ENVIR ST 260 1st Edition Lecture 15 Outline of Last Lecture I Wetlands II Hydrodynamics III Mangroves IV Importance of Wetlands V Poyang Lake China VI Wetland Key Points Outline of Current Lecture I Definitions II Grazers III Carbon Cycle IV Group Work Conclusions Current Lecture Definitions Grassland ecosystem dominated by grasses and other herbaceous species Prairies is a good example Visual representation Lots of grass and no trees Savanna widely spaced trees groundcover is dense grasses Low tree density Ground cover is grass dominated more than shrub dominated Visual representation Lots of grass with a few trees Grazers Modern day grazers include cows and zebras These notes represent a detailed interpretation of the professor s lecture GradeBuddy is best used as a supplement to your own notes not as a substitute Past grazers include Mastodons and Ground Sloths Grazers are important because they remove a lot of plant biomass By roaming around and eating all the grass they re removing vegetation and cycling nutrients back into the soil Grazing would be considered a disturbance that manipulates the ecosystem Carbon Cycle In thinking about ecosystems you want to think about where carbon is stored A lot of carbon compounds go into plant cells Trees represent big pools of carbon A lot of carbon is deposited into the soil when grass roots die and decompose Overtime as plant and animal biomass get packed down into soils they turn into fossil fuels It s a very long term process Carbon gets released back into the atmosphere through wildfires and tapping into fossil fuels We want to focus on where the big carbon pool is when we analyze ecosystems it s typically in biomass or soil Group Work Conclusions Australian Savannah Challenges with Restoration and Conservation Fire management is critical and it s hard to control Conversion for agricultural purposes Clearing out invasive species without harming native plants North American Tall Grass Prairie Challenges with Restoration and Conservation Maintaining invasive species a lot of them Urbanization and agriculture Brazilian Cerrado Challenges with Conservation and Restoration There s agriculture development taking over the area Limited protection from government bodies Serengeti Plain of East Africa Challenges with Conservation and Restoration Poaching
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