Article title: Ecosystems on the Brink
Author: By Carl Zimmer
Key Points:
- Jellyfish, fungi, and many other creatures are overtaking healthy habitats
- July 2008: a group of scientists leave a few sensors and 12 largemouth basses in Peter Lake
- The group of scientists repeated this trip. Water would freeze and thaw then the lake would come back to life.
- Two years and it is still in its altered state
- Humanity is placing many stresses on the ecosystems we destroy to make room for our wanting.
- Stephen Carpenter is trying to monitor ecosystems to find ones that will soon fall.
- Complex food webs become hopeless when connections can't be made
- Scientists turned food webs in math equations
- This is linking reproduction rates to how much they get eaten by predators
- Some interactions are stronger than others
- Equations show weak links where some change can trigger a lot
- Many food web flips are very sudden and surprising
- If fish are left untouched then they will be able to lay eggs more often
- Fishing and hunting are flipping food webs
- Peter Lake was the first lake they had put an early warning system in.
- We need to find out when an ecosystem is about to collapse so we can stop what we are doing.
- Flips come too fast that ecologist will not notice them right away.
Summary:
Stephen Carpenter is an ecologist that have led a group of scientist to discover something very important. Many ecosystems have been on the brink of collapsing due to the many food webs "flipping". In broader views, humans have contributed to made many flips in the ecosystem due to hunting and fishing. Once they start flipping, it is usually rare for it to come back to it's original state. To find the trigger of these collapses, Stephen has studied Peter lake along with many other scientists to find flips before it will happen. Stephen has even turned food webs into math equations. As Stephen continues his research, it has been a real struggle due to the sudden flips that would surprisingly happen.
Stephen Carpenter is an ecologist that have led a group of scientist to discover something very important. Many ecosystems have been on the brink of collapsing due to the many food webs "flipping". In broader views, humans have contributed to made many flips in the ecosystem due to hunting and fishing. Once they start flipping, it is usually rare for it to come back to it's original state. To find the trigger of these collapses, Stephen has studied Peter lake along with many other scientists to find flips before it will happen. Stephen has even turned food webs into math equations. As Stephen continues his research, it has been a real struggle due to the sudden flips that would surprisingly happen.
What I Think About This Topic:
This discovery has surprised me more than than the food webs flipping. I have never learned about this topic. To me, I've always thought the species in the food web's would either become threatened or endangered. I have never known how much of a change the disappearance of a link or interaction has toward the rest of the ecosystem. I think Stephen's research into this topic is very helpful as it will be able to maybe turn our actions around as it will warn us, humans about the collapse of an ecosystem that we are affecting.
So what?Flipping food webs are making the ecosystems collapse.
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Says who?Stephen Carpenter and Carl Zimmer.
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What If?What if humans were not here? Would ecosystems still flip?
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This reminds me of...This reminds me of the coyote lab in APES.
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