Online Ecological Resources |
Curricular MaterialsOnline Scientific JournalsOnline BooksValuable Informative WebsitesLinks to Site Specific InformationLinks Included in SEE-U Intro Texts
Curricular MaterialsA list of Possible Topics for your Independent ProjectSuggested and REQUIRED texts for SEE-U
students
Guidelines for how to write a scientific report in PowerPoint Format, commonly used for giving oral presentations at scientific meetings and seminars
Guidelines for how to write a scientific report in normal scientific prose style, commonly used in journal articles
Grading breakdown for the SEE-U program
Mangrove Forests: Description and Tree Species Identification Guide Columbia University's E-Journals site is the single best reference for securing online journal articles. Click on the first letter of the journal's name, scroll down to the desired journal, and click on the journal's name. This would be most useful for learning about your individual research project. You will need a Columbia University ID and password to access this page. Your CUID is your email account (everything before the @ sign) and your password is your email password. If you are not a CU student, see a TA for access.
Consequences
online magazine
Biodiversity
II: Understanding and Protecting Our Biological Resources, 1996, Marjorie
L. Reaka-Kudla, Don E. Wilson, and Edward O. Wilson, Editors; A Joseph
Henry Press book.
Biodiversity
Conservation in Transboundary Protected Areas, 1996, Alicja Breymeyer
and Reginald Noble, Editors; Office of Central Europe and Eurasia, National
Research Council.
Conserving
Biodiversity: A Research Agenda for Development Agencies, 1992, Panel
on Biodiversity Research Priorities, National Research Council.
Forest
Trees, 1991, Committee on Managing Global Genetic Resources: Agricultural
Imperatives, National Research Council.
Global
Environmental Change: Research Pathways for the Next Decade, 1999,
Committee on Global Change Research, National Research Council.
Managing
Water Resources in the West Under Conditions of Climate Uncertainty: A
Proceedings, 1991, Committee on Climate Uncertainty and Water Resources
Management, National Research Council.
Nature
and Human Society: The Quest for a Sustainable World, 2000, Peter H.
Raven and Tania Williams, Editors; Committee for the Second Forum on Biodiversity,
National Academy of Sciences and National Research Council.
(NAS
Colloquium) Plants and Population: Is There Time?, 1999, Proceedings
of the National Academy of Sciences.
Policy
Implications of Greenhouse Warming: Mitigation, Adaptation, and the Science
Base, 1992, Panel on Policy Implications of Greenhouse Warming, National
Academy of Sciences, National Academy of Engineering, Institute of Medicine.
Science
and the Endangered Species Act , 1995, Committee on Scientific Issues
in the Endangered Species Act, National Research Council.
Sustainable
Agriculture and the Environment in the Humid Tropics, 1993, Committee
on Sustainable Agriculture and the Environment in the Humid Tropics, National
Research Council.
Upstream:
Salmon and Society in the Pacific Northwest, 1996, Committee on Protection
and Management of Pacific Northwest Anadromous Salmonids, National Research
Council.
The
Soil Biology Primer, from the USDA's NRCS Soil Quality Institute in
Ames, Iowa, has many chapters on soil ecology.
Water on the Web from the University of Minnesota has an excellent glossary
of aquatic ecology terms.
Brittanica.com
- The Encyclopedia and more.
Stanford University's Center
for Conservation Biology
HerpDigest,
a valuable information clearinghouse and on-line journal for reptile and
amphibian enthusiasts
Learn about any organism from University of California Berkeley's Museum
of Paleontology Phylogeny
Wing.
Learn about any organism from The
Tree of Life, created by Drs. David Maddison and Wayne Maddison of
the University of Arizona.
Ms. J. Stein Carter, of The University of California, Clermont College,
has several good introductory
biology discussions.
The World Resources Institute,
a Non-Govermental Organization based in Washington D. C. has some nice
general information about use and conservation of natural resources all
over the world. It also has a nice slide show on the use of natural resources
worldwide.
