Bio 201

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What milestone did the world reach in 1999?: Population surpassed 6 billion. (6.6 billion)
1 in ___ live in poverty: 4
What defines living in poverty: having a per person income of less than 2$ per day... (1/2 the world)
Average number of children per woman?: 2.7
Projected population for the end of 21st century: between 7.9 and 10.9 billion
consumption is...: the use of energy and material
economic growth: the expansion in output of a countries goods and services
highly developed countries: wealthy countries. Include the US, Japan, Canada and Europe. 19% of the worlds population, 50% of the resources and 75% of the waste and pollution
Moderately developed countries: Mexico, Turkey, South Africa, and Thailand. Poor countries with fewer opportunities.
Less Developed Countries: Bangladesh, Mali. Hunger, disease, illiteracy, borrow money from HDC.
nonrenewable resources: minerals and fossil fuels, canâ€™t replenish within a reasonable duration of time.
renewable resources: trees, fish, fertile soil, fresh water, overexploiting them makes them potentially renewable.
a single child born in a Highly developed country: causes a greater impact on the environment and on resource depletion than 20 children born in a developing country.
people overpopulation: environment is worsening because there are too many people.
ecological footprint: average amount of productive land and ocean needed to supply that person with food, energy, water, housing, transportation, and waste disposal.
If the world was made up of people that strictly lived at Americans level of consumption we would need how many earths: 5
Environmental Impact formula: I=PxAxT (P=number of people, A=consumption of people, T=technology impact).
environmental sustainability: the ability to meet humanities current needs without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their needs.
environmental science: interdisciplinary field that combines information from various disciplines.
five steps in the scientific method: 1) recognize question, 2) develop hypothesis, 3) perform experiment, 4) analyze data, 5) share knowledge.
5 stages to addressing an environmental problem: 1) scientific assessment, 2) risk analysis, 3) public education and involvement, 4) political education, 5) long term evaluation.
NIMBY: Not in my back yard - nuclear plants
hurricane Katrina caused...: removal of wetlands and subsiding elevation.
the global commons: part of environment available to everyone but nobody has responsibility (air, water).
degree of affluence: level of consumption.
consumption overpopulation: pollution and degradation of the environment that occurs when each individual in a population consumes too many resources.
sustainable consumption: requires the eradication of proverty, which requires poor people in DC increase their consumption of essential resources.
voluntary simplicity: material goods not associated with quality of life (ex. Car sharing). The amish are like this shit
environmental ethics: a field of applied ethics that considers the moral basis of environmental responsibility. Considers rights of future generations.
Environmental Worldviews: a worldview based on how the environment works, our place in the environment and right and wrong environmental behaviors.
western worldview: based on human superiority over nature, the unrestricted use of natural resources, and economic growth to manage an expanding industrial base.
deep ecology worldview: based on harmony with nature, and spiritual respect for life and the belief that humans and all other species have equal worth.
anthropocentric: emphasize the importance of humans as the overriding concern.
biocentric: views humans has one species among others.
environmental justice: the right of every citizen to adequate protection from environmental hazards (minorities).
5 recommendations for sustainable living: 1) eliminate poverty and stabilize population, 2) protect and restore Earthâ€™s resources, 3) provide adequate food for all people, 4) mitigate climate change, 5) design sustainable cities.
The US makes up 5% of the people but makes up ____% of the economy: 25%
multi-cropping: growing more than one crop per year.
conserveation tillage: residues from previous crops are left in the soil, partially covering it and helping to hold topsoil in place.
Cities in the world make up what % of its citizens: 50%.... 80% of US and Canada live in cities
biological diversity: the number and variety of earthâ€™s organisms
carrying capacity: max population that can be sustained by a given environment.
enhanced greenhouse effect: the additional warming produced by increased levels of gases that absorb infrared radiation.
food insecurity: people live with chronic hunger and malnutrition.
old growth coniferous forest: forest that has never been logged.
