1.
WHIN
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WHIN, licensed to Gallatin, Tennessee, is a radio station broadcasting a country music format. The station is owned by Whin, Inc, Gallatin received its first radio station August 2,1948, when WHIN went on the air. The 1 KW station was owned by Sumner County Broadcasting Company, owned at one time by record mogul Randy Wood, the station still serves Sumner County with country music, local sports, and coverage of NASCAR racing. WHIN was joined by an FM station in December 1960 when 104.5 WFMG came on the air. During that time, the station was owned by Ron Bledsoe, who for years had commanded CBS Records in Nashville, in 1984, the station was sold to Jack Williams and Seth Sparkman who still operate the station. Official WHIN website Query the FCCs AM station database for WHIN Radio-Locator Information on WHIN Query Nielsen Audios AM station database for WHIN
2.
Taxonomy (biology)
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Taxonomy is the science of defining groups of biological organisms on the basis of shared characteristics and giving names to those groups. The exact definition of taxonomy varies from source to source, but the core of the remains, the conception, naming. There is some disagreement as to whether biological nomenclature is considered a part of taxonomy, the broadest meaning of taxonomy is used here. The word taxonomy was introduced in 1813 by Candolle, in his Théorie élémentaire de la botanique, the term alpha taxonomy is primarily used today to refer to the discipline of finding, describing, and naming taxa, particularly species. In earlier literature, the term had a different meaning, referring to morphological taxonomy, ideals can, it may be said, never be completely realized. They have, however, a value of acting as permanent stimulants. Some of us please ourselves by thinking we are now groping in a beta taxonomy, turrill thus explicitly excludes from alpha taxonomy various areas of study that he includes within taxonomy as a whole, such as ecology, physiology, genetics, and cytology. He further excludes phylogenetic reconstruction from alpha taxonomy, thus, Ernst Mayr in 1968 defined beta taxonomy as the classification of ranks higher than species. This activity is what the term denotes, it is also referred to as beta taxonomy. How species should be defined in a group of organisms gives rise to practical and theoretical problems that are referred to as the species problem. The scientific work of deciding how to define species has been called microtaxonomy, by extension, macrotaxonomy is the study of groups at higher taxonomic ranks, from subgenus and above only, than species. While some descriptions of taxonomic history attempt to date taxonomy to ancient civilizations, earlier works were primarily descriptive, and focused on plants that were useful in agriculture or medicine. There are a number of stages in scientific thinking. Early taxonomy was based on criteria, the so-called artificial systems. Later came systems based on a complete consideration of the characteristics of taxa, referred to as natural systems, such as those of de Jussieu, de Candolle and Bentham. The publication of Charles Darwins Origin of Species led to new ways of thinking about classification based on evolutionary relationships and this was the concept of phyletic systems, from 1883 onwards. This approach was typified by those of Eichler and Engler, the advent of molecular genetics and statistical methodology allowed the creation of the modern era of phylogenetic systems based on cladistics, rather than morphology alone. Taxonomy has been called the worlds oldest profession, and naming and classifying our surroundings has likely been taking place as long as mankind has been able to communicate
3.
Plant
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Plants are mainly multicellular, predominantly photosynthetic eukaryotes of the kingdom Plantae. The term is generally limited to the green plants, which form an unranked clade Viridiplantae. This includes the plants, conifers and other gymnosperms, ferns, clubmosses, hornworts, liverworts, mosses and the green algae. Green plants have cell walls containing cellulose and obtain most of their energy from sunlight via photosynthesis by primary chloroplasts and their chloroplasts contain chlorophylls a and b, which gives them their green color. Some plants are parasitic and have lost the ability to produce amounts of chlorophyll or to photosynthesize. Plants are characterized by sexual reproduction and alternation of generations, although reproduction is also common. There are about 300–315 thousand species of plants, of which the great majority, green plants provide most of the worlds molecular oxygen and are the basis of most of Earths ecologies, especially on land. Plants that produce grains, fruits and vegetables form humankinds basic foodstuffs, Plants play many roles in culture. They are used as ornaments and, until recently and in variety, they have served as the source of most medicines. The scientific study of plants is known as botany, a branch of biology, Plants are one of the two groups into which all living things were traditionally divided, the other is animals. The division goes back at least as far as Aristotle, who distinguished between plants, which generally do not move, and animals, which often are mobile to catch their food. Much later, when Linnaeus created the basis of the system of scientific classification. Since then, it has become clear that the plant kingdom as originally defined included several unrelated groups, however, these organisms are still often considered plants, particularly in popular contexts. When the name Plantae or plant is applied to a group of organisms or taxon. The evolutionary history of plants is not yet settled. Those which have been called plants are in bold, the way in which the groups of green algae are combined and named varies considerably between authors. Algae comprise several different groups of organisms which produce energy through photosynthesis, most conspicuous among the algae are the seaweeds, multicellular algae that may roughly resemble land plants, but are classified among the brown, red and green algae. Each of these groups also includes various microscopic and single-celled organisms
4.
Flowering plant
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The flowering plants, also known as Angiospermae or Magnoliophyta, are the most diverse group of land plants, with 416 families, approx. 13,164 known genera and a total of c.295,383 known species, etymologically, angiosperm means a plant that produces seeds within an enclosure, in other words, a fruiting plant. The term angiosperm comes from the Greek composite word meaning enclosed seeds, the ancestors of flowering plants diverged from gymnosperms in the Triassic Period, during the range 245 to 202 million years ago, and the first flowering plants are known from 160 mya. They diversified extensively during the Lower Cretaceous, became widespread by 120 mya, angiosperms differ from other seed plants in several ways, described in the table. These distinguishing characteristics taken together have made the angiosperms the most diverse and numerous land plants, the amount and complexity of tissue-formation in flowering plants exceeds that of gymnosperms. The vascular bundles of the stem are arranged such that the xylem and phloem form concentric rings, in the dicotyledons, the bundles in the very young stem are arranged in an open ring, separating a central pith from an outer cortex. In each bundle, separating the xylem and phloem, is a layer of meristem or active formative tissue known as cambium, the soft phloem becomes crushed, but the hard wood persists and forms the bulk of the stem and branches of the woody perennial. Among the monocotyledons, the bundles are more numerous in the stem and are scattered through the ground tissue. They contain no cambium and once formed the stem increases in diameter only in exceptional cases, the characteristic feature of angiosperms is the flower. Flowers show remarkable variation in form and elaboration, and provide the most trustworthy external characteristics for establishing relationships among angiosperm species, the function of the flower is to ensure fertilization of the ovule and development of fruit containing seeds. The floral apparatus may arise terminally on a shoot or from the axil of a leaf, occasionally, as in violets, a flower arises singly in the axil of an ordinary foliage-leaf. There are two kinds of cells produced by flowers. Microspores, which divide to become pollen grains, are the male cells and are borne in the stamens. The female cells called megaspores, which divide to become the egg cell, are contained in the ovule. The flower may consist only of parts, as in willow. Usually, other structures are present and serve to protect the sporophylls, the individual members of these surrounding structures are known as sepals and petals. The outer series is usually green and leaf-like, and functions to protect the rest of the flower, the inner series is, in general, white or brightly colored, and is more delicate in structure. It functions to attract insect or bird pollinators, attraction is effected by color, scent, and nectar, which may be secreted in some part of the flower
5.
Eudicots
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The eudicots, Eudicotidae or eudicotyledons are a monophyletic clade of flowering plants that had been called tricolpates or non-magnoliid dicots by previous authors. The close relationships among flowering plants with tricolpate pollen grains was initially seen in studies of shared derived characters. These plants have a trait in their pollen grains of exhibiting three colpi or grooves paralleling the polar axis. Later molecular evidence confirmed the basis for the evolutionary relationships among flowering plants with tricolpate pollen grains. The term means true dicotyledons, as it contains the majority of plants that have been considered dicots and have characteristics of the dicots, the term eudicots has subsequently been widely adopted in botany to refer to one of the two largest clades of angiosperms, monocots being the other. The remaining angiosperms are sometimes referred to as basal angiosperms or paleodicots, the other name for the eudicots is tricolpates, a name which refers to the grooved structure of the pollen. Members of the group have tricolpate pollen, or forms derived from it and these pollens have three or more pores set in furrows called colpi. In contrast, most of the seed plants produce monosulcate pollen. The name tricolpates is preferred by some botanists to avoid confusion with the dicots, numerous familiar plants are eudicots, including many common food plants, trees, and ornamentals. Most leafy trees of midlatitudes also belong to eudicots, with exceptions being magnolias and tulip trees which belong to magnoliids, and Ginkgo biloba. The name eudicots is used in the APG system, of 1998 and it is applied to a clade, a monophyletic group, which includes most of the dicots. The eudicots can be divided into two groups, the basal eudicots and the core eudicots, basal eudicot is an informal name for a paraphyletic group. The core eudicots are a monophyletic group, a 2010 study suggested the core eudicots can be divided into two clades, Gunnerales and a clade called Pentapetalae, comprising all the remaining core eudicots
6.
Rosids
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The rosids are members of a large clade of flowering plants, containing about 70,000 species, more than a quarter of all angiosperms. The clade is divided into 16 to 20 orders, depending upon circumscription and classification and these orders, in turn, together comprise about 140 families. Fossil rosids are known from the Cretaceous period, molecular clock estimates indicate that the rosids originated in the Aptian or Albian stages of the Cretaceous, between 125 and 99.6 million years ago. The name is based upon the name Rosidae, which had usually been understood to be a subclass, in 1967, Armen Takhtajan showed that the correct basis for the name Rosidae is a description of a group of plants published in 1830 by Friedrich Gottlieb Bartling. The clade was later renamed Rosidae and has been variously delimited by different authors, the name rosids is informal and not assumed to have any particular taxonomic rank like the names authorized by the ICBN. The rosids are monophyletic based upon evidence found by molecular phylogenetic analysis, three different definitions of the rosids were used. Some authors included the orders Saxifragales and Vitales in the rosids, others excluded both of these orders. The circumscription used in this article is that of the APG IV classification, which includes Vitales, the rosids and Saxifragales form the superrosids clade. This is one of three groups compose the Pentapetalae, the others being Dilleniales and the superasterids. The rosids consist of two groups, the order Vitales and the eurosids, the eurosids, in turn, are divided into two groups, fabids and malvids. The rosids consist of 17 orders, in addition to Vitales, there are 8 orders in fabids and 8 orders in malvids. Some of the orders have only recently been recognized and these are Vitales, Zygophyllales, Crossosomatales, Picramniales, and Huerteales. The phylogeny of Rosids shown below is adapted from the Angiosperm Phylogeny Group website, the nitrogen-fixing clade contains a high number of actinorhizal plants. Not all plants in this clade are actinorhizal, however, media related to Rosids at Wikimedia Commons
7.
