The Thread of Biodiversity

Earth's biodiversity levels are unique. We are the only place that has life. Human's habits after the Industrial age have changed Earth into a non sustainable state. The CO2 levels in our atmosphere have raised far above our highest point in the past 600,000 years (Berger et al. 1996), changing the temperature of the planet along with it. The oceans are filling with CO2 and warming up, changing the cycle of life. Coral and algae are dying (Glynn 1993), forcing many fish to struggle to survive. The shortage of fish is creating a shortage of predators and food for humans to eat, forcing us to create conditions that allow them to grow such as fish farms and aquariums. The problem is industry is part of the problem, not the solution. Humans are trying to recreate nature artificially, but so far we are having no luck in doing so. The only way we can remedy the problem before catastrophe now is to drop our dependence on oil fueled ways and convert to alternate nature fueled energies such as nuclear, wind, hydroelectric, and solar. Each step will slow down our output of CO2, lowering our output gradually after each change we make.

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Pull Quote "The CO2 levels in our atmosphere have raised far above our highest point in the past 600,000 years"

Abstract revised

Earth's biodiversity levels are unique. We are the only place that has life. Human's habits after the Industrial age have changed Earth into a non sustainable state. The CO2 levels in our atmosphere have raised far above our highest point in the past 600,000 years1 (Berger et al. 1996), changing the temperature of the planet along with it. The oceans are filling with CO2 and warming up, changing the cycle of life. Coral and algae are dying2 (Glynn 1993), forcing many fish to struggle to survive. The shortage of fish is creating a shortage of predators and food for humans to eat, forcing us to create conditions that allow them to grow such as fish farms and aquariums. The problem is industry is part of the problem, not the solution. Humans are trying to recreate nature artificially, but so far we are having no luck in doing so. The only way we can remedy the problem before catastrophe now is to drop our dependence on oil fueled ways and convert to alternate nature fueled energies such as nuclear, wind, hydroelectric, and solar. Each step will slow down our output of CO2, lowering our output gradually after each change we make.

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Abstract

Earth's biodiversity levels are unique. We are the only place that has life. Human's habits after the Industrial age have changed Earth a non sustainable state. The CO2 levels in our atmosphere have raised far above our highest point in the past 600,000 years, changing the temperature of the planet along with it. The oceans are filling with CO2, and warming up, changing the cycle of life. Coral and algae are dying, forcing many fish to struggle to survive. The shortage of fish is creating a shortage of predators and food for humans to eat, forcing us to create conditions that allow them to grow. The problem is our industry is part of the problem, not the solution. Humans are trying to recreate nature artificially, but so far we are having no luck in doing so. The only way we can fix the problem now is to go cold turkey on our oil fueled ways and convert to alternate nature fueled energies such as nuclear, wind, hydroelectric, and solar. Without these, our future doesn't look positive.

Pull quote: "Humans are trying to recreate nature artificially"

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Recipe - Lettuce Wrap

Ingredients:

1 head iceberg lettuce or romaine lettuce leaves (We can use Chard)
Sauce:
2 tablespoon soy sauce
1 tablespoon dry sherry (optional)
1 teaspoon sugar
Remaining Ingredients:
1 tablespoon sesame oil (or peanut oil)
1 slice ginger, minced
1 garlic clove, minced
2 green onions, chopped
1 lb meat from chicken breasts or sliced white chicken meat (we can use tofu)
1 red pepper, seeded and diced
Anything else can be added (corn, veggies, etc.)

Preparation:

Wash the lettuce, dry, and separate the leaves. Set aside.

Mix together the sauce ingredients. Heat the sesame oil in a non-stick frying pan on high heat. Add the garlic, ginger, and green onions and fry until the garlic and ginger are aromatic. Add the tofu and cook until the tofu is browned. Remove the tofu from the pan and set aside.

Add the veggies to be cooked to the frying pan. Add the sauce ingredients and cook at medium heat. Add the tofu back into the wok. Cook for 2 - 3 more minutes, stirring, to heat through and finish cooking the tofu.

