1.
Lake George (New York)
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It lies within the upper region of the Great Appalachian Valley and drains all the way northward into Lake Champlain and the St. Lawrence River drainage basin. The lake extends about 32.2 mi on an axis, is quite deep. Ultimately the waters flowing via the 106-mile-long Richelieu River drain into the St. Lawrence River downstream and northeast of Montreal, Lake George is located in the southeastern Adirondack State Park. It is part of the St. Lawrence watershed, notable landforms include Anthonys Nose, Deers Leap, Rogers Rock, the Indian Kettles, Divers Rock, and Double-Divers. Some of the include the Tongue Mountain Range, Sugarloaf Mountain, Elephant Mountain, Prospect Mountain, Shelving Rock, Sleeping Beauty Mountain, Pilot Knob. Some of the more famous bays are Silver Bay, Kattskill Bay, Northwest Bay, Basin Bay, the lake is distinguished by The Narrows, an island-filled narrow section that is bordered on the west by the Tongue Mountain Range and the east by Black Mountain. In all, Lake George is home to over 170 islands,148 them state-owned and they range from the car-sized Skippers Jib to larger Vicars and Long Islands. Camping permits are attainable for the portion of islands. The lakes deepest point is 196 feet, found between Dome Island and Buck Mountain in the quarter of the lake. The northern end of the lake that is located near Ticonderoga is considered the end of the Champlain Valley that includes Lake Champlain, as well as the cities of Plattsburgh. There are six known species in Lake George, according to the Lake George Association. The Asian clam first found in 2010 is the biggest threat, other invasive species are the spiny water flea, zebra mussel, Chinese mystery snail and curly-leaf pondweed. The lake was named the Andia-ta-roc-te by local Native Americans. James Fenimore Cooper in his narrative Last of the Mohicans called it the Horican, after a tribe which may have lived there, because he felt the original name was too hard to pronounce. The first European visitor to the area, Samuel de Champlain, noted the lake in his journal on July 3,1609, but did not name it. In 1646, the French Canadian Jesuit missionary Isaac Jogues, the first European to view the lake, named it Lac du Saint-Sacrement, on August 28,1755, William Johnson led British colonial forces to occupy the area in the French and Indian War. He renamed the lake as Lake George for King George II, on September 8,1755 the Battle of Lake George was fought between the forces of Britain and France resulting in a strategic victory for the British and their Iroquois allies. After the battle, Johnson ordered the construction of a fortification at the southern end of the lake
2.
Oligotrophic lake
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The quantities of nitrogen, phosphorus, and other biologically useful nutrients are the primary determinants of a body of waters trophic state index. Consequently, a body of waters trophic index may sometimes be used to make an estimate of its biological condition. Although the term trophic index is commonly applied to lakes, any water body may be indexed. Carlsons index is one of the commonly used trophic indices and is the trophic index used by the United States Environmental Protection Agency. The trophic state is defined as the weight of biomass in a given water body at the time of measurement. Because they are of concern, the Carlson index uses the algal biomass as an objective classifier of a lake or other water bodys trophic status. According to the US EPA, the Carlson Index should only be used with lakes that have relatively few rooted plants, because they tend to correlate, three independent variables can be used to calculate the Carlson Index, chlorophyll pigments, total phosphorus and Secchi depth. Of these three, chlorophyll will probably yield the most accurate measures, as it is the most accurate predictor of biomass, phosphorus may be a more accurate estimation of a water bodys summer trophic status than chlorophyll if the measurements are made during the winter. Finally, the Secchi depth is probably the least accurate measure, consequently, citizen monitoring programs and other volunteer or large-scale surveys will often use the Secchi depth. By translating the Secchi transparency values to a log base 2 scale, the Secchi depth, which measures water transparency, indicates the concentration of dissolved and particulate material in the water, which in turn can be used to derive the biomass. A lake is classified as being in one of three possible classes, oligotrophic, mesotrophic or eutrophic. Lakes with extreme trophic indices may also be considered hyperoligotrophic or hypereutrophic, the table below demonstrates how the index values translate into trophic classes. Each trophic class supports different types of fish and other organisms, if the algal biomass in a lake or other water body reaches too high a concentration, massive fish die-offs may occur as decomposing biomass deoxygenates the water. An oligotrophic lake is a lake with low productivity, as a result of low nutrient content. These lakes have low production, and consequently, often have very clear waters. The bottom waters of such lakes typically have ample oxygen, thus, such lakes often support many species, like lake trout. The oxygen content is likely to be higher in deep lakes, ecologists use the term oligotrophic to distinguish unproductive lakes, characterised by nutrient deficiency, from productive, eutrophic lakes, with an ample or excessive nutrient supply. Oligotrophic lakes are most common in cold regions underlain by resistant igneous rocks, mesotrophic lakes are lakes with an intermediate level of productivity
3.
Nitrogen
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Nitrogen is a chemical element with symbol N and atomic number 7. It was first discovered and isolated by Scottish physician Daniel Rutherford in 1772, although Carl Wilhelm Scheele and Henry Cavendish had independently done so at about the same time, Rutherford is generally accorded the credit because his work was published first. Nitrogen is the lightest member of group 15 of the periodic table, the name comes from the Greek πνίγειν to choke, directly referencing nitrogens asphyxiating properties. It is an element in the universe, estimated at about seventh in total abundance in the Milky Way. At standard temperature and pressure, two atoms of the element bind to form dinitrogen, a colourless and odorless diatomic gas with the formula N2, dinitrogen forms about 78% of Earths atmosphere, making it the most abundant uncombined element. Nitrogen occurs in all organisms, primarily in amino acids, in the nucleic acids, the human body contains about 3% nitrogen by mass, the fourth most abundant element in the body after oxygen, carbon, and hydrogen. The nitrogen cycle describes movement of the element from the air, into the biosphere and organic compounds, many industrially important compounds, such as ammonia, nitric acid, organic nitrates, and cyanides, contain nitrogen. The extremely strong bond in elemental nitrogen, the second strongest bond in any diatomic molecule. Synthetically produced ammonia and nitrates are key industrial fertilisers, and fertiliser nitrates are key pollutants in the eutrophication of water systems. Apart from its use in fertilisers and energy-stores, nitrogen is a constituent of organic compounds as diverse as Kevlar used in high-strength fabric, Nitrogen is a constituent of every major pharmacological drug class, including antibiotics. Many notable nitrogen-containing drugs, such as the caffeine and morphine or the synthetic amphetamines. Nitrogen compounds have a long history, ammonium chloride having been known to Herodotus. They were well known by the Middle Ages, alchemists knew nitric acid as aqua fortis, as well as other nitrogen compounds such as ammonium salts and nitrate salts. The mixture of nitric and hydrochloric acids was known as aqua regia, celebrated for its ability to dissolve gold, the discovery of nitrogen is attributed to the Scottish physician Daniel Rutherford in 1772, who called it noxious air. Though he did not recognise it as a different chemical substance, he clearly distinguished it from Joseph Blacks fixed air. The fact that there was a component of air that does not support combustion was clear to Rutherford, Nitrogen was also studied at about the same time by Carl Wilhelm Scheele, Henry Cavendish, and Joseph Priestley, who referred to it as burnt air or phlogisticated air. Nitrogen gas was inert enough that Antoine Lavoisier referred to it as air or azote, from the Greek word άζωτικός. In an atmosphere of nitrogen, animals died and flames were extinguished
4.
Phosphorus
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Phosphorus is a chemical element with symbol P and atomic number 15. As an element, phosphorus exists in two major forms—white phosphorus and red phosphorus—but because it is reactive, phosphorus is never found as a free element on Earth. At 0. 099%, phosphorus is the most abundant pnictogen in the Earths crust, with few exceptions, minerals containing phosphorus are in the maximally oxidised state as inorganic phosphate rocks. The glow of phosphorus itself originates from oxidation of the white phosphorus — a process now termed chemiluminescence, together with nitrogen, arsenic, antimony, and bismuth, phosphorus is classified as a pnictogen. Phosphates are a component of DNA, RNA, ATP, and the phospholipids, demonstrating the link between phosphorus and life, elemental phosphorus was first isolated from human urine, and bone ash was an important early phosphate source. Phosphate mines contain fossils, especially marine fossils, because phosphate is present in the deposits of animal remains. Low phosphate levels are an important limit to growth in aquatic systems. The vast majority of compounds produced are consumed as fertilisers. Phosphate is needed to replace the phosphorus that plants remove from the soil, other applications include the role of organophosphorus compounds in detergents, pesticides, and nerve agents. Phosphorus exists as several forms that exhibit different properties. The two most common allotropes are white phosphorus and red phosphorus, from the perspective of applications and chemical literature, the most important form of elemental phosphorus is white phosphorus, often abbreviated as WP. It is a soft and waxy solid consists of tetrahedral P4 molecules. This P4 tetrahedron is also present in liquid and gaseous phosphorus up to the temperature of 800 °C when it starts decomposing to P2 molecules, White phosphorus exists in two crystalline forms, α and β. At room temperature, the α-form is stable, which is common and it has cubic crystal structure and at 195.2 K, it transforms into β-form. These forms differ in terms of the orientations of the constituent P4 tetrahedra. White phosphorus is the least stable, the most reactive, the most volatile, the least dense, White phosphorus gradually changes to red phosphorus. This transformation is accelerated by light and heat, and samples of white phosphorus almost always some red phosphorus. For this reason, white phosphorus that is aged or otherwise impure is also called yellow phosphorus, when exposed to oxygen, white phosphorus glows in the dark with a very faint tinge of green and blue
5.
Trophic level
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The trophic level of an organism is the position it occupies in a food chain. The word trophic derives from the Greek τροφή referring to food or feeding, a food chain represents a succession of organisms that eat another organism and are, in turn, eaten themselves. The number of steps an organism is from the start of the chain is a measure of its trophic level. Food chains start at trophic level 1 with primary producers such as plants, move to herbivores at level 2, predators at level 3, the path along the chain can form either a one-way flow or a food web. Ecological communities with higher biodiversity form more complex trophic paths, the three basic ways in which organisms get food are as producers, consumers and decomposers. Producers are typically plants or algae, Plants and algae do not usually eat other organisms, but pull nutrients from the soil or the ocean and manufacture their own food using photosynthesis. For this reason, they are called primary producers, in this way, it is energy from the sun that usually powers the base of the food chain. An exception occurs in deep-sea hydrothermal ecosystems, where there is no sunlight, here primary producers manufacture food through a process called chemosynthesis. Consumers are species that cannot manufacture their own food and need to other organisms. Animals that eat primary producers are called herbivores, animals that eat other animals are called carnivores, and animals that eat both plant and other animals are called omnivores. Decomposers break down plant and animal material and wastes and release it again as energy. Decomposers, such as bacteria and fungi, feed on waste and dead matter, Trophic levels can be represented by numbers, starting at level 1 with plants. Further trophic levels are numbered according to how far the organism is along the food chain. Level 1, Plants and algae make their own food and are called primary producers, level 2, Herbivores eat plants and are called primary consumers. Level 3, Carnivores that eat herbivores are called secondary consumers, level 4, Carnivores that eat other carnivores are called tertiary consumers. Level 5, Apex predators that have no predators are at the top of the food chain. In real world ecosystems, there is more than one chain for most organisms. A diagram that sets out the network of intersecting and overlapping food chains for an ecosystem is called its food web
6.
