Ecosystems on the Brink
by Carl Zimmer
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Source: Scientific American
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Notes:
Summary: An ecosystem becomes an ecosystem on the brink due to the destruction by activities that would not return its original state. Many of these activities are caused by humans, such as fishing, converting land into farms, or warming the planet. Ecologists expect many more food chains to flip as the time goes by. The key in order avoid this disaster is to prevent it from happening in the first place! Once you make a change, even a small change, it can affect the whole ecosystem. It can affect the predator that devours huge amounts of a single prey. For example, the loss of cod. Once researchers found the cod population decreased the species that depended on it were harmed. As researchers tried to regenerate the Cod population is difficult since other species tend to eat the eggs.
Reflection: While reading this article it made me think that there can be a more reasonable main key in order to avoid ecosystems from going on brink and that is EDUCATION! We do have to prevent this from happening in the ecosystems, but how would we do that without education the people about the consequences that would not only affect them, but environment around them. Sometimes I wonder why don't we think outside the box sometimes? I mean if we have the idea of what we'll gain from that specie or resource, why don't we think about the consequences or problems it'll cause if we take too mich of?
- Peter Lake’s food web has flipped, shifting from a longstanding arrangement to a new one.
- Carpenter is running an experiment on the factors that lead to persistent changes in the mix of organisms eating and being eaten by one another.
- Whether by fishing, converting land into farms and cities, or warming the planet, humanity is putting tremendous stresses on the world’s ecosystems.
- Ecologists expect many more food webs to flip in the years ahead.
- The key is Prevention- Because one ecosystems pass their tipping point, it is remarkably difficult for them to return.
- Two species are strongly linked if they interact a lot, such as a predator that consistently devours huge numbers of a single prey
- Species that are weakly linked interact occasionally: a predator snacks every now and then on various species
- Food webs may be dominated by numerous weak links because that arrangement is more stable over the long term.
- Small changes can affect the entire ecosystems
- Returning a food web to its original state is hard
- How fast cod can reproduce, not on how the whole food web is organized.
- Climate change alters food webs, in some cases it shifts the ranges of predators and their prey.
Summary: An ecosystem becomes an ecosystem on the brink due to the destruction by activities that would not return its original state. Many of these activities are caused by humans, such as fishing, converting land into farms, or warming the planet. Ecologists expect many more food chains to flip as the time goes by. The key in order avoid this disaster is to prevent it from happening in the first place! Once you make a change, even a small change, it can affect the whole ecosystem. It can affect the predator that devours huge amounts of a single prey. For example, the loss of cod. Once researchers found the cod population decreased the species that depended on it were harmed. As researchers tried to regenerate the Cod population is difficult since other species tend to eat the eggs.
Reflection: While reading this article it made me think that there can be a more reasonable main key in order to avoid ecosystems from going on brink and that is EDUCATION! We do have to prevent this from happening in the ecosystems, but how would we do that without education the people about the consequences that would not only affect them, but environment around them. Sometimes I wonder why don't we think outside the box sometimes? I mean if we have the idea of what we'll gain from that specie or resource, why don't we think about the consequences or problems it'll cause if we take too mich of?