The Northern Spotted Owl: listed as a threatened species since 1990 under the Endangered Species Act, came to symbolize the environmental controversy in the PNW
Northwest Forest Plan 1994: protected habitat of endangered species and allowed some logging to resume on federal forests in the Pacific Northwest, many timber workers were retrained for other careers.
Resources: any part of the natural environment used to promote the welfare of people or other species. (ex: air, water, soil, forests, minerals, and wildlife)
conservation: the sensible and careful management of natural resources. Involves sustainabilityâ€”that is, using resources without inflicting excessive environmental damage so that the resources are available not only for current needs but also for the needs of future generations.
preservation: concerned with setting aside undisturbed areas, maintaining them in a pristine state, and protecting them from human activities that might alter their â€œnaturalâ€ state.
John James Audubon: painted lifelike portraits of birds and other animals in their natural surroundings that aroused widespread public interest in the wildlife of North America.
Henry David Thoreau: a prominent U.S. writer lived for two years on the shore of Walden Pond near Concord Massachusetts. There he observed nature and contemplated how people could economize and simplify their lives to live in harmony with the natural world.
George Perkins Marsh: a farmer, linguist, and diplomat at various times during his life. Most remembered for his book Man and Nature, which provided one of the first discussions of humans as agents of global environmental change.
Forest Reserve act of 1891: gave the president the authority to establish forest reserves on public land. Used to put forest out of the reach of loggers.
Utilitarian Conservationists: viewed forests in terms of their usefulness to peopleâ€”such as in providing jobs and renewable resources.
John Muir: established Yosemite National Park Bill, also founded the Sierra Clubâ€”a national conservation organization.
Biocentric Conservationist: a person who believes in protecting nature from human interference because all forms of life deserve respect and consideration.
Antiquities Act: authorized the president to set aside sites that had scientific, historic, or prehistoric importance.
American Dust Bowl: alerted the United States to the need for soil conservation, and president Roosevelt formed the Soil Conservation Service in 1935.
Aldo Leopold: wildlife biologist and environmental visionary; Game Management and A Sand County Almanac.
Wallace Stegner: â€œWilderness Essayâ€; helped create support for the passage of the Wilderness Act.
Rachel Carson: Silent Spring, wrote against the indiscriminate use of pesticides.
Paul Ehrlich: The Population Bomb; raised publicâ€™s awareness of the dangers of overpopulation and triggered debates about how to deal effectively with population issues.
Environmentalists: people concerned about the environment.
Gaylord Nelson and Dennis Hayes: organized the first nationally celebrated Earth Day.
National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA): states that the federal government must consider the environmental impact of a proposed federal action, such as financing highway or dam construction, when making decisions about the action.
Environmental Impact Statements: a document that describes the nature of the proposal, why it is needed, short- and long-term environmental impacts of the proposal, and possible alternatives to the proposed action that would create fewer adverse effects.
Economics: the study of how people use their limited resources to try to satisfy their unlimited wants.
Marginal Costs: the additional cost associated with one more unit of something. Two examples of marginal costs associated with pollution are the effects of pollution on human health and on organisms in the natural environment.
two major flows in the economists perception of optimum pollution: 1) it is difficult to determine the true cost of environmental damage caused by pollution. 2) when economists add up pollution costs,, they do not take into account the possible disruption or destruction of the environment.
Command and Control Regulation: pollution control laws that work by setting limits of levels of pollution.
cost benefit diagram: a diagram that helps policymakers make decisions about costs of a particular action and benefits that would occur if that action were implemented.
external cost: a harmful environmental or social cost that is borne by people not directly involved in selling or buying the product.
full cost accounting: the process of evaluating and presenting to decision makers the relative benefits and costs of various alternatives.
incentive based regulation: pollution control laws that work by establishing emission targets and providing industries with incentives to reduce emissions.
national income accounts: a measure of the total income of a nationâ€™s goods and services for a given year.
natural capital: earthâ€™s resources and processes that sustain living organisms, including humans; includes minerals, forests, soils, groundwater, clear air, wildlife, and fisheries.