United States Environmental Protection Agency
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The EPA was proposed by President Richard Nixon and began operation on December 2,1970, after Nixon signed an executive order. The order establishing the EPA was ratified by committee hearings in the House, the agency is led by its Administrator, who is appointed by the president and approved by Congress. The current administrator is Scott Pruitt, the EPA is not a Cabinet department, but the administrator is normally given cabinet rank. The EPA has its headquarters in Washington, D. C. regional offices for each of the ten regions. The agency conducts environmental assessment, research, and education and it has the responsibility of maintaining and enforcing national standards under a variety of environmental laws, in consultation with state, tribal, and local governments. It delegates some permitting, monitoring, and enforcement responsibility to U. S. states, EPA enforcement powers include fines, sanctions, and other measures. The agency also works with industries and all levels of government in a variety of voluntary pollution prevention programs. In 2016, the agency had 15,376 full-time employees, more than half of EPAs employees are engineers, scientists, and environmental protection specialists, other employees include legal, public affairs, financial, and information technologists. Beginning in the late 1950s and through the 1960s, Congress reacted to increasing concern about the impact that human activity could have on the environment. Senator James E. Murray introduced a bill, the Resources and Conservation Act of 1959, the 1962 publication of Silent Spring by Rachel Carson alerted the public about the detrimental effects on the environment of the indiscriminate use of pesticides. In the years following, similar bills were introduced and hearings were held to discuss the state of the environment, in the colloquium, some members of Congress expressed a continuing concern over federal agency actions affecting the environment. The National Environmental Policy Act of 1969 was modeled on RCA, President Nixon signed NEPA into law on January 1,1970. The law created the Council on Environmental Quality in the Executive Office of the President, NEPA required that a detailed statement of environmental impacts be prepared for all major federal actions significantly affecting the environment. The detailed statement would ultimately be referred to as an impact statement. On July 9,1970, Nixon proposed a reorganization that consolidated many environmental responsibilities of the federal government under one agency. After conducting hearings during that summer, the House and Senate approved the proposal, the agency’s first administrator, William Ruckelshaus, took the oath of office on December 4,1970. In May 2013, Congress renamed the EPA headquarters as the William Jefferson Clinton Federal Building, the EPA is led by an Administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency. As of 2017 Scott Pruitt is the 14th administrator, each EPA regional office is responsible within its states for implementing the Agencys programs, except those programs that have been specifically delegated to states
7.
Biomass (ecology)
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Biomass, is the mass of living biological organisms in a given area or ecosystem at a given time. Biomass can refer to species biomass, which is the mass of one or more species, or to community biomass and it can include microorganisms, plants or animals. The mass can be expressed as the mass per unit area. How biomass is measured depends on why it is being measured, sometimes, the biomass is regarded as the natural mass of organisms in situ, just as they are. For example, in a fishery, the salmon biomass might be regarded as the total wet weight the salmon would have if they were taken out of the water. In other contexts, biomass can be measured in terms of the organic mass, so perhaps only 30% of the actual weight might count. For other purposes, only biological tissues count, and teeth, bones, in some applications, biomass is measured as the mass of organically bound carbon that is present. Apart from bacteria, the total biomass on Earth is about 560 billion tonnes C. The total live biomass of bacteria may be as much as that of plants, the total amount of DNA base pairs on Earth, as a possible approximation of global biodiversity, is estimated at 5.0 x 1037, and weighs 50 billion tonnes. In comparison, the mass of the biosphere has been estimated to be as much as 4 TtC. An ecological pyramid is a representation that shows, for a given ecosystem. A biomass pyramid shows the amount of biomass at each trophic level, a productivity pyramid shows the production or turn-over in biomass at each trophic level. An ecological pyramid provides a snapshot in time of an ecological community, the bottom of the pyramid represents the primary producers. The primary producers take energy from the environment in the form of sunlight or inorganic chemicals and this mechanism is called primary production. The pyramid then proceeds through the trophic levels to the apex predators at the top. When energy is transferred from one level to the next. The remaining ninety percent goes to metabolic processes or is dissipated as heat and this energy loss means that productivity pyramids are never inverted, and generally limits food chains to about six levels. However, in oceans, biomass pyramids can be wholly or partially inverted, terrestrial biomass generally decreases markedly at each higher trophic level
8.
Chlorophyll
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Chlorophyll is any of several closely related green pigments found in cyanobacteria and the chloroplasts of algae and plants. Its name is derived from the Greek words χλωρός, chloros and φύλλον, chlorophyll is essential in photosynthesis, allowing plants to absorb energy from light. Chlorophyll absorbs light most strongly in the portion of the electromagnetic spectrum. Conversely, it is a poor absorber of green and near-green portions of the spectrum, chlorophyll molecules are specifically arranged in and around photosystems that are embedded in the thylakoid membranes of chloroplasts. Two types of chlorophyll exist in the photosystems of green plants, chlorophyll was first isolated and named by Joseph Bienaimé Caventou and Pierre Joseph Pelletier in 1817. Chlorophyll is vital for photosynthesis, which plants to absorb energy from light. Chlorophyll molecules are arranged in and around photosystems that are embedded in the thylakoid membranes of chloroplasts. In these complexes, chlorophyll serves two primary functions, the two currently accepted photosystem units are photosystem II and photosystem I, which have their own distinct reaction centres, named P680 and P700, respectively. These centres are named after the wavelength of their red-peak absorption maximum, the identity, function and spectral properties of the types of chlorophyll in each photosystem are distinct and determined by each other and the protein structure surrounding them. Once extracted from the protein into a solvent, these chlorophyll pigments can be separated into chlorophyll a, the function of the reaction center of chlorophyll is to absorb light energy and transfer it to other parts of the photosystem. The absorbed energy of the photon is transferred to an electron in a process called charge separation, the removal of the electron from the chlorophyll is an oxidation reaction. The chlorophyll donates the high energy electron to a series of molecular intermediates called a transport chain. The charged reaction center of chlorophyll is reduced back to its ground state by accepting an electron stripped from water. The electron that reduces P680+ ultimately comes from the oxidation of water into O2 and this reaction is how photosynthetic organisms such as plants produce O2 gas, and is the source for practically all the O2 in Earths atmosphere. Electron transfer reactions in the membranes are complex, however. NADPH is an agent used to reduce CO2 into sugars as well as other biosynthetic reactions. Thus, the other chlorophylls in the photosystem and antenna pigment proteins all cooperatively absorb, besides chlorophyll a, there are other pigments, called accessory pigments, which occur in these pigment–protein antenna complexes. Chlorophyll is a pigment, which is structurally similar to
9.
Secchi disk
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The Secchi disk, as created in 1865 by Angelo Secchi, is a plain white, circular disk 30 cm in diameter used to measure water transparency in bodies of water. The disc is mounted on a pole or line, and lowered slowly down in the water, the depth at which the disk is no longer visible is taken as a measure of the transparency of the water. This measure is known as the Secchi depth and is related to water turbidity, since its invention, the disk has also been used in a modified, smaller 20 cm diameter, black and white design to measure freshwater transparency. The original Secchi disk was a white disk and it was used in the Mediterranean Sea. Today, a white,30 cm diameter Secchi disk remains the standard design used in marine studies. This modified black and white Secchi disk is the standard disk now used in limnology investigations, the Secchi depth is reached when the reflectance equals the intensity of light backscattered from the water. This depth in metres divided into 1.7 yields an attenuation coefficient, while used as a variable, the extinction coefficient is also used as a variable for turbidity. However, it is an inexpensive and straightforward method of measuring water clarity, because of the potential for variation between users, methods should be standardized as much as possible. A Secchi disk measurement should always be taken off the side of a boat or dock between 9 am and 3 pm The period for best results is between 10 am and 2 pm. The same observer should take Secchi depth measurements in the same every time. One can approach the measurement by lowering the disk beyond a point of disappearance, then raising it and lowering it slightly to set the Secchi depth. Another method is to record the depth at which the disk disappears, lower another few feet, the Secchi depth is taken as the average of the two values. The aggregated longitudinal data are used to general trends in water quality. In 2013 a team of marine scientists established the global citizen science Secchi disk programme for seafarers to study the marine phytoplankton, Secchi disk measurements do not indicate how attenuation changes with depth or particular wavelengths of light. Submarine photometers can operate at depths of 150 m and can record visible, ultraviolet, turbidimeters have their own light source and can measure transparency with scientific accuracy. Trophic state index Siemens star Preisendorfer, R. W. Secchi disk science, Visual optics of natural waters,31, 909–926 Hou, Weilin, et al. Why does the Secchi disk disappear, on the history of the Secchi disc J. Eur. Secchi disk depth, A new theory and mechanistic model for underwater visibility, bledzki, L. Secchi disk Secchi Disk Transparency EPA OWOW Secchi disk simulator The Secchi disk – what is it
10.
Aquatic plant
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Aquatic plants are plants that have adapted to living in aquatic environments. They are also referred to as hydrophytes or macrophytes and these plants require special adaptations for living submerged in water, or at the waters surface. The most common adaptation is aerenchyma, but floating leaves and finely dissected leaves are also common, aquatic plants can only grow in water or in soil that is permanently saturated with water. They are therefore a component of wetlands. The principal factor controlling the distribution of plants is the depth. However, other factors may also control their distribution, abundance, and growth form, including nutrients, disturbance from waves, grazing, aquatic vascular plants have originated on multiple occasions in different plant families, they can be ferns or angiosperms. Seaweeds are not vascular plants, rather they are marine algae. A few aquatic plants are able to survive in brackish, saline, examples are found in genera such as Thalassia and Zostera. Although most aquatic plants can reproduce by flowering and setting seed, many also have extensive asexual reproduction by means of rhizomes, turions, one of the largest aquatic plants in the world is the Amazon water lily, one of the smallest is the minute duckweed. Many small aquatic animals use plants like duckweed for a home, or for protection from predators, some other familiar examples of aquatic plants might include floating heart, water lily, lotus, and water hyacinth. Some aquatic plants are used by humans as a food source, examples include wild rice, water caltrop, Chinese water chestnut, Indian lotus, water spinach, and watercress. The many possible classifications of plants are based upon morphology. org http
11.