Fabales
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The Fabales are an order of flowering plants included in the rosid group of the eudicots in the Angiosperm Phylogeny Group II classification system. In the APG II circumscription, this includes the families Fabaceae or legumes, Quillajaceae, Polygalaceae or milkworts. Under the Cronquist system and some other plant classification systems, the order Fabales contains only the family Fabaceae, in the classification system of Dahlgren the Fabales were in the superorder Fabiflorae with three families corresponding to the subfamilies of Fabaceae in APG II. The Fabaceae, as the third-largest plant family in the world, contain most of the diversity of the Fabales, research in the order is largely focused on the Fabaceae, due in part to its great biological diversity, and to its importance as food plants. The Fabales are a order of plants, except only the subfamily Papilionoideae of the Fabaceae are well dispersed throughout the northern part of the North Temperate Zone
8.
Fabaceae
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The Fabaceae, Leguminosae or Papilionaceae, commonly known as the legume, pea, or bean family, are a large and economically important family of flowering plants. It includes trees, shrubs, and perennial or annual herbaceous plants, the five largest of the genera are Astragalus, Acacia, Indigofera, Crotalaria and Mimosa, which constitute about a quarter of all legume species. The ca.19,000 known legume species amount to about 7% of flowering plant species, Fabaceae is the most common family found in tropical rainforests and in dry forests in the Americas and Africa. Recent molecular and morphological evidence supports the fact that the Fabaceae is a monophyletic family. These studies confirm that the Fabaceae are a group that is closely related to the Polygalaceae, Surianaceae and Quillajaceae families. Along with the cereals, some fruits and tropical roots a number of Leguminosae have been a human food for millennia. A number of species are also weedy pests in different parts of the world, including, Cytisus scoparius, Robinia pseudoacacia, Ulex europaeus, Pueraria lobata, the name Fabaceae comes from the defunct genus Faba, now included in Vicia. The term faba comes from Latin, and appears to simply mean bean, Leguminosae is an older name still considered valid, and refers to the fruit of these plants, which are called legumes. Fabaceae range in habit from giant trees to small annual herbs, plants have indeterminate inflorescences, which are sometimes reduced to a single flower. The flowers have a short hypanthium and a single carpel with a short gynophore, the Leguminosae have a wide variety of growth forms including trees, shrubs or herbaceous plants or even vines or lianas. The herbaceous plants can be annuals, biennials or perennials, without basal or terminal leaf aggregations and they are upright plants, epiphytes or vines. The latter support themselves by means of shoots that twist around a support or through cauline or foliar tendrils, plants can be heliophytes, mesophytes or xerophytes. The leaves are alternate and compound. Most often they are even- or odd-pinnately compound, often trifoliate and rarely palmately compound, in the Mimosoideae and they always have stipules, which can be leaf-like, thorn-like or be rather inconspicuous. Leaf margins are entire or, occasionally, serrate, both the leaves and the leaflets often have wrinkled pulvini to permit nastic movements. In some species, leaflets have evolved into tendrils, many species have leaves with structures that attract ants that protect the plant from herbivore insects. Extrafloral nectaries are common among the Mimosoideae and the Caesalpinioideae, and are found in some Faboideae. In some Acacia, the modified hollow stipules are inhabited by ants and are known as domatia, many Fabaceae host bacteria in their roots within structures called root nodules
9.
Faboideae
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The Faboideae are a subfamily of the flowering plant family Fabaceae or Leguminosae. An acceptable alternative name for the subfamily is Papilionoideae, or Papilionaceae when this group of plants is treated as a family and this subfamily is widely distributed, and members are adapted to a wide variety of environments. Faboideae may be trees, shrubs, or herbaceous plants, members include the pea, the sweet pea, the laburnum, and other legumes. The flowers are classically pea-shaped, and root nodulation is very common, the type genus, Faba, is a synonym of Vicia, and is listed here as Vicia. Faboideae in L. Watson and M. J. Dallwitz, the Families of Flowering Plants, Descriptions, Illustrations, Identification, Information Retrieval
10.
Genisteae
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Genisteae is a tribe of trees, shrubs and herbaceous plants in the subfamily Faboideae of the legume family Fabaceae. It includes a number of plants including broom, lupine, gorse. The tribes greatest diversity is in the Mediterranean, and most genera are native to Europe, Africa, however, the largest genus, Lupinus, is most diverse in North and South America. Anarthrophytum and Sellocharis are also South American and Aryrolobium ranges into India, the Genisteae arose 32.3 ±2.9 million years ago. The members of this tribe consistently form a clade in molecular phylogenetic analyses. Most genera in the tribe produce 5-O-methylgenistein, many genera also accumulate quinolizidine alkaloids, ammodendrine-type dipiperidine alkaloids, and macrocyclic pyrrolizidine alkaloids. Old English bróm is from a common West Germanic *bráma-, from a Germanic stem bræ̂m- of unknown origin, use of the branches of these plants for sweeping gave rise to the term broom for sweeping tools in the 15th century, gradually replacing Old English besema. Brooms tolerate poor soils and growing conditions, in cultivation they need little care, though they need good drainage and perform poorly on wet soils. They are widely used as landscape plants and also for wasteland reclamation. Tagasaste, a Canary Islands native, is grown as sheep fodder. Species of broom popular in horticulture are purple broom, Atlas broom, dwarf broom, Provence broom, many of the most popular brooms in gardens are hybrids, notably Kew broom and Warminster broom. On the east and west coasts of North America, common broom was introduced as an ornamental plant and it is known in much of the pacific northwest as Scotch broom. It has become an invasive weed, and due to its aggressive seed dispersal broom removal has proved very difficult. Similarly, it is a problem species in the cooler and wetter areas of southern Australia. Biological control for broom in New Zealand has been investigated since the mid-1980s, the Plantagenet kings used common broom as an emblem and took their name from it. It was originally the emblem of Geoffrey of Anjou, father of Henry II of England, wild broom is still common in dry habitats around Anjou, France. Charles V and his son Charles VI of France used the pod of the plant as an emblem for livery collars. Genista tinctoria, provides a yellow dye and was grown commercially for this purpose in parts of Britain into the early 19th century
11.
Carl Linnaeus
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Carl Linnaeus, also known after his ennoblement as Carl von Linné, was a Swedish botanist, physician, and zoologist, who formalised the modern system of naming organisms called binomial nomenclature. He is known by the father of modern taxonomy. Many of his writings were in Latin, and his name is rendered in Latin as Carolus Linnæus, Linnaeus was born in the countryside of Småland, in southern Sweden. He received most of his education at Uppsala University. He lived abroad between 1735 and 1738, where he studied and also published a first edition of his Systema Naturae in the Netherlands and he then returned to Sweden, where he became professor of medicine and botany at Uppsala. In the 1740s, he was sent on journeys through Sweden to find and classify plants. In the 1750s and 1760s, he continued to collect and classify animals, plants, and minerals, at the time of his death, he was one of the most acclaimed scientists in Europe. The philosopher Jean-Jacques Rousseau sent him the message, Tell him I know no man on earth. The German writer Johann Wolfgang von Goethe wrote, With the exception of Shakespeare and Spinoza, Swedish author August Strindberg wrote, Linnaeus was in reality a poet who happened to become a naturalist. Among other compliments, Linnaeus has been called Princeps botanicorum, The Pliny of the North and he is also considered as one of the founders of modern ecology. In botany, the abbreviation used to indicate Linnaeus as the authority for species names is L. In older publications, sometimes the abbreviation Linn. is found, Linnæus was born in the village of Råshult in Småland, Sweden, on 23 May 1707. He was the first child of Nicolaus Ingemarsson and Christina Brodersonia and his siblings were Anna Maria Linnæa, Sofia Juliana Linnæa, Samuel Linnæus, and Emerentia Linnæa. One of a line of peasants and priests, Nils was an amateur botanist, a Lutheran minister. Christina was the daughter of the rector of Stenbrohult, Samuel Brodersonius, a year after Linnæus birth, his grandfather Samuel Brodersonius died, and his father Nils became the rector of Stenbrohult. The family moved into the rectory from the curates house, even in his early years, Linnæus seemed to have a liking for plants, flowers in particular. Whenever he was upset, he was given a flower, which calmed him. Nils spent much time in his garden and often showed flowers to Linnaeus, soon Linnæus was given his own patch of earth where he could grow plants
12.
