Ecosystems+Chapter

http://www.cc.gatech.edu/~cnieto6/presentation/images/CoralReef1.jpg ** Community Interactions: ** **A Common Misconception About Communities:** Everyone works together peacefully **The Truth: Some groups work together for a common goal peacefully but we all have to eat to live and on top of that we have to avoid being eaten. Competition is a naturally thing occurring between living organisms, which co-exist in the same environment. For examples human will compete for water resources and animals may compete for food or mates. Competition between members of a species is the driving force behind evolution and natural selection. The competition for resources like food, water, territory or even sunlight result in the ultimate survival and dominance of the other species best suited for survival. **
 * ECOSYSTEMS: **



In a community within ecology, there is something called the **competitive exclusion**. Competitive exclusion is a principle that basically states that if there are two species competing for the same resources, the both cannot stably coexist if the other ecological factors surrounding them are consistent. Either one or the other competitors will always overcome the other, leading to the extinction of that species or some kind of an evolutionary or behavioral shift towards a different ecological niche.

There is also another way to help alleviate the competition for resources and this is called **resource partitioning**. Resource partitioning is the dividing up of scarce resources allowing for the coexistence of animals. There are three different kinds of resource partitioning: temporal partitioning, spatial partitioning and morphological partitioning. Temporal partitioning is where two species eliminate the direct competition by using the same resource at different times. Spatial partitioning occurs when two competing species use the same resource by occupying different areas or habitats within the range of occurrence of the resource. Finally, morphological partitioning occurs when two competing species evolve differing morphologies to allow them to use a resource in different ways.

Most animals are either predators or prey. **Predation** occurs when one animal, the predator, eats another living animal, the prey, to get the energy and nutrient from the body of the prey to help their own body to grow, maintain, and/or reproduce. If the predator and prey are of the same species, this type of predation is called **cannibalism**. The dynamics of a population are the changes in the size of the populations of an organism through time, and the **predator-prey interactions** may play an important role in the explanation of population dynamics of many species. The population of one species, the predators, has a negative effect on the population of the second, the prey, while the second has a positive effect on the first. Predator-prey interactions may have a large impact on the properties of a community. For example, most terrestrial communities are green, meaning that the predation on herbivores is great enough to stop them from consuming the majority of plant material. Predator-prey interactions usually result in an arms race for the defense or capture through the factors of: agility/stride/eye placement (in mammals), secondary compounds, external weaponry or sorts, camouflage, defense postures (moment-of-truth) and mimicry.

**Secondary compounds** are a common evolution usage in plants because they have no way of in the moment defending themselves. Sometimes, they will adapt to be poisonous to their predator by making these secondary compounds that can range from being just simply uncomfortable to lethal to useful. For example, the pika, which live in the Rocky Mountains, collect flowers in which the poisons actually preserve places during the winter storage so they stay fresher for longer. Another example is the monarch butterfly. Butterflies begin their life cycle as a caterpillar; the caterpillar eats a bunch of milkweed that actually has secondary compounds. The caterpillar stores these secondary compounds in its tissues and after the caterpillar has gone through the chrysalis or pupa stage in the cocoon, the monarch will form being poisonous to all predators who eat it.

Some plants will adapt to form spines or thorns to their branches to help protect their leaves and body of the plant from being preyed upon. This is their external weaponry to help keep them safe and alive for as long as they can.

Animals have an advantage of protecting themselves simply by being able to run away or adapt to protect themselves. Some poisonous animals will have bright coloration to warn the predator that they are dangerous and they should stay away. Another predation defense is something called **mimicry**, in which one species evolves to look like another so it is actually harmless but looks dangerous. For example, remember how the monarch butterfly is poisonous? There is another butterfly called the viceroy who looks very similar to the monarch though are not poisonous, but just simply copying or mimicking the look to send out a warning to predators. Some animals will **camouflage** themselves or have a cryptic coloration to help blend them into their surrounding environment. This can help benefit both prey and predator. The predator will avoid observing because camouflage allows an otherwise visible organism to remain unseen from the surrounding environment through this deception.



Though if you don’t have weapons animals will look scary or distract by getting in a defensive or surprising posture in the **moment-of truth** where the animal will look scary by puffing up or expanding in some way, expel poisons, odors or repellants.

