Global warming has become an increasing challenge due to the impact of human activities on the environment. In this regard, university campuses with various activities and departments have a great impact on the environment. Ecological Footprint Analysis (EFA) is a natural resource depletion assessment tool, with a high level of accuracy, that measures the impact of human May 01, · Footprint Futures, a university-level curriculum for exploring the sustainability challenge facing human economies, from Global Footprint Network.. EUSTEPs aims to educate European university students and the wider academic community about the complexity of sustainability and its interdisciplinary nature in an engaging and captivating manner, using the Ecological Footprint The extended essay (EE) is an integral part of the IB Diploma course. In order to write a good EE in ESS you need to first of all be interested in and passionate about the environment; and secondly be prepared to put in the hard work. Study and Suggestions for increased ecological footprint of an area in (a specific country)
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In ecology, a community is a group or association of populations of two or more different species occupying the same geographical area at the same time, also known as a biocoenosisecological footprint essay, biotic communitybiological communityecological communityor life assemblage.
The term community has a variety of uses, ecological footprint essay. In its simplest form it refers to groups of organisms in a specific place or time, for example, "the fish community of Lake Ontario before industrialization". Community ecology or synecology is the study of the interactions between species in communities on many spatial and temporal scales, including the distribution, structure, abundance, demographyand interactions between coexisting populations.
Community ecology also takes into account abiotic factors e. annual temperature or soil pH. These non-living factors can influence the way species interact with each other. For example, the difference in plants present in the desert compared to the tropical rainforest is dictated by the annual precipitation. These non-living factors also influence the way species interact with each other.
Community ecology has its ecological footprint essay in European plant sociology, ecological footprint essay. It examines processes such as predator—prey population dynamics or succession, ecological footprint essay. Whilst also examining patterns such as variation in:. On a deeper level the meaning and value of the community concept in ecology is up for debate. Communities have traditionally been understood on a fine scale in terms of local processes constructing or destructing an assemblage of species, such as the way climate change is likely to affect the make-up ecological footprint essay grass communities.
Robert Ricklefs has argued that it is more useful to think of communities on a regional scale, drawing on evolutionary taxonomy and biogeography[1] where some species or clades evolve and others go extinct. Within the community, each species occupies a niche.
A species' niche determines how it interacts with the environment around it and its role within the community.
By having different niches species are able to coexist. For example, the time of day a species hunts or the prey it hunts. Niche partitioning reduces competition between species.
The competition within a species is greater than the competition between ecological footprint essay. Intraspecific competition is greater than interspecific. The number of niches present in a community determines the number of species present. If two species have the exact same niche e. the same food demands then one species will outcompete the other. The more niches filled, the higher the biodiversity of the community.
At the bottom of the food web are autotrophsalso known as primary producer. Producers provide their own energy through photosynthesis or chemosynthesisplants are primary producers. The next level is herbivores primary consumersthese species feed on vegetation for their energy source. Herbivores are consumed by omnivores or carnivores. These species are secondary and tertiary consumers. Additional levels to the trophic scale come when smaller omnivores or carnivores are eaten by larger ones.
At ecological footprint essay top of the ecological footprint essay web is the apex predatorthis animal species is not consumed by any other in the community. Herbivores, omnivores ecological footprint essay carnivores are all heterotrophs. Food chains become more complex when more species are present, often being food webs. Energy is passed up through trophic levels. Energy is lost at each level, ecological footprint essay, due to ecological inefficiencies. The trophic level of an organism can change based on the ecological footprint essay species ecological footprint essay. For example, tuna can be an apex predator eating the smaller fish, such as mackerel.
However, in a community where a shark species is present the shark becomes the apex predator, feeding on the tuna. Decomposers play a role in the trophic pyramid. They provide energy source and nutrients to the plant species in the community. Decomposers such as fungi and bacteria recycle energy back to the base of the food web by feeding on dead organisms from all trophic levels.
A guild is a group of species in the community that utilise the same resources in a similar way. Organisms in the same guild experience competition due to their ecological footprint essay resource.
However, guilds are not exclusively closely related species, ecological footprint essay. Carnivores, Omnivores and herbivores are all basic examples of guilds. A more precise guild would be vertebrates that forage for ground dwelling arthropodsthis would contain certain birds and mammals. Certain species have a greater influence on the community through their direct and indirect interactions with other species.
The loss of these species results in large changes to the community, often reducing the stability of the community. Climate change and the introduction of invasive species can affect the functioning of key species and thus have knock-on effects on the community processes.