Synonym (taxonomy)
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For example, Linnaeus was the first to give a scientific name to the Norway spruce, which he called Pinus abies. This name is no longer in use, it is now a synonym of the current scientific name which is Picea abies, unlike synonyms in other contexts, in taxonomy a synonym is not interchangeable with the name of which it is a synonym. In taxonomy, synonyms are not equals, but have a different status, for any taxon with a particular circumscription, position, and rank, only one scientific name is considered to be the correct one at any given time. A synonym cannot exist in isolation, it is always an alternative to a different scientific name, given that the correct name of a taxon depends on the taxonomic viewpoint used a name that is one taxonomists synonym may be another taxonomists correct name. Synonyms may arise whenever the same taxon is described and named more than once, independently. They may also arise when existing taxa are changed, as when two taxa are joined to one, a species is moved to a different genus. To the general user of scientific names, in such as agriculture, horticulture, ecology, general science. A synonym is a name that was used as the correct scientific name but which has been displaced by another scientific name. Thus Oxford Dictionaries Online defines the term as a name which has the same application as another. In handbooks and general texts, it is useful to have mentioned as such after the current scientific name. Synonyms used in this way may not always meet the strict definitions of the synonym in the formal rules of nomenclature which govern scientific names. Changes of scientific name have two causes, they may be taxonomic or nomenclatural, a name change may be caused by changes in the circumscription, position or rank of a taxon, representing a change in taxonomic, scientific insight. A name change may be due to purely nomenclatural reasons, that is, based on the rules of nomenclature, the earliest such name is called the senior synonym, while the later name is the junior synonym. One basic principle of zoological nomenclature is that the earliest correctly published name, synonyms are important because if the earliest name cannot be used, then the next available junior synonym must be used for the taxon. Objective synonyms refer to taxa with the type and same rank. For example, John Edward Gray published the name Antilocapra anteflexa in 1855 for a species of pronghorn, however, it is now commonly accepted that his specimen was an unusual individual of the species Antilocapra americana published by George Ord in 1815. Ords name thus takes precedence, with Antilocapra anteflexa being a subjective synonym. Objective synonyms are common at the level of genera, because for various reasons two genera may contain the type species, these are objective synonyms
13.
Genus
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A genus is a taxonomic rank used in the biological classification of living and fossil organisms in biology. In the hierarchy of classification, genus comes above species. In binomial nomenclature, the name forms the first part of the binomial species name for each species within the genus. Felis catus and Felis silvestris are two species within the genus Felis, Felis is a genus within the family Felidae. The composition of a genus is determined by a taxonomist, the standards for genus classification are not strictly codified, so different authorities often produce different classifications for genera. Moreover, genera should be composed of units of the same kind as other genera. The term comes from the Latin genus, a noun form cognate with gignere, linnaeus popularized its use in his 1753 Species Plantarum, but the French botanist Joseph Pitton de Tournefort is considered the founder of the modern concept of genera. The scientific name of a genus may be called the name or generic epithet. It plays a role in binomial nomenclature, the system of naming organisms. The rules for the names of organisms are laid down in the Nomenclature Codes. The standard way of scientifically describing species and other lower-ranked taxa is by binomial nomenclature, the generic name forms its first half. For example, the gray wolfs binomial name is Canis lupus, with Canis being the name shared by the wolfs close relatives. The specific name is written in lower-case and may be followed by names in zoology or a variety of infraspecific names in botany. Especially with these names, when the generic name is known from context. Because animals are typically only grouped within subspecies, it is written as a trinomen with a third name. Dog breeds, meanwhile, are not scientifically distinguished, there are several divisions of plant species and therefore their infraspecific names generally include contractions explaining the relation. For example, the genus Hibiscus includes hundreds of other species apart from the Rose of Sharon or common garden hibiscus, Rose of Sharon doesnt have subspecies but has cultivars that carry desired traits, such as the bright white H. syriaca Diana. Hawaiian hibiscus, meanwhile, includes several separate species, since not all botanists agree on the divisions or names between species, it is common to specify the source of the name using author abbreviations
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Family (biology)
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In biological classification, family is one of the eight major taxonomic ranks, it is classified between order and genus. A family may be divided into subfamilies, which are intermediate ranks above the rank of genus. In vernacular usage, a family may be named one of its common members, for example, walnuts and hickory trees belong to the family Juglandaceae. What does or does not belong to a family—or whether a family should be recognized at all—are proposed and determined by practicing taxonomists. There are no rules for describing or recognizing a family. Taxonomists often take different positions about descriptions of taxa, and there may be no broad consensus across the community for some time. Some described taxa are accepted broadly and quickly, but others only rarely, if at all, the naming of families is codified by various international codes. In zoological nomenclature, the names of animals end with the suffix -idae. The concept of rank at time was not yet settled, and in the preface to the Prodromus Magnol spoke of uniting his families into larger genera. Carolus Linnaeus used the word familia in his Philosophia botanica to denote groups of plants, trees, herbs, ferns, palms. He used this term only in the section of the book. In zoology, the family as an intermediate between order and genus was introduced by Pierre André Latreille in his Précis des caractères génériques des insectes. He used families in some but not in all his orders of insects, families can be used for evolutionary, palaeontological and generic studies because they are more stable than lower taxonomic levels such as genera and species
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Species
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In biology, a species is the basic unit of biological classification and a taxonomic rank. A species is defined as the largest group of organisms in which two individuals can produce fertile offspring, typically by sexual reproduction. While this definition is often adequate, looked at more closely it is problematic, for example, with hybridisation, in a species complex of hundreds of similar microspecies, or in a ring species, the boundaries between closely related species become unclear. Other ways of defining species include similarity of DNA, morphology, all species are given a two-part name, a binomial. The first part of a binomial is the genus to which the species belongs, the second part is called the specific name or the specific epithet. For example, Boa constrictor is one of four species of the Boa genus, Species were seen from the time of Aristotle until the 18th century as fixed kinds that could be arranged in a hierarchy, the great chain of being. In the 19th century, biologists grasped that species could evolve given sufficient time, Charles Darwins 1859 book The Origin of Species explained how species could arise by natural selection. Genes can sometimes be exchanged between species by horizontal transfer, and species may become extinct for a variety of reasons. In his biology, Aristotle used the term γένος to mean a kind, such as a bird or fish, a kind was distinguished by its attributes, for instance, a bird has feathers, a beak, wings, a hard-shelled egg, and warm blood. A form was distinguished by being shared by all its members, Aristotle believed all kinds and forms to be distinct and unchanging. His approach remained influential until the Renaissance, when observers in the Early Modern period began to develop systems of organization for living things, they placed each kind of animal or plant into a context. Many of these early delineation schemes would now be considered whimsical, animals likewise that differ specifically preserve their distinct species permanently, one species never springs from the seed of another nor vice versa. In the 18th century, the Swedish scientist Carl Linnaeus classified organisms according to shared physical characteristics and he established the idea of a taxonomic hierarchy of classification based upon observable characteristics and intended to reflect natural relationships. At the time, however, it was widely believed that there was no organic connection between species, no matter how similar they appeared. However, whether or not it was supposed to be fixed, by the 19th century, naturalists understood that species could change form over time, and that the history of the planet provided enough time for major changes. Jean-Baptiste Lamarck, in his 1809 Zoological Philosophy, described the transmutation of species, proposing that a species could change over time, in 1859, Charles Darwin and Alfred Russel Wallace provided a compelling account of evolution and the formation of new species. Darwin argued that it was populations that evolved, not individuals and this required a new definition of species. Darwin concluded that species are what appear to be, ideas
16.
Thorns, spines, and prickles
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Leaf margins may also have teeth, and if those teeth are sharp, they are called spinose teeth on a spinose leaf margin. On a leaf apex, if there is a process, and if it is especially sharp, stiff. When the leaf epidermis is covered very long, stiff trichomes, it may be referred to as a hispid vestiture, if the trichomes are stinging trichomes. There can be found also spines or spinose structures derived from roots, the predominant function of thorns, spines and prickles is deterring herbivory in a mechanical form. For this reason they are classified as physical or mechanical defenses, not all functions of spines or glochids are limited to defense from physical attacks by herbivores and other animals. In some cases, spines have been shown to shade or insulate the plants that grow them, for example, saguaro cactus spines shade the apical meristem in summer, and in members of the Opuntioideae, glochids insulate the apical meristem in winter. Agrawal et al. found that seem to have little effect on specialist pollinators. Thorns are modified branches or stems and they may be simple or branched. Spines are modified leaves, stipules, or parts of leaves, some authors prefer not to distinguish spines from thorns because, like thorns, and unlike prickles, they commonly contain vascular tissue. The plants of the family are particularly well known for their dense covering of spines. Cacti often have a kind of spine called a glochidium or glochid. Prickles are comparable to hairs but can be quite coarse and they are extensions of the cortex and epidermis. Technically speaking, many plants commonly thought of as having thorns or spines actually have prickles, other similar structures are spinose teeth, spinose apical processes, and trichomes. Trichomes are often effective defenses against small insect herbivores, thorns, spines, spinescent is a term describing plants that bear any sharp structures that deter herbivory. It also can refer to the state of tending to be or become spiny in some sense or degree, there are also spines derived from roots, like the ones on the trunk of the Root Spine Palms. The trunk roots of Cryosophila guagara grow downwards to a length of 6–12 cm, then stop growing, the anatomy of crown roots on this species also alters during their life. They initially grow upwards and then turn down and finally they, too, lateral roots on these two types of roots, as well as those on the stilt roots on this species, also become spinous. Some authors believe that some of these short spiny laterals have a ventilating function so they are pneumorhizae, short spiny laterals that may have a ventilating funcion may also be found on roots of Iriartea exorrhiza
17.
Evergreen
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In botany, an evergreen is a plant that has leaves throughout the year, always green. This contrasts with deciduous plants, which lose their foliage during the winter or dry season. There are many different kinds of plants, both trees and shrubs. Deciduous trees shed their leaves, usually as an adaptation to a cold or dry/wet season, evergreen trees do lose leaves, but each tree loses its leaves gradually and not all at once. Most warm temperate climate plants are also evergreen, in cool temperate climates, fewer plants are evergreen, with a predominance of conifers, as few evergreen broadleaf plants can tolerate severe cold below about −30 °C. In areas where there is a reason for being deciduous, being evergreen is usually an adaptation to low nutrient levels, deciduous trees lose nutrients whenever they lose their leaves. In warmer areas, species such as pines and cypresses grow on poor soils. In Rhododendron, a genus with many broadleaf evergreens, several species grow in forests but are usually found on highly acidic soil where the nutrients are less available to plants. In taiga or boreal forests, it is too cold for the matter in the soil to decay rapidly, so the nutrients in the soil are less easily available to plants. These conditions favour the growth of more evergreens and make it difficult for deciduous plants to persist. In addition, the shelter provided by existing evergreen plants can make it easier for younger evergreen plants to survive cold and/or drought
18.