Not all interactions directly involve each other someone or avoiding the being eaten. Sometimes organism’s benefit by working in harmony, also known as a **symbiotic relationship** ; one kind of symbiotic relationship is called **mutualism**. Mutualism is the interaction between individuals of two different species. Mutualism is beneficial to both individuals because they are mutually gaining something. It is a lot like saying, you scratch my back, and I will scratch yours. Mutualism plays a key part in ecology. It is thought to have driven the evolution of much of the biological diversity that we see, for example flower forms and the co-evolution between groups of species. An example of mutualism is a clownfish and a sea anemone; the clownfish gets a protected home territory because the sea anemone has tentacles that capture their prey by stinging them with their tentacles. The clown fish has adapted to this sting by having a mucus discharge that inhibits the stinging power from the sea anemone. The sea anemone however benefits from the scraps that the clownfish brings in and can sting and digest the large fist that the clownfish lures in.



Another example of a symbiotic relationship is **parasitism**, the relationship between organisms of different species where one organism, the parasite, benefits at the expense of the host. A way of putting it is one organism makes a living from the living. Parasitism is a special type of predation, where the parasite takes the resources from the host without killing the host because in return the organism would die itself. There are different kinds of parasites. Internal, which are like tapeworms and flukes; external, which are like ticks, leeches, and certain plants; and nests, like cuckoos and cowbirds.



**Commensalism** is also an example of a symbiotic relationship. Commensalism is the interaction between individuals of two different species, in which it is beneficial to one individual and the other individual is unaffected. For example a bird will put their nest in a tree, which will help it gain safety, but the tree is not affected. Back to the sea anemone and the clown-fish, that is another great example of commensalism.

**Coevolution** is the change of a biological object triggered by the change of a related object. This can occur at many levels in biology with something as small as mutations between amino acids in a protein or as large as covarying traits between different species within an environment. Each of the parties put a kind of selective pressure on the other species, affecting each other’s evolution. Species-level coevolution includes the evolution of a host species and its parasites, and examples of mutualism evolving over time. A good example of coevolution would be bumblebees and the flowers they pollinate have coevolved to both become dependent on each other for survival. (Krough 2002)

**ENERGY FLOW:**

**A Common Misconception:** Animals eat either plants or other animals in order to survive. Once they eat a plant or animal, they also consume ALL of the energy in that plant or animal. ** The Truth: ** Every ecosystem follows a food chain. Life on land and in the earth's waters is possible through plants and algae, who get their energy from the sun. Plants and algae are consumed by other animals and fish, which are eaten by bigger animals. Everything is connected through this food web and it never ends because even when an organism dies, their body still has nutrients that go back into the ground for future plants. It's like "The Lion King," ... it's all part of the circle of life! [|The Lion King - "Circle of Life"] As you know, an ecosystem is a complex set of relationships among the living resources, habitats, and residents of a community. It includes a variety of things such as plants, trees, animals, birds, microorganisms, water, sun, and soil. Ecosystems all vary in size and the elements that make them up, but each is a functioning unit of nature. Everything that lives in an ecosystem is dependent on the other species and elements that live in it too. If one element is damaged or taken away, then the entire ecosystem will suffer. A healthy ecosystem is sustainable, meaning that all elements live in balance and are capable of reproducing themselves.

Every living organism needs to obtain energy in order to live. Almost everything can be placed back to the sun, which is the main source of energy. Without the sun, no ecosystem can flourish. For example, let’s say you eat a steak for dinner. That steak came from a cow… who ate grass… which got energy from the sun.

http://www.cap.nsw.edu.au/bb_site_intro/stage1_Modules/WWS-stage1/images/sun.gif

A food chain starts with the primary energy source, either the sun or boiling-hot deep sea vents. The next link in the chain is an organism that makes its own food from the primary energy source - plants! Plants are photosynthetic and convert the solar energy into usable energy in the form of glucose. They are called producers. **Producers** are organisms that can synthesize their own foodstuffs. Major producers are the algae and plants that can absorb sunlight and use its energy to synthesize organic foodstuffs from water and carbon dioxide.

http://www.marshall-landscapes.co.uk/images/landscapes/plants1.jpg

Next come the organisms that can eat the producers - these are called **primary consumers** (also referred to as herbivores). An example of a primary consumer is a rabbit, because they eat grass.