Lay out a lettuce leaf and spoon a heaping teaspoon of the tofu and vegetable/sauce mixture into the middle. The lettuce wraps are designed to be eaten "taco-style," with the lettuce/taco mixture folded into a package. Continue with the remainder of the tofu and lettuce leaves. Serve.

This can be messed with ingredient wise. We can be creative.

Food Inc.

Food Inc. was a well put together movie made to put the truth of the food industry into the public mind. The best part I think was when Joe Salatin was talking. He really got to the point of the problem in our food industry. One of the biggest points he made was that we have an industry run off of corn, when really we should naturally have it run off of natural grass' and herbs. His farm runs like a well oiled machine. He is kind to his animals, keeps organic, and still has the efficiency needed to supply a great many people with food. One of the worst things that he described was that the FDA claimed his working conditions were unsanitary because he worked in open air, when really his meat had less contaminants than the industries meat. He also describes what the biggest problem the public has. We have become so distanced from something as intimate as our food. We don't know where it comes from so long as we can eat it and it tastes good. Another thing that struck me in the movie was when they talked about human eating habits. We as humans strive to find the rarest tastes in the wild: salt, fat, and sugar. With our current food industry, these things are easy to acquire, often easier to acquire than less salty, fatty, sugary food. This all puts our state in perspective. We have become a gluttonous nation that keeps being fed. Luckily, people are becoming more informed about our state, and slowly changing the way the industry works. They are changed by the change in money, so if the money goes healthy then the industry must go healthy or go bankrupt.

Peer Reviewed Articles for Senior Project

The first link I found was a particularly interesting one discussing climate change's future effects on marine life, especially many oceanic species. In it they show a large chart showing the species of fish, the environment and specific location it lives in, the time period of the study, and the changes in population levels throughout the time period. Some of the future results are also calculated using calculus, these results being the rate of production within the species. They also showed projected studies of specific species in three different theoretical locations/global environments, one having a high, low, and middle ground level of greenhouse gas emissions in the atmosphere above it.
The main point that I got out of this relating to the changes in biodiversity was that the climate change mostly incurs large influxes in species invasion, causing mass extinction of many species caught off guard by the new, often inexperienced species. The largest points of extinction are located in the tropical and equatorial regions of our planet.
Honestly a lot of the information is over my head at first glance, but after looking at it for a while and taking it in it starts to make more and more sense. The reason for this is because of the large prevalence of math involved in predicting future outcomes, and the complexity of their experiment and how that made the math even more elaborate.

Cheung, William W.L., Vicky W.Y. Lam, Jorge L. Sarmiento, Kelly Kearney, Reg Watson, and Daniel Pauly. "Climate Change Impact on Marine Biodiversity." Projecting global marine biodiversity impacts under climate change scenarios. seaaroundus.org, 5 Nov. 2008. Web. 24 Feb. 2010. www.seaaroundus.org/ClimateChange/images/Cheung-climate-biodiversity-FF-2009.pdf.

"Particularly, climate change impacts on marine biodiversity are likely to intensify in the future, with the intensity of impacts differing geographically according to changes in ocean conditions and sensitivity of the species (Roessig et al. 2004; Harley et al. 2006; Munday et al. 2008)."

"The A1B scenario describes a world of very rapid economic growth, low population growth, rapid introduction of new and more efficient technologies, and moderate use of resources with a balanced use of technologies." (This scenario was of the high CO2 concentration. This, along with the other two descriptors, show the various projected climates they did their math using, not being a part of the result of the study.)

"...invasion to and extinction from an area (collectively called species turnover) can affect biodiversity, community structure and ecosystem functions"

"The pattern of species turnover was generally dominated by species invasion. On the other hand, although the relative rate of species turnover decreases towards the equator, the absolute number of species turning over is high in the tropics"

"The interactions between geography and species’ dispersal patterns strongly affected our predicted climate impact on marine biodiversity. In semienclosed seas, the dispersal of many species was limited by land boundaries. In addition, sea bottom temperature and SST of semi-enclosed seas were projected to increase at a faster rate than temperatures in the adjacent open seas, causing more local extinctions and range-shifting in these semienclosed water bodies."