The World Resources Institute,
a Non-Govermental Organization based in Washington D. C. has some nice
general information about use and conservation of natural resources all
over the world, has a reasonable amount on Brazil. It also has a nice slide
show on the use of natural resources worldwide.
There are several useful sites dealing with deforestation in Brazil
Snake
Bites: Prevention and treatment by Buck Tilton, is a good resource,
just in case.
The home page of Biosphere
2 has many links to interesting local pages and those relevant to the
domes themselves.
A list of recommended personal field
equipment that you should have with you, written by the SEE-U instructors
at B2C.
Some links
to news and information relevant to the Biosphere 2 complex is available
from Biosphere 2.
Lecture Notes from Dr. Rick Brusca on The Deserts of the Southwestern United States, including the Sonoran Desert.
Lecture Notes from Dr. Rick Brusca on The Ecological Regions of the Sonoran Desert.
Lecture Notes from Dr. Rick Brusca Comparing the Types of Deserts found Across North America, including the Sonoran Desert.
A description of some plants that are found on the B2C grounds is available from a page created by a B2C student and originally hosted by Biosphere 2 that no longer includes the images, only the descriptive text.
A map of the biotic communities of the southwest is available from SEE-U through this link.
A Geological Map of the areas immediately around the Biosphere 2 Campus is also available from SEE-U through this link.
Black Rock Forest, NEW YORK
Major
Biomes of the World, Radford University, Geography Department
Tour
of Biomes, Wheeling Jesuit University / NASA Classroom of the Future
El Niño
/ Southern Oscillation Page, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration
Global
Positioning System basics, University of Texas, Austin, Department
of Geography
The US LTER Network,
or Long Term Ecological Research, exploring longitudinal studies in many
biomes across the United States.
An introduction to Geographic Information Systems technology, or GIS,
from the United States Geological Survey.
The USGS home page.
ArcView's
homepage, by ESRI (the Environmental Systems Research Institute, Inc.).
FileMaker
Pro's homepage.
Read more about the controversial political action group called Zero
Population Growth, which advocates for greatly reducing the rate of
human population growth.
Tour the University of California, Berkeley Museum of Paleontology's
phylogeny
exhibit for more information on phylogenetic systematics.
Several of Darwin’s books, including On the Origin of Species
and Voyage of the Beagle are online here.
The Alfred
Russell Wallace Page is an excellent site addressing the life of this
important scientist.
The C.
Warren Irvin, Jr., Collection of Charles Darwin and Darwiniana is an
excellent site addressing the life of this important scientist.
The Introduction
to Global Change Course of the Global
Change Project, based at the University of Michigan has many excellent
informative lectures or resource pages about a diversity of subjects including
Classification
and Phylogeny and The
Process of Speciation, as well as Natural
Selection.
An interesting page discussing the evolutionary
ecology of goldenrod galls and the many levels of selection on several
plant and animal species is avilable from Warren Abrahamson and Paul Heinrich
of Bucknell University.
For a discussion of matters concerning introduced pest plant species
growing exponentially, consult the US Army Corp of Engineers' Aquatic
Plant Control Research Program.
A nice overview of metapopulation dynamics can be found at Dr. Eric
Rexstad's Wildlife
Populations and their Management course at University of Alaska, Fairbanks.
A useful key to determining the most appropriate population estimation
technique can be accessed from the USGS, Patuxent
Wildlife Research Center.
Several population estimation computer programs are available from Stanford
University's Center
for Conservation Biology, most of which are only available for the
PC.
Several other population estimation computer programs that involve direct
capture of animals are available from Colorado State University's Wildlife
departments.
An excellent discussion of Natural Resource Biometrics can be accessed
from Dr.
David Larsen at the University of Missouri.
A concise discussion of Population
Viability Analysis is available from RAMAS Ecological Software by Applied
Biomathmatics.
Biosphere
2's Research entry has several descriptions of each of the biomes within
the domes, how they were originally composed, and what research is currently
being performed within each.
