CHAP 4 CLIMATE AND BIODIVERSITY

ASSIGNMENT: HANDWRITTEN (SLC 1-1, SLC 1-2, SLC 1-3, SLC 1-4, AERO 2-1, AERO 2-2 AND AERO 2-6)
QUIZ AFTER
1. Describe how differences in climate lead to formation of tropical, temperate, and polar deserts,
grasslands, and forests. Explain why a better name for Earth would be Water or Ocean.
2. Distinguish between weather and climate. Describe three major factors that determine how air
circulates in the lower atmosphere. Describe how the properties of air, water, and land affect global
air circulation. Define ocean currents and explain how they, along with global air circulation,
support the formation of forests, grasslands, and deserts. Define greenhouse gases and the natural
greenhouse effect. Why are they important to the earth’s life and climate? What is the rain shadow
effect and how does it lead to the formation of inland deserts? Why do cities tend to have more
haze and smog, higher temperatures, and lower wind speeds than the surrounding countryside?
3. What is a biome? Explain why there are three major types of each of the major biomes (deserts,
grasslands, and forests). Describe how climate and vegetation vary with latitude and elevation.
4. Describe how the three major types of deserts differ in their climate and vegetation. How do desert
plants and animals survive? Describe how the three major types of grasslands differ in their climate
and vegetation. What is permafrost? Describe how the three major types of forests differ in their
climate and vegetation. What important ecological roles do mountains play?
5. Describe how human activities have affected the world’s deserts, grasslands, forests, and
mountains.
6. What percentage of the earth’s surface is covered with water? What major ecological and
economic services are provided by marine systems? Describe the major types of organisms found
in aquatic life zones.
7. What are the three major life zones in an ocean? Distinguish between the coastal zone and the
open sea. Distinguish between an estuary and a coastal wetland and explain why they have high
net primary productivities. What is a mangrove forest and what major ecological services does it
provide? What is a coral reef? How do they form and what major ecological and economic services
do they provide? Why does the open sea have a low net primary productivity?
8. What human activities pose major threats to marine systems and to coral reefs?
9. What major ecological and economic services do freshwater systems provide? What is a lake? What
four zones are found in most lakes? Distinguish among oligotrophic, eutrophic, and mesotrophic
lakes. What is cultural eutrophication? Define surface water, runoff, and watershed (drainage
basin). Describe the three zones that rivers pass through as they flow from mountains to the sea.
Give three examples of inland wetlands and explain their ecological importance. What are four
ways in which human activities are disrupting and degrading freshwater systems?
10. Describe the connections between the climates, terrestrial and aquatic systems, and the three
principles of sustainability?
1. Differences in climate, mostly from average annual precipitation and temperature, lead to the
formation of tropical (hot), temperate (moderate), and polar (cold) deserts, grasslands, and
forests. Kulang ng isa pang sagot

2. ---Weather is the day-to-day state of the atmosphere, and its short-term variation in minutes to
weeks. People generally think of weather as the combination of temperature, humidity,
precipitation, cloudiness, visibility, and wind.
Climate is the weather of a place averaged over a period of time, often 30 years. Climate
information includes the statistical weather information that tells us about the normal weather,
as well as the range of weather extremes for a location.

---The three major factors that determine how air circulates in the lower atmosphere are uneven
heating of the earth's surface by the sun, rotation of the earth on its axis, and the properties
of air, water, and land

---Prevailing Winds blow over the ocean surface and produce currents. The Oceans absorb heat
from the earth's air circulation patterns; mostly in tropical regions. Irregularly shaped continents
interrupt these currents and cause them to flow in roughly circular patterns between the
continents.

--- Ocean Currents: Mass movements of surface water that are produced by prevailing winds
blowing over the oceans.
Driven by prevailing winds and the earth's rotation, the earth's major ocean currents help to
redistribute heat from the sun, thereby influencing climate and vegetation, especially near
coastal areas.

--- Greenhouse gases are certain molecules in the air that have the ability to trap heat in the
Earth's atmosphere. Some greenhouse gases, like carbon dioxide (CO2) and methane (CH4), occur
naturally and play an important role in Earth's climate. If they didn't exist, the planet would be a
much colder place. The greenhouse effect is a natural process that warms the Earth's surface.
When the Sun's energy reaches the Earth's atmosphere, some of it is reflected back to space and
the rest is absorbed and re-radiated by greenhouse gases.