Shrub
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A shrub or bush is a small to medium-sized woody plant. It is distinguished from a tree by its multiple stems and shorter height, plants of many species may grow either into shrubs or trees, depending on their growing conditions. Small, low shrubs, generally less than 2 m tall, such as lavender, periwinkle, an area of cultivated shrubs in a park or a garden is known as a shrubbery. When clipped as topiary, suitable species or varieties of shrubs develop dense foliage, many shrubs respond well to renewal pruning, in which hard cutting back to a stool results in long new stems known as canes. Other shrubs respond better to selective pruning to reveal their structure, shrubs in common garden practice are generally considered broad-leaved plants, though some smaller conifers such as mountain pine and common juniper are also shrubby in structure. Species that grow into a shrubby habit may be deciduous or evergreen
19.
Iberian Peninsula
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The Iberian Peninsula /aɪˈbɪəriən pəˈnɪnsjᵿlə/, also known as Iberia /aɪˈbɪəriə/, is located in the southwest corner of Europe. The peninsula is divided between Portugal and Spain, comprising most of their territory. With an area of approximately 582,000 km2, it is the second largest European peninsula, at that time, the name did not describe a single political entity or a distinct population of people. Strabos Iberia was delineated from Keltikē by the Pyrenees and included the land mass southwest of there. The ancient Greeks reached the Iberian Peninsula, of which they had heard from the Phoenicians, hecataeus of Miletus was the first known to use the term Iberia, which he wrote about circa 500 BC. Herodotus of Halicarnassus says of the Phocaeans that it was they who made the Greeks acquainted with. According to Strabo, prior historians used Iberia to mean the country side of the Ἶβηρος as far north as the river Rhône in France. Polybius respects that limit, but identifies Iberia as the Mediterranean side as far south as Gibraltar, elsewhere he says that Saguntum is on the seaward foot of the range of hills connecting Iberia and Celtiberia. Strabo refers to the Carretanians as people of the Iberian stock living in the Pyrenees, according to Charles Ebel, the ancient sources in both Latin and Greek use Hispania and Hiberia as synonyms. The confusion of the words was because of an overlapping in political, the Latin word Hiberia, similar to the Greek Iberia, literally translates to land of the Hiberians. This word was derived from the river Ebro, which the Romans called Hiberus, hiber was thus used as a term for peoples living near the river Ebro. The first mention in Roman literature was by the annalist poet Ennius in 200 BC. Virgil refers to the Ipacatos Hiberos in his Georgics, the Roman geographers and other prose writers from the time of the late Roman Republic called the entire peninsula Hispania. As they became interested in the former Carthaginian territories, the Romans began to use the names Hispania Citerior. At the time Hispania was made up of three Roman provinces, Hispania Baetica, Hispania Tarraconensis, and Lusitania, Strabo says that the Romans use Hispania and Iberia synonymously, distinguishing between the near northern and the far southern provinces. Whatever language may generally have been spoken on the peninsula soon gave way to Latin, except for that of the Vascones, the Iberian Peninsula has always been associated with the Ebro, Ibēros in ancient Greek and Ibērus or Hibērus in Latin. The association was so known it was hardly necessary to state, for example. Pliny goes so far as to assert that the Greeks had called the whole of Spain Hiberia because of the Hiberus River, the river appears in the Ebro Treaty of 226 BC between Rome and Carthage, setting the limit of Carthaginian interest at the Ebro. The fullest description of the treaty, stated in Appian, uses Ibērus, with reference to this border, Polybius states that the native name is Ibēr, apparently the original word, stripped of its Greek or Latin -os or -us termination
20.
Shoot
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In botany, shoots consist of stems including their appendages, the leaves and lateral buds, flowering stems and flower buds. The new growth from seed germination that grows upward is a shoot where leaves will develop, in the spring, perennial plant shoots are the new growth that grows from the ground in herbaceous plants or the new stem or flower growth that grows on woody plants. In everyday speech, shoots are often synonymous with stems, stems, which are an integral component of shoots, provide an axis for buds, fruits, and leaves. Young shoots are eaten by animals because the fibres in the new growth have not yet completed secondary cell wall development, making the young shoots softer and easier to chew. As shoots grow and age, the cells develop secondary cell walls that have a hard, some plants produce toxins that make their shoots inedible or less palatable. Many woody plants have distinct short shoots and long shoots, in some angiosperms, the short shoots, also called spur shoots or fruit spurs, produce the majority of flowers and fruit. A similar pattern occurs in some conifers and in Ginkgo, although the short shoots of some such as Picea are so small that they can be mistaken for part of the leaf that they have produced. A related phenomenon is seasonal heterophylly, which involves visibly different leaves from spring growth, whereas spring growth mostly comes from buds formed the previous season, and often includes flowers, lammas growth often involves long shoots
21.
Photosynthesis
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Photosynthesis is a process used by plants and other organisms to convert light energy into chemical energy that can later be released to fuel the organisms activities. In most cases, oxygen is released as a waste product. Most plants, most algae, and cyanobacteria perform photosynthesis, such organisms are called photoautotrophs, in plants, these proteins are held inside organelles called chloroplasts, which are most abundant in leaf cells, while in bacteria they are embedded in the plasma membrane. In these light-dependent reactions, some energy is used to strip electrons from suitable substances, such as water, in the Calvin cycle, atmospheric carbon dioxide is incorporated into already existing organic carbon compounds, such as ribulose bisphosphate. Using the ATP and NADPH produced by the light-dependent reactions, the compounds are then reduced and removed to form further carbohydrates. Cyanobacteria appeared later, the oxygen they produced contributed directly to the oxygenation of the Earth. Today, the rate of energy capture by photosynthesis globally is approximately 130 terawatts. Photosynthetic organisms also convert around 100–115 thousand million tonnes of carbon into biomass per year. Photosynthetic organisms are photoautotrophs, which means that they are able to synthesize food directly from carbon dioxide, however, not all organisms that use light as a source of energy carry out photosynthesis, photoheterotrophs use organic compounds, rather than carbon dioxide, as a source of carbon. In plants, algae, and cyanobacteria, photosynthesis releases oxygen and this is called oxygenic photosynthesis and is by far the most common type of photosynthesis used by living organisms. Although there are differences between oxygenic photosynthesis in plants, algae, and cyanobacteria, the overall process is quite similar in these organisms. There are also varieties of anoxygenic photosynthesis, used mostly by certain types of bacteria. Carbon dioxide is converted into sugars in a process called carbon fixation, photosynthesis provides the energy in the form of free electrons that are used to split carbon from carbon dioxide that is then used to fix that carbon once again as carbohydrate. Carbon fixation is a redox reaction, so photosynthesis supplies the energy that drives both process. In the first stage, light-dependent reactions or light reactions capture the energy of light and use it to make the energy-storage molecules ATP, during the second stage, the light-independent reactions use these products to capture and reduce carbon dioxide. Most organisms that utilize oxygenic photosynthesis use visible light for the light-dependent reactions, some organisms employ even more radical variants of photosynthesis. Some archea use a method that employs a pigment similar to those used for vision in animals. The bacteriorhodopsin changes its configuration in response to sunlight, acting as a proton pump and this produces a proton gradient more directly, which is then converted to chemical energy
22.
Leaf
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A leaf is an organ of a vascular plant and is the principal lateral appendage of the stem. The leaves and stem together form the shoot, Leaves are collectively referred to as foliage, as in autumn foliage. Although leaves can be seen in different shapes, sizes and textures, typically a leaf is a thin, dorsiventrally flattened organ, borne above ground. Most leaves have distinctive upper surface and lower surface that differ in colour, hairiness, broad, flat leaves with complex venation are known as megaphylls and the species that bear them, the majority, as broad-leaved or megaphyllous plants. In others, such as the clubmosses, with different evolutionary origins, some leaves, such as bulb scales are not above ground, and in many aquatic species the leaves are submerged in water. Succulent plants often have thick juicy leaves, but some leaves are without major photosynthetic function and may be dead at maturity, as in some cataphylls, furthermore, several kinds of leaf-like structures found in vascular plants are not totally homologous with them. Examples include flattened plant stems called phylloclades and cladodes, and flattened leaf stems called phyllodes which differ from both in their structure and origin. Many structures of plants, such as the phyllids of mosses and liverworts and even of some foliose lichens. Leaves are the most important organs of most vascular plants and these are then further processed by chemical synthesis into more complex organic molecules such as cellulose, the basic structural material in plant cell walls. The plant must therefore bring these three together in the leaf for photosynthesis to take place. Once sugar has been synthesized, it needs to be transported to areas of growth such as the plant shoots and roots. Vascular plants transport sucrose in a tissue called the phloem. The phloem and xylem are parallel to each other but the transport of materials is usually in opposite directions. Within the leaf these vascular systems branch to form veins which supply as much as the leaf as possible and they are arranged on the plant so as to expose their surfaces to light as efficiently as possible without shading each other, but there are many exceptions and complications. For instance plants adapted to windy conditions may have pendent leaves, such as in many willows, the flat, or laminar, shape also maximises thermal contact with the surrounding air, promoting cooling. Functionally, in addition to photosynthesis the leaf is the site of transpiration and guttation. Many gymnosperms have thin needle-like or scale-like leaves that can be advantageous in cold climates with frequent snow and these are interpreted as reduced from megaphyllous leaves of their Devonian ancestors. For xerophytes the major constraint is not light flux or intensity, some window plants such as Fenestraria species and some Haworthia species such as Haworthia tesselata and Haworthia truncata are examples of xerophytes. and Bulbine mesembryanthemoides
23.
Glossary of leaf morphology
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The following is a defined list of terms which are used to describe leaf morphology in the description and taxonomy of plants. Leaves may be simple or compound, the edge of the leaf may be regular or irregular, may be smooth or bearing hair, bristles or spines. For more terms describing other aspects of leaves besides their overall morphology see the leaf article, leaves of most plants include a flat structure called the blade or lamina, but not all leaves are flat, some are cylindrical. Leaves may be simple, with a leaf blade, or compound. In flowering plants, as well as the blade of the leaf, there may be a petiole and stipules, leaf structure is described by several terms that include, Being one of the more visible features, leaf shape is commonly used for plant identification. Edge and margin are both interchangeable in the sense that they refer to the perimeter of a leaf. Leaves may also be folded or rolled in various ways, the folding of leaves within a bud is vernation, ptyxis is the folding of an individual leaf in a bud
24.