For an interesting discussion of the ecological
processes in a timberline ecotone in the northern US, consult this
reference.
The World Resources Institute has excellent discussions of many issues
within the conservation
of biodiversity, particularly that of the importance of keystone
species in an ecosystem.
A good key for choosing the proper Community Diversity Index for your
goal is available from The
University of Leicester.
The best statistical package on the market for calculating community
diversity indices is EstimateS
from Rob Colwell at the University of Connecticut. The users
manual also has some discussion of diversity indices.
Read more about photosynthetic
bacteria from the University of California Berkeley's Museum of Paleontology
Phylogeny Wing Website.
Dr. Thomas D. Brock of The University of Wisconsin has several interesting
discussions of life
at extremely high temperatures, particulary those at Yellowstone Park,
USA.
The American Museum of Natural History has a great site discussing the
biology and ecology of the hydrothermal
vents in the Mid-Atlantic Ridge.
The Introduction
to Global Change Course of the Global
Change Project, based at the University of Michigan has many excellent
informative lectures or resource pages about a diversity of subjects including
The
Flow of Energy: Primary Production.
See the Global
Analysis Interpretation and Modelling Task force Summer 98 bulletin
for more information on how to calculate estimates of primary and secondary
productivity.
The World Wildlife Fund, UK has an interesting page discussing the structure
of tropical forests and the layers
of canopy within.
More information on plants, their utility, basic biology, and other
processes can be obtained from the Kew Botanical Gardens' Information
Sheets.
The Rainforest
Explorer from REMedia is an excellent exploration of many subjects
related to tropical rainforests, including an excellent glossary.
From Wayne's World, a page discussing the chemical defenses in plants
and their effects on humans - Plants
that make you loco.
A great overview of plant
defenses against herbivory is available from the University of Maryland's
Department of Plant Biology, which also has a separate page discussing
Psychoactive
Plants
Water on the Web from the University of Minnesota has an excellent glossary
of aquatic ecology terms.
The
Soil Biology Primer, from the USDA's NRCS Soil Quality Institute in
Ames, Iowa, has many chapters on soil ecology.
Dr. Michael J. Pidwirny, of the Department of Geography, Okanagan University
College, has an excellent online textbook on Physical Geography. The Introduction
to Biogeography and Ecology chapter is particularly relevant to communities.
Davey Jones of the University of Wales, Bangor, has a thorough lecture
page on Lichens.
Fun
with Lichens from Oregon State University has information on the basic
biology of these fascinating organisms, as well as an interactive identification
key to lichens.
J. A. Holmes of the Environmental Research and Teaching Center at the
University of Toronto has an enlightening page on the various types
and mechanisms of succession.
Forensic-Entomology.com
has several very informative pages on the application of succession to
solving crimes using insects.
The American
Board of Forensic Entomology has a rigorous discussion of the science
and the applications of forensic entomology to solve crimes.
Dr. Morton Staerkeby of the University of Oslo has a very interesting
set of pages he calls The
Forensic Entomology Pages, International.
The Department of Geography of the University of Oregon has a set of
informative Global
Climate Animations illustrating annual changes in each of the climate
variables. It is from this page that the animations on this page were borrowed.
The International Research Institute (IRI) for Climate Prediction has
a page explaining the basis and patterns of the natural phenomenon of El
Ni–o/Southern Oscillation (ENSO) phenomenon.
Consult this page from NOAA, OGP, and UCAR discussing El
Ni–o and Climate Prediction.
A paper by Alan L. McNab and Thomas R. Karl of the National Oceanic
and Atmospheric Administration discusses the relationship between Climate
and Droughts in the Southwestern US.
A plain text page that has ample information on the relationship between
Sun
and Climate is available from Judith Lean and David Rind and published
in CONESQUENCES: Volume 2, Number 1, during 1996.
The Center for the Study of Carbon Dioxide and Global Change has several
pages that discuss CAM
plants and the affect of elevated CO2.
Dr.
Raymond Russo of Indiana University Purdue University Indianapolis
has an informative page of graphs illustrating the impacts of temperature
on organismal activity.