http://bogglesworldesl.com/flashcardsESL/herbivores.jpg

The next link in the chain are animals that eat herbivores - these are called **secondary consumers**. An example of a secondary consumer is a rat that eats grasshoppers. These animals are called omnivores because they eat animals as well as plants.

http://bogglesworldesl.com/flashcardsESL/omnivores.jpg

Omnivores, like the rat, are eaten by bigger animals like an owl - which is an example of a tertiary consumer. **Tertiary consumers** can be eaten by bigger tertiary consumers (tertiary consumers+ or quaternary consumers). An example of this is a hawk that eats owls. It is important to remember that each food chain ends with a top predator - in this case it is the hawk. Top predators are animals with little or no natural enemies.

Tertiary Consumers: http://bogglesworldesl.com/flashcardsESL/carnivores.jpg

TertiaryConsumers+ http://bogglesworldesl.com/flashcardsESL/predators.jpg

As energy flows from organism to organism, energy is lost at each step. Think back to the 2nd Law of Thermodynamics… even though energy is forever, it is lost (usually through heat) every time it is transferred. At each level of the food chain, about 90% of energy is lost in the form of heat. The total energy passed from one level to the next is about one-tenth of the energy received the previous organism. Therefore, as you move up the food chain, less energy is available. Animals located at the top of the chain need to eat more food than those at the bottom because they need to meet their energy needs.

This entire idea can be summed up through something called trophic levels. Trophic levels describe the position that an organism occupies in a food chain - what an organism eats, and what eats that organism. There is no limit to the number of levels in a trophic system, but only as a fraction of the energy of each level can be processed by the next (10%), ecosystems with more than 5 levels are almost unheard of.

Every living organism needs energy. Sun (or in some cases deep-sea boiling vents) is the ultimate source of energy for an ecosystem. The energy flow of an ecosystems starts at the moment photosynthesizers (producers) capture sunlight and transform it into glucose that stores heat and energy for later use, and ends until the energy is used up or released into the environment. In between them, energy transfers from one organism to another through the help of food webs, each of the organisms receiving only a small percentage (10%!) of the total energy carried in the one being consumed.

Drawing by: Angie

http://www.econguru.com/fundamentals_of_ecology/image/energy_flow.gif Let's review...


 * __Producers:__ organisms that make their own food from sunlight and/or chemical energy from deep sea vents; they are at the base of every food chain (ex: plants and algae)
 * __Primary Consumers:__ animals that eat primary producers; they are also called herbivores AKA plant-eaters (ex: grasshoppers, rabbits)
 * __Secondary Consumers:__ animals that eat primary consumers; they are carnivorous (meat-eaters) and omnivores (plant and animal eaters)… (ex: snakes, rats)
 * __Tertiary Consumers:__ animals that are purely carnivorous; eat the secondary consumers (ex: owl, pelicans)
 * __Tertiary Consumers+:__ eat the smaller tertiary consumers; they are “top predators” and have little or no natural enemies (ex: hawks)

[]

Drawing by: Angie When any organism dies (even top predators like hawks), it is eventually eaten by **scavengers** (like vultures, worms, and crabs) and broken down by **decomposers** (mostly bacteria and fungi). Scavenging is a carnivorous behavior in which a predator consumes corpses or carrion that were not killed to be eaten by the predator or others of its species. Scavengers play an important role in the ecosystem by contributing to the decomposition of dead animal remains. Decomposers complete this process, by consuming the remains left by scavengers. Even after organisms die, the exchange of energy continues. Even though it is dead and not USING energy, there is still energy STORED in their tissues. Nutrients liberated by the food chain enter the soil and water and are reincorporated into plants at the base of a new food chain. The success of the living world depends on the link between this never-ending cycle.

Scavengers: http://bogglesworldesl.com/flashcardsESL/scavengers.jpg

Decomposers: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Fungi_in_Borneo.jpg

Have you ever wondered why there are more plants on Earth than animals? You already know that energy is lost each time one organism eats another. Because of this, there have to be many more plants than there are plant-eaters. Even though there is an intense competition for food between animals, there is also an interdependence too. Carnivores and herbivores stay in a relatively stable equilibrium by limiting each other’s population. If the number of carnivores increases, they eat more herbivores which decreases their population. A similar equilibrium exists between plants and plant-eaters. (Chiras, 1993).