Fish kill
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The term fish kill, known also as fish die-off, refers to a localized die-off of fish populations which may also be associated with more generalized mortality of aquatic life. The most common cause is reduced oxygen in the water, which in turn may be due to such as drought, algae bloom, overpopulation. Infectious diseases and parasites can also lead to fish kill, toxicity is a real but far less common cause of fish kill. Fish kills are often the first visible signs of stress and are usually investigated as a matter of urgency by environmental agencies to determine the cause of the kill. Pollution events may affect fish species and fish age classes in different ways, if it is a cold-related fish kill, juvenile fish or species that are not cold-tolerant may be selectively affected. If toxicity is the cause, species are more generally affected, a reduction in dissolved oxygen may affect larger specimens more than smaller fish as these may be able to access oxygen richer water at the surface, at least for a short time. Fish kills may result from a variety of causes, of known causes, fish kills are most frequently caused by pollution from agricultural runoff or biotoxins. Ecological hypoxia is one of the most common causes of fish kills. The hypoxic event may be brought on by such as algae blooms, droughts, high temperatures. Because of the difficulty and lack of standard protocol to investigate fish kills, oxygen enters the water through diffusion. The amount of oxygen that can be dissolved in water depends on the atmospheric pressure, the water temperature and whether the water is salty. For example, at 20 °C and one atmosphere of pressure, the amount of oxygen that can be dissolved in the water decreases by about 1 mg/l for each 10 °C increase in water temperature above 20 °C. Many cold water fish live in clean cold waters become stressed when oxygen concentrations fall below 8 mg/l while warm water fish generally need at least 5 ppm of dissolved oxygen. Fish can endure periods of reduced oxygen. Depleted oxygen levels are the most common cause of fish kills, associated with these photosynthetic rhythms there is a matching pH rhythm as bicarbonate ion is metabolised by plant cells. This can lead to pH stress even when oxygen levels are high and these are naturally occurring in many bodies of water, and fish that are stressed for other reasons, such as spawning or suboptimal water quality, are more susceptible. For example, since 2004 fish kills have been observed in the Shenandoah River basin in the spring, so far, investigators suspect certain bacteria, along with environmental and contaminant factors that may cause immune suppression. In fish farming, where populations are optimized for the resources, parasites or disease can spread quickly
12.
Tatra Mountains
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The Tatra Mountains, Tatras or Tatra, are a mountain range that form a natural border between Slovakia and Poland. They are the highest mountain range in the Carpathian Mountains, the Tatras should be distinguished from the Low Tatras which are located south of the Tatra Mountains in Slovakia. The Tatra Mountains occupy an area of 785 square kilometres, of which about 610 square kilometres lie within Slovakia, the highest peak, called Gerlach, at 2,655 m is located north of Poprad. The highest point in Poland, Rysy, at 2,499 m is located south of Zakopane. The Tatras length, measured from the foothills of the Kobyli Wierch to the southwestern foot of Ostry Wierch Kwaczański, in a straight line is 57 km. The range is only 19 km wide, the Tatras main ridge leads from Huciańska Pass in the west to Zdziarska Pass to the east. In 1992 the Polish and Slovak parks were designated a transboundary biosphere reserve by UNESCO in the World Network of Biosphere Reserves under its Man. It is the highest mountain range within Carpathians, by the end of the First Polish Republic and the Polish border between the Kingdom of Hungary in the Tatras was not strictly defined. The Tatras became an unoccupied borderland, two years later, the First Partition of Poland allocated the lands to Austria. In 1824, Zakopane good and Fish Creek Valley with Morskie Oko purchased from the authorities of the Austrian Hungarian Emanuel Homolacs. In 1867 formed the Austria-Hungary and the Tatra Mountains have become imaginary border between the two states of the monarchy, but the border still has not been exactly determined. In 1889, Count Władysław Zamoyski purchased at auction a good Zakopane, due to numerous disputes over lands belonging in the late nineteenth century, attempts were made to the delimitation of the border. They did not bring effect in 1897, and the case went to a court that on September 13,1902 determined the exact course of the Austria-Hungary border in the disputed area. The Tatras lie in the zone of Central Europe. They are an important barrier to the movements of air masses and their mountainous topography causes one of the most diverse climates in that region. Winds The average wind speed on the summits is 6 m/s. southerly winds on the northern side westerly winds at the base of Tatra foehn winds most often occur between October and May and they are warm and dry and can cause extensive damage. On 19 November 2004, large parts of the forests in the southern Slovak part of the High Tatras were damaged by a wind storm. Three million cubic metres of trees were uprooted, two died and several villages were totally cut off
13.
Poland
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Poland, officially the Republic of Poland, is a country in Central Europe, situated between the Baltic Sea in the north and two mountain ranges in the south. Bordered by Germany to the west, the Czech Republic and Slovakia to the south, Ukraine and Belarus to the east, the total area of Poland is 312,679 square kilometres, making it the 69th largest country in the world and the 9th largest in Europe. With a population of over 38.5 million people, Poland is the 34th most populous country in the world, the 8th most populous country in Europe, Poland is a unitary state divided into 16 administrative subdivisions, and its capital and largest city is Warsaw. Other metropolises include Kraków, Wrocław, Poznań, Gdańsk and Szczecin, the establishment of a Polish state can be traced back to 966, when Mieszko I, ruler of a territory roughly coextensive with that of present-day Poland, converted to Christianity. The Kingdom of Poland was founded in 1025, and in 1569 it cemented a political association with the Grand Duchy of Lithuania by signing the Union of Lublin. This union formed the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth, one of the largest and most populous countries of 16th and 17th century Europe, Poland regained its independence in 1918 at the end of World War I, reconstituting much of its historical territory as the Second Polish Republic. In September 1939, World War II started with the invasion of Poland by Nazi Germany, followed thereafter by invasion by the Soviet Union. More than six million Polish citizens died in the war, after the war, Polands borders were shifted westwards under the terms of the Potsdam Conference. With the backing of the Soviet Union, a communist puppet government was formed, and after a referendum in 1946. During the Revolutions of 1989 Polands Communist government was overthrown and Poland adopted a new constitution establishing itself as a democracy, informally called the Third Polish Republic. Since the early 1990s, when the transition to a primarily market-based economy began, Poland has achieved a high ranking on the Human Development Index. Poland is a country, which was categorised by the World Bank as having a high-income economy. Furthermore, it is visited by approximately 16 million tourists every year, Poland is the eighth largest economy in the European Union and was the 6th fastest growing economy on the continent between 2010 and 2015. According to the Global Peace Index for 2014, Poland is ranked 19th in the list of the safest countries in the world to live in. The origin of the name Poland derives from a West Slavic tribe of Polans that inhabited the Warta River basin of the historic Greater Poland region in the 8th century, the origin of the name Polanie itself derives from the western Slavic word pole. In some foreign languages such as Hungarian, Lithuanian, Persian and Turkish the exonym for Poland is Lechites, historians have postulated that throughout Late Antiquity, many distinct ethnic groups populated the regions of what is now Poland. The most famous archaeological find from the prehistory and protohistory of Poland is the Biskupin fortified settlement, dating from the Lusatian culture of the early Iron Age, the Slavic groups who would form Poland migrated to these areas in the second half of the 5th century AD. With the Baptism of Poland the Polish rulers accepted Christianity and the authority of the Roman Church
14.
Primary production
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In ecology, primary production is the synthesis of organic compounds from atmospheric or aqueous carbon dioxide. Almost all life on Earth relies directly or indirectly on primary production, the organisms responsible for primary production are known as primary producers or autotrophs, and form the base of the food chain. In terrestrial ecoregions, these are mainly plants, while in aquatic ecoregions algae predominate in this role, ecologists distinguish primary production as either net or gross, the former accounting for losses to processes such as cellular respiration, the latter not. Primary production is the production of energy in organic compounds by living organisms. The main source of energy is sunlight but a minute fraction of primary production is driven by lithotrophic organisms using the chemical energy of inorganic molecules. Regardless of its source, this energy is used to complex organic molecules from simpler inorganic compounds such as carbon dioxide. Consumption of primary producers by heterotrophic organisms, such as animals, then transfers these organic molecules up the food web, gross primary production is the amount of chemical energy as biomass that primary producers create in a given length of time. Some fraction of this energy is used by primary producers for cellular respiration. The remaining fixed energy is referred to as net primary production, some net primary production goes toward growth and reproduction of primary producers, while some is consumed by herbivores. Both gross and net primary production are in units of mass per area per unit time interval. In terrestrial ecosystems, mass of carbon per area per year is most often used as the unit of measurement. On the land, almost all production is now performed by vascular plants, with a small fraction coming from algae and non-vascular plants such as mosses. Before the evolution of plants, non-vascular plants likely played a more significant role. Primary production on land is a function of many factors, but principally local hydrology, while plants cover much of the Earths surface, they are strongly curtailed wherever temperatures are too extreme or where necessary plant resources are limiting, such as deserts or polar regions. Water is consumed in plants by the processes of photosynthesis and transpiration, the latter process is driven by the evaporation of water from the leaves of plants. Transpiration allows plants to transport water and mineral nutrients from the soil to growth regions, diffusion of water vapour out of a leaf, the force that drives transpiration, is regulated by structures known as stomata. These structure also regulate the diffusion of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere into the leaf, certain plants use alternative forms of photosynthesis, called Crassulacean acid metabolism and C4. In a reversal of the pattern on land, in the oceans, almost all photosynthesis is performed by algae, with a small fraction contributed by vascular plants, algae encompass a diverse range of organisms, ranging from single floating cells to attached seaweeds
15.
Nutrient
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A nutrient is a component in foods that an organism uses to survive and grow. Macronutrients provide the energy an organisms metabolic system needs to function while micronutrients provide the necessary cofactors for metabolism to be carried out. Both types of nutrients can be acquired from the environment, micronutrients are used to build and repair tissues and to regulate body processes while macronutrients are converted to, and used for, energy. Methods of nutrient intake are different for plants and animals, plants take in nutrients directly from the soil through their roots and from the atmosphere through their leaves. Animals and protists have specialized digestive systems that work to break down macronutrients for energy, organic nutrients consist of carbohydrates, fats, proteins, and vitamins. Inorganic chemical compounds such as minerals, water, and oxygen may also be considered nutrients. A nutrient is considered if it must be obtained from an external source either because the organism cannot synthesize it or because insufficient quantities are produced. Nutrients needed in small amounts are called micronutrients while those needed in large quantities are called macronutrients. The effects of nutrients are dose-dependent, shortages are called deficiencies, macronutrients are defined in several different ways. The chemical elements humans consume in the largest quantities are carbon, hydrogen, nitrogen, oxygen, phosphorus, the classes of chemical compounds humans consume in the largest quantities and which provide bulk energy are carbohydrates, proteins, and fats. Water and atmospheric oxygen also must be consumed in large quantities, calcium, salt, magnesium, and potassium are sometimes added to the list of macronutrients because they are required in large quantities compared to other vitamins and minerals. They are sometimes referred to as the macrominerals, carbohydrates are compounds made up of types of sugars. Carbohydrates are classified by their number of units, monosaccharides, disaccharides, oligosaccharides. Proteins are organic compounds that consist of amino acids joined by peptide bonds, the body cannot manufacture some of the amino acids, the diet must supply them. Proteins, in nutrition, are broken down through digestion by proteases back into free amino acids, fats consist of a glycerin molecule with three fatty acids attached. Fatty acids are unbranched hydrocarbon chains,1 connected by single bonds alone or by double and single bonds. Fats are needed to keep cell membranes functioning properly, to insulate body organs against shock, to body temperature stable. The body does not manufacture certain fatty acids and the diet must supply them, although alcohol provides energy, and can thus be compared to macronutrients, it is not a substance that is essential for normal function
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Algae
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Algae is an informal term for a large, diverse group of photosynthetic organisms which are not necessarily closely related, and is thus polyphyletic. Included organisms range from unicellular genera, such as Chlorella and the diatoms, to forms, such as the giant kelp. Most are aquatic and autotrophic and lack many of the cell and tissue types, such as stomata, xylem, and phloem. No definition of algae is generally accepted, one definition is that algae have chlorophyll as their primary photosynthetic pigment and lack a sterile covering of cells around their reproductive cells. Some authors exclude all prokaryotes thus do not consider cyanobacteria as algae, Algae constitute a polyphyletic group since they do not include a common ancestor, and although their plastids seem to have a single origin, from cyanobacteria, they were acquired in different ways. Green algae are examples of algae that have primary chloroplasts derived from endosymbiotic cyanobacteria, diatoms and brown algae are examples of algae with secondary chloroplasts derived from an endosymbiotic red alga. Algae exhibit a range of reproductive strategies, from simple asexual cell division to complex forms of sexual reproduction. Algae lack the various structures that characterize land plants, such as the phyllids of bryophytes, rhizoids in nonvascular plants, and the roots, leaves, and other organs found in tracheophytes. Most are phototrophic, although some are mixotrophic, deriving energy both from photosynthesis and uptake of organic carbon either by osmotrophy, myzotrophy, or phagotrophy. Some other heterotrophic organisms, such as the apicomplexans, are derived from cells whose ancestors possessed plastids. Fossilized filamentous algae from the Vindhya basin have been dated back to 1.6 to 1.7 billion years ago, the singular alga is the Latin word for seaweed and retains that meaning in English. Although some speculate that it is related to Latin algēre, be cold, a more likely source is alliga, binding, entwining. The Ancient Greek word for seaweed was φῦκος, which could mean either the seaweed or a red dye derived from it, the Latinization, fūcus, meant primarily the cosmetic rouge. It could be any color, black, red, green, accordingly, the modern study of marine and freshwater algae is called either phycology or algology, depending on whether the Greek or Latin root is used. The name Fucus appears in a number of taxa, most algae contain chloroplasts that are similar in structure to cyanobacteria. Chloroplasts contain circular DNA like that in cyanobacteria and presumably represent reduced endosymbiotic cyanobacteria, however, the exact origin of the chloroplasts is different among separate lineages of algae, reflecting their acquisition during different endosymbiotic events. The table below describes the composition of the three groups of algae. Their lineage relationships are shown in the figure in the upper right, many of these groups contain some members that are no longer photosynthetic
17.
