Thematic Links Unit

North Attleborough
Schools

   Created by Donna Cochrane

Ecosystems

Ecosystem Components:  Ecosystems consist of various non-living, biotic, and living biotic components.  The biotic components of an ecosystem include various physical and chemical factors.

Ecosystems of Our World:  The Biomes (or ecosystems) of the world

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Land Biomes

Earth's Major Land Biomes:   Major land biomes are listed with information regarding vegetation type, wildlife, and climate.

Biomes for the beginner:  All land and aquatic biomes are represented in this site.

Advanced Study:   Biomes are the major regional groupings of plants and animals discernible at a global scale. Their distribution patterns are strongly correlated with regional climate patterns and identified according to the climax vegetation type. 

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Aquatic Biomes

Aquatic Biomes:   The largest part of the biosphere (the earth) is made up of aquatic biomes.  It was here that life first arose, and here it evolved for almost three billion years, before plants and animals moved onto land. 

Fresh Water Biomes:   You'll find a wide variety of animal life in or around fresh water ecosystems.

Aquatic Communities:  Aquatic life is dependent on access to sunlight and nourishing chemicals that are dissolved in the water. 

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Succession

Biomes and Succession:  This unit covers biomes, grasslands, and plant nutrients. 

Forest Patterns and Processes:  Scientists and other observers came to Glacier Bay to see the great glaciers and found here the ideal natural laboratory for the study of plant succession.  

Forest Lab:  Welcome to the Environmental Research Support Site!  Your job as an ecology intern is to study the effects of land use on ecosystem health.

Addendum to Forest Lab:   Basal area is the cross-sectional area of a tree's trunk at 4.5' (breast height) above ground, and is expressed in square feet. The following equation converts tree diameter in inches to square feet of basal area.

Fire Alarm:  Woods on Fire:  This edition of The Why Files examines the role of fire in natural systems, and the role of science in understanding wildfires.

Yellowstone Fires:  Directed by researchers Jay Anderson of Idaho State University and William Rome of Fort Lewis College in Durango, Colo., the monitoring seeks to answer the question of how fire affects the regeneration of lodge pole forests.

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Energy Moving Through Ecosystems

Energy in Ecosystems:  Many of the most important relationships between living organisms and the environment are controlled ultimately by the amount of available incoming energy received at the Earth's surface from the sun. 

Biomass:   In a process called "photosynthesis," plants capture sunlight and transform it into chemical energy. This energy may then be converted into electricity, heat, or liquid fuels using a number of different energy conversion processes. 

Investigating an Ecosystem:   Don't forget that human beings live in an ecosystem too! All around us, we encounter our own ecosystem. 

Sun's Energy Trail to Earth's Surface:  See how the sun's energy flows in the Biosphere.

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Cycles

Ecosystems:  The main concepts in this section concern how energy moves through an ecosystem.

Energy Cycle Lab:  Energy flows through an ecosystem. As one part of the system is growing, another is dying. Energy from one part of the system is needed by another.

Hydrologic Cycle:  The hydrologic cycle attempts to model the storage and movement of water between the biosphere, lithosphere, atmosphere and the hydrosphere.

Water Chemistry:   There is no pure water in nature. Since water is a universal solvent, it contains a large array of inorganic and organic compounds which are present as dissolved solids and gases.

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Populations

Carrying Capacity:  Carrying capacity, or the maximum number of people fitting into an area over time, involves important limitations in how we think about and behave in our surroundings. Click to advance this very nice PowerPoint presentation.

Overpopulation:  One of the central debates in population literature centers on what the maximum carrying capacity of the Earth is and whether we’re below or above that level (or are likely to be in the future).

Predator-Prey:  The results of a barn owl pellet analysis are displayed. 

Modeling Predator-Prey:  Consider a simple system consisting of two species, one of which "eats" the other; for example, foxes and rabbits. 

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Interactions in Ecosystem Communities

Symbiosis:   Symbiosis simply means "living together" and in its narrowest form can mean two species deriving mutual benefit from the association. 

Mutualism:   Mutualism is a relationship that benefits both organisms that participate.   There are times when a relationship varies its relative benefits for the participants.   

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Human Interaction

The Importance and Preservation of Biomes:  Because we share the world with many other species of plants and animals, we must consider the consequences of our actions. 

Desertification:   Desertification is the process which turns productive into non- productive desert as a result of poor land-management. 

Climate Change:  Our planet is getting warmer. 

Value of Trees:  Long before the dinosaurs, about 400 million years ago, trees first appeared on Earth. 

Marine Pollution:  The sea, which covers around 70 per cent of the earth's surface, is home to millions of fish, crustaceans, mammals, micro­organisms, and plants.  It is a vital source of food for both animals and people. 

Biomagnification:   In this section, pollutants are examined that move through the various trophic levels in an ecosystem.

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Technological Advancement

Water Quality Assessment:   The initial water quality assessment will focus on the attainment status of stream quality to EPA standards for dissolved oxygen, nitrates, and pH related both to climate change and changes in stream runoff.   

Infrared Measurements:   The mission of the Infrared Measurements Group is to examine climate variability using data from satellite, airborne, and ground-based systems. 

Global Water Cycle:   One of the key missions of the GHCC is to develop a better understanding of the global water cycle at a variety of scales so that we can improve model forecasts of climate trends, predictions of short-term and regional weather events, and even their impacts on society's regional and global activities.

Pattern of Mayan Demise:   Human habitation leaves scars that are visible only from high altitudes, where patterns become more visible.  From these studies, we hope to understand the pattern of the Mayan decline and also find clues to sustainable agriculture.

Urban Heat Island:  Typical urban surfaces, such as concrete and asphalt, get much hotter than vegetated surfaces during the day. They store the energy and release it at night, thus creating a dome of warmer air over the city. Thus, the "urban heat island" causes increased air conditioning usage, as well as being directly related to increased ozone formation, a major pollutant in our cities.

Aquarius Undersea Laboratory:  NOAA's National Undersea Research Program presently supports the only operational undersea habitat for scientific research in the world.

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Environmental Careers

Environmental Careers for the Millennium:  The potential important environmental careers are included.

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