**NUTRIENT CYCLING:** **A Common Misconception About Carbon:** Only plants use carbon. The transfer of carbon from the atmosphere to different organisms and back to the atmosphere is called the ** Carbon Cycle **. The cycle starts with plants taking in carbon dioxide (CO2) from the atmosphere and using the carbon in their tissues. The respiration of organisms and plants and animals dying and being decomposed releases CO2 into the atmosphere. Some carbon remains in dead organisms which over millions of years become fossil fuels such as oil or coal. Then when the fossil fuels are burned, the carbon is let out into the atmosphere. Carbon is also released into the atmosphere by volcanic action, burning forests and plowing soil. Carbon is constantly being taken in from the air by plants and other photosynthesizing organisms and is always being released in some way back into the air!
 * The Truth: ** All organisms use carbon; plants use carbon dioxide in photosynthesis, humans and animals eat organic molecules including carbon.



http://www.farmingfutures.org.uk/Images/Carbon-Cycle-2306.gif

Nitrogen is another element that is all around us and is being used by plants and transferred through different organisms. The transfer of nitrogen is called the ** Nitrogen Cycle **. The cycle starts with the air, there is large concentration of nitrogen in the atmosphere but it is in an unusable form! Bacteria can pull the nitrogen out of the air and convert it into a usable form for plants. The nitrogen in the air is in the form of N2, bacteria called nitrogen-fixing bacteria convert this N2 into ammonia which is NH3. The ammonia when combined with water creates ammonium (NH4) which is the form which plants can take in. Animals then eat the plants and along with the plant the animals receive the nitrogen. Then when the animal excretes or dies, the waste or tissue is decomposed by fungi and other bacteria which turn the nitrogen into NH4 and NO3 again. Then there are nitrifying bacteria that convert the nitrate back into the N2 form which is in the atmosphere. This completes the nitrogen cycle!



A very commonly used resource is water! How water travels and is transferred is called the ** Water Cycle **. The water cycle has no beginning or end so let’s choose to start in the oceans. The sun, which drives the water cycle, heats the water in the oceans. This causes some of the water to evaporate into the atmosphere. Water also transpires into the atmosphere from plants. The water vapor is cooled and condenses into clouds. The cloud move around the earth and precipitation falls in various forms. The precipitation flows over the ground as runoff and can end up in lakes, streams, rivers, and oceans. This is where we started! [|water cycle]

**POPULATIONS:** **A Common Misconception:** The ever increasing population growth worldwide poses no threat to humanity's survival. ** The Truth: ** The question of how the world is going to be able to sustain such a huge population has been an ongoing problem for some years now. Hundreds of years ago, no one would have imagined that by the year 2000, we would need to be worrying about how quickly the population is growing. However, just 100 years ago the world had about 1.6 billion people. Today, the population has already quadrupled to over 6 billion, and according to most recent estimates, the population will continue to increase by a 1.3 percent **Growth Rate** - the change in population over a unit time period - per year, adding about 78 million people each year. It is estimated that by the year 2040 the world population will reach 9 billion, and by 2075 there will be almost 15 billion people! THAT is a crowded planet. []



But the world population is not only made up of people. Think of all the different kinds of animals, plants, insects, and any other living thing that we experience everyday. There are billions, or even trillions, of those as well that are trying to survive on Earth. These populations affect themselves and their entire communities. We all need resources, and we are constantly competing for those resources. So when there is an extremely high population, there are fewer resources for us all. As mentioned earlier, growth rate is a measurement of how quickly the population is growing in a certain amount of time. It can be measure by this equation: Growth Rate = (birth rate + immigration rate) – (death rate + emigration rate). Below is a graph showing the world population growth rate.



It can be determined by several factors which include birth rate, death rate, immigration, and emigration. **Birth Rate** is how many babies are born every year, usually the number of babies per every 1,000 individuals. It is dependent upon the number of females, age of reproduction, and the fertility rates of females. **Fertility Rate** is the average number of babies that a female will have over the span of her lifetime. An increase in either of these two factors would add to an increase in overall population. Also contributing is **Immigration**, which is the arrival of new individuals into a habitat or population.Death rate and emigration are factors that aid in decreasing the population. **Death Rate** is the number of deaths each year per 1000 individuals, and **Emigration** is the act of leaving one's region or habitat to settle in another. Population growth can be described in two ways. One is arithmetic growth, which shows the slower growth of something like car production. The other is **Exponential Growth**. This is used to show populations that grow at faster rates, like rabbits, fleas, or bacteria. It is a quantity that regularly increases by a fixed percentage.