Drinking water
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Drinking water, also known as potable water or improved drinking water, is water that is safe to drink or to use for food preparation, without risk of health problems. Globally, in 2015, 91% of people had access to suitable for drinking. Nearly 4.2 billion had access to tap water while another 2.4 billion had access to wells or public taps,1.8 billion people still use an unsafe drinking water source which may be contaminated by feces. This can result in infectious diarrhea such as cholera and typhoid among others, the amount of drinking water required is variable. It depends on activity, age, health issues. It is estimated that the average American drinks about one litre of water a day with 95% drinking less than three litres per day, for those working in a hot climate, up to 16 liters a day may be required. Water makes up about 60% of weight in men and 55% of weight in women, infants are about 70% to 80% water while the elderly are around 45%. Typically in developed countries, tap water meets drinking water quality standards, other typical uses include washing, toilets, and irrigation. Greywater may also be used for toilets or irrigation and its use for irrigation however may be associated with risks. Water may also be due to levels of toxins or suspended solids. Reduction of waterborne diseases and development of water resources is a major public health goal in developing countries. Bottled water is sold for consumption in most parts of the world. The word potable came into English from the Late Latin potabilis, the amount of drinking water required is variable. It depends on activity, age, health, and environmental conditions. It is estimated that the average American drinks about one litre of water a day with 95% drinking less than three litres per day, for those working in a hot climate, up to 16 litres per day may be required. Some health authorities have suggested that at least eight glasses of eight fl oz each are required by an adult per day, the British Dietetic Association recommends 1.8 litres. However, various reviews of the evidence performed in 2002 and 2008 could not find any scientific evidence recommending eight glasses of water per day. An individuals thirst provides a guide for how much water they require rather than a specific
18.
Oxygen
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Oxygen is a chemical element with symbol O and atomic number 8. It is a member of the group on the periodic table and is a highly reactive nonmetal. By mass, oxygen is the third-most abundant element in the universe, after hydrogen, at standard temperature and pressure, two atoms of the element bind to form dioxygen, a colorless and odorless diatomic gas with the formula O2. This is an important part of the atmosphere and diatomic oxygen gas constitutes 20. 8% of the Earths atmosphere, additionally, as oxides the element makes up almost half of the Earths crust. Most of the mass of living organisms is oxygen as a component of water, conversely, oxygen is continuously replenished by photosynthesis, which uses the energy of sunlight to produce oxygen from water and carbon dioxide. Oxygen is too reactive to remain a free element in air without being continuously replenished by the photosynthetic action of living organisms. Another form of oxygen, ozone, strongly absorbs ultraviolet UVB radiation, but ozone is a pollutant near the surface where it is a by-product of smog. At low earth orbit altitudes, sufficient atomic oxygen is present to cause corrosion of spacecraft, the name oxygen was coined in 1777 by Antoine Lavoisier, whose experiments with oxygen helped to discredit the then-popular phlogiston theory of combustion and corrosion. One of the first known experiments on the relationship between combustion and air was conducted by the 2nd century BCE Greek writer on mechanics, Philo of Byzantium. In his work Pneumatica, Philo observed that inverting a vessel over a burning candle, Philo incorrectly surmised that parts of the air in the vessel were converted into the classical element fire and thus were able to escape through pores in the glass. Many centuries later Leonardo da Vinci built on Philos work by observing that a portion of air is consumed during combustion and respiration, Oxygen was discovered by the Polish alchemist Sendivogius, who considered it the philosophers stone. In the late 17th century, Robert Boyle proved that air is necessary for combustion, English chemist John Mayow refined this work by showing that fire requires only a part of air that he called spiritus nitroaereus. From this he surmised that nitroaereus is consumed in both respiration and combustion, Mayow observed that antimony increased in weight when heated, and inferred that the nitroaereus must have combined with it. Accounts of these and other experiments and ideas were published in 1668 in his work Tractatus duo in the tract De respiratione. Robert Hooke, Ole Borch, Mikhail Lomonosov, and Pierre Bayen all produced oxygen in experiments in the 17th and the 18th century but none of them recognized it as a chemical element. This may have been in part due to the prevalence of the philosophy of combustion and corrosion called the phlogiston theory, which was then the favored explanation of those processes. Established in 1667 by the German alchemist J. J. Becher, one part, called phlogiston, was given off when the substance containing it was burned, while the dephlogisticated part was thought to be its true form, or calx. The fact that a substance like wood gains overall weight in burning was hidden by the buoyancy of the combustion products
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Fish
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A fish is any member of a group of animals that consist of all gill-bearing aquatic craniate animals that lack limbs with digits. They form a group to the tunicates, together forming the olfactores. Included in this definition are the living hagfish, lampreys, and cartilaginous, tetrapods emerged within lobe-finned fishes, so cladistically they are fish as well. However, traditionally fish are rendered obsolete or paraphyletic by excluding the tetrapods, because in this manner the term fish is defined negatively as a paraphyletic group, it is not considered a formal taxonomic grouping in systematic biology. The traditional term pisces is considered a typological, but not a phylogenetic classification, the earliest organisms that can be classified as fish were soft-bodied chordates that first appeared during the Cambrian period. Although they lacked a true spine, they possessed notochords which allowed them to be more agile than their invertebrate counterparts, fish would continue to evolve through the Paleozoic era, diversifying into a wide variety of forms. Many fish of the Paleozoic developed external armor that protected them from predators, the first fish with jaws appeared in the Silurian period, after which many became formidable marine predators rather than just the prey of arthropods. Fish are abundant in most bodies of water and they can be found in nearly all aquatic environments, from high mountain streams to the abyssal and even hadal depths of the deepest oceans. With 33,100 described species, fish exhibit greater species diversity than any group of vertebrates. Fish are an important resource for humans worldwide, especially as food, commercial and subsistence fishers hunt fish in wild fisheries or farm them in ponds or in cages in the ocean. They are also caught by fishers, kept as pets, raised by fishkeepers. Fish have had a role in culture through the ages, serving as deities, religious symbols, fish do not represent a monophyletic group, and therefore the evolution of fish is not studied as a single event. Early fish from the record are represented by a group of small, jawless. Jawless fish lineages are mostly extinct, an extant clade, the lampreys may approximate ancient pre-jawed fish. The first jaws are found in Placodermi fossils, the diversity of jawed vertebrates may indicate the evolutionary advantage of a jawed mouth. It is unclear if the advantage of a hinged jaw is greater biting force, improved respiration, fish may have evolved from a creature similar to a coral-like sea squirt, whose larvae resemble primitive fish in important ways. The first ancestors of fish may have kept the form into adulthood. Fish are a group, that is, any clade containing all fish also contains the tetrapods
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Lake trout
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Lake trout is a freshwater char living mainly in lakes in northern North America. Other names for it include mackinaw, lake char, touladi, togue, in Lake Superior, it can also be variously known as siscowet, paperbelly and lean. The lake trout is prized both as a fish and as a food fish. From a zoogeographical perspective, lake trout have a narrow distribution. They are native only to the parts of North America, principally Canada, but also Alaska and, to some extent. Lake trout have been introduced into non-native waters in North America and into many other parts of the world, mainly Europe. Lake trout are the largest of the chars, the record weighed almost 46.3 kilograms with a length of 50 inches, the average length is 24–36 inches. The largest caught on a rod and reel according to the IGFA was 72 pounds, when hooked, especially the big ones will make a short run and just thump and twist and turn. Lake trout inhabit cold, oxygen-rich waters and they are pelagic during the period of summer stratification in dimictic lakes, often living at depths of 20–60 m. The lake trout is a fish, typical of oligotrophic waters. It is also late to mature. Populations are extremely susceptible to overfishing, many native lake trout populations have been severely damaged through the combined effects of hatchery stocking and over harvest. Three subspecies of trout are accepted. There is the lake trout, the siscowet lake trout. Some lakes do not have pelagic forage fish during the period of summer stratification, in these lakes, lake trout take on a life history known as planktivory. Lake trout in planktivorous populations are abundant, grow very slowly. In those lakes that do contain deep-water forage, lake trout become piscivorous, piscivorous lake trout grow much more quickly, mature at a larger size and are less abundant. In Lake Superior, common lake trout and siscowet lake trout live together, Common lake trout tend to stay in shallower waters, while siscowet lake trout stay in deeper water
21.
Oxygenation (environmental)
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Environmental oxygenation can be important to the sustainability of a particular ecosystem. Insufficient oxygen may occur in bodies of such as ponds and rivers. Deoxygenation increases the population of anaerobic organisms such as plants and some bacteria, resulting in fish kills. The net effect is to alter the balance of nature by increasing the concentration of anaerobic over aerobic species, oxygenation by water aeration can be part of the environmental remediation of a usually stagnant body of water. A similar technique has previously used in the Thames. Dissolved oxygen is measured in standard solution units such as millilitres O2 per liter, millimoles O2 per liter, milligrams O2 per liter, for example, in freshwater under atmospheric pressure at 20 °C, O2 saturation is 9.1 mg/L. In aquatic environments, oxygen saturation is a measure of the amount of oxygen dissolved in the water compared to equilibrium conditions. Supersaturation of oxygen can occur naturally, the most common cause is oxygen production by photosynthetically active species such as plants and algae. According to Henrys law, the oxygen concentration is proportional to the partial pressure of oxygen gas. As air contains about 21% oxygen the equilibrium concentration of oxygen gas corresponds to nearly 500% air saturation. The other reason is that the concentration can be slow to adjust to changes in the environment. Supersaturation can sometimes be harmful for organisms and cause decompression sickness, increased oxygen levels result in increased quenching which is well characterised and allows accurate measurements to be made with a probe which requires minimal maintenance. Prior to the development of RDO technology membrane redox technology was used which measured oxygen levels using a clark electrode, electrochemical equipment requires considerable maintenance to remove fouling and prevent degradation of the membrane. Redox methods may also display some cross-sensitivity to other such as H2S. For small or low concentration samples RDO equipment is better as it does not consume oxygen in the sample or struggle to measure zero-levels. Oxygenate Streeter-Phelps equation Dissolved Oxygen Explained Engineering Toolbox - Oxygen Solubility in Fresh Water and Sea Water
22.