Ulex europaeus
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Growing to 2–3 metres tall, it is an evergreen shrub. The young stems are green, with the shoots and leaves modified into green spines, young seedlings produce normal leaves for the first few months, these are trifoliate, resembling a small clover leaf. The flowers are yellow, 1–2 centimetres long, with the pea-flower structure typical of the Fabaceae, they are produced throughout the year, seeds remain viable for 30 years. It has a tap root, lateral and adventious roots, an extremely tough and hardy plant, it can live for about thirty years. Common gorse is also a species in the montane grasslands of Horton Plains National Park in Sri Lanka. It outcompetes native, endemic species and is a fire hazard, biological pest control is used on this plant in many areas. The gorse spider mite and the seed weevil reduce the spread of the plant. This plant is used for hedging, boundary definition and groundcover in suitably sunny, cultivars include Strictus, a dwarf form, and the double-flowered, non-fruiting Flore Pleno, which has gained the Royal Horticultural Societys Award of Garden Merit. Bruised gorse was used in areas for feeding to horses. Lectin extracted from seeds of this species binds to, is specific for. It fixes nitrogen into the soil, gorse in New Zealand Jepson Manual Treatment USDA Plants Profile Washington Burke Museum Photo gallery
25.
Ulex gallii
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It favours acidic heathy soils and is frequently found in exposed maritime and montane environments. Ulex gallii is usually 10 to 50 centimetres tall although it may grow up to 2 metres, the stems are modified into spines, mostly about 1 centimetre long, but with some regularly spaced recurved spines of about 3 centimetres. Like other members of the genus Ulex it has trifoliate leaves as a seedling, the stems are green, and almost wholly replace the leaves as the plants functioning photosynthetic organs. The flowers are yellow,1 to 2 centimetres long, with the typical structure, they are produced principally in the late summer and autumn. The fruit is a legume, partly enclosed by the brown remnants of the flower
26.
Atlantic Ocean
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The Atlantic Ocean is the second largest of the worlds oceans with a total area of about 106,460,000 square kilometres. It covers approximately 20 percent of the Earths surface and about 29 percent of its surface area. It separates the Old World from the New World, the Atlantic Ocean occupies an elongated, S-shaped basin extending longitudinally between Eurasia and Africa to the east, and the Americas to the west. The Equatorial Counter Current subdivides it into the North Atlantic Ocean, in contrast, the term Atlantic originally referred specifically to the Atlas Mountains in Morocco and the sea off the Strait of Gibraltar and the North African coast. The Greek word thalassa has been reused by scientists for the huge Panthalassa ocean that surrounded the supercontinent Pangaea hundreds of years ago. The term Aethiopian Ocean, derived from Ancient Ethiopia, was applied to the Southern Atlantic as late as the mid-19th century, many Irish or British people refer to the United States and Canada as across the pond, and vice versa. The Black Atlantic refers to the role of ocean in shaping black peoples history. Irish migration to the US is meant when the term The Green Atlantic is used, the term Red Atlantic has been used in reference to the Marxian concept of an Atlantic working class, as well as to the Atlantic experience of indigenous Americans. Correspondingly, the extent and number of oceans and seas varies, the Atlantic Ocean is bounded on the west by North and South America. It connects to the Arctic Ocean through the Denmark Strait, Greenland Sea, Norwegian Sea, to the east, the boundaries of the ocean proper are Europe, the Strait of Gibraltar and Africa. In the southeast, the Atlantic merges into the Indian Ocean, the 20° East meridian, running south from Cape Agulhas to Antarctica defines its border. In the 1953 definition it extends south to Antarctica, while in later maps it is bounded at the 60° parallel by the Southern Ocean, the Atlantic has irregular coasts indented by numerous bays, gulfs, and seas. Including these marginal seas the coast line of the Atlantic measures 111,866 km compared to 135,663 km for the Pacific. Including its marginal seas, the Atlantic covers an area of 106,460,000 km2 or 23. 5% of the ocean and has a volume of 310,410,900 km3 or 23. 3%. Excluding its marginal seas, the Atlantic covers 81,760,000 km2 and has a volume of 305,811,900 km3, the North Atlantic covers 41,490,000 km2 and the South Atlantic 40,270,000 km2. The average depth is 3,646 m and the maximum depth, the bathymetry of the Atlantic is dominated by a submarine mountain range called the Mid-Atlantic Ridge. It runs from 87°N or 300 km south of the North Pole to the subantarctic Bouvet Island at 42°S, the MAR divides the Atlantic longitudinally into two halves, in each of which a series of basins are delimited by secondary, transverse ridges. The MAR reaches above 2000 m along most of its length, the MAR is a barrier for bottom water, but at these two transform faults deep water currents can pass from one side to the other
27.
Heath
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A heath is a shrubland habitat found mainly on free-draining infertile, acidic soils and is characterised by open, low-growing woody vegetation. Moorland is generally related to high-ground heaths with—especially in Great Britain—a cooler, heaths are widespread worldwide, but are fast disappearing and considered a rare habitat in Europe. They form extensive and highly diverse communities across Australia in humid and sub-humid areas where fire regimes with recurring burning are required for the maintenance of the heathlands, even more diverse though less widespread heath communities occur in Southern Africa. Extensive heath communities can also be found in the California chaparral, New Caledonia, central Chile, in addition to these extensive heath areas, the vegetation type is also found in scattered locations across all continents, except Antarctica. Heaths are dominated by low shrubs,20 centimetres to 2 metres tall, heath vegetation can be extremely plant-species rich, and heathlands of Australia are home to some 3,700 endemic or typical species in addition to numerous less restricted species. The fynbos heathlands of South Africa are second only to tropical rainforests in plant biodiversity with over 7,000 species, in marked contrast, the tiny pockets of heathland in Europe are extremely depauperate with a flora consisting primarily of heather, heath and gorse. The bird fauna of heathlands are usually species of the region. In the depauperate heathlands of Europe bird species tend to be characteristic of the community and include Montagus harrier. Australian heathlands are also home to the worlds only nectar-feeding terrestrial mammal, the bird fauna of the South African fynbos includes sunbirds, warblers and siskins. Heathlands are also an excellent habitat for insects including ants, moths, butterflies and these heaths were originally created or expanded by centuries of human clearance of the natural forest and woodland vegetation, by grazing and burning. Referring to heathland in England, Rackham says, “Heaths are clearly the product of human activities and need to be managed as heathland, in recent years the conservation value of even these man-made heaths has become much more appreciated, and consequently most heathlands are protected. However they are threatened by tree incursion because of the discontinuation of traditional management techniques such as grazing and burning that mediated the landscapes. Some are also threatened by urban sprawl, anthropogenic heathlands are maintained artificially by a combination of grazing and periodic burning, or mowing, if not so maintained, they are rapidly re-colonised by forest or woodland. The re-colonising tree species will depend on what is available as the seed source. Bolster heath Chalk heath Garrigue Maquis shrubland Matorral Scrubland The Countryside Agency information on types of open land Origin of the word heath
28.
Ulex minor
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Ulex minor, Dwarf Furze or Dwarf Gorse is an evergreen dwarf shrub in the family Fabaceae, native to eastern England, France, Spain and Portugal. It is restricted to heathland habitats. It normally grows about 30 centimetres tall, although in shaded, ungrazed conditions it may reach 1 metre and it is a low-growing shrub, forming small bushes or often growing mingled with heather. The leaves are limited to scales or small spines, and the shoots are modified into rather soft, green, densely crowded spines, about 1 cm long. The flowers are yellow, 1–2 cm long, with the typical structure, they are produced principally in the late summer and autumn. The fruit is a legume, partly enclosed by the brown remnants of the flower. Due to its relatively soft spines, Dwarf Furze is readily grazed by livestock, the distributions of Dwarf Furze and its close relative Western Gorse hardly overlap, even in similar habitats
29.
Habit (biology)
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Habitus refers to the characteristic form or morphology of a species. In botany habit is the form in which a given species of plant grows. In zoology, habit usually refers to a behavior pattern, either adopted, learned, pathological, innate. For example. the was in the habit of springing upon the in order to gain admission, if these sensitive parrots are kept in cages, they quickly take up the habit of feather plucking. The spider monkey has a habit and rarely ventures onto the forest floor. The brittlestar has the habit of breaking off arms as a means of defense, mode of life is a concept related to habit, and it sometimes is referred to as the habit of an animal. It may refer to the capabilities, as in, feeding behaviour and mechanisms, nutrition mode, type of habitat, period of activity, types of ecological interaction. The habits of plants and animals often change in response to changes in their environment. For example, if a species develops a disease or there is a change of habitat or local climate, or it is removed to a different region. Such changes may be pathological, or adaptive. In botany, habit is the appearance, growth form. For example, Many species of maple have a shrubby habit, certain alpine plants have been chosen for cultivation because of their dwarf habit. Plants may be woody or herbaceous, the main types of woody plants are trees, shrubs and lianas. Climbing plants can be woody or herbaceous, plants can also be categorized in terms of their habit as subshrubs, cushion plants and succulents. There is some overlap between the classifications of plants according to their habit and their life-form, other terms in biology refer similarly to various taxa, for example, Fungi are described by their growth patterns, molds, yeasts, mushrooms and dimorphic fungi. Lichens structure is described their form, foliose, crustose, fruticose or gelatinous. Bryophytes structure is described as foliose or thallose, the structure of a given species of algae is referred to as its type or level of organization. Bacteria are described by their morphology or shape, Animal structure is described by its body plan, which encompasses the body symmetry, the type of germ layers and of body cavities
30.