4 steps to risk assessment: 1) hazard identification, 2) dose-response assessment, 3) exposure assessment, 4) risk characterization.
Major Dilemma of Risk assessment: people often ignore substantial risks but get extremely upset about minor risks. Could be because those high in risk are in our control, and those low arenâ€™t but appear fearful.
toxicants: chemicals with adverse effects.
toxicology: involves 1) studying the effects of toxicants on living organisms, 2) studying the mechanisms that cause toxicity, and 3) developing ways to prevent or minimize adverse effects.
acute toxicity syndromes: dizziness, nausea, and death.
chronic toxicity symptoms: damage to vital organs such as the kidney or liver. Not transmitted from one human to another.
largest outbreak of waterborne disease: occurred in 1993, when a microorganism contaminated the water supply in Milwaukee area. About 370,000 developed diarrhea.
Epidemiologists: scientists who investigate the outbreaks of both infectious and noninfectious diseases in the population.
Diarreha: causes 4 million deaths worldwide each year, mostly in children.
Malaria: mosquitoes to humans. Each year between 300-500 mill contractions and over 1 million deaths. There are about 60 different species of mosquitoes that transmit the parasite.
pandemic: a disease that reaches nearly every part of the world and has the potential to infect almost every person.
DDT: a pesticide effecting many types of birds, causing them to lay eggs with thin, fragile shells that usually break causing chicks deaths. Banned from U.S. in 1972.
Persistence: the substance is extremely stable and may take many years to break down into a less toxic form.
Bioaccumulation: the buildup of a persistent toxicant in an organism
Stockholm Convention on Persistent organic pollutants: adopted in 2001, is an important U.N. treaty that seeks to protect human health and the environment from the 12 most toxic POPs on earth. Requires countries to develop plans to eliminate the production and use of intentionally produced POPs.
Dose: the amount of toxicant that enters the body of an exposed organism.
Response: the type and amount of damage that exposure to a particular dose causes.
Lethal Dose 50%: the dose that is lethal to 50 percent of the population of test animals.
effective dose 50%: the dose that causes 50 percent of a population to exhibit whatever response is under study.
threshold level: the maximum dose that has no measurable effect.
Additive: the effect is exactly what you would expect, given the individual effects of each component of the mixture.
synergistic: has a greater combined effect that expected.
antagonistic: results had a smaller combined effect than expected.
Endocrine Disrupters: interfere with the normal actions of the endocrine system in humans and animals (ex: PCBâ€™s, heavy metals, DDT, and certain plastics).
Hormones: chemical messengers that organisms produce to regulate their growth, reproduction, and other important biological functions.
Biological magnification: the increase in toxicant concentrations as a toxicant passes through successive levels of the food chain.
Carcinogen: any substance (for example, chemical, radiation, virus) that causes cancer.
Dose-response curves: in toxicology, a graph that shows the effects of different does on a population of test organisms.
Pathogens: an agent (usually a microorganism) that causes disease.
Persistent Organic Pollutants: persistent toxicants that bioaccumulate in organisms and travel through air and water to contaminate sites far from their source.
precuationary principle: a practice that involves making decisions about adopting a new technology or chemical product by assigning the burden of proof of its safety to its developers.
Risk: the probability of harm (such as injury, disease, death, or environmental damage) occurring under certain circumstances.
Risk Assesment (what is it): the use of statistical methods to quantify risks so they can be compared and contrasted.
Landscape Ecology: a subdiscipline in ecology that studies the connections among ecosystems (ex, a blue heron eating organisms from the pond water, but nests and raises young in the forest nearby).
Hydrosphere: Earthâ€™s supply of waterâ€”liquid and frozen, fresh and salty.
Potential Energy: stored energy. (bison eating grass)
Kinetic Energy: energy of motion. (bisonâ€™s energy to run through the fields)
Thermodynamics: the study of energy and its transformations; two laws about energy.
producers: potential food resources for other organisms because they incorporate the chemicals they manufacture into their own bodies, plants are the most significant producers on land.