--- Rain shadow effect: A reduction of rainfall and loss of moisture from the landscape on the
leeward side of a mountain. Warm, moist air in onshore winds loses most of its moisture as rain
and snow that fall on the windward slopes of a mountain range. This leads to a semiarid and arid
conditions on the leeward side of the mountain range and on the land beyond.

--- Cities tend to have more haze and smog, higher temperatures, and lower wind speeds than
the surrounding countryside because of bricks, concrete, asphalt, and other building materials
absorb and hold heat, and buildings block wind flow.
3.

--Biome is a large naturally occurring community of flora and fauna occupying a major habitat, e.g. forest
or tundra.

--The three major biomes are determined by the amount of precipitation. Differences in climate, mostly
from average annual precipitation and temperature, lead to the formation of tropical (hot), temperate
(moderate), and polar (cold) deserts, grasslands, and forests.

-- Climate and vegetation vary with latitude and altitude of an area. Latitude measures distance from the
equator; altitude measures elevation above sea level. A. Deserts have little precipitation and
little vegetation.

4.

---Tropical deserts: Hot and dry most of the year; They have a few plants and a hard, windblown surface
strewn with rocks and some sand. –Temperate deserts: Hot in the summer and cold in the winter; There
is more precipitation than tropical deserts; The sparse vegetation primarily consists of widely dispersed,
drought-resistant shrubs and cacti or other succulents adapted to the lack of water and temperature
variations. - Cold deserts: Winters are cold, summers are warm or hot, and precipitation is low; Desert
plants and animals have adaptations that help them to stay cool and to get enough water to survive.

--- They have adaptations that help them to stay cool and to get enough water to survive.

---Tropical grasslands: Warm temperatures year-round and alternating dry and wet seasons. -Temperate
grasslands: Winters are bitterly cold and summers are hot and dry; Annual precipitation is fairly sparse
and falls unevenly throughout the year. -Cold grasslands: Bitterly cold during most of the year; Frigid
winds and covered with ice and snow.

---Underground soil in which captured water stays frozen for more than 2 consecutive years.

--- In cold deserts, vegetation is sparse. Winters are cold, summers are warm or hot, and precipitation is
low. Desert plants and animals have adaptations that help them to stay cool and to get enough water to
survive.

--- Mountains contain a majority of the world's forests, which are habitats for much of the planet's
terrestrial biodiversity. Some mountain ranges are homes to endemic species, which can't be found
anywhere else.
5. Human acitivities have created large desert cities, destroyed soil through urban development and off-
road vehicles, salinized the soil through irrigation, depleted underground water supplies, disturbed land
and polluted, stored toxic and radioactive wastes, and located arrays of solar cells and solar collectors.
6.

---About 71-75%

--Ecological:
---- Climate moderation
---- Carbon dioxide absorption
---- Nutrient cycling
---- Waste treatment
---- Reduced storm impact (mangroves, barrier islands, coastal wetlands)
---- Habitats and nursery areas
---- Genetic resources and biodiversity
---- Scientific information

--Economic:
---- Food
---- Animal and pet feed
---- Pharmaceuticals
---- Harbors and transportation routes
---- Coastal habitats for humans
---- Recreation
---- Employment
---- Oil and natural gas
----Minerals

-- The basic types of aquatic life zones are the surface, middle, and bottom layers. The life in aquatic life
zones is influenced by temperature, access to sunlight for photosynthesis, dissolved oxygen content, and
availability of nutrients.

7.

--- Coastal Zone: Warm, nutrient rich, shallow low water that extends from high-tide mark in land, to the
gently sloping, shallow edge of the continental shelf. 10% of world's oceans, 90% of marine species Have
high net primary productivity: lots of sun and nutrients (from land).
-Intertidal Zone: Area of shoreline between low and high tide
-Open Sea: Vast volume of the ocean after the continental shelf

--- Estuaries: Where rivers meet the sea. Partially enclosed bodies of water where sea water meets fresh
water and pollutants from streams, rivers, and runoff from land.
---Coastal wetlands: Open to sea, Land areas covered with water all or part of the year(river mouths,
inlets, bays, sounds, coastal marshes, and mangrove forests)
Each has high net primary productivity, because of the ample supply of sunlight and plant nutrients that
flow from the land.

-- -Mangrove forest: Found 70% of coastlines in tropical regions, made off trees with extensive root
systems
-Maintain water quality by filtering out pollutants, excess nutrients, and sediments
-Provide food, habitats, and nursery sites
-Reduce storm damage and coastal erosion by absorbing waves
-Supplied timber and fuel wood to coastal communities
-1/5th lost due to humans
-can provide medicine

-- An underwater structure built primarily of limestone,that hosts a large variety of marine species. It
forms in the clear, warm coastal waters of the tropics and subtropics.