This next link is very similar to the previous one, except it measured biodiversity levels in Europe. The way they did it was also very similar, using the same variables multiple times but changing the levels for each time the equations are ran and taking the average of the various equations. This one goes really in depth with graphs and charts, showing the various levels of different insect life over time and other things.

Dormann, Carsten F., Oliver Schweiger, and many others. "Ecology Letters: Biodiversity prediction uncertainty." Prediction uncertainty of environmental change effects on temperate European biodiversity. N.p., n.d. Web. 24 Feb. 2010. https://www.ufz.de/data/d-Dormann_2008_EcologyLett8108.pdf.

Nate Lewis Presentation Reflection

I loved the presentation that we watched because in it, he pulled together so many things that I have thought about previously, but he pulled it all together in a way that made everything realistic. I say this because when I think of things, I think of ways to make things work. One example of this is the whole plants and why they aren't black in order to attract more light from the sun. Nate Lewis touched on this towards the end when he was talking about biomass and how we need to create some sort of fast growing biofuel that could support us forever.
I also loved the way he brought up the giant solar panel. Obviously he was being sarcastic with it, but if we did start putting up solar panels, he already figured out the math that shows how many solar panels of what size we need to fuel the nation. I do agree that we need to use solar, but in our current economic situation we cannot afford it.

Further Research on my Topic

Source One
"Ecosystems and Biodiversity | Climate Change - Health and Environmental Effects | U.S. EPA." U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. N.p., 8 Sept. 2009. Web. 9 Feb. 2010. http://www.epa.gov/climatechange/effects/eco.html

This article discusses some findings regarding climate change, life's need for the right climate, and how sudden change could be good or bad. It also talks about how future projections on ecosystem loss are not likely to come out accurate because of the quick rate of change giving no precursor or anything to go off of.

Some Quotes:
"Climate is an integral part of ecosystems and organisms have adapted to their regional climate over time. Climate change is a factor that has the potential to alter ecosystems and the many resources and services they provide to each other and to society."
"20 percent to 30 percent of species assessed may be at risk of extinction from climate change impacts within this century if global mean temperatures exceed 2-3 °C (3.6-5.4 °F) relative to pre-industrial levels"

Source Two
" About Climate Change and Biological Diversity." Convention on Biological Diversity. N.p., n.d. Web. 11 Feb. 2010. http://www.cbd.int/climate/about.shtml

This article presents the subject of climate, ecosystems, and biodiversity, presents a problem and why it matters, then finishes it off with things that we need to keep in mind when creating a plan to fix the issue at hand.

Some Quotes:
"According to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) Working Group I (WGI) Fourth Assessment Report, from 1850 to 2005, the average global temperature increased by about 0.76ºC and global mean sea level rose by 12 to 22 cm during the last century."
"The present global biota has been affected by fluctuating Pleistocene (last 1.8 million years) concentrations of atmospheric carbon dioxide, temperature, and precipitation, and has coped through evolutionary changes, species plasticity, range movements, and/or the ability to survive in small patches of favourable habitat (refugia)."
"Habitat fragmentation has confined many species to relatively small areas within their previous ranges, resulting in reduced genetic variability. Warming beyond the ceiling of temperatures reached during the Pleistocene will stress ecosystems and their biodiversity far beyond the levels imposed by the global climatic change that occurred in the recent evolutionary past. "

Source Three
Science Daily. "Global Impact Of Climate Change On Biodiversity." Science Daily: News & Articles in Science, Health, Environment & Technology. N.p., 22 Jan. 2009. Web. 11 Feb. 2010. http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/01/090121091239.htm

This article goes over a survey proving that creatures have already been slowly migrating over the years due to the climate change, and how many others have no where to go. It provides a lot of solid evidence and explains it better than the previous two.


Reflection:
I feel these sources are somewhat reliable. The last one is very good because it shows one study taken over 40 years, showing plenty of progress. The first two are more summations of the issue as a whole. Other than the sources, I feel that I am really driven to do this subject. I love biology, and I am very interested in the process of cloning endangered animals in order to rapidly repopulate the many ecosystems. The whole climate change thing really does effect the biodiversity levels because the more climates change, the more the animals have to change, and sometimes there isn't any room for them to go, leaving them for dead.