Detritus: consume organic matter that includes animal carcasses, leaf litter, and feces.
Decomposers: bacteria and fungi; organism that break down dead organisms and waste products.
Trophic Level: Each level in a food chain
Food Web: a complex of interconnected food chains in an ecosystem; a more realistic model than a food chain.
biogeochemical cycles: carbon, hydrologic, nitrogen, sulfur, and phosphorus.
Carbon Cycle: the global movement of carbon between the abiotic environment, including the atmosphere and ocean, and organisms. Makes up approximately 0.04% of the atmosphere as a gas, carbon dioxide.
Combustion: organic molecules in wood, coal, oil, and natural gas are burned, with accompanying releases of heat, light, and carbon dioxide.
hydrological cycle: water continuously circulates from the ocean to the atmosphere to the land and back to the ocean.
nitrogen cycle: atmospheric nitrogen must first break apart before the nitrogen atoms combine with other elements to form proteins and nucleic acids.
sulfuric cycle: sulfur compounds are incorporated into organisms and move among them, the atmosphere, the ocean, and land.
Phosphorus cycle: phosphorus moves from the land through aquatic and terrestrial communities, between organisms in these communities, and back to the land.
Fundamental Niche: an organism is potentially capable or using much more of its environmentâ€™s resources or of living in a wider assortment of habitats that it actually does. Competition with other species, usually exclude it from part of its fundamental niche.
Realized Niche: the lifestyle an organism actually pursues and the resources it actually uses.
Resource Partitioning: the reduction in competition for environmental resources such as food among coexisting species as a result of the niche of each species differing from the niches of others in one or more ways.
co-evolution: the interdependent evolution of two interacting species (ex. Flowering plants and their pollinators).
Mutualism: an association in which both organisms benefit
Commensalism: the symbolic relationship in which one species benefits and the other is neither harmed nor helped.
Parasitism: a symbiotic relationship in which one species benefits at the expense of the other. Most parasites weaken its host, but rarely kill it.
intraspecific competition: competition among individuals within a population.
interspecific competition: competition between different species.
Keystone Species: species that are more crucial to the maintenance of their ecosystem than others, vital in determining an ecosystemâ€™s species composition and how the ecosystem functions.
Biosphere: the layer of earth that contains all living organisms.
Community: a natural association that consists of all the populations of different species that live and interact together within an area at the same time.
competition: the interaction among organisms that vie for the same resources in an ecosystem (such as food or living space).
ecological niche: the totality of an organismâ€™s adaptations, its use of resources, and the lifestyle to which it is fitted.
ecology: the study of the interactions among organisms and between organisms and their abiotic environment.
ecosystem: a community and its physical environment.
energy flow: the passage of energy in a one-way direction through an ecosystem
First Law of Thermodynamics: a physical law which states that energy cannot be created or destroyed, although it can change from one form to another.
Landscape: a region that includes several interacting ecosystems.
Population: a group of organisms of the same species that live together in the same area at the same time.
2nd law of thermodynamics: a physical law which states that when energy is converted from one form to another, some of it is degraded into heat, a less usable form that disperses into the environment.
symbiosis: an intimate relationship or association between members of two or more species; includes mutualism, commensalism, and parasitism.
Alpine tundra: ecosystem similar to tundra located in the higher elevations of mountains, above the tree line.
Nekton: larger, more strongly swimming organisms such as fish, turtles and whales.
Benthos: bottom-dwelling organisms that fix themselves to one spot, burrow into the sand, or simply walk about the bottom.
Littoral Zone: a shallow-water area along the shore of a lake or pond.
Limnetic Zone: the open water beyond the littoral zone, extends down as far as sunlight penetrates to permit photosynthesis.
profundal zone: beneath the limnetic zone of a large lake, because light does not penetrate effectively to this depth plants and algae do not live there.
thermal stratification: temperature changes sharply with depth.
