W2

Question 1

What is an ecosystem?

Answer 1

A community of living organsims, interacting with one another and the non-living components of their environment

Question 2

What is the material flow in ecosystems?

Answer 2

Atmosphere - 820 Pg of carbon - mostly as Co2

Vegitation - 560 pg of carbon

soils 1500 pg of carbon

cycles of matter and energy - cycling of carbon - carbon fixation through photosynthesis
litterfall - organisms die and go into the soil
exchange of carbon dioxide as a byproduct of repsiration - exchange carbon with atmosphere

Question 3

Where is the most carbon stored in organisms?

Answer 3

bodies of plants

animals are less that 2% of living biomass of things - tend to ignore animals in considerations of the exchange of carbon

Question 4

Where does the engery from ecosystems orginate from and how is it cycled through the food chain

Answer 4

The sun -photosynthesis of plants and primary producers like algae

herbivores eat that and then they are eaten by preditors

Question 5

How many species are there on earth>

Answer 5

8.7 million multi-cellular species and only 1.2 m have been discovered

Question 6

Can you speak to the global distribution of species diversity?

Answer 6

Uneven global distribution - move towards the equator the taxon get more diverse

not really sure why - scientific gap

Question 7

What are biomes?

Answer 7

communities that experience a similar climate so veg tends to look similar and have similar species

eg. tundra, tropical forests, temperate grassland, desert

biomes are defined by climate

Question 8

What are the options for species in the context of cc?

Answer 8

Move - towards the poles noth and south - gets cooler to find a climate more suitable

Adapt - evolutionary - process of natural selection will generate a population that is better adapted to the current climate
or behavioural adaption like shade seeking behaviour

Go extent - limits to adaption or cant move

Question 9

Can you speak to spruce pollen changes?

Answer 9

do poorly when temrpature is too high - adapted to cool climates

moving abundance further north

Question 10

What might limit species shifts under climate change?

Answer 10

limits to how fast and how far species can migrate
i.e difference between trees and split-hooved animals

most animals and plants wont or cant move through a homogenous landscape like a city

Question 11

What is assisted mitgation?

Answer 11

a conservation philsophy - introducing species to another community

but the potential to drive other species in that community to extinction

transfer of disease

Question 12

What determins the disperal of plants?

Answer 12

Wind
animals
water
bursting
humans

• vast majority of trees seeds are found a couple of meters away from the mother tree

animal eating accelerates seed disperal but these tend to be outliers

this makes the modeling of seed dispersal v difficult

Question 13

How does a cow dissipate heat and how is this affected by higher temperatures

Answer 13

around 30oc
- radiation
-convection
-conduction
-radiation
many ways of dissipating heat - but depdent on the relative heat of the cow to surrounding area

when it reaches 40o
only dissipate heat through breath evaporation and evporative sweating

can overheat and die

idea that every organism has a max level of heat or drought that they can stand

Question 14

Can we observe real-time evolution in response to cc?

Answer 14

Elephants with smaller tusks are not being hunted for their ivory - elephants with smaller tusks survive

ocean - fish that are too small tend to get thrown back - big fish don’t survive

selective breeding - driven by people choices is the same underlying mechanism

Spring is happening earlier - plants have changed then they leaf and flow - happens earlier

Question 15

What is phenological mismatch?

Answer 15

Birds like the blue tit - require a large amount of caterpillars between mid-may and june for the hatching of their offspring and fledging

blue tit has not changed their behaviour

however, peak abundance of caterpillars are occurring earlier -

Question 16

Why is exintction difficult to model?

Answer 16

Difficult to know the exact cause of historical extinctions

models that give estimates may not account for phenological mistmatchs, adaptive potential of species and migratory potential of species

Question 17

What is the global expectations for species extinction

Answer 17

Highest in south america
high in australia and agrica

less impact in Europe and north America

Question 18

What are the main pressures on the amazon ecosystem?

Answer 18

Amazon is being deforested

fragmentation of the ecosystem - changes behaviours within

hotspot of forest loss and hotposts of wildfires
- intensifies fire related disturbances
- fires have an impact don’t the re-growth of the canopy depending the number of fires

fires coupled with droughts - big impact on mortality rates of tres

amazon die back

Question 19

How does a coral reef become bleached?

Answer 19

Healthy coral gets stressed from changes in the environment

algea leave which the coral is dependent on - algead give the colour

corals like warm water but not too warm

Question 20

What was the impact of the 2016 heatwave on coral?

Answer 20

Huge loss of coral - v converning - improtant specieis

sea temperatures going up so likely to happen again - especially with predicted increase in heat wave intensity

Question 21

What are three impacts humans have on the climate that particularly impact ecosystem?

Answer 21

Human activities cause
- warming
-changes in precipitation
-ocean acidification

Question 22

What have been species responses to cc?

Answer 22

• observed to alter their ranges
• adapt - physiologically or evolutionary
• climate-related extinction in this century

Question 23

What is the carbon climate feedback?