-- These structures are formed by massive colonies of tiny animals called polyps (close relatives of
jellyfish). They slowly build reefs by secreting a protective crust of limestone (Calcium Carbonate) around
their soft bodies. When Polyps die, their empty crusts remain behind as a platform for more reef growth.
1. Ecological Services: They act as natural barriers that help to protect about 15% of the world's coastlines
from erosion caused by battering waves and storms. They provide habitats for about 25% of all marine
organisms.
2. Economic Services: They produce about 10% of the global fish catch. They provide fishing and
ecotourism jobs for some of the poorest countries.

-- Marine ecosystems generally have low productivity. The surface of the ocean receives ample light for
high rates of photosynthesis (only 5% of the incident light is reflected) and the dissolved
CO2 levels are not usually limiting. In an open ocean, any dead material sinks to the ocean depths.

8. Major threats to marine systems include coastal development, degradation of wetlands and estuaries,
over-fishing, non- point and point source pollution, habitat destruction, invasive species, and climate
change.

9. -- Freshwater ecosystems provide major ecosystem and economic services, and they are irreplaceable
reservoirs of biodiversity. Climate moderation, nutrient cycling, waste treatment, flood control,
groundwater recharge, habitats for many species, genetic resources and biodiversity, scientific
information.

-- A large natural body of standing freshwater formed when precipitation, runoff, streams, rivers, and
groundwater seepage fills depression in the earth's surface.
-- 1. Littoral Zone
2. Limnetic Zone
3. Profundal Zone
4. Benthic Zone
-- An oligotrophic lake would have clear water with little phytoplankton, whereas a eutrophic lake would
be more turbid and green from dense phytoplankton growth, and a mesotrophic lake would be
intermediate between the two.

-- Cultural Eutrophication: A process when excessive inputs of nutrients from the atmosphere and from
human sources in nearby urban and agricultural areas can accelerate the eutrophication of lakes by
putting excessive amounts of nutrients into them.

-- 1. Surface water: Precipitation that does not sink into the ground or evaporate.
2. Runoff: Surface water that flows into streams or lakes.
3. Watershed: The land area that delivers runoff, sediments, and dissolved substances to a stream or lake.

-- 1. Source Zone
2. Transition Zone
3. Floodplain Zone

-- Inland waterlands- are lands located away from coastal areas that are covered with fresh water all or
part of the time excluding lakes. Ex. marshes, swamps, and prairie potholes.
Ecological- abundance of nutrients. Important to foundation species, filtering toxic waste, reducing flood
and erosion, helps filter groundwater aquifers.
Economic- fishery

-- 1)dams and canals fragment destroying terrestrial and aquatic wildlife

2)flood control (levees and dikes) built around rivers disconnecting rivers from their floodplains
3)pollutants in freshwater
4) inland wetlands have been drained or filled to grow crops have been covered with concrete

10. Differences in climate, based mostly on long-term differences in average temperature and
precipitation, largely determine the types and locations of the earth's deserts, grasslands, and forests.
The earth's terrestrial ecosystems provide important ecosystem and economic services. Human activities
are degrading and disrupting many of the ecosystem and economic services provided by the earth's
terrestrial ecosystems. Climate plays a key role in determining the nature of terrestrial ecosystem, as well
as the life-forms that live in those systems. These relationships are in keeping with the three scientific
principles of sustainability. The earth's dynamic climate system helps to distribute heat from solar energy
and to recycle the earth's nutrients. This in turn helps to generate and support the biodiversity found in
the earth's various biomes.
 CHAP 3: EVOLUTION AND BIODIVERSITY
HAND WRITTEN ASSIGNMENT: (FOR AERO 2-6 & AERO 2-2) QUIZ AFTER
1. What are the four major components of biodiversity (biological diversity)? What is the importance
of biodiversity? What are species? Describe the importance of insects.

- Ecological, organismic, genetic, and cultural diversity

- Biodiversity is important because each species has value and a right to exist, whether or not it is
known to have value to humans. biodiversity provides functioning ecosystems that supply oxygen,
clean air and water, pollination of plants, pest control, wastewater treatment and
many ecosystem services.
- Species- a group of living organisms consisting of similar individuals capable of exchanging genes
or interbreeding.
- Insects are crucial components of many ecosystems, where they perform many important
functions. They aerate the soil, pollinate blossoms, and control insect and plant pests. Many insects,
especially beetles, are scavengers, feeding on dead animals and fallen trees, thereby recycling
nutrients back into the soil.

