1. ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCE
INTRODUCTION and ECOLOGY

2. ECOLOGY
The study of the environment
ECOLOGISTS study BIOTIC & ABIOTIC factors in the environment & how they influence each other.

3. Environmental Science
An interdisciplinary area of study that includes both applied & theoretical aspects of human impacts on the world.
An environmental scientist thinks of the environment as EVERYTHING that affects an organism during its lifetime.

4. Environmental decisions
Nature: recycling, natural resources, landfills, urbanization, global warming
Politics: animal protection, international dumping, off shore drilling, alternative power sources, international pollution
Ethics: hunting, animal treatment, land use

5. Ecosystem Approach
Ecosystem: All the living and non-living things in an area and how they interact with one another.
Arctic ecosystem: polar bears, glaciers, ice, snow, fish, whales, seals, water, sea lions, air, etc.

6. BIOMES
Biomes are ecosystems around the world with similar animals, plants, geographical features, temperature, precipitation, altitude & latitude
Desert, tundra, tropical rain forest, taiga (coniferous forest), deciduous forest (temperate forest), fresh water, ice, marine (salt water), estuary, grassland

7. Limiting Factors
A limiting factor restricts (or limits) the success of a species.
These can be biotic or abiotic.
Ex) Limiting factors to a deer are:
hunters, drought, forest fire, lack of food, cars, weather, wolves, disease

8. Cycles in nature 1. Water 2. Nitrogen 3. Oxygen/Carbon Dioxide
4. Phosphorus
These things get recycled naturally in the environment….

9. Acid Rain / The Greenhouse Effect / Global Warming
These are situations that we as humans have done to the environment.
They are “mistakes” in the cycles.
Example: -acid rain is a mistake in the water cycle
-greenhouse effect & global warming are mistakes in the carbon cycle

10. Succession
What would happen to a field if we stopped cutting it for several hundred years?
1. Tall weeds, grasses
2. Small bushes
3. Small pine trees
4. Large pine trees, small deciduous trees
5. CLIMAX COMMUNITY: large deciduous forest

11. Biodiversity Different types of life in an area. Biodiversity is GOOD!
Eventually with no biodiversity, an area’s populations will become extinct.
Biodiversity comes from natural selection.

12. Exotic Species
Non-native species that have no natural predators in an area.
Example: zebra mussels, sea lamprey, Japanese beetles, fake “cattails”, purple loosestrife

13. Conservation Saving the environment or a species.
We make laws, habitats, reintroduction programs to save species.

14. Why do we have to learn about the environment?
Anything that we (as humans) do, affects our environment.
We either hurt or help our environment with everything we do.
What can we do to turn around the bad things we have already done?