Oligotroph
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An oligotroph is an organism that can live in an environment that offers very low levels of nutrients. They may be contrasted with copiotrophs, which prefer nutritionally rich environments, oligotrophs are characterized by slow growth, low rates of metabolism, and generally low population density. The adjective oligotrophic may be used to refer to environments that offer little to sustain life, organisms that survive in such environments, etymologically, the word oligotroph is a combination of the Greek adjective oligos meaning few and the adjective trophikos ) meaning feeding. Oligotrophic environments include deep oceanic sediments, caves, glacial and polar ice, deep soil, aquifers, ocean waters. Plant adaptations to oligotrophic soils provide for greater and more efficient nutrient uptake, reduced nutrient consumption, improvements in nutrient uptake are facilitated by root adaptations such as nitrogen-fixing root nodules, mycorrhizae and cluster roots. An ecosystem or environment is said to be if it offers little to sustain life. The term is commonly utilised to describe environments of water, ice, air, oligotrophic environments are of special interest for the alternative energy sources and survival strategies upon which life could rely. Thus, soils are extremely nutrient-poor and most vegetation must use strategies such as cluster roots to gain even the smallest quantities of nutrients as phosphorus. An example of oligotrophic soils are those on white-sands, with soil pH lower than 5, similar forests are found in the oligotrophic waters of the Patía River delta on the Pacific side of the Andes. In the ocean, the subtropical gyres north and south of the equator are regions in which the nutrients required for growth are strongly depleted all year round. These areas are described as oligotrophic and exhibit low surface chlorophyll and they are occasionally described as ocean deserts. Oligotrophic lake Eutrophic lake Pelagibacter ubique, most abundant species on Earth and a streamlined oligotroph Special issue about Lake oligotrophication published in Freshwater Biology
23.
Igneous rock
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Igneous rock, or magmatic rock, is one of the three main rock types, the others being sedimentary and metamorphic. Igneous rock is formed through the cooling and solidification of magma or lava, the magma can be derived from partial melts of existing rocks in either a planets mantle or crust. Typically, the melting is caused by one or more of three processes, an increase in temperature, a decrease in pressure, or a change in composition, solidification into rock occurs either below the surface as intrusive rocks or on the surface as extrusive rocks. Igneous rock may form with crystallization to form granular, crystalline rocks, Igneous and metamorphic rocks make up 90–95% of the top 16 km of the Earths crust by volume. Igneous rocks form about 15% of the Earths current land surface, most of the Earths oceanic crust is made of igneous rock. In terms of modes of occurrence, igneous rocks can be either intrusive or extrusive, the mineral grains in such rocks can generally be identified with the naked eye. Intrusive rocks can also be classified according to the shape and size of the intrusive body, typical intrusive formations are batholiths, stocks, laccoliths, sills and dikes. When the magma solidifies within the earths crust, it cools slowly forming coarse textured rocks, such as granite, gabbro, the central cores of major mountain ranges consist of intrusive igneous rocks, usually granite. When exposed by erosion, these cores may occupy huge areas of the Earths surface, intrusive igneous rocks that form at depth within the crust are termed plutonic rocks and are usually coarse-grained. Intrusive igneous rocks that form near the surface are termed subvolcanic or hypabyssal rocks, hypabyssal rocks are less common than plutonic or volcanic rocks and often form dikes, sills, laccoliths, lopoliths, or phacoliths. Extrusive igneous rocks, also known as rocks, are formed at the crusts surface as a result of the partial melting of rocks within the mantle. Extrusive igneous rocks cool and solidify quicker than intrusive igneous rocks and they are formed by the cooling of molten magma on the earths surface. The magma, which is brought to the surface through fissures or volcanic eruptions, hence such rocks are smooth, crystalline and fine-grained. Basalt is an extrusive igneous rock and forms lava flows, lava sheets. Some kinds of basalt solidify to form long polygonal columns, the Giants Causeway in Antrim, Northern Ireland is an example. The molten rock, with or without suspended crystals and gas bubbles, is called magma and it rises because it is less dense than the rock from which it was created. When magma reaches the surface from beneath water or air, it is called lava, eruptions of volcanoes into air are termed subaerial, whereas those occurring underneath the ocean are termed submarine. Black smokers and mid-ocean ridge basalt are examples of volcanic activity
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Granite
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Granite is a common type of felsic intrusive igneous rock that is granular and phaneritic in texture. Granites can be white, pink, or gray in color. The word granite comes from the Latin granum, a grain, in reference to the structure of such a holocrystalline rock. By definition, granite is a rock with at least 20% quartz. The term granitic means granite-like and is applied to granite and a group of igneous rocks with similar textures and slight variations in composition. Occasionally some individual crystals are larger than the groundmass, in case the texture is known as porphyritic. A granitic rock with a texture is known as a granite porphyry. Granitoid is a general, descriptive field term for lighter-colored, coarse-grained igneous rocks, petrographic examination is required for identification of specific types of granitoids. The extrusive igneous rock equivalent of granite is rhyolite, Granite is nearly always massive, hard and tough, and therefore it has gained widespread use throughout human history, and more recently as a construction stone. The average density of granite is between 2.65 and 2.75 g/cm3, its compressive strength usually lies above 200 MPa, and its viscosity near STP is 3–6 •1019 Pa·s. The melting temperature of dry granite at ambient pressure is 1215–1260 °C, it is reduced in the presence of water. Granite has poor primary permeability, but strong secondary permeability, true granite according to modern petrologic convention contains both plagioclase and alkali feldspars. When a granitoid is devoid or nearly devoid of plagioclase, the rock is referred to as alkali feldspar granite, when a granitoid contains less than 10% orthoclase, it is called tonalite, pyroxene and amphibole are common in tonalite. A granite containing both muscovite and biotite micas is called a binary or two-mica granite, two-mica granites are typically high in potassium and low in plagioclase, and are usually S-type granites or A-type granites. A worldwide average of the composition of granite, by weight percent, based on 2485 analyses. Much of it was intruded during the Precambrian age, it is the most abundant basement rock that underlies the relatively thin veneer of the continents. Outcrops of granite tend to form tors and rounded massifs, granites sometimes occur in circular depressions surrounded by a range of hills, formed by the metamorphic aureole or hornfels. Granite often occurs as small, less than 100 km² stock masses
25.
Eutrophication
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Eutrophication, or more precisely hypertrophication, is the enrichment of a water body with nutrients, usually with an excess amount of nutrients. This process induces growth of plants and algae and due to the biomass load, one example is the bloom or great increase of phytoplankton in a water body as a response to increased levels of nutrients. Eutrophication is almost always induced by the discharge of phosphate-containing detergents, fertilizers, or sewage, Eutrophication arises from the oversupply of nutrients, which leads to overgrowth of plants and algae. After such organisms die, the degradation of their biomass consumes the oxygen in the water. According to Ullmanns Encyclopedia, the limiting factor for eutrophication is phosphate. Phosphorus is a nutrient for plants to live, and is the limiting factor for plant growth in many freshwater ecosystems. Phosphate adheres tightly to soil, so it is transported by erosion. Once translocated to lakes, the extraction of phosphate into water is slow, the sources of these excess phosphates are phosphates in detergent, industrial/domestic run-offs, and fertilizers. With the phasing out of phosphate-containing detergents in the 1970s, industrial/domestic run-off, cultural Eutrophication is the process that speeds up natural eutrophication because of human activity. Extra nutrients are supplied by treatment plants, golf courses, fertilizers, farms. When algae die, they decompose and the contained in that organic matter are converted into inorganic form by microorganisms. This decomposition process consumes oxygen, which reduces the concentration of dissolved oxygen, the depleted oxygen levels in turn may lead to fish kills and a range of other effects reducing biodiversity. Nutrients may become concentrated in a zone and may only be made available again during autumn turn-over or in conditions of turbulent flow. The water becomes cloudy, typically coloured a shade of green, yellow, brown, Eutrophication also decreases the value of rivers, lakes and aesthetic enjoyment. Health problems can occur where eutrophic conditions interfere with drinking water treatment, human activities can accelerate the rate at which nutrients enter ecosystems. Elevated levels of compounds of nitrogen can increase nitrogen availability. Phosphorus is often regarded as the culprit in cases of eutrophication in lakes subjected to point source pollution from sewage pipes. The concentration of algae and the state of lakes correspond well to phosphorus levels in water
26.