But it can't grow forever! It is limited by Boom-and-Bust and S-Curve growth. **Boom-and-Bust Cycles** are rapid population growths followed by a sudden die-off that could occur because of weather or predators. It can be represented in a graph:

Drawing by: Elyse

It can also be limited by **S-Shaped Growth**, which is a long period of exponential growth reaching equilibrium because of limited resources. This equilibrium is also known as reaching **Carrying Capacity** : the maximum population size an ecosystem can support indefinitely. One of the reasons why the world population has been able to increase so drastically is because we have increased our carrying capacity through better nutrition, better medical care, fossil fuels, vaccinations, and elimination of predators. Technology has been a huge factor as well. Drawing by: Elyse

Usually, environmental resistance maintains population at or below carrying capacity. This depends on the density dependent and density independent factors. **Density Dependent Factors** occur when population density increases and issues arise from the closeness of individuals within a habitat, including the spread of disease, parasitism, predation, and competition for resources. These factors keep populations in check. In restricting population growth, a density-dependent factor intensifies as the population size increases, affecting each individual more strongly. **Density Independent Factors** are things that limit the population regardless of density, like weather, natural disasters, and human activity like pollutants and development. If it weren't for these factors, the planet would be even more crowded.

Although it seems like we may be hopeless to help the world slow down it's rate of population growth, the world's population IS stabilizing. This is because the world fertility rate is about 3.1 children per family as opposed to 6.5 children in 1950. Also, the highest birth rates are in third world countries, while here in the United States and other industrialized nations are approaching zero growth because we do not rely so much on human labor and large populations to support it. Also, there is a lack of education and readily available birth control in third world countries. If these nations were to shift to industrialization, it would help control their population, but it would also increase their dependence on and use of non-renewable fuel sources, so more of the earth's resources and energy.

HUMAN IMPACT These things MIGHT happen, and if they do, they will only affect the world in years to come. These problems are VERY serious and they need a solution sooner rather than later.
 * A Common Misconception About Global Warming, Nuclear Waste, Acid Rain, and Ozone Depletion:**
 * The Truth: **

Not all scientist agree about global warming, those who study the climate are still in argument about how fast the earth is warming and how much it will warm, but they do agree that the earth is warming and that it will keep warming if we continue with our way of life and do nothing about it. Scientists agree that the burning of fossil fuels like oil and coal cause greenhouse gases to escape into the air and that these gases are causing most of the warming. Another cause is deforestation (the cutting down of trees). Trees soak up the carbon dioxide, which is one of the greenhouse gases, from the air. If global warming continues to happen the results will be catastrophic. There are some changes already that are happening due to global warming. The sea levels are rising and some animals are already changing their climates for new homes. We cannot completely stop global warming but we can do what we can to make sure it does not get any worse. Though if the warming gets worse, there may be some kind of plants and animals that will disappear completely, become extinct, because they cannot move to new homes. There may be more horrible storms and floods. People might have to move away from the coast if sea levels rise to high levels. Some areas in return may be too dry for farming.
 * Global warming ** is affecting the population as we speak. In today’s day and age the words global warming are being thrown around more and more often but what is it? Global is the increase of the earth’s average surface temperature, which is caused by the build up of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere. Do not confuse global warming with the usage of climate change. Climate change refers to a broader term that is long-term changes in the climate, which includes the average temperature and precipitation.



Like many problems, global warming is a very difficult problem to fix. People cannot agree on what to do about global warming. For example, everyone agrees that wasting energy is a bad thing to do, but some people think that the federal government should make laws about it, while others think it should be dependant upon individuals or the business to decide what to do.