Foundation species largely influence the population, dynamics and processes of a community. These species can occupy any trophic level but tend to be producers. The mangrove's root provides nursery grounds for young fish, such as snappers.
Whitebark pine Pinus albicaulis is a foundation species. Post fire disturbance the tree provides shade due to its dense growth enabling the regrowth of other plant species in the community, This growth prompts the return of invertebrates and microbes which are needed for decomposition. Whitebark pine seeds provide food for grizzly bears. Keystone species have a disproportionate influence on the community than most species. Keystone species tend to be at the higher trophic levels, often being the apex predator.
Removal of the keystone species causes top-down trophic cascades. Wolves are keystone species, being an apex predator. In Yellowstone National Park the loss of the wolf population through overhunting resulted in the loss of biodiversity in the community. The wolves had controlled the number of elks in the park, through predation. Without the wolves the elk population drastically increased, resulting in overgrazing.
This negatively affected the other organisms in the park; the increased grazing from the elks removed food sources from other animals present. Wolves have since been reintroduced to return the park community to optimal functioning. See Wolf reintroduction and History of wolves in Yellowstone for more details on this case study. A marine example of a keystone species is Pisaster ochraceus.
This starfish controls the abundance of Mytilus californianusallowing enough resources for ecological footprint essay other species in the community. An ecosystem engineer is a species that maintains, modifies and creates aspects of a community. They cause physical changes to the habitat and alter the resources available to the other organisms present.
Dam building beavers are ecological engineers. Through the cutting of trees to form ecological footprint essay they alter the flow of water in a community. These changes influence the vegetation on the riparian zonestudies show biodiversity is increased. This aids the movement of other organisms in the community such as frogs. Community structure is the composition of the community.
It can be measured through species richnessspecies evenness. These measures help to understand the biodiversity of the community, ecological footprint essay. Holistic theory refers to the idea that a community is defined by the interactions between the organisms in it.
Ecological footprint essay species are interdependent, each playing a vital role in the working of the community. Due to this communities are repeatable and easy to identify, ecological footprint essay, with similar ecological footprint essay factors controlling throughout. Clements developed the holistic or organismic concept of community, as if it was a superorganism or discrete unit, with sharp boundaries.
Formation of communities is non-random and involves coevolution. The Holistic theory stems from the greater thinking of Holism ; which refers to a system's with many parts all of which are required for the functioning of the system. Gleason ecological footprint essay the individualistic also known as open or continuum concept of community, with the abundance of a population of a species changing gradually along complex environmental gradients.
Varying environmental conditions and each species' probability of arriving and becoming established along the gradient influence the community composition. Individualistic theory proposes that communities can exist as continuous entities, in addition to the discrete groups referred to in the holistic theory.
Hubbell introduced the neutral theory of ecology, ecological footprint essay. Within the community or metacommunityspecies are functionally equivalent, ecological footprint essay, and the abundance of a population of a species changes by stochastic demographic processes i.
Ecological drift leads to species' populations randomly fluctuating, ecological footprint essay, whilst the overall number of individuals in the community remains constant.
When an individual dies, there is an equal chance of each species colonising that plot. Stochastic changes can cause species within the community to go extinct, however, this can take a long time if there are many individuals of that species. Species can coexist because they are similar, resources and conditions apply a filter to the type of species that are present in the community. Each population has the same adaptive value competitive and dispersal abilities and resources demand.
Local and regional composition represent a balance between speciation or dispersal which increase diversityand random extinctions which decrease diversity. Species interact in various ways: competition, predationparasitismmutualismcommensalismetc. The organization of a biological community with respect to ecological interactions is referred to as community structure.
Species can compete with each other for finite resources. It is considered to be an important limiting factor of population sizeecological footprint essay, biomass and species richness.
What is your Ecological Footprint / Earth Overshoot Day?
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Global warming has become an increasing challenge due to the impact of human activities on the environment. In this regard, university campuses with various activities and departments have a great impact on the environment. Ecological Footprint Analysis (EFA) is a natural resource depletion assessment tool, with a high level of accuracy, that measures the impact of human The extended essay (EE) is an integral part of the IB Diploma course. In order to write a good EE in ESS you need to first of all be interested in and passionate about the environment; and secondly be prepared to put in the hard work. Study and Suggestions for increased ecological footprint of an area in (a specific country) The domain blogger.com may be for sale. Please send an inquiry to info@blogger.com
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