Chengdu
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Chengdu, formerly romanized as Chengtu, is a sub-provincial city which has served as capital of Chinas Sichuan province. It is one of the three most populous cities in Western China, as of 2014 the administrative area houses 14,427,500 inhabitants, with an urban population of 10,152,632. At the time of the 2010 census, Chengdu was the 5th-most populous agglomeration in China, with 10,484,996 inhabitants in the area including Xinjin County. The surrounding Chengdu Plain is also known as the Country of Heaven and its prehistoric settlers included the Sanxingdui culture. It was the capital of Liu Beis Shu during the Three Kingdoms Era, after the fall of Nanjing to the Japanese in 1937, Chengdu briefly served as the capital of China. It is now one of the most important economic, financial, commercial, cultural, transportation, Chengdu Shuangliu International Airport is one of the 30 busiest airports in the world, and Chengdu Railway Station is one of the six biggest in China. Chengdu also hosts many international companies and more than 12 consulates, more than 260 Fortune 500 companies have established branches in Chengdu. In 2006, China Daily named it Chinas 4th-most-livable city, the name Chengdu is attested in sources going back to shortly after its founding. The present spelling is based on pinyin romanization, its Postal Map romanization was Chengtu and its former status as the seat of the Chengdu Prefecture prompted Marco Polos spellings Sindafu, Sin-din-fu, &c. and the Protestant missionaries romanization Ching-too Foo. Although the official name of the city has remained constant, the area has sometimes taken other names. The city logo adopted in 2011 is inspired by the Golden Sun Bird excavated from the Jinsha Ruins, archaeological discoveries at the Sanxingdui and Jinsha sites have established that the area surrounding Chengdu was inhabited over four thousand years ago. At the time of Chinas Xia, Shang, and Zhou dynasties, in the early 4th century BC, the ninth king of Shus Kaiming dynasty relocated from nearby Pi County, giving his new capital the name Chengdu. Shu was conquered by Qin in 316 BC and the settlement refounded by the Qin general Zhang Yi, under the Han, the brocade produced at Chengdu became fashionable and was exported throughout China. A Brocade Official was established to oversee its quality and supply, after the fall of the Eastern Han, Liu Bei ruled Shu, the southwestern of the Three Kingdoms, from Chengdu. His minister Zhuge Liang called the area the Land of Abundance, under the Tang, Chengdu was considered the second most prosperous city in China after Yangzhou. Both Li Bai and Du Fu lived in the city, Li Bai praised it as lying above the empyrean. The citys present Caotang was constructed in 1078 in honor of an earlier, more humble structure of that name erected by Du Fu in 760, the Taoist Qingyang Gong was built in the 9th century. Chengdu was the capital of Wang Jians Former Shu from 907 to 925, the Later Shu was founded by Meng Zhixiang in 934, with its capital at Chengdu
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Sichuan
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In antiquity, Sichuan was the home of the ancient states of Ba and Shu. Their conquest by Qin strengthened it and paved the way for the First Emperors unification of China under the Qin Dynasty, during the Three Kingdoms era, Liu Beis Shu was based in Sichuan. The area was devastated in the 17th century by Zhang Xianzhongs rebellion and the areas subsequent Manchu conquest, during the Second World War, Chongqing served as the temporary capital of the Republic of China, making it the focus of Japanese bombing. It was one of the last mainland areas to fall to the Communists during the Chinese Civil War and was divided into four parts from 1949 to 1952, with Chongqing restored two years later. It suffered gravely during the Great Chinese Famine of 1959–61 but remained Chinas most populous province until Chongqing Municipality was again separated from it in 1997, the people of Sichuan speak a unique form of Mandarin, which took shape during the areas repopulation under the Ming. The family of dialects is now spoken by about 120 million people, in Modern Chinese, the name Sichuan has the meaning four rivers and this folk etymology is usually extended to list the provinces four major rivers, the Jialing, Jinsha, Min, and Tuo. In addition to its map and Wade-Giles forms, the name has also been irregularly romanized as Szű-chuan and Szechuan. In antiquity, the area of modern Sichuan was known to the Chinese as Ba and Shu, in reference to the ancient states of Ba and it was the refuge of the Tang court during the An Lushan Rebellion of the mid-8th century. The region had its own religious beliefs and worldview. The most important native states were those of Ba and Shu, Ba stretched into Sichuan from the Han Valley in Shaanxi and Hubei down the Jialing River as far as its confluence with the Yangtze at Chongqing. Shu occupied the valley of the Min, including Chengdu and other areas of western Sichuan, the existence of the early state of Shu was poorly recorded in the main historical records of China. It was, however, referred to in the Book of Documents as an ally of the Zhou and this site, believed to be an ancient city of Shu, was initially discovered by a local farmer in 1929 who found jade and stone artefacts. The Sichuan basin is surrounded by the Himalayas to the west, the Qin Mountains to the north, Qin armies finished their conquest of the kingdoms of Shu and Ba by 316 BC. Any written records and civil achievements of earlier kingdoms were destroyed, Qin administrators introduced improved agricultural technology. Li Bing, engineered the Dujiangyan irrigation system to control the Min River and this innovative hydraulic system was composed of movable weirs which could be adjusted for high or low water flow according to the season, to either provide irrigation or prevent floods. The increased agricultural output and taxes made the area a source of provisions, Sichuan was subjected to the autonomous control of kings named by the imperial family of Han Dynasty. Shu-Han claimed to be the successor to the Han Dynasty, in 263, the Jin dynasty of North China, conquered the Kingdom of Shu-Han as its first step on the path to unify China again, under their rule. Salt production becomes a business in Ziliujing District
28.
Human impact on the environment
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Human impact on the environment or anthropogenic impact on the environment includes impacts on biophysical environments, biodiversity, and other resources. The term anthropogenic designates an effect or object resulting from human activity, the atmospheric scientist Paul Crutzen introduced the term Anthropocene in the mid-1970s. The term is used in the context of pollution emissions that are produced as a result of human activities but applies broadly to all major human impacts on the environment. Environmental impacts caused by the application of technology are often perceived as unavoidable for several reasons, third, according to the second law of thermodynamics, order can be increased within a system only by increasing disorder or entropy outside the system. Thus, technologies can create “order” in the economy only at the expense of increasing “disorder” in the environment. According to a number of studies, increased entropy is likely to be correlated to environmental impacts. The environmental impact of agriculture based on the wide variety of agricultural practices employed around the world. Ultimately, the impact depends on the production practices of the system used by farmers. The connection between emissions into the environment and the system is indirect, as it also depends on other climate variables such as rainfall. An example of a means-based indicator would be the quality of groundwater, an indicator reflecting the loss of nitrate to groundwater would be effect-based. The environmental impact of agriculture involves a variety of factors from the soil, to water, the air, animal and soil diversity, plants, and the food itself. Some of the issues that are related to agriculture are climate change, deforestation, genetic engineering, irrigation problems, pollutants, soil degradation. These conservation issues are part of conservation, and are addressed in fisheries science programs. There is a gap between how many fish are available to be caught and humanity’s desire to catch them, a problem that gets worse as the world population grows. The journal Science published a study in November 2006, which predicted that, at prevailing trends. Many countries, such as Tonga, the United States, Australia and New Zealand, the impacts stem from the changed hydrological conditions owing to the installation and operation of the scheme. An irrigation scheme draws water from the river and distributes it over the irrigated area. These may be called direct effects, effects on soil and water quality are indirect and complex, and subsequent impacts on natural, ecological and socio-economic conditions are intricate
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Greek language
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Greek is an independent branch of the Indo-European family of languages, native to Greece and other parts of the Eastern Mediterranean. It has the longest documented history of any living language, spanning 34 centuries of written records and its writing system has been the Greek alphabet for the major part of its history, other systems, such as Linear B and the Cypriot syllabary, were used previously. The alphabet arose from the Phoenician script and was in turn the basis of the Latin, Cyrillic, Armenian, Coptic, Gothic and many other writing systems. Together with the Latin texts and traditions of the Roman world, during antiquity, Greek was a widely spoken lingua franca in the Mediterranean world and many places beyond. It would eventually become the official parlance of the Byzantine Empire, the language is spoken by at least 13.2 million people today in Greece, Cyprus, Italy, Albania, Turkey, and the Greek diaspora. Greek roots are used to coin new words for other languages, Greek. Greek has been spoken in the Balkan peninsula since around the 3rd millennium BC, the earliest written evidence is a Linear B clay tablet found in Messenia that dates to between 1450 and 1350 BC, making Greek the worlds oldest recorded living language. Among the Indo-European languages, its date of earliest written attestation is matched only by the now extinct Anatolian languages, the Greek language is conventionally divided into the following periods, Proto-Greek, the unrecorded but assumed last ancestor of all known varieties of Greek. The unity of Proto-Greek would have ended as Hellenic migrants entered the Greek peninsula sometime in the Neolithic era or the Bronze Age, Mycenaean Greek, the language of the Mycenaean civilisation. It is recorded in the Linear B script on tablets dating from the 15th century BC onwards, Ancient Greek, in its various dialects, the language of the Archaic and Classical periods of the ancient Greek civilisation. It was widely known throughout the Roman Empire, after the Roman conquest of Greece, an unofficial bilingualism of Greek and Latin was established in the city of Rome and Koine Greek became a first or second language in the Roman Empire. The origin of Christianity can also be traced through Koine Greek, Medieval Greek, also known as Byzantine Greek, the continuation of Koine Greek in Byzantine Greece, up to the demise of the Byzantine Empire in the 15th century. Much of the written Greek that was used as the language of the Byzantine Empire was an eclectic middle-ground variety based on the tradition of written Koine. Modern Greek, Stemming from Medieval Greek, Modern Greek usages can be traced in the Byzantine period and it is the language used by the modern Greeks, and, apart from Standard Modern Greek, there are several dialects of it. In the modern era, the Greek language entered a state of diglossia, the historical unity and continuing identity between the various stages of the Greek language is often emphasised. Greek speakers today still tend to regard literary works of ancient Greek as part of their own rather than a foreign language and it is also often stated that the historical changes have been relatively slight compared with some other languages. According to one estimation, Homeric Greek is probably closer to demotic than 12-century Middle English is to modern spoken English, Greek is spoken by about 13 million people, mainly in Greece, Albania and Cyprus, but also worldwide by the large Greek diaspora. Greek is the language of Greece, where it is spoken by almost the entire population
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Algal bloom
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An algal bloom is a rapid increase or accumulation in the population of algae in freshwater or marine water systems, and is recognized by the discoloration in the water from their pigments. Cyanobacteria were mistaken for algae in the past, so cyanobacterial blooms are also called algal blooms. Blooms which can injure animals or the ecology are called harmful algal blooms, since algae is a broad term including organisms of widely varying sizes, growth rates and nutrient requirements, there is no officially recognized threshold level as to what is defined as a bloom. For some species, algae can be considered to be blooming at concentrations reaching millions of cells per milliliter, bright green blooms in freshwater systems are frequently a result of cyanobacteria such as Microcystis. Blooms may also consist of macroalgal species and these blooms are recognizable by large blades of algae that may wash up onto the shoreline. Such blooms often take on a red or brown hue and are known colloquially as red tides, freshwater algal blooms are the result of an excess of nutrients, particularly some phosphates. The excess of nutrients may originate from fertilizers that are applied to land for agricultural or recreational purposes and they may also originate from household cleaning products containing phosphorus. These nutrients can then enter watersheds through water runoff, excess carbon and nitrogen have also been suspected as causes. Presence of residual sodium carbonate acts as catalyst for the algae to bloom by providing dissolved carbon dioxide for enhanced photosynthesis in the presence of nutrients, when phosphates are introduced into water systems, higher concentrations cause increased growth of algae and plants. Algae tend to very quickly under high nutrient availability, but each alga is short-lived. The decay process consumes dissolved oxygen in the water, resulting in hypoxic conditions, without sufficient dissolved oxygen in the water, animals and plants may die off in large numbers. Use of an Olszewski tube can help combat problems with hypolimnetic withdrawal. Blooms may be observed in freshwater aquariums when fish are overfed and these are generally harmful for fish, and the situation can be corrected by changing the water in the tank and then reducing the amount of food given. A harmful algal bloom is a bloom that causes negative impacts to other organisms via production of natural toxins, mechanical damage to other organisms. HABs are often associated with large-scale marine mortality events and have associated with various types of shellfish poisonings. In studies at the population level bloom coverage has been related to the risk of non-alcoholic liver disease death. In the marine environment, single-celled, microscopic, plant-like organisms naturally occur in the surface layer of any body of water. These organisms, referred to as phytoplankton or microalgae, form the base of the food web upon which all other marine organisms depend