Initial Plant Research

a. I want to grow grapes. Grapes are vine fruits that grow in different ways depending on what breed you decide to grow.
b. The growing season for this plant is spring-summer, but will not produce fruit for a year or two.
c. It can easily be grown from seed, but needs to have a good support in initial growth time so the vine can really climb.
d. The plant can grow quite fast, but will take a lot longer than a semester to produce fruit.
e. The plant grows best by itself. It needs no extra tampering.
f. It would require quite a bit of space depending on the vigor of the previous vine the seeds came from. If the previous plant was not very vigorous, the plant can be grown within 4 feet of another, but it the parent vine was very vigorous, the distance can sometimes be up to 8 feet.
g. Grapes are very hardy plants. They like to grow in deep, well-drained soil. The soil shouldn’t be too nutritious as this can create excess plant growth, which can hinder produce growth. Grapes also like slightly acidic soil.
h. Grapes can grow in very droughty situations once they are settled in. To settle it in a slow drip feed should do the trick, but not too much.

i. This plant grows up a trellis as a vine, and requires a large amount of sunlight to be fertile. Every year or so it needs to be pruned. Up to 90% of all previous years growth should be pruned as to open it up and not shade the vine during the next spring. Depending on the variety, the grapes can be used to create wine, or be eaten raw. The more acidic and sugar filled grapes are more often used for wine. They can also be dried to make raisins, or mashed to create jam.

Pre-Senior Project Work and Write Up

My senior project is on biodiversity. The sources I have pulled up so far focus mainly on the purpose and importance of biodiversity, and a method of artificial repopulation of endangered and extinct species.

The method of artificial repopulation is reproductive cloning. It is done by taking an egg from an animal (most likely the surrogate) that is the closest (usually common) relative to the animal being cloned in question, and extracting the DNA, leaving an empty shell. Then, you would take the DNA extracted from a cell of the cloning subject and place it in that egg. From there, an electrical shock of some kind will trigger cell reproduction, and after a certain point is reached, the developing egg can be placed within the surrogate.

This method has been proven to work with animals such as the endangered African Wildcat, Felis Lybica. The surrogate used was a common domesticated house cat, so as to not possibly hurt another endangered wildcat in the pregnancy and labor process. This is a great scientific discovery because now we know that we can recreate anything that we can capture the DNA of, as long as there is another similar or related animal. As of the moment, the process is still having kinks worked out, and is highly frowned upon by many groups of people who believe cloning to be of a sort of inhumane practice.

Another example of this was an endangered Wild Ox indigenous to India and Southeast Asia that was cloned using a common dairy cow as a surrogate. This just continues to prove that this process can and should be used to not only help repopulate the food web, but keep the variance high within many dwindling ecosystems.

This ties in with the other sources where it is explained the importance of a diverse environment and how everything relates to one another and is crucial to keep the cycles of life running. An easy example of this would be where a cow is fed by wheat from a farm, and then the dung leftover is used as a fertilizer to feed the soil and crops. This then benefits the crops, which then benefit many animals and bacteria underground. Bacteria feed from many different parts of the plants, and this can be very useful to even the plant at times. More plant life also means more rodents and worms and other insects. These aerate the soil and provide areas for water to sink in and help the crops grow more.

My senior project is on the importance of biodiversity, and how we may soon be required to take action and influence the existence of life itself.

Bibliography:

"Cloning - Reproductive Cloning." Library Index. N.p., n.d. Web. 21 Jan. 2010. http://www.libraryindex.com/pages/2263/Cloning-REPRODUCTIVE-CLONING.html.

Some Quotes to use:

"The reproductive cloning technology used to create animals is called somatic cell nuclear transfer (SCNT). In SCNT scientists transfer genetic material from the nucleus of a donor adult cell to an enucleated egg (an egg from which the nucleus has been removed). This eliminates the need for fertilization of an egg by a sperm."

