by the unparalleled breadth of scientific knowledge needed to understand the intricate interrelationships that make up the yellowstone landscape. Knowing Yellowstone explores how scientists discover what they know about America's first national park and the surrounding lands. The chapter authors are scientists who represent the best of their fields of study. The science they describe is leading the way to our understanding of complex ecosystems worldwide.
Download or read book The Influence of Fire Interval and Climate on Successional Patterns in Yellowstone National Park written by Tania Schoennagel and published by . This book was released on 2002 with total page 198 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Fire Effects Guide written by and published by . This book was released on 1994 with total page 282 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Permafrost Ecosystems written by Akira Osawa and published by Springer Science & Business Media. This book was released on 2010-01-04 with total page 507 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Drawing from a decade-long collaboration between Japan and Russia, this important volume presents the first major synthesis of current knowledge on the ecophysiology of the coniferous forests growing on permafrost at high latitudes. It presents ecological data for a region long inaccessible to most scientists, and raises important questions about the global carbon balance as these systems are affected by the changing climate. Making up around 20% of the entire boreal forests of the northern hemisphere, these ‘permafrost forest ecosystems’ are subject to particular constraints in terms of temperature, nutrient availability, and root space, creating exceptional ecosystem characteristics not known elsewhere. This authoritative text explores their diversity, structure, dynamics and physiology. It provides a comparison of these forests in relation to boreal forests elsewhere, and concludes with an assessment of the potential responses of this unique biome to climate change. The book will be invaluable to advanced students and researchers interested in boreal vegetation, forest ecology, silviculture and forest soils, as well as to researchers into climate change and the global carbon balance.
Download or read book Greater Yellowstone s Future written by Susan G. Clark and published by Homestead Publishing. This book was released on 1994 with total page 166 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: And speculation: Summary -- Speculation.
Download or read book Ecological Impacts of Climate Change written by National Research Council and published by National Academies Press. This book was released on 2008-12-07 with total page 70 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The world's climate is changing, and it will continue to change throughout the 21st century and beyond. Rising temperatures, new precipitation patterns, and other changes are already affecting many aspects of human society and the natural world. In this book, the National Research Council provides a broad overview of the ecological impacts of climate change, and a series of examples of impacts of different kinds. The book was written as a basis for a forthcoming illustrated booklet, designed to provide the public with accurate scientific information on this important subject.
Download or read book Landscape Ecology in Theory and Practice written by Monica G. Turner and published by Springer Science & Business Media. This book was released on 2007-05-08 with total page 353 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: An ideal text for students taking a course in landscape ecology. The book has been written by very well-known practitioners and pioneers in the new field of ecological analysis. Landscape ecology has emerged during the past two decades as a new and exciting level of ecological study. Environmental problems such as global climate change, land use change, habitat fragmentation and loss of biodiversity have required ecologists to expand their traditional spatial and temporal scales and the widespread availability of remote imagery, geographic information systems, and desk top computing has permitted the development of spatially explicit analyses. In this new text book this new field of landscape ecology is given the first fully integrated treatment suitable for the student. Throughout, the theoretical developments, modeling approaches and results, and empirical data are merged together, so as not to introduce barriers to the synthesis of the various approaches that constitute an effective ecological synthesis. The book also emphasizes selected topic areas in which landscape ecology has made the most contributions to our understanding of ecological processes, as well as identifying areas where its contributions have been limited. Each chapter features questions for discussion as well as recommended reading.
Download or read book Measuring Plant Diversity written by Thomas J. Stohlgren and published by OUP USA. This book was released on 2007 with total page 408 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Here is a thorough presentation and critique of the sampling approaches, designs and field techniques for measuring plant diversity. Ecologists interested in assessing landscapes and ecosystems must measure biomass, cover, and the density or frequency of various key species. Recently, sampling designs for measuring species richness and diversity, patterns of plant diversity, species-environment relationships, and species distributions have become finer-grained, as it has become increasingly important to accurately map and assess rare species for conservation. This book lays out the range of current methods for mapping and measuring species diversity, for field ecologists, resource managers, conservation biologists, and students, as a tool kit for future field measurements of plant diversity.
Download or read book Physiological Ecology of North American Plant Communities written by Brain F. Chabot and published by Springer Science & Business Media. This book was released on 2012-12-06 with total page 704 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Although, as W.D. Billings notes in his chapter in this book. the development of physiological ecology can be traced back to the very beginnings of the study of ecology it is clear that the modern development of this field in North America is due in the large part to the efforts of Billings alone. The foundation that Billings laid in the late 1950s came from his own studies on deserts and subsequently arctic and alpine plants, and also from his enormous success in instilling enthusiasm for the field in the numerous students attracted to the plant ecology program at Duke University. Billings' own studies provided the model for subsequent work in this field. Physiological techniques. normally confined to the laboratory. were brought into the field to examine processes under natural environmental conditions. These field studies were accompanied by experiments under controlled conditions where the relative impact of various factors could be assessed and further where genetic as opposed to environmental influences could be separated. This blending of field and laboratory approaches promoted the design of experiments which were of direct relevance to understanding the distribution and abundance of plants in nature. Physiological mechanisms were studied and assessed in the context of the functioning of plants under natural conditions rather than as an end in itself.
Download or read book Wildlife Management in the National Parks written by and published by . This book was released on 1963 with total page 30 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