Ecological succession
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Ecological succession is the process of change in the species structure of an ecological community over time. The time scale can be decades, or even millions of years after a mass extinction, the community begins with relatively few pioneering plants and animals and develops through increasing complexity until it becomes stable or self-perpetuating as a climax community. The ʺengineʺ of succession, the cause of change, is the impact of established species upon their own environments. A consequence of living is the subtle and sometimes overt alteration of ones own environment. It is a phenomenon or process by which an ecological community undergoes more or less orderly, Succession was among the first theories advanced in ecology. The study of remains at the core of ecological science. Ecological succession was first documented in the Indiana Dunes of Northwest Indiana which led to efforts to preserve the Indiana Dunes, exhibits on ecological succession are displayed in the Hour Glass, a museum in Ogden Dunes. Precursors of the idea of ecological succession go back to the beginning of the 19th century, the French naturalist Adolphe Dureau de la Malle was the first to make use of the word succession concerning the vegetation development after forest clear-cutting. In 1859 Henry David Thoreau wrote an address called The Succession of Forest Trees in which he described succession in an oak-pine forest. It has long known to observers that squirrels bury nuts in the ground. The Austrian botanist Anton Kerner published a study about the succession of plants in the Danube river basin in 1863, Henry Chandler Cowles, at the University of Chicago, developed a more formal concept of succession. Inspired by studies of Danish dunes by Eugen Warming, Cowles studied vegetation development on sand dunes on the shores of Lake Michigan and he recognized that vegetation on dunes of different ages might be interpreted as different stages of a general trend of vegetation development on dunes. He first published work as a paper in the Botanical Gazette in 1899. Clements and his followers developed a taxonomy of communities and successional pathways. Henry Gleason offered a contrasting framework as early as the 1920s, the Gleasonian model was more complex and much less deterministic than the Clementsian. It differs most fundamentally from the Clementsian view in suggesting a greater role of chance factors and in denying the existence of coherent. Gleason argued that species distributions responded individualistically to environmental factors, gleasons ideas, first published in 1926, were largely ignored until the late 1950s. Two quotes illustrate the contrasting views of Clements and Gleason, Clements wrote in 1916, The developmental study of vegetation necessarily rests upon the assumption that the unit or climax formation is an organic entity
31.
Nitrogen fixation
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Nitrogen fixation is a process by which nitrogen in the Earths atmosphere is converted into ammonia or other molecules available to living organisms. Atmospheric nitrogen or molecular dinitrogen is relatively inert, it does not easily react with chemicals to form new compounds. The fixation process frees nitrogen atoms from their triply bonded diatomic form, N≡N, therefore, as part of the nitrogen cycle, it is essential for agriculture and the manufacture of fertilizer. It is also, indirectly, relevant to the manufacture of all compounds that contain nitrogen. Nitrogen fixation occurs naturally in the soil by nitrogen fixing bacteria, some nitrogen-fixing bacteria have very close relationships with plants, referred to as symbiotic nitrogen fixation. Looser relationships between nitrogen-fixing bacteria and plants are referred to as associative or non-symbiotic, as seen in nitrogen fixation occurring on rice roots. It also occurs naturally in the air by means of lightning, all biological nitrogen fixation is done by way of metalloenzymes called nitrogenases. These enzymes contain iron, often with a metal, usually molybdenum. Microorganisms that can fix nitrogen are prokaryotes called diazotrophs, some higher plants, and some animals, have formed associations with diazotrophs. Nitrogen can be fixed by lightning converting nitrogen and oxygen into NOx, NOx may react with water to make nitric acid, which may end up in the soil, where it makes nitrate, which is of use to growing plants. Biological nitrogen fixation was discovered by the German agronomist Hermann Hellriegel, biological nitrogen fixation occurs when atmospheric nitrogen is converted to ammonia by an enzyme called a nitrogenase. The overall reaction for BNF is, N2 +8 H+ +8 e− →2 NH3 + H2 The process is coupled to the hydrolysis of 16 equivalents of ATP and is accompanied by the co-formation of one molecule of H2. The conversion of N2 into ammonia occurs at a cluster called FeMoco, the mechanism proceeds via a series of protonation and reduction steps wherein the FeMoco active site hydrogenates the N2 substrate. In free-living diazotrophs, the ammonium is assimilated into glutamate through the glutamine synthetase/glutamate synthase pathway. The microbial genes required for nitrogen fixation are widely distributed in diverse environments, enzymes responsible for nitrogenase action are very susceptible to destruction by oxygen. For this reason, many bacteria cease production of the enzyme in the presence of oxygen, many nitrogen-fixing organisms exist only in anaerobic conditions, respiring to draw down oxygen levels, or binding the oxygen with a protein such as leghemoglobin. Diazotrophs are a group of prokaryotes that includes cyanobacteria, green sulfur bacteria, along with Azotobacteraceae. Cyanobacteria inhabit nearly all illuminated environments on Earth and play key roles in the carbon, in general, cyanobacteria are able to utilize a variety of inorganic and organic sources of combined nitrogen, like nitrate, nitrite, ammonium, urea, or some amino acids
32.
Dartford warbler
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The Dartford warbler is a typical warbler from the warmer parts of western Europe and northwestern Africa. It is a small warbler with a thin tail and a thin pointed bill. The adult male has grey-brown upperparts and is dull reddish-brown below except for the centre of the belly which has a dirty white patch and it has light speckles on the throat and a red eye-ring. The sexes are similar but the female is usually less grey above. Its breeding range lies west of a line from southern England to the heel of Italy, the Dartford warbler is usually resident all year in its breeding range, but there is some limited migration. The Dartford warbler was first described by the Welsh naturalist Thomas Pennant from two specimens that were shot in April 1773 on Bexley Heath near Dartford in Kent, the current genus name is from Modern Latin silvia, a woodland sprite, related to silva, a wood. The specific undata is from Medieval Latin undatus, with wavy markings, the type locality of the Dartford warbler is Provence in France. This species probably forms a superspecies with Tristrams warbler and this in turn close to Marmoras warbler. Altogether, this group of typical warblers bears a resemblance to the wrentit, however the wrentit is less closely related to the genus Sylvia than to the parrotbills. Its visual similarity to the Dartford warbler group is an example of convergent evolution and its plumage comprises unobtrusive and muted tones, which blend in with the dry dead plants, old wood or sunny greyish wood found in its preferred habitats. Like many typical warblers, the Dartford warbler has distinct male and female plumages, the male has a grey back and head, reddish underparts, and a red eye. The reddish throat is spotted with white, the sides are a dull greyish tone, being more clear about the abdomen. In some populations males have bluish-grey or brownish-grey backs and heads, the female is paler below, especially on the throat, and a browner grey above. The females throat also has spots, although they are smaller. Juvenile birds are similar to females, the largest European populations of Sylvia undata are in the Iberian peninsula, others in much of France, in Italy and southern England and south Wales. In Africa it can be only in small areas in the north, wintering in northern Morocco. Dartford warblers first breed when they are one year old and they are usually monogamous and the pair bond can persist from one year to the next. The male sometimes builds several nests of which one is chosen by the female
33.
European stonechat
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The European stonechat is a small passerine bird that was formerly classed as a subspecies of the common stonechat. Long considered a member of the family, Turdidae, genetic evidence has placed it and its relatives in the Old World flycatcher family. Two weakly defined subspecies are accepted, Saxicola rubicola rubicola. In the south and east of its range, from Denmark southwest to Spain and northern Morocco, east to Poland and Ukraine, northwestern Europe in Atlantic coastal areas, in southwestern Norway, Great Britain, Ireland and northwestern France. Birds in coastal Portugal are also listed as this subspecies. They intergrade broadly where their ranges meet, from southeastern England south through France and Spain, NDNA microsatellite fingerprinting reveals a very small degree of separation between the two subspecies. In the past, the European stonechat was generally considered conspecific with the Siberian stonechat and African stonechat, a new review adding mtDNA cytochrome b sequence and nuclear DNA microsatellite fingerprinting evidence strongly supports their separation into distinct species. The etymology of the English name derives from its call, sounding like two stones knocked together, the stonechat is 11. 5–13 cm long and weighs 13–17 g, slightly smaller than the European robin. Both sexes have short wings, shorter than those of the more migratory whinchat. The summer male has black upperparts, a head, an orange throat and breast. It also has a white half-collar on the sides of its neck, a white scapular patch on the wings. European stonechats breed in heathland, coastal dunes and rough grassland with scattered shrubs and bramble, open gorse. They are short-distance migrants or non-migratory, with part of the population moving south to winter south in Europe. The males song is high and twittering like a dunnock, both sexes have a clicking call like stones knocking together. In 2015, John Callion published the results of his 25-year study of the bird in British Birds, ageing and sexing by Javier Blasco-Zumeta & Gerd-Michael Heinze
34.
