For PAS (660 hits)
Category: Science & EnvironmentalRating: 0.66 on 9 reviews (Rate this item) (V)
Submitted by Martes pennanti <fisher.at.go.com> (View user info) at 2002-10-30 03:18:18 EST
"Have you not got any really interesting scientific topics to debate? I've read your post about wolves, that was cool, anything else like that?" says PAS.
I've thought about this for the last hour or so. The menopause post was more for information than for debate. I have no idea what environmental fields interest you. I'm in the wildlife field and those topics are what I like to debate, but they tend to be specialized topics because I know my field pretty well. So, what I'll do is throw out a couple of general topics and see if you bite.
-Top notch predator: I don't think such a thing exists. I get aggravated when outreach coordinaters and the media throw this term around and when biologists use it as means to get the public to establish an ideal role that a predator plays. Multiple predators exist in any given system, why should one be the top dog? Look at some of our national parks where grizzlies, pumas, and wolves coexist. Which one is the top notch predator?
-Nature vs. Nurture: More of a trendy, lame ass psychology term than an environmental issue. It is often thrown into our animal behavior classes for the sake of debate. In the end, anyone that chooses a side loses. I hate the issue of this idea.
-Hunting as a method of population control: I'm a supporter of hunting. I hate dumbass hunters; especially the ones that hunt bear and deer with dogs. I deal with hunters a lot when I'm in the field getting locations on wolves. Some are great, some I could do without.
-Endangered Species: "Fuck 'em. Survival of the fittest." or "No! Save them all." My views vary. I'm a "No! Save them all." person, but I have issues on how we set our priorities.
-Environmental Extremists: Greenpeace, EarthFirst, PETA, and so on. I don't like them. How about you? Are you one of these people?
-Reintroduction of large carnivores: I'm obviously a big supporter of that.
-The role of apparency theory in quantitative and qualitative defensive mechanisms in plant ecology: Ha ha ha. I'm just kidding here. But this is a good topic of discussion. It is a lot simpler than what it looks.
That's about all I can think of. Anyone else can throw in their opinion if they have one. PAS, sorry I didn't elaborate on my opinions in here. I'll do so in my responses. I didn't want to make this post forever. Also wanted to see what you thought first about the subjects before I responded. Please, no computer lingo in your response. I'm computer lingo illiterate.
User Reviews
Submitted by fisher at 2002-11-04 16:19:27 EST (#)
Ranking: -2
doh... water is H2O not HO2.
I'm retarded.
Submitted by fisher at 2002-11-04 16:17:00 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
that was suppose to be fall of 2003. I'm giving myself another 2.
Submitted by fisher at 2002-11-04 16:14:57 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
Quantitative defensive mechanisms in plants are feeding inhibitors that affect the basic energy gained from digestion and are the same compounds that control decomposition rate. Quantitative strategies use large amounts of lignin and small amounts of protein and simple carbohydrates that make poor-quality food for herbivores, large or small. Cellulose and lignin are considered undigestible "fiber" in the human diet.
When plant tissues are high in quantitative inhibitors, herbivores must take in and process large amounts of material. This means using more energy for movement to reach the larger food mass required as well as for the digestive process. In general, consumers of low-quality plant parts take longer to mature, and this increases the chances for predation, disease, or climatic extremes to reduce survival. Species have learned how to over come this such as termites, tropical fungal farming ants, and ruminant animals.
Qualitative defensive mechanisms in plants are toxins, such as caffeine, nicotine, cocaine, morphine, and others. This is simple and uses fewer resources than quantitative inhibitors. Many annual species and tropical species adapt to these techniques. When herbivores begin feeding on plant tissue, the plant releases these toxins. With each feeding the plants become more toxic and herbivores have to develop ways of detoxifying the compounds. Some do develop a tolerance while others actually incorporate it into their own tissues. Some birds and deer have been known to eat small portions of soil and rock to counter the acidic compounds in plants.
Theories on why plants evolved to favor one or the other are debated from all angles such as dominance, site quality, leaf longevity, and apparency.
Submitted by fisher at 2002-11-04 16:13:20 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
Nature vs. Nurture: This is a bunch of bullshit to ecologists. There is no such argument in our field. Reason is because you can't separate genetics and the environment. For example, white-footed mice and their fur color. The ones on the east coast forests are dark brown to match the dark color of litter debris. As you move out into the midwestern plains they get lighter until they are a tan color. This is because they blend into the color of dry grass. So you see a gradient in fur color and most likely behavior as you move west. This is called "phenotypic plasticity," which is variation, under environmental influence, in the phenotype (physical appearance of a gene, i.e. blue eyes) associated with genotype (the actual gene code, i.e. heterozygous blue eye or homozygous blue eye). Point is a mouse is a mouse. There is nothing it can do about this, its genetic makeup is that he's a mouse and he'll have mouse offspring no matter what environment you put him in. But the environment plays a role in what phenotype (light brown or dark brown) will be expressed based on the success of the offspring's parents. If dark tends to be eaten more lights will be born and vice versa. So, you can't separate genes from environment. They are both dependent on each other.
Then psychology students say, what about behavior. That's what we're interested in. Leopard frogs in Maine are identical to leopard frogs in Louisiana, but they can't breed with each other. Reasons are because of difference in mating calls. The air in Maine is different than in Louisiana, so mating calls vary for maximum distance and pitches will be different. So, there is a gradient of differences in mating behavior from the Maine to Louisiana and because adjacent populations mate there is gene flow that prevents sexual isolated populations. In the end, even though they behave differently they still are leopard frogs. Environment dictates what parts of the genes are being expressed.