Answer 23

If climate changes or changes preciptation alter the balance between photosynthesis and respiration there is a carbon climate feedback

positive - if it favours carbon loss from the ecosystem into the atmosphere

negative - when cc alters in such a way that land absorbs more Co2 from the atmosphere and this slows it down

Question 24

Can /you talk about the feedback of amazon die-back

Answer 24

Temperature rises –> drought and wildires in the amazon –> more trees die and decompose or burn releasing CO2 –> fewer rainforests trees means less water is pumped into the atmosphere –> rainfall decreases –> droughts

Question 25

Is soil carbon being lost to warming?

Answer 25

Postive cliamte feedbacks

on average when the soil is warmed it releases carbon dioxide back into the atmosphere

Question 26

What is a free air Co2 experiment? what were the results?

Answer 26

direct fertilisation of plants using carbon dioxide

pipe pumping Co2 out to the trees and measure the growth of the trees to see if they get bigger

Results
- growth was higher when CO2 was supplied to the trees
but the difference disappeared as time went on

at this point when it had little effect nitrogen was added - growth boost was maintained

Question 27

Might CO2 fertilisation effect have the potential to fully offset emissions - why or why not?

Answer 27

Younger trees are not as effective at sequestering carbon as older trees
not good at storing carbon

rely on temperature and sunlight - not enough to plant trees also have to be in the right environment
are there sufficient nutrients for the plants to grow - not just about sunlight, temperature and co2

nitrogen is a limited nutrient - need to have the right proportion of elements

Question 28

What is the impact of postive feedback in GHG?

Answer 28

ecosystems emit more ghg

include veg dieback and loss of soil carbon

Question 29

What is the impact of a negative feedback in ghgh?

Answer 29

ecosystems absorb more ghg

Co2 fertilisation
nutrients, water and temperature will still ultimately limit the Co2 fertilisation effect

Question 30

What are the implications of the impacts on ecosystems on humans?

Answer 30

Direct impact on how crop plants are responding to cc - reduction in yield due to it being too dry or to hot

some areas will have a reduction or increase in agricultural yields - complexity of ecosystems

Question 31

What is the potential impact of diseases as a result of cc?

Answer 31

Future distributions of misquittos - carry denge fever

currently mainly impacts tropical countries but increasingly will move to northern latitudes

Question 32

What is the disease diluation hypothesis?

Answer 32

the more diverse your ecosystems the more potential hosts there are for any particular type of disease

Question 33

What is the esimated value of nature for people?

Answer 33

£97 trillion

Question 34

What are the four cateogories of ecosystem services?

Answer 34

• Provisioning services
  -Reulgating services
  -Cultural services
  -Supporting services

Question 35

What are some examples of provisioning services?

Answer 35

• Food
  -water
  -raw mterials
  -medicinal resources and biochemicals
• ornamental and genetic resources

Question 36

What are some examples of regulating services?

Answer 36

• Cliamte regulation
• natural hazard
  -purification and detoxification of water
• air and soil
• water and water flow
  -eroion and soil fertility
• pollination
  -pests and disease control

Question 37

What are some examples of cultural services?

Answer 37

• opp for recreation and tourism
• aesthetic value
  -inpiration for arts
• information for education and research
• spiritual and reglisious experience
  -cultural identity and heritage

Question 38

What are some examples of supporting services?

Answer 38

• Ecosystem process maintenance
• lifecycle maintenance
  -biodiversity maintanence and provision

Question 39

Can you speak about the horseshoe crab?

Answer 39

Blood of the horse shoe crab is a diagnostic tool for finding pathogens in human blood

no synthetic alternative to it

previous unaware

worth £46,000 per gallon

Question 40

What are the long and short term implications of climate induced changes to ecosystems?

Answer 40

SHORT
- impact agricultural productivity and influence the spread of disease

LONG
- climate-related extinctions will harm humanity in unpredictable ways

Question 41

What are four different types/examples of nature-based solutions

Answer 41

• constructed wetlands
• green urban spaces
• bioswales
• natural wetlands
  -mangroves
  -reforestation

Question 42

Globally where is the there most potential for aboveground sequestration?

Answer 42

the same areas where there is the most biodiversity

need to choose where max of biodiversity for min cost

crate a blue print target

Question 43

What is the impact of agriculture on soil carbon?

Answer 43

distrubed in agricultre and released back into the atmosphere

carbon accumulates in the top of the soil

potential to change agricultural strategies to better manage how soil is stored and managed in the soil
in line with regenerative agriculture - more carbon at the top

but this is v. dependent on soil type and whether the soil is gaining or losing carbon

challenging to measure the amount of soil carbon - cant count in the same way you can trees

Question 44

How can natural ecosystems absorb and store CO2?

Answer 44

photosynthesis

can protect carbon already locked away in the atmosphere - like in wood, soil and sediment

Question 45

What do nature based solutions offer?

Answer 45

important ecological co-benefits but these are insufficient to offset anthropologenic impacts without emissions reductions