There are some things you can do to help do something about global warming. Scientists agree that burning of fossil fuels is one of the factors causing global warming. Since these fuels are burned for energy, ad everyone uses energy, everyone can help the stop or slowing down of global warming by using less energy. Start to think about the things you do each day that use energy. The TV and computer use energy, the lights turned on in your house use energy, the washing machine and dryer use gas or electricity, every time you ride in the car, it uses gasoline. (Root, Price, Hall, Schneider 2003)
 * Some things you can do to help:**
 * So when you do laundry, make sure you have a lot of clothes instead of only washing a few things at a time.
 * Turn off the lights when you leave a room and use fluorescent bulbs in your house.
 * Turn off your computer or the TV when you are not using it.
 * Close the blinds on a hot day if the sun is shining in, dressing lightly instead of turning up the air conditioning, or use a fan.
 * Dress warm inside your house when it is cold, instead of turning up the heat.
 * Bike or walk short distances instead of asking for a ride in a car.
 * Plant a tree.
 * Take shorter showers, because heating water uses energy.

**Ozone Depletion** is one of the leading causes of Global Warming. It is two distinct observations: a slow, steady decline of 4% per decade in total volume of ozone in the Earth's stratosphere since the 1970s, and a larger, seasonal decrease in stratospheric ozone over the Earth's polar regions, which is also known as the ozone hole. CFC compounds and other contributing substances are referred to as Ozone-Depleting Substances. The chlorine atoms from the CFCs act as a catalyst, and each can break down tens of thousands of ozone molecules before being removed from the stratosphere. The ozone layer prevents most harmful UVB rays from passing through the Earth's atmosphere, so as the ozone thins and maintains a steady hole growth, there is an increasing concern about the effects of the extra sun rays. These consequences include skin cancer, cataracts, damage to plants, and reduction to plankton populations in the ocean which many organisms depend on for survival.



This chart shows more of the effects of ozone depletion and how they come about:



Another human impact on the environment is ** Acid Rain **. Acid rain is rain of any other form or precipitation that is more acidic than usual precipitation. Acid rain is mostly caused by the emissions of sulfur, nitrogen, and carbon that react with in the atmosphere to produce acids. Acid rain has harmful effects on plants, aquatic animals, and on some building materials. The rain can wear away various stones; this is commonly seen on gravestones where the inscription has worn off. Not only can it wear stone and kill plants and trees, it can have a harmful effect on humans. The emissions in the air before tey fall as rain are thought to cause illness.

http://www.odec.ca/projects/2008/shar8a3/AcidRain_drawing.gif

**Nuclear waste** has a significant impact on the environment. It is the radioactive waste left over from nuclear reactors, nuclear research projects, and nuclear bomb production. Nuclear power generates approximately 15% of the world's electricity. The contribution of nuclear power to individual countries' electricity generation varies significantly, from more than 70% of France's electricity generation, to less than 5% in India, China and others. The debate, then, is not over whether or not the world should "go nuclear", but rather whether the world should rely on increasingly more nuclear power to satisfy its energy needs. Nuclear waste is divided into low, medium, and high-level waste by the amount of radioactivity the waste produces. Low level nuclear waste is generated by hospitals, laboratories, industry, and the nuclear fuel cycle. The waste is made up of paper, rags, tools, clothing, and filters - all of which contain small amounts of mostly short-lived radioactivity. It is not dangerous to handle but must be disposed of more carefully then normal garbage. It is disposed of in shallow landfill sites. Medium level waste contains higher amounts of radioactivity and may require a special shielding. It is made up of resins, chemical sludges, reactor components, and contaminated materials. It may be solidified in concrete or bitumen for disposal. High level waste can be the fuel itself, or the waste that is from processing the fuel. It contains highly radioactive fission products. The major problem of nuclear waste is what to do with it.

One of the biggest expenses of the nuclear power industry could potentially be the storage of nuclear waste. Most of the methods now are temporary because a long-term solution for waste storage has yet to be found. Nuclear waste can be very dangerous and should not be handled by anyone without professional training. A long term solution for storage of nuclear waste needs to be found sooner rather than later because if one is not found, the environment will significantly suffer.

http://www.world-nuclear.org/education/graphics/wast1.gif

SUSTAINABILITY PRINCIPLES

The things we do to help the environment will only make a difference if EVERYONE in the world does them, which is impossible, so why do them? A single person can make a difference in the environment. Even if one person does a simple thing like recycle, it is still helping the Earth more than you know!
 * A Common Misconception on Sustainability Principles:**
 * The Truth:**