Marshes are dominated by what type of plant?: dominated by grasslike plants.
swamps are dominated by what type of plant: dominated by woody trees or shrubs.
salt marshes: shallow wetlands in which salt-tolerant grasses grow. Provide biological habitats, trap sediment and pollution, supply groundwater, and buffer storms by absorbing their energy which prevents flood damage.
Mangrove Forests: tropical equivalent of salt marshes and cover 70% of tropical coastlines. Nesting sites for birds, prevent coastal erosion and provide a barrier against the ocean during storms.
4 Natural selection elements: 1) overproduction, 2) variation, 3) limits on population growth or a struggle for existence, 4) differential reproductive success.
mutation: changing in DNA during natural selection, bettering species to adapt.
Primary Succession: the change in species composition over time in a previously uninhabited environment. linchensâ†’mossesâ†’grassesâ†’shrubsâ†’trees.
secondary succession: the change in species composition that takes place after some disturbance destroys the existing vegetation; soil is already present; crabgrassâ†’horseweed, broomsedge, and other weedsâ†’pine treesâ†’hardwood trees.
prescribed burning: an ecological management tool that allows for controlled burning to reduce organic litter and suppress fire-sensitive trees in fire-adapted areas.
Biome: a large, relatively distinct terrestrial region with similar climate, soil, plants, and animals regardless of where it occurs in the world.
Boreal Forest: a region of coniferous forest (such as pine, spruce, and fir) in the Northern Hemisphere; located just south of the tundra.
Chapparal: a biome with mild, moist winters and hot, dry summers; vegetation is typically small-leafed evergreen shrubs and small trees.
ecological succession: the process of community development over time, which involves species in one stage being replaced by different species.
savanna: a tropical grassland with widely scattered trees or clumps of trees.
temperate deciduous forest: a forest biome that occurs in temperate areas where annual precipitation ranges from about 75cm to 126 cm (30-50 in).
temperate grassland: a grassland with hot summers, cold winters, and less rainfall than is found in the temperate deciduous forest biome.
temperate rainforest: a coniferous biome with cool weather, dense fog, and high precipitation.
tundra: the treeless biome in the far north that consists of boggy plains covered by lichens and mosses; it has harsh, cold winters and extremely short summers.
under nutrition: not enough calories
Kwashiorkor: Severe Protein deficiency that results in a swollen belly
Marasmus: Diet low in total calories and in protein resulting in slowing of growth and wasting of muscles
malnourished: Receive enough calories but not enough nutrients
High input/industrialized agriculture: relies on high inputs of capital and energy (mostly fossil fuels), creates high yields. Costs: Soil Degradation, increased pesticide use
subsistence agriculture: Developing Countries) Production of enough food to feed yourself and your family, also relies on high energy but human and animal energy not fossil fuels
Shifting Cultivation: Short periods of cultivation are followed by longer periods of fallow (Only works for small populations)
intercropping: growing a variety of plants on the same field simultaneously
Polycultures: Type of intercropping in which several kinds of plants that mature at different times are planted together
Farmland Protection Program: A voluntary program that allows farmers to sell conservation easements that prevent their farmland from being converted to non agricultural uses
Germplasms: Seeds, plants and plant tissues of traditional crops and sperm and eggs of traditional livestock breeds are being collected in order to preserve them
Green Revolution: Using modern cultivation methods and high yield varieties of certain staple crops to produce more food per acre. Criticisms: Developing countries are more dependent on imported technologies, higher energy costs, environmental problems caused by pesticides
Livestock Yields: Hormones: promote faster growth and regulate bodily functions, could cause cancer and effect growth of children. Antibiotics: Makes animals gain more weight, makes bacteria resistant to antibiotics
Land Degredation: Reduction in potential productivity of land caused by soil erosion, compaction of soil, and salinization
Sustainable Agriculture: Low input, modern techniques combined with traditional methods, relies on biological processes and environmentally friendly technologies
Second Green Revolution: Trend Away from using intensive techniques that produce high yields and towards methods that focus on long term sustainability of the soil

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