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Biomagnification
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The substances become concentrated in tissues or internal organs as they move up the chain. Bioaccumulants are substances that increase in concentration in living organisms as they take in contaminated air, water, a tuna eats many of these anchovies over its life, accumulating the mercury in each of those anchovies into its body. If the mercury stunts the growth of the anchovies, that tuna is required to eat little fish to stay alive. Because there are more little fish being eaten, the content is magnified. Although sometimes used interchangeably with bioaccumulation, an important distinction is drawn between the two, and with bioconcentration, bioaccumulation occurs within a trophic level, and is the increase in concentration of a substance in certain tissues of organisms bodies due to absorption from food and the environment. Bioconcentration is defined as occurring when uptake from the water is greater than excretion, thus, bioconcentration and bioaccumulation occur within an organism, and biomagnification occurs across trophic levels. When eaten by another organism, fats are absorbed in the gut, carrying the substance, since at each level of the food chain there is a lot of energy loss, a predator must consume many prey, including all of their lipophilic substances. For example, though mercury is only present in small amounts in seawater and it is efficiently absorbed, but only very slowly excreted by organisms. Bioaccumulation and bioconcentration result in buildup in the tissue of successive trophic levels, zooplankton, small nekton, larger fish. Anything which eats these fish also consumes the higher level of mercury the fish have accumulated, for example, herring contains mercury at approximately 0.01 parts per million and shark contains mercury at greater than 1 ppm. DDT is thought to biomagnify and biomagnification is one of the most significant reasons it was deemed harmful to the environment by the EPA and other organizations. DDT is stored in the fat of animals and takes years to break down, and as the fat is consumed by predators. DDT is now a banned substance in many parts of the world, in a review of a large number of studies, Suedel et al. For other contaminants, bioconcentration and bioaccumulation account for their high concentrations in organism tissues, more recently, Gray reached a similar substances remaining in the organisms and not being diluted to non-threatening concentrations. The success of top predatory-bird recovery in North America following the ban on DDT use in agriculture is testament to the importance of biomagnification, there are two main groups of substances that biomagnify. Both are lipophilic and not easily degraded and these substances are consequently known as persistent organic pollutants or POPs. Metals are not degradable because they are elements, organisms, particularly those subject to naturally high levels of exposure to metals, have mechanisms to sequester and excrete metals. Problems arise when organisms are exposed to higher concentrations than usual, some persistent heavy metals are especially dangerous and harmful to the organisms reproductive system
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Nonpoint source pollution
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Nonpoint source pollution is a term used to describe pollution resulting from many diffuse sources, in direct contrast to point source pollution which results from a single source. Non-point source water pollution affects a water body from such as polluted runoff from agricultural areas draining into a river. Non-point source air pollution affects air quality from such as smokestacks or car tailpipes. Although these pollutants have originated from a point source, the long-range transport ability, non-point source pollution can be contrasted with point source pollution, where discharges occur to a body of water or into the atmosphere at a single location. NPS may derive from different sources with no specific solution may change to rectify the problem. It is the cause of water pollution in the United States today. Other significant sources of runoff include hydrological and habitat modification, contaminated stormwater washed off parking lots, roads and highways, and lawns is called urban runoff. This runoff is classified as a type of NPS pollution. Some people may consider it a point source because many times it is channeled into municipal storm drain systems. However, not all urban runoff flows through storm drain systems before entering water bodies, some may flow directly into water bodies, especially in developing and suburban areas. Sediment includes silt and suspended solids, sediment may enter surface waters from eroding stream banks, and from surface runoff due to improper plant cover on urban and rural land. High turbidity levels also inhibit drinking water purification systems, sediment can also be discharged from multiple different sources. Sources include construction sites, agricultural fields, stream banks, nutrients mainly refers to inorganic matter from runoff, landfills, livestock operations and crop lands. The two primary nutrients of concern are phosphorus and nitrogen, phosphorus is a nutrient that occurs in many forms that are bioavailable. It is notoriously over-abundant in human sewage sludge and it is a main ingredient in many fertilizers used for agriculture as well as on residential and commercial properties, and may become a limiting nutrient in freshwater systems and some estuaries. Phosphorus is most often transported to water bodies via soil erosion because many forms of phosphorus tend to be adsorbed on to soil particles, excess amounts of phosphorus in aquatic systems leads to proliferation of microscopic algae called phytoplankton. The increase of organic matter due to the excessive growth of the phytoplankton is called eutrophication. A common symptom of eutrophication is algae blooms that can produce unsightly surface scums, shade out beneficial types of plants and these toxins are a particular problem in systems used for drinking water because some toxins can cause human illness and removal of the toxins is difficult and expensive
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Surface runoff
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Surface runoff is the flow of water that occurs when excess stormwater, meltwater, or other sources flows over the Earths surface. Surface runoff is a component of the water cycle. It is the agent in soil erosion by water. Runoff that occurs on the surface before reaching a channel is also called a nonpoint source. If a nonpoint source contains man-made contaminants, or natural forms of pollution the runoff is called nonpoint source pollution, a land area which produces runoff that drains to a common point is called a drainage basin. When runoff flows along the ground, it can pick up soil contaminants including petroleum, pesticides, surface runoff can be generated either by rainfall, snowfall or by the melting of snow, or glaciers. Snow and glacier melt occur only in areas cold enough for these to form permanently, typically snowmelt will peak in the spring and glacier melt in the summer, leading to pronounced flow maxima in rivers affected by them. The determining factor of the rate of melting of snow or glaciers is both air temperature and the duration of sunlight, in high mountain regions, streams frequently rise on sunny days and fall on cloudy ones for this reason. In areas where there is no snow, runoff will come from rainfall, however, not all rainfall will produce runoff because storage from soils can absorb light showers. This occurs when the rate of rainfall on a surface exceeds the rate at which water can infiltrate the ground and this is called flooding excess overland flow, Hortonian overland flow, or unsaturated overland flow. This more commonly occurs in arid and semi-arid regions, where rainfall intensities are high and this occurs largely in city areas where pavements prevent water from flooding. When the soil is saturated and the depression storage filled, and rain continues to fall, the level of antecedent soil moisture is one factor affecting the time until soil becomes saturated. This runoff is called saturation excess overland flow or saturated overland flow, soil retains a degree of moisture after a rainfall. This residual water moisture affects the soils infiltration capacity, during the next rainfall event, the infiltration capacity will cause the soil to be saturated at a different rate. The higher the level of antecedent soil moisture, the more quickly the soil becomes saturated, once the soil is saturated, runoff occurs. After water infiltrates the soil on a portion of a hill, the water may flow laterally through the soil. This is called subsurface return flow or throughflow, any remaining surface water eventually flows into a receiving water body such as a river, lake, estuary or ocean. Urbanization increases surface runoff by creating more impervious surfaces such as pavement and it is instead forced directly into streams or storm water runoff drains, where erosion and siltation can be major problems, even when flooding is not
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Water quality
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Water quality refers to the chemical, physical, biological, and radiological characteristics of water. It is a measure of the condition of water relative to the requirements of one or more biotic species and it is most frequently used by reference to a set of standards against which compliance can be assessed. The most common used to assess water quality relate to health of ecosystems, safety of human contact. In the setting of standards, agencies make political and technical/scientific decisions about how the water will be used, in the case of natural water bodies, they also make some reasonable estimate of pristine conditions. Natural water bodies will vary in response to environmental conditions, Environmental scientists work to understand how these systems function, which in turn helps to identify the sources and fates of contaminants. Environmental lawyers and policymakers work to define legislation with the intention that water is maintained at a quality for its identified use. The vast majority of water on the Earth is neither potable nor toxic. This remains true when seawater in the oceans is not counted, another general perception of water quality is that of a simple property that tells whether water is polluted or not. In fact, water quality is a subject, in part because water is a complex medium intrinsically tied to the ecology of the Earth. Industrial and commercial activities are a cause of water pollution as are runoff from agricultural areas, urban runoff. The parameters for water quality are determined by the intended use, work in the area of water quality tends to be focused on water that is treated for human consumption, industrial use, or in the environment. Water quality depends on the geology and ecosystem, as well as human uses such as sewage dispersion, industrial pollution, use of water bodies as a heat sink. The United States Environmental Protection Agency limits the amounts of contaminants in tap water provided by US public water systems. The U. S. Food and Drug Administration regulations establish limits for contaminants in bottled water that must provide the protection for public health. Drinking water, including bottled water, may reasonably be expected to contain at least small amounts of some contaminants, the presence of these contaminants does not necessarily indicate that the water poses a health risk. Water drawn directly from a stream, lake, or aquifer, dissolved minerals may affect suitability of water for a range of industrial and domestic purposes. Hard water may be softened to remove these ions, the softening process often substitutes sodium cations. Hard water may be preferable to soft water for consumption, since health problems have been associated with excess sodium
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Aquatic ecosystem
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An aquatic ecosystem is an ecosystem in a body of water. Communities of organisms that are dependent on other and on their environment live in aquatic ecosystems. The two main types of ecosystems are marine ecosystems and freshwater ecosystems. Marine ecosystems cover approximately 71% of the Earths surface and contain approximately 97% of the planets water and they generate 32% of the worlds net primary production. They are distinguished from freshwater ecosystems by the presence of dissolved compounds, especially salts, approximately 85% of the dissolved materials in seawater are sodium and chlorine. Seawater has a salinity of 35 parts per thousand of water. Actual salinity varies among different marine ecosystems, marine ecosystems can be divided into many zones depending upon water depth and shoreline features. The oceanic zone is the vast open part of the ocean where animals such as whales, sharks, the benthic zone consists of substrates below water where many invertebrates live. The intertidal zone is the area between high and low tides, in this figure it is termed the littoral zone, other near-shore zones can include estuaries, salt marshes, coral reefs, lagoons and mangrove swamps. In the deep water, hydrothermal vents may occur where chemosynthetic sulfur bacteria form the base of the food web, classes of organisms found in marine ecosystems include brown algae, dinoflagellates, corals, cephalopods, echinoderms, and sharks. Fishes caught in marine ecosystems are the biggest source of commercial foods obtained from wild populations, environmental problems concerning marine ecosystems include unsustainable exploitation of marine resources, marine pollution, climate change, and building on coastal areas. Freshwater ecosystems cover 0. 78% of the Earths surface and inhabit 0. 009% of its total water and they generate nearly 3% of its net primary production. Freshwater ecosystems contain 41% of the known fish species. There are three types of freshwater ecosystems, Lentic, slow moving water, including pools, ponds. Lotic, faster moving water, for example streams and rivers, wetlands, areas where the soil is saturated or inundated for at least part of the time. Lake ecosystems can be divided into zones, one common system divides lakes into three zones. The first, the zone, is the shallow zone near the shore. This is where rooted wetland plants occur, the offshore is divided into two further zones, an open water zone and a deep water zone
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Acoustic ecology