You probably help with recycling at home or know something about it. You may have even seen the triangular loop of arrows on beverage containers that lets you know those containers can be recycled. Each of the three represents a step in the recycling process: collection, processing and making recyclables into new products. Keeping recyclable items inside the Recycling Loop keeps them out of landfills and reduces pollution. We are ever so in need of resources because they are quickly vanishing before our eyes. Recycling is a great way to reuse the resources that we have already utilized. Recycling is the process of an operation using already processed materials into new products to prevent waste of potentially useful materials, reduce the consumption of fresh raw materials, reduce energy usage, reduce air pollution from the incineration, and water pollution for the land filling by reducing the need for conventional waste disposal, and to lower greenhouse gas emissions as compared to first production. Recycling is a key component of modern waste management and is the third part of the Reduce, Reuse, and Recycle theme.
 * Recycling and Restoration**

Recyclable materials include many kinds of glass, paper, metal, plastic, textiles, and electronics. Materials that are going to be recycled are brought to a collection center or picked up from the curbside, then sorted, cleaned and reprocessed into new materials bound for manufacturing. Making new things from recycled ones takes less money, less energy, and less of the earth’s resources. Because less energy is user, factories do not release as much pollution either.
 * So why should you recycle?**

Environmental restoration is a process in which a damaged resource is renewed biologically, structurally, and functionally. We have used so many of our resources and in return from our manufacturing rate we pollute other resources. For example, a factory might have waste product that is drained into the ocean or into a lake. The lake becomes very polluted and all life begins to die off. Environmental restoration has been applied in aquatic situations being lakes, streams, river, wetlands, etc. and terrestrial ones being grasslands, forests, deserts, flatlands, hill country, mountain slopes, etc. ** Environmental restoration involves a lot of different approaches and technologies dependant upon what the situation calls for. It can involve heavy equipment like cranes, graders, bulldozers, or excavators, and also hand processes like planting trees or other vegetation.
 * Environmental Restoration


 * Renewable energy ** is energy generated from natural resources. A renewable resource is a substance that can be replaced or replenished in the same amount or less time as it takes to use up the supply. Some examples of renewable resources are sunlight, wind, rain, and geothermal heat. Renewable resources are an alternative to resources such as oil and coal and natural gas. These resources are going to run out if the world continues to use them as it is presently. Using renewable resources and creating new technology to utilize the resources is what the world is doing and looking to do in the future. This will be necessary if the non-renewable resources are exhausted.

http://www.chinaenvironmentallaw.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/04/renewable-energy.gif One of the most important things we can incorporate into our lives is **Conservation**, both conserving resources and energy. We can save so much energy just by remembering to turn off the lights when we're not going to be in the room, or to take quick showers and leave water running as little as possible. Not only will it benefit the planet, but everyone would save a lot of money at the same time as we are keeping the energy and resources we need to survive from running out too soon. There are other things we can do that make it really easy to help our environment. Resource and energy conservationists have been researching technology and methods that will turn everyone's lives green. For example, there is now the Green Roof solution in which plants and special “green fabrics” are used on rooftops to collect water that can be used and also help put a lot more oxygen into the air. A few others are Energy-Efficient Building, making more ponds and wetlands, Waterproofing, and Rainwater Harvesting. These are all unique ideas that are easy to install into our homes or put into our communities to help save the planet!




 * Population control** is the practice carried out by some countries and groups of people of artificially altering the rate of population growth. Population control has been implemented by restraining the population’s birth rate, usually by government order. A variety of factors have influenced population control, such as increasing levels of poverty, environmental concerns, religious reasons, and probably the biggest reason - overpopulation. Population control uses at least one of the following practices: contraception, abstinence, abortion, emigration, and decreasing immigration. These methods are strongly influenced by the religious and cultural beliefs of society. An example of population control is the “one-child policy” in China in which having more than 1 child is discouraged. This policy was introduced in 1979 to alleviate the social and environmental problems of China. According to Chinese officials, the policy has helped prevent 400 million births. Obviously, the policy is controversial both within and outside of China because of the issues it raises like personal and religious beliefs and the economic and social consequences.

http://www.thegogreenblog.info/wp-content/uploads/2009/06/population-control.jpg

BIBLIOGRAPHY:  Belk, Colleen and Maier, Virginia Borden (2010). "Biology: Science for Life." Pearson Education, Inc.:San Francisco, CA.

Chiras, Daniel (1993). "Biology: The Web of Life." West Publishing Company: St. Paul, MN.

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