"On January 8, 2001, scientists at Advanced Cell Technology (ACT), a biotechnology company in Massachusetts, announced the birth of the first clone of an endangered animal, a baby bull gaur—a large wild ox from India and Southeast Asia—named Noah. Noah was cloned using the nuclei of frozen skin cells taken from an adult male gaur that had died eight years earlier. The skin cell nuclei were joined with enucleated cow eggs, one of which was implanted into a surrogate cow mother."

United Nations Development Programme. "The Importance of Biodiversity." UNDP | United Nations Development Programme. N.p., n.d. Web. 21 Jan. 2010. http://www.undp.org/biodiversity/biodiversitycd/bioImport.htm.

Some Quotes to use:

"Around 99 per cent of potential crop pests are controlled by a variety of other organisms, including insects, birds and fungi."

"Some 130 billion metric tons of organic waste is processed every year by earth’s decomposing organisms. Many industrial wastes, including detergents, oils, acids and paper, are also detoxified and decomposed by the activities of living things. In soils, the end product of these processes – a range of simple inorganic chemicals – is returned to plants as nutrients."

"The World Health Organization estimates that 80 per cent of people in the developing world rely on traditional medicines derived mainly from plants. In Southeast Asia, for example, traditional healers use some 6,500 different plant species to treat malaria, stomach ulcers, syphilis, and other diseases."

Shah, Anup. "Why Is Biodiversity Important? Who Cares? — Global Issues." Global Issues : social, political, economic and environmental issues that affect us all — Global Issues. N.p., 18 Nov. 2009. Web. 20 Jan. 2010. http://www.globalissues.org/article/170/why-is-biodiversity-important-who-cares.

Socratic Seminar

Last week in class, we had a socratic seminar on a reading about the worlds food industry. The reading itself was a letter that was sent to President Obama concerning the way we grow our foods and how bad it is for our health, and the environment. In the discussion, we went over various topics such as eco terrorism, home gardens, and the importance of organic materials. I think that it was a very good discussion, although we did break off into side arguments at some times.

Agricultural Ancestry

My family doesn't have a very large root in agriculture other than one member. In my grandfathers childhood, he traveled with the seasons, picking cotton at whatever farm payed. This isn't a very large collection or variance of people, but this one represents a large summation of the American agricultural community back in the day.

Insignificant us

Today in Environmental Science, we discussed the vastness of the universe. To us, the world may seem big and important, but imagine holding up your hand to the sky. In that space of your hand, are billions of stars, if not more! Those stars all make up galaxies, are born and fizzle out or explode into a massive super nova, emitting vast amounts of light for many many earth months until it empties itself out. The sheer amount and variety of galaxies and solar systems within those galaxies are immeasurable, and even if they were, the numbers would be too large for our human minds to comprehend.
In short, the universe around us is over our heads, or at least mine. One could only hope to someday have a greater grasp on a reason as to our happenstance existence on this small sphere of coalesced dust we call Earth.

What Interests Me About the Natural World

There are many things that interest me about the natural world around me. On a greater scale, I am appalled at how complex and yes visually appealing all of the natural things around us have developed over the eons. Vast mountain ranges and deep running canyons are brief descriptions of the various works of mother nature that are awe inspiring. On top of that, animal migratory patterns have always been an interest. At times, millions of birds have been seen within the same square mile all flying to the same destination. Stuff like that is just mind boggling, and to try and begin to comprehend what drives their brains to do that. Add onto that the fact that they always end up in the same exact area, even without prior knowledge of the area.
On a smaller scale, the brain is something that I am extremely baffled by. It's mere complexity confuses even the most seasoned scientists in the field. Specifically what I find interesting about the brain is it's tendency to keep an individual preference different from any other brain around it. I have always wondered what makes a brain like what it does, and what makes it different from the next person around the corner. For instance one person might think that underwater basket weaving is the greatest thing in the world, and the next person might think that skydiving knitting is the greatest thing in the world. The concept of how it all works can only be described as incomprehensible, and because of this, I can only hope to learn more.