Whinchat
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The whinchat is a small migratory passerine bird breeding in Europe and western Asia and wintering in central Africa. At one time considered to be in family, Turdidae, it is now placed in the Old World flycatcher family. The whinchat is a species, favouring open grassy country with rough vegetation. It perches in elevated locations ready to pounce on the insects, the nest is built by the female on the ground in coarse vegetation, with a clutch of four to seven eggs being laid. The hen incubates the eggs for about thirteen days and then both feed the nestlings. Fledging takes place about eighteen days after hatching and the continue to feed the young for another fortnight. Moulting takes place in summer before the migration southwards. The whinchat is a species with a wide range and the International Union for Conservation of Nature has classified it as being of least concern. This species represents a basal divergence of the genus Saxicola. It retains the supercilium found in many Muscicapidae but lost in the more derived Saxicola species such as the European stonechat or African stonechat. As with other species of Saxicola, it was considered a member of the thrush family. It, and similar thrush-like Muscicapidae species, are often called chats, the English name is derived from whin, the common gorse and chat referring to the nature of its calls. Its scientific name means small rock-dweller, in reference to its habitat, Saxicola derives from Latin saxum + incola, rubetra is a Latin term for a small bird. Very rarely, hybridisation occurs between the whinchat and the Siberian stonechat, with a case being reported in Finland in 1997 and it has also been reported to hybridise with the European stonechat in western and southern Europe. The whinchat is a bird, moving on the ground with small, rapid hops and frequently bobbing and flicking its wings. It is similar in size to its relative the European robin, both sexes have brownish upperparts mottled darker, a buff throat and breast, a pale buff to whitish belly, and a blackish tail with white bases to the outer tail feathers. The female is overall, in particular having browner face mask, pale buffy-brown breast, and a buff supercilium and malar stripe. Males in immature and winter plumage are similar to females, except that adult males retain the wing patches all year round
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Caterpillar
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Caterpillars /ˈkætərˌpɪlər/ are the larval stage of members of the order Lepidoptera. As with most common names, the application of the word is arbitrary, caterpillars of most species are herbivorous, but not all, some are insectivorous, even cannibalistic. Some feed on other products, for example clothes moths feed on wool. Caterpillars as a rule are voracious feeders and many of them are among the most serious of agricultural pests. In fact many moth species are best known in their caterpillar stages because of the damage cause to fruits and other agricultural produce, whereas the moths are obscure. Conversely, various species of caterpillar are valued as sources of silk, as human or animal food, the origins of the word caterpillar date from the early 16th century. They derive from Middle English catirpel, catirpeller, probably an alteration of Old North French catepelose, cate, cat + pelose, caterpillars have soft bodies that can grow rapidly between moults. Only the head capsule is hardened, the mandibles are tough and sharp for chewing leaves. Behind the mandibles of the caterpillar are the spinnerets, for manipulating silk, antennae are present on either side of the labrum, but small and relatively inconspicuous. Some larvae of the Hymenoptera order can appear like the caterpillars of the Lepidoptera, such larvae are mainly seen in the sawfly family. Caterpillars can be confused with the larvae of sawflies, lepidopteran larvae can be differentiated by, the numbers of pairs of pro-legs, sawfly larvae have 6 while caterpillars have up to 5 pairs. The number of stemmata, the larvae have only two, while a caterpillar has six. The presence of crochets on the prolegs, these are absent in the Symphyta, sawfly larvae have an invariably smooth head capsule with no cleavage lines, while lepidopterous caterpillars bear an inverted Y or V. Many animals feed on caterpillars as they are rich in protein, as a result, caterpillars have evolved various means of defense. The appearance of a caterpillar can often repel a predator, its markings and certain body parts can make it seem poisonous, or bigger in size and thus threatening, some types of caterpillars are indeed poisonous. Caterpillars have evolved defenses against physical conditions such as cold, hot or dry environmental conditions, some Arctic species like Gynaephora groenlandica have special basking and aggregation behaviours apart from physiological adaptations to remain in a dormant state. Many caterpillars are cryptically colored and resemble the plants on which they feed and they may even have parts that mimic plant parts such as thorns. Their size varies from as little as 1 mm to about 75 millimetres, some look like objects in the environment such as bird droppings
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Double-striped pug
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The double-striped pug is a moth of the family Geometridae. It is a widespread and common species, being found throughout the Palearctic region, including the Near East, the inner margin of the pale white sub-marginal line bears black marks. The hindwings are grey with darker fringes, darker lines. Later broods are more heavily marked. It flies at night and is attracted to light and flowers, the larva feeds on the flowers of a huge range of plants and has also been known to feed on the larvae of other Lepidoptera. The species overwinters as a pupa, collins Guide to the Insects of Britain and Western Europe. Colour Identification Guide to Moths of the British Isles
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Moth
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Moths comprise a group of insects related to butterflies, belonging to the order Lepidoptera. Most lepidopterans are moths, and there are thought to be approximately 160,000 species of moth, most species of moth are nocturnal, but there are also crepuscular and diurnal species. While the butterflies form a group, the moths, comprising the rest of the Lepidoptera. Moth antennae can be varied in appearance, but in particular lack the club end. The divisions are named by this principle, club-antennae or varied-antennae, the modern English word moth comes from Old English moððe from Common Germanic. Moth larvae, or caterpillars, make cocoons from which emerge as fully grown moths with wings. Some moth caterpillars dig holes in the ground, where they live until they are ready to turn into adult moths, moths evolved long before butterflies, fossils having been found that may be 190 million years old. Both types of lepidoptera are thought to have evolved along with flowering plants, mainly because most modern species feed on flowering plants, one of the earliest species thought to be a moth-ancestor is Archaeolepis mane, whose fossil fragments show scaled wings similar to caddisflies in their veining. Some moths, particularly their caterpillars, can be agricultural pests in many parts of the world. Examples include corn borers and bollworms, the caterpillar of the gypsy moth causes severe damage to forests in the northeastern United States, where it is an invasive species. In temperate climates, the codling moth causes extensive damage, especially to fruit farms, in tropical and subtropical climates, the diamondback moth is perhaps the most serious pest of brassicaceous crops. Several moths in the family Tineidae are commonly regarded as pests because their larvae eat fabric such as clothes and they are less likely to eat mixed materials containing some artificial fibers. There are some reports that they may be repelled by the scent of wood from juniper and cedar, by lavender, or by natural oils, however. Naphthalene is considered effective, but there are concerns over its effects on human health. Moth larvae may be killed by freezing the items which they infest for several days at a temperature below −8 °C, despite being notorious for eating clothing, most moth adults do not eat at all. Many, like the Luna, Polyphemus, Atlas, Promethea, cecropia, among those adult moths that do eat, they will drink nectar. Some moths are farmed for their economic value, the most notable of these is the silkworm, the larva of the domesticated moth Bombyx mori. It is farmed for the silk with which it builds its cocoon, as of 2002, the silk industry produces more than 130 million kilograms of raw silk, worth about 250 million U. S. dollars, each year
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Coleophoridae
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The Coleophoridae are a family of large moths, belonging to the huge superfamily Gelechioidea. Collectively known as case-bearers, casebearing moths or case moths, this family is represented on all continents and these micromoths are generally of slender build, and like in many of their relatives, the margins of their wings usually consist of a fringe of hairs. The tiny caterpillar larvae feed internally on the leaves, flowers. When they emerge to feed externally, they construct a protective silken case, discarded and built anew as they grow. The common names of the Coleophoridae refer to this habit, the bagworm moths, which also belong to the primitive Ditrysia, build similar cases as larvae. As opposed to these, though, the females leave their cases to pupate and have normally developed wings as adults. About 95% of the over 1,000 described species have been placed in the wastebin genus Coleophora, regarding the familys circumscription versus other Gelechioidea, it is by now far less disputed than usual for this superfamily. The Blastobasidae, Momphidae, Pterolonchidae, and Symmocidae have formerly included in the Coleophoridae as subfamilies. Australian Biological Resources Study, Australian Faunal Directory – Coleophoridae, pitkin, Brian & Jenkins, Paul, Butterflies and Moths of the World, Generic Names and their Type-species – Coleophora. Savela, Markku, Markku Savelas Lepidoptera and some life forms – Coleophoridae. Tree of Life Web Project, Coleophoridae
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Coleophora albicosta
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The testaceous white-back is a moth of the Coleophoridae family. It is found in most of western Europe, the wingspan is about 14 mm. Adults are on wing from June to July and they fly by day, but also sometimes come to light at night. The larvae feed on Ulex europaeus, first it feeds on green seeds inside a seedpod. Then it lives in a detached sepal rolled into a case, finally, it diapauses full-fed in a silk case in a dead flower and pupates in the overwintering case
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Oecophoridae
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Oecophoridae is a family of small moths in the superfamily Gelechioidea. The phylogeny and systematics of gelechoid moths are not fully resolved. But this approach might make Elachistidae highly paraphyletic, other authors go as far as to expand the Oecophoridae beyond the delimitation used here, including also such groups as the Ethmiidae and Xyloryctidae. The latter may indeed be part of a monophyletic Oecophoridae, but more research is required, the mysterious genus Aeolanthes is also sometimes included in the Oecophoridae, but its actual relationships are quite obscure. Other pest species include the black-headed caterpillar on coconut palms in India, concealer moths have also been put to useful service. Data related to Oecophoridae at Wikispecies Hodges, R. W, handbuch der Zoologie/Handbook of Zoology, 131–158. Walter de Gruyter, Berlin & New York, ISBN 3-11-015704-7 Savela, Markku, Markku Savelas Lepidoptera and some other life forms – Oecophoridae. Tree of Life Web Project, Oecophoridae
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Corral Bay
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Corral Bay is a bay in the mouth of the Valdivia River, southern Chile. Its main towns are Corral and Niebla, the mouth of the bay is between Juan Latorre point and Morro Gonzalo, with a width of 5.5 km. All the year the bay is transited by merchant, transport, the bay is famous for being one of the most fortified bays in Spanish America in colonial time
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Zona Sur