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Acoustic ecology, sometimes called ecoacoustics or soundscape studies, is a discipline studying the relationship, mediated through sound, between human beings and their environment. Acoustic ecology studies started in the late 1960s with R. Murray Schafer, the original WSP team included Barry Truax and Hildegard Westerkamp, Bruce Davies and Peter Huse, among others. The first study produced by the WSP was titled The Vancouver Soundscape, the interest in this area grew enormously after this pioneer and innovative study and the area of acoustic ecology raised the interest of researchers and artists all over the world. In 1993, the members of the by now large and active international acoustic ecology community formed the World Forum of Acoustic Ecology, every three years since the WFAEs founding at Banff, Canada in 1993, an international symposium has taken place. Stockholm, Amsterdam, Devon, Peterborough, and Melbourne followed, in November 2006, the WFAE meeting took place in Hirosaki, Japan. Koli, Finland, was the place of the latest WFAE world conference. From its roots in the sociology and radio art of Schafer and his colleagues. While most have taken inspiration from Schafers writings, in recent years there have also been healthy divergences from the initial ideas. Acoustic ecology finds expression in different fields, including niches as unique as historical soundscapes. Dominion takes listeners on a journey across Canada. At the Center for New Media the acoustic ecological setting of the jazz scene in Oakland. A composition recreating the acoustic profile of community sounds unique to Canadian locales, serdang, Universiti Putra Malaysia Press,2013, 1–31. Acoustic Ecology and the Soundscape Bibliography created by Maksymilian Kapelanski for Leonardo/ISAST Bazilchuk, choral Reefs, An inexpensive device monitors ocean health through sound. An Introduction to Acoustic Ecology by Kendall Wrightson Science of sound Canadian Geographic Mailman, seven Metaphors for Listening, DRAMaTIC in Journal of Sonic Studies v.2
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Aquatic adaptation
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Several animal groups have undergone aquatic adaptation, going from being purely terrestrial animals to living at least part of the time in water. The adaptations in early speciation tend to develop as the ventures into water in order to find available food. As successive generations spend more time in the water, natural causes the acquisition of more adaptations. Animals of later generations may spend the majority of their life in the water, finally, fully adapted animals may take to mating and birthing in water. Archelon is a type of giant sea turtle dating from the Cretaceous Period and its smaller cousins survive as the sea turtles of today. Mesosaurus were another group of reptiles to secondarily return to the sea, eschewing shells. Living at the time as, but not closely related to, dinosaurs. They became extinct 66 million years ago, at the time as the dinosaurs. Modern diapsids which have made their own adaptions to them to spend significant time in the water include marine iguanas. Sea snakes are extensively adapted to the environment, giving birth to live offspring in the same way as the Euryapsida and are largely incapable of terrestrial activity. The arc of their adaptation is evident by observing the primitive Laticauda genus and these marine reptiles had ancestors who moved back into the oceans. In the case of ichthyosaurs adapting as fully as the dolphins they superficially resemble, during the Paleocene Epoch, a group of wolf-like artiodactyls related to Pakicetus began pursuing an amphibious lifestyle in rivers or shallow seas. They were the ancestors of modern whales, dolphins, and porpoises, the cetacea are extensively adapted to marine life and cannot survive on land at all. Their adaptation can be seen in many unique characteristics such as the dorsal blowhole, baleen teeth. The closest extant terrestrial relative to the whale is the hippopotamus, the ancestors of the dugong and manatees first appeared in the fossil record about 45 to 50 million years ago in the ocean. The fossil records show that phocids existed 12 to 15 million years ago and their common ancestor must have existed even earlier than that. Although polar bears spend most of their time on the ice rather than in the water, polar bears show the beginnings of aquatic adaptation to swimming, diving, distinctly polar bear fossils can be dated to about 100,000 years ago. The polar bear has thick fur and layers of fat on its body to protect it from the cold, the idea is not accepted by most scholars who study human evolution
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Agent-based model in biology
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Agent-based models have many applications in biology, primarily due to the characteristics of the modeling method. Agent-based modeling is a rule-based, computational modeling methodology that focuses on rules, the goal of this modeling method is to generate populations of the system components of interest and simulate their interactions in a virtual world. Agent-based models start with rules for behavior and seek to reconstruct, through computational instantiation of those behavioral rules, several of the characteristics of agent-based models important to biological studies include, Modular structure, The behavior of an agent-based model is defined by the rules of its agents. Existing agent rules can be modified or new agents can be added without having to modify the entire model, abstraction, Either by excluding non-essential details or when details are not available, agent-based models can be constructed in the absence of complete knowledge of the system under study. This allows the model to be as simple and verifiable as possible, stochasticity, Biological systems exhibit behavior that appears to be random. The probability of a behavior can be determined for a system as a whole. Before the agent-based model can be developed, one must choose the appropriate software or modeling toolkit to be used, madey and Nikolai provide an extensive list of toolkits in their paper Tools of the Trade, A Survey of Various Agent Based Modeling Platforms. Some of the commonly used toolkits include Swarm, NetLogo, RePast. Listed below are summaries of articles describing agent-based models that have been employed in biological studies. The summaries will provide a description of the space, an overview of the agent-based model and the agents involved. About two-thirds of the land in British Columbia, Canada is covered by forests that are constantly being modified by natural disturbances such as fire, disease, and insect infestation. Forest resources make up approximately 15% of the economy, so infestations caused by insects such as the MPB can have significant impacts on the economy. The MPB outbreaks are considered a natural disturbance that can result in widespread mortality of the lodgepole pine tree. Insect outbreaks have resulted in the death of trees over areas of several square kilometers. Three management strategies were considered by the model, 1) no management, 2) sanitation harvest, the Beetle Agent follows a series of rules to decide where to fly within the forest and to select a healthy tree to attack, feed, and breed. The MPB typically kills host trees in its environment in order to successfully reproduce. The beetle larvae feed on the bark of mature host trees. In order for the beetles to reproduce, the host tree must be large and have thick inner bark
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Anoxic waters
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Anoxic waters are areas of sea water, fresh water, or groundwater that are depleted of dissolved oxygen and are a more severe condition of hypoxia. The US Geological Survey defines anoxic groundwater as those with dissolved oxygen concentration of less than 0.5 milligrams per litre and this condition is generally found in areas that have restricted water exchange. Anoxic conditions will occur if the rate of oxidation of organic matter by bacteria is greater than the supply of dissolved oxygen, Anoxic waters are a natural phenomenon, and have occurred throughout geological history. In fact, some postulate that the Permian–Triassic extinction event, an extinction of species from worlds oceans. At present anoxic basins exist, for example, in the Baltic Sea, recently, there have been some indications that eutrophication has increased the extent of the anoxic zones in areas including the Baltic Sea, the Gulf of Mexico, and Hood Canal in Washington State. Anoxic conditions result from factors, for example, stagnation conditions, density stratification, inputs of organic material. Examples of which are fjords and deep ocean western boundaries where circulation is especially low while production at upper levels is exceptionally high. In wastewater treatment, the absence of oxygen alone is indicated anoxic while the term anaerobic is used to indicate the absence of any common electron acceptor such as nitrate, sulfate or oxygen. When oxygen is depleted in a basin, bacteria first turn to the second-best electron acceptor, denitrification occurs, and the nitrate will be consumed rather rapidly. After reducing some other elements, the bacteria will turn to reducing sulfate. This results in the byproduct of hydrogen sulfide, a toxic to most biota and responsible for the characteristic rotten egg smell. Below a few centimeters from the surface the water is oxygen free. Anoxia is further influenced by biochemical oxygen demand, which is the amount oxygen used by organisms in the process of breaking down organic matter. BOD is influenced by the type of present, the pH of the water, temperature. BOD is directly related to the amount of dissolved oxygen available, especially in smaller bodies of such as rivers. As BOD increases, available oxygen decreases and this causes stress on larger organisms. BOD comes from natural and anthropogenic sources, including, dead organisms, manure, wastewater, in the Baltic Sea, the slowed rate of decomposition under anoxic conditions has left remarkably preserved fossils retaining impressions of soft body parts, in Lagerstätten. Eutrophication, an influx of nutrients, often a byproduct of agricultural run-off and sewage discharge, can result in large, upon a bloom’s conclusion, the dead algae sink to the bottom and are broken down until all oxygen is expended
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Aquatic animal
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An aquatic animal is an animal, either vertebrate or invertebrate, which lives in water for most or all of its life. It may breathe air or extract its oxygen from that dissolved in water through specialised organs called gills, natural environments and the animals that live in them can be categorized as aquatic or terrestrial. The term aquatic can in theory be applied to animals that live in fresh water or salt water. However, the marine is most commonly used for animals that live in saltwater, i. e. in oceans, seas. Aquatic animals are often of concern to conservationists because of the fragility of their environments. Aquatic animals are subject to pressure from overfishing, destructive fishing, marine pollution, the term aquatic mammal is also applied to four-footed mammals like the river otter and beavers, although these are technically amphibious. Amphibians, like frogs, while requiring water, are separated into their own environmental classification, the majority of amphibians have an aquatic larval stage, like a tadpole, but then live as terrestrial adults, and may return to the water to mate. Certain fish also evolved to breathe air to survive oxygen-deprived water, such as arapaima, Aquatic mammal Aquatic plant Freshwater snail List of semiaquatic tetrapods Marine biology Marine invertebrates Marine mammal Annelids
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Aquatic insect
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Aquatic insects or water insects live some portion of their life cycle in the water. They feed in the ways as other insects. Some diving insects, such as predatory diving beetles, can hunt for food underwater where land-living insects cannot compete, one problem that aquatic insects must overcome is how to get oxygen while they are under water. All animals require a source of oxygen to live, insects draw air into their bodies through spiracles, holes found along the sides of the abdomen. These spiracles are connected to tracheal tubes where oxygen can be absorbed, all aquatic insects have become adapted to their environment with the specialization of these structures. Some insects have densely packed hairs around the spiracles that allow air to remain near, while keeping water away from, the trachea open through spiracles into this air film, allowing access to oxygen. The large proportion of nitrogen in the air dissolves in water slowly and maintains the gas volume, insects of this type only rarely need to replenish their supply of air. Other aquatic insects can remain under water for long due to high concentrations of hemoglobin in their hemolymph circulating freely within their body. Hemoglobin bonds strongly to oxygen molecules, the Water Dwellers INSECTS pg.142. Stanley, D. and Bedick, J. Respiration in aquatic insects, weidenfeld & Nicholson, London Insect stages - Some larvae, nymphs and adult insects that live in freshwater. A UK-based web site with photos of various insects and other microorganisms as well as biological information
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Aquatic mammal
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Aquatic and semiaquatic mammals are a diverse group of mammals that dwell partly or entirely in bodies of water. They include the marine mammals who dwell in oceans, as well as various freshwater species. They are not a taxon and are not unified by any distinct biological grouping, mammal adaptation to an aquatic lifestyle vary considerably between species. River dolphins and manatees are both fully aquatic and therefore are completely tethered to a life in the water, seals are semiaquatic, they spend the majority of their time in the water, but need to return to land for important activities such as mating, breeding and molting. In contrast, many aquatic mammals, such as rhinoceroses, capybara. Likewise, their diet ranges considerably as well, anywhere from aquatic plants and leaves to small fish and they play major roles in maintaining aquatic ecosystems, beavers especially. Aquatic mammals were the target for industry, leading to a sharp decline in all populations of exploited species. Their pelts, suited for conserving heat, were taken during the fur trade and made coats and hats. Other aquatic mammals, such as the Indian rhinoceros, were targets for hunting and had a sharp population decline in the 1900s. After it was illegal, many aquatic mammals became subject to poaching. Other than hunting, aquatic mammals can be killed as bycatch from fisheries, the industrialization of rivers led to the extinction of the Chinese river dolphin, with the last confirmed sighting in 2004. This list covers only mammals that live in freshwater, for a list of saltwater mammals, see Marine mammal. Most docodonts had teeth specialized for an omnivorous diet, the teeth of Castorocauda suggest that the animal was a piscivore, feeding on fish and small invertebrates. The first two molars had cusps in a row, eliminating the grinding function suggesting that they were strictly for gripping. This feature of three cusps in a row is similar to the condition in mammal relatives, but is almost certainly a derived character in Castorocauda. These first molars were also recurved in a designed to hold slippery prey once grasped. These teeth are similar to the teeth seen in mesonychids, an extinct group of semi-aquatic carnivorous ungulates, and resemble, to a lesser degree. Another docodontan, the Late Jurassic Haldanodon, has suggested to be a platypus or desman-like swimmer and burrower, being well adapted to dig and swim