2. What is a fossil and why are fossils important in understanding the history of life? What is biological
evolution? State the theory of evolution. What is natural selection? What is a mutation and what
role do mutations play in evolution by natural selection? What is an adaptation (adaptive trait)?
How did humans become such a powerful species? What are two limits to evolution by natural
selection? What are three myths about evolution through natural selection?

- the remains or impression of a prehistoric organism preserved in petrified form or as a mold or cast
in rock. Fossils are traces of ancient life. Scientists use fossils to gather information about the lives
and evolutionary relationships of organisms, for understanding geological change and even for
locating fossil fuel reserves.
- Biological evolution is the change in inherited traits over successive generations in populations of
organisms.
- The theory of evolution by natural selection. It’s the process by which organisms change over time as
a result of changes in heritable physical or behavioral traits. Changes that allow an organism to better
adapt to its environment will help it survive and have more offspring.
- Mutation is the changing of the structure of a gene, resulting in a variant form that may be transmitted
to subsequent generations. These variations often alter gene activity or protein function, which can
introduce different traits in an organism. If a trait is advantageous and helps the individual survive and
reproduce, the genetic variation is more likely to be passed to the next generation
- Adaptation, in biology, the process by which a species becomes fitted to its environment;
- Because of the traits that allow us to adapt and modify parts of the environment so we can increase
our survival chances
- 2 limits -- 1. Adaptive genetic traits must precede change in the environmental conditions 2.
Reproductive capacity
- 3 myths -"survival of the fittest" means "survival of the strongest"
- organisms develop certain traits because they need them
-evolution by natural selection involves some grand plan in nature in which species become perfectly
adapted
 3. Describe how geologic processes and climate change can affect natural selection. Describe
conditions on the earth that favor the development of life as we know it.

***
-tectonic plates affect evolution and the location of life on Earth
-earthquakes
-volcanic eruptions
-ice ages followed by warming temperatures
-collisions between the Earth and asteroids
***
-temp range: just right to support lie
-orbit size: moderate temperatures
-liquid water: neccesary for life
-rotation speed: the sun doesn't overheat the Earth
-size: gravity keeps atmosphere

4. What is speciation? Distinguish between geographic isolation and reproductive isolation and
explain how they can lead to the formation of a new species. Distinguish between artificial selection
and genetic engineering and give an example of each.

- Speciation is when one species splits into two or more species

- Geographic isolation happens first; physical isolations of populations for a long period. REPRODUCTIVE
ISOLATION - mutations and natural selection in geographically isolated populations lead to inability to
produce viable offspring when members of two different populations mate
- Artificial selection - use selective breeding/crossbreeding. GENETIC ENGG- gene splicing

5. What is extinction? What is an endemic species and why can such a species be vulnerable to
extinction? Distinguish between background extinction and mass extinction.

- The ongoing disappearance of an individual species due to environmental or ecological factors such
as climate change, disease, loss of habitat etc.

****
-found in one area
-local extinction

- Background extinction- occurs at a fairly steady rate over geological time and is the result of
normal evolutionary processes, with only a small number of species being affected at one time
- MASS extinction - the disappearance of a large number of species within a relatively short period
of geological time

6. What is species diversity? - the number of different species in a given area

Distinguish between species richness and species evenness and give an example of each. Explain
why species-rich ecosystems tend to be productive and stable.

Species richness- number of different species represented in an ecological community

Species evenness- how close in numbers each species in an environment is
 **kulang pa

7. What is an ecological niche?

-pattern of living: everything that affects survival and reproduction

-water, space, sunlight, food, temperatures Distinguish between specialist species - narrow niche:
narrow range of tolerance
ex: panda and generalist species broad niche: wide range of tolerance
ex: raccoon and give an example of each.

8. Distinguish among native- species that are naturally occurring in an ecosystem, nonnative- a
species that in brought into a new ecosystem where it doesn't naturally occur, indicator- provide
early warning of damage to a community

-can monitor environmental quality

-trout
-birds
-butterflies
-frogs, keystone- roles have a large effect on the types and abundances of other species
ex: sharks, and foundation species-create or enhance their habitats which benefit others
ex: beavers and elephants and give an example of each type.