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The Zona Sur is one of the five natural regions on which CORFO divided continental Chile in 1950. Its northern border is formed by the Bío-Bío River, the limit with the Central Chile Zone, by west with the Pacific Ocean, by the east with the Andean mountains and Argentina. Its southern border is the Chacao Channel, beyond it lies the Austral Zone, while Chiloé Archipelago belongs geographically to Zona Austral in terms of culture and history it lies closer to Zona Sur. Although many lovely lakes can be found in the Andean and coastal regions of central Chile, Southern Chile stretches from below the Río Bío-Bío at about 37° south latitude to below Isla de Chiloé at about 43. 4° south latitude. They drain into the ocean through rivers, some of which are the only ones in the whole country that are navigable for any stretch. The Central Valleys southernmost portion is submerged in the ocean and forms the Golfo de Ancud, Isla de Chiloé, with its rolling hills, is the last important elevation of the coastal range of mountains. The lakes in this region are remarkably beautiful, the snow-covered Andes form a constant backdrop to vistas of clear blue or even turquoise waters, as at Lago Todos los Santos. The rivers that descend from the Andes rush over volcanic rocks, forming numerous white-water sections, the vegetation, including many ferns in the shady areas, is a lush green. Some sections still consist of forests, and in all seasons. The pastures in the northernmost section, around Osorno, are suited for raising cattle, milk, cheese. The lumber industry is also important, a number of tourists, mainly Chileans and Argentines, visit the area during the summer. The climate of Southern Chile is rainy with a Mediterranean precipitation pattern, the windward slopes of the Chilean Coast Range and the Andes receive up to 3000–5000 mm of precipitation annually. Behind the Chilean Coast range there is a rain shadow while behind the Andes, in Argentina. The zone lies in the mid-latitudes and is influenced by the Westerlies. During the summer the South Pacific High moves into the area, the natural vegetation of Southern Chile is mainly the Valdivian temperate rainforests. These forest are characterized by trees, chiefly evergreen Nothofagus. The understory is made of vines, hanging vines, bushes, small trees, moss, dead trunks, despite of being largely evergreen the Valdivian temperate rainforests do contain a number of deciduous tree species like Nothofagus obliqua and Nothofagus alpina. Other vegetations types of southern Chile include Fitzroya forests, Araucaria forests, a number of small mammals inhabit Southern Chile including the pudú, coypu and Darwins fox
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Gorse in New Zealand
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Gorse is a major invasive plant species in New Zealand and millions of dollars are spent on its control. Gorse is one of the most widely recognised agricultural weeds in New Zealand and it covers 700,000 hectares at varying densities — a total of 5% of the land area of New Zealand when excluding existing indigenous forest, vegetated sub-alpine and alpine areas. The seed can lie dormant on the ground for up to 50 years, unfortunately, most methods of removing adult gorse plants, such as burning or bulldozing them, create the ideal conditions for the gorse seeds to germinate. Large spreading infestations over hundreds of hectares resulted, peaking in the late 1940s, gorse became New Zealands most costly weed to control and total eradication with current technology seems impossible. Gorse has been found to form a useful nursery for many species for native bush regeneration, when young, gorse bushes are very dense. As they grow older, they become leggy, and provide the conditions for native seeds to germinate. The native seedlings grow up through the gorse, cutting out its light and this technique is working successfully and within a short time frame at Hinewai Reserve on Banks Peninsula. Gorse has been used for hedges and windbreaks on the Canterbury Plains since the 1850s and these windbreaks have a combined length of 300,000 kilometres. Biological control of gorse has been investigated since the 1920s, seven different agents have been released in New Zealand. Results have been mixed, but in neither the seed-feeding nor foliage-feeding insects are doing enough damage to be viable as a stand-alone control agent. Agriculture in New Zealand Conservation in New Zealand Pesticides in New Zealand Ulex europaeus at the Royal New Zealand Institute of Horticulture
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Invasive species
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One study pointed out widely divergent perceptions of the criteria for invasive species among researchers and concerns with the subjectivity of the term invasive. Such invasive species may be either plants or animals and may disrupt by dominating a region, wilderness areas, particular habitats and this includes non-native invasive plant species labeled as exotic pest plants and invasive exotics growing in native plant communities. It has been used in this sense by government organizations as well as groups such as the International Union for Conservation of Nature. The European Union defines Invasive Alien Species as those that are, firstly, outside their natural distribution area and it is also used by land managers, botanists, researchers, horticulturalists, conservationists, and the public for noxious weeds. The kudzu vine, Andean Pampas grass, and yellow starthistle are examples, an alternate usage broadens the term to include indigenous or native species along with non-native species, that have colonized natural areas. Deer are an example, considered to be overpopulating their native zones and adjacent suburban gardens, by some in the Northeastern, sometimes the term is used to describe a non-native or introduced species that has become widespread. However, not every introduced species has adverse effects on the environment, a nonadverse example is the common goldfish, which is found throughout the United States, but rarely achieves high densities. Scientists include species and ecosystem factors among the mechanisms that when combined, while all species compete to survive, invasive species appear to have specific traits or specific combinations of traits that allow them to outcompete native species. In some cases, the competition is about rates of growth, in other cases, species interact with each other more directly. Researchers disagree about the usefulness of traits as invasiveness markers, one study found that of a list of invasive and noninvasive species, 86% of the invasive species could be identified from the traits alone. Another study found invasive species tended to have only a subset of the presumed traits. Repeated patterns of movement, such as ships sailing to and from ports or cars driving up. An introduced species might become if it can outcompete native species for resources such as nutrients, light, physical space, water. If these species evolved under great competition or predation, then the new environment may host fewer able competitors, allowing the invader to proliferate quickly. Ecosystems in which are being used to their fullest capacity by native species can be modeled as zero-sum systems in which any gain for the invader is a loss for the native, however, such unilateral competitive superiority is not the rule. For example, barbed goatgrass was introduced to California on serpentine soils, which have low water-retention, low nutrient levels, a high magnesium/calcium ratio, and possible heavy metal toxicity. Plant populations on these soils tend to low density, but goatgrass can form dense stands on these soils. Some species, like Kalanchoe daigremontana, produce allelopathic compounds, that might have an effect on competing species
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Habitat
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A habitat is an ecological or environmental area that is inhabited by a particular species of animal, plant, or other type of organism. The term typically refers to the zone in which the organism lives and it is the natural environment in which an organism lives, or the physical environment that surrounds a species population. Every organism has certain habitat needs for the conditions in which it will thrive, habitat types include polar, temperate, subtropical and tropical. The terrestrial vegetation type may be forest, steppe, grassland, the word habitat has been in use since about 1755 and derives from the Latin third-person singular present indicative of habitāre, to inhabit, from habēre, to have or to hold. Habitat can be defined as the environment of an organism. It is similar in meaning to a biotope, an area of environmental conditions associated with a particular community of plants. Generally speaking, animal communities are reliant on specific types of plant communities, some plants and animals are generalists, and their habitat requirements are met in a wide range of locations. The small white butterfly for example is found on all the continents of the world apart from Antarctica and its larvae feed on a wide range of Brassicas and various other plant species, and it thrives in any open location with diverse plant associations. Disturbance is important in the creation of biodiverse habitats, in the absence of disturbance, a climax vegetation cover develops that prevents the establishment of other species. Lightning strikes and toppled trees in tropical forests allow species richness to be maintained as pioneering species move in to fill the gaps created. Similarly coastal habitats can become dominated by kelp until the seabed is disturbed by a storm, another cause of disturbance is when an area may be overwhelmed by an invasive introduced species which is not kept under control by natural enemies in its new habitat. Terrestrial habitat types include forests, grasslands, wetlands and deserts, within these broad biomes are more specific habitats with varying climate types, temperature regimes, soils, altitudes and vegetation types. Many of these habitats grade into each other and each one has its own communities of plants. A habitat may suit a particular species well, but its presence or absence at any particular location depends to some extent on chance, on its dispersal abilities, freshwater habitats include rivers, streams, lakes, ponds, marshes and bogs. Although some organisms are found across most of these habitats, the majority have more specific requirements, similarly, aquatic plants can be floating, semi-submerged, submerged or grow in permanently or temporarily saturated soils besides bodies of water. Marine habitats include brackish water, estuaries, bays, the sea, the intertidal zone. Further variations include rock pools, sand banks, mudflats, brackish lagoons, sandy and pebbly beaches, the benthic zone or seabed provides a home for both static organisms, anchored to the substrate, and for a large range of organisms crawling on or burrowing into the surface. A desert is not the kind of habitat that favours the presence of amphibians, with their requirement for water to keep their skins moist, nevertheless, some frogs live in deserts, creating moist habitats underground and hibernating while conditions are adverse
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Horton Plains National Park
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Horton Plains National Park is a protected area in the central highlands of Sri Lanka and is covered by montane grassland and cloud forest. This plateau at an altitude of 2, 100–2,300 metres is rich in biodiversity and this region was designated a national park in 1988. It is also a popular tourist destination and is situated 8 kilometres from Ohiya,6 kilometres from the world famous Ohiya Gap/Dondra Watch and 32 kilometres from Nuwara Eliya, the Horton Plains are the headwaters of three major Sri Lankan rivers, the Mahaweli, Kelani, and Walawe. In Sinhala the plains are known as Maha Eliya Plains, stone tools dating back to Balangoda culture have been found here. The plains vegetation is grasslands interspersed with montane forest and includes many endemic woody plants, large herds of Sri Lankan sambar deer feature as typical mammals and the park is also an Important Bird Area with many species not only endemic to Sri Lanka but restricted to the Horton Plains. Forest dieback is one of the threats to the park. The sheer precipice of Worlds End and Bakers Falls are among the tourist attractions of the park, Horton Plains is located on the southern plateau of the central highlands of Sri Lanka. The peaks of Kirigalpoththa and Thotupola Kanda, the second and the third highest of Sri Lanka, are situated to the west, the parks elevation ranges from 1, 200–2,300 metres. The rocks found in the park belong to the Archaean age and belong to the series of the Precambrian era and are made up of Khondalites, Charnockites. The soil type is of the red-yellow podsolic group and the layer is covered with decayed organic matter. The mean annual rainfall is greater than 2,000 millimetres, frequent cloud cover limits the amount of sunlight that is available to plants. The mean annual temperature is 13 °C but the temperature varies considerably during the course of a day, reaching as high as 27 °C during the day time, during the southwest Monsoon season, the wind speed sometimes reaches gale force. Although some rain falls throughout the year, a dry season occurs from January–March, the ground frost is common in February. Mist can persist in the most of the day during the wet season, many pools and waterfalls can be seen in the park, and Horton Plains is considered the most important watershed in Sri Lanka. The Horton Plains are the headwaters of important rivers such as the Mahaweli, Kelani, the plains also feeds Belihul Oya, Agra Oya, Kiriketi Oya, Uma Oya, and Bogawantalawa Oya. Due to its elevation, fog and cloud deposit a considerable amount of moisture on the land. Slow moving streams, swamps, and waterfalls are the important wetland habitats of the park, the original name of the area was Maha Eliya Thenna. Albert Watson of the 58th Regiment, who discovered the plateau, stone tools dating back to Balangoda culture have been found here
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Chisholm, Hugh, ed. (1911). "Furze". Encyclopædia Britannica (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press.
Chisholm, Hugh, ed. (1911). "