Even if you put someone some one in a vacuum, they still exist in an environment and will still be an expression of their genetic make up. It's like saying water, is it H or O2.
Submitted by fisher at 2002-11-04 16:11:32 EST (#)
Ranking: 0
Sorry PAS, all pictures that I take belong to Fish and Wildlife Services and I don't have the right to print them. Even though I have pictures of the wolves in the field, I still wouldn't chance printing them without permission from our program leader. I also don't have an office yet. I'm just interning here until I go to graduate school in the fall of '03. I spend 8 -12 hours in the field so I seldom use a computer unless I'm back at were I stay. That's why it takes me a while to reply.
Obviously, this post did not interest anyone's opinion and I don't think my long reply will either. Oh well...
Top Notch Predator: Doesn't exist in my opinion because species exist in a matrix of habitats and are suited to succeed in specific terrains. Their success at gathering needed resources will aggregate them into those preferred habitats. Mountain lions are solitary and stealth hunters who prefer rocky and forested terrains to hunt. They don't do so well in open terrain. Wolves on the other hand are cooperative hunters who chase and pull down prey. Open terrain suits them better than rocky and heavily dense forested areas. This is not to say that neither species will be found in these areas. Mountain lions have been pushed off their kills by wolves and there are accounts of mountain lions killing individual wolves. The more important point is this. They both hunt the same prey - large ungulates. If there were only one predator existing in this system, the prey base would aggregate into areas where predator density would be lower and their success rate of taking prey much lower. In the case of mountain lions, prey would hang out in agricultural fields, open meadows, rolling hills, and open forests. In the case of wolves, prey would tend to rocky terrain, dense forests, and swamps. But when both coexist in a given area, herds tend to break up into smaller herds and aggregate into areas where resources are more available. This spreads the predators out. In the end, herds are healthier because they are not clumped and have heavy contact to transmit disease and parasites. There are more breeding pairs for both prey and predator because territories are smaller and not dominated by a few. And there is a lot of movement, so that prey is not over consuming its resources and predators will become more opportunistic feeding on their base prey and switching to small food packets because resource are more available to smaller prey items. In the end, through competition predators actually compliment each other and not dominate. Foxes coexist with wolves just as lynxes and bobcats coexist with mountain lions. They feed on different prey bases and have different impacts on their habitats. Hope you follow all this; I tried to keep it simple. I left out Lotka-Volterra models, stable cycle interactions, functional responses I, II, and III, threshold of security, aggregative responses, switching, search images, risk-sensitive foraging, and other ecology jargon.
Submitted by PeopleAreStrange (user info) at 2002-10-30 20:30:47 EST (#)
Ranking: 1
Goodness Fisher, those are just too many topics for me to deal with in one go. I will try to talk about more than one, but not in the same post.
But after your period joke (I've heard it before and it is quite funny) it reminded me of hearing about women who went camping in an area there were wild bears and they were attacked because one of the women was on her period and the bears could smell the blood. I'm sure one of those people was killed and the others injured. Would you say that story is likely to be true?
"-Environmental Extremists: Greenpeace, EarthFirst, PETA, and so on. I don't like them. How about you? Are you one of these people?"
No I'm not one of these people. I can see where they are coming from and I support some of their feelings but I do not support their actions a lot of the time.
For example, the people who destroy GM crops, crops which are only being grown for scientific study, they are not even letting scientific analysis be carried out to find out if GM crops are good or bad, etc. They are dictating to the public what we can and can't eat without letting us know the facts, without even letting the facts be discovered by the scientists.
I don't agree with people who hate animals being experimented on for cosmetic purposes protesting by being violent. I too dislike the animals being experimented on but there are peaceful ways to protest this. However some extremists show the world how much they hate it by abusing/threatening/hurting the employees of those companies.
An example of this was Huntingdon Life Sciences I think where a shareholder in the company had attacks on their home by animal lovers. I've found an article about other attacks, this one was on the managing director of the copmany.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk_news/story/0,3604,441972,00.html
How can these people love animals if they can't love human beings? How does beating up one mammal (a human) prove they care about other mammals?
It makes me sick.
Submitted by 88888 (user info) at 2002-10-30 10:48:50 EST (#)
Ranking: 1
on the Top Notch Predator term..
it sucks. I can't see how one could pick between a Bear, Puma, or Wolves?
I was recently in TN.. hiking and shit.. I had to read this entire pamphlet on what to do in the event that you see a bear, and disturb him.. or he attacks you.. haha! it was awesome.. I was with my girlfriend and I said to her.. if a bear approaches us, and I have to defend us.. take the camera, and get some good pictures." hahah.. I wish we could have seen a bear, but at the same time, i'm glad we didn't see one. :) heh.
If you know what I mean.
Submitted by yidele (user info) at 2002-10-30 08:43:12 EST (#)
Ranking: 0
never trust anything that CAN bleed for three days & doesn't die. Nose bleeds don't count...
Submitted by Fisher (user info) at 2002-10-30 03:35:53 EST (#)
Ranking: 0
Here's another one for you PAS.
Why is it when a man bleeds for three days straight it's called "death?" On the other hand, when a woman bleeds for three days straight it's called a "period."
I hope no one takes the question above any more than a lame-ass joke.