Diapause
in insects from the website to accompany Developmental Biology, Sixth
Edition by Scott F. Gilbert.
An interesting paper is available from Dr. Ronald L. Hanson of the USGS
on evapotranspiration
and droughts.
Knowledge Centre of New Zealand has an interesting discussion of the
impact of winds in determining Anticyclones
and New Zealand weather patterns
The Weather Channel has a page discussing the importance of wind in
producing Nor'easters,
which frequently afflict the BRF.
A paper by Dr. Scott Mori and John L. Brown of the New York Botanical
Garden entitled a Report
on Wind Dispersal in a Lowland Moist Forest in Central French Guiana
presents interesting reading about the beneficial effects of wind on plants.
Representative
State Soil Profiles are available from the USDA
National Soil Survey Center, including soil pit photographs from each
state in the USA.
Soil Science Society
of America homepage has links to many soil-related services. Of great
interest is access to the abstracts from the last few years of four journals:
Soil
Science Society of America Journal , Journal of Environmental Quality,
Agronomy
Journal , and the Journal
of Natural Resources and Life Sciences Education.
The Glossary
from the Soil Science Society of America has a searchable index of
soil-specific terms and instructions on the use of the Glossary.
Colorado State University has a page with many soil
biology projects that could be used as idea-generators for independent
projects. This page is included in their Soil
Biodiversity and Ecosystem Functioning Homepage, which provides a worthwhile
overview of the field.
The University of Wisconsin has made available a detailed description
of the US soil
taxonomy, based on the hierarchy of the USDA National Soil Science
Center.
A heavily mathematical online lecture notes on soil
architecture and physical properties is available from Dr. Mark Radosevich
of the University of Delaware.
A description of Soil
Horizons and their associated sub-characteristics is available from
the Petrik Library.
A study discussing the Influence
of air porosity on the distrubution of gases in soil under assay for denitrification
is available from the USDA-ARS.
Soil
Density and Porosity discussion from Saskatchewan Interactive.
Although we haven't talked about vulcanology here, Volcano
World has many interesting links to soil-related subjects, such as
the creation of the raw materials (volcano products - ash, lava, etc.)
that can be subsequently made into soil by biotic processes and weathering.
General
Biogeochemistry Resources on the Internet as compiled by Cornell University.
Geochemical
cycles and biogeochemical
cycles in general, and sedimentary
geochemical cycles in specific are discussed and defined by brittanica.com.
Biochemical
cycles are discussed by Dr. Charles Ophardt of Elmhurst College. His
discussion also touches upon and slightly blurs the distinction between
biochemical and biogeochemical cycles.
The Natural Food Hub has a discussion of how grains,
beans and seeds were cultivated during early human evolution in the Nile
river basin by taking advantage of the seasonal flooding that leads
to sudden sedimentary geochemical cycling.
A discussion of passive
diffusion, mostly emphasizing its relevance to drug absorption across
a membrane but is still relevant to its role as a mechanism of the biogeochemical
cycle, is available from the Veterinary School at Cornell University.
Mass
transfer as a mechanism of the biogeochemical cycle, mostly from the
perspective of biochemical engineering in porous solids but still relevant,
is available from NgeeAnn Polytechnic University.
Mycotrophy
and mycorrhizal fungi are discussed by PlantHealthCare.com.
A general treatment of the theoretical bases of leaching
is available from The Chemical Engineers' Resource Page.
Translocation
as
at work within soils and during soil forming processes is available from
Dr. Noorallah Juma and Chris Harland of the University of Alberta.
A brief biography of Georges
Cuvier is available from the University
of California Berkeley Museum of Paleontology. A more critical, and
slightly biased, version of Cuvier's life is available from Strange
Science.
Georges
Cuvier and Catastrophism, a page explaining catastrophism and has several
links to pages discussing this outmoded version of geological change, is
available from Kumari Fernando's Exploring
Scientific Controversies website.
The full text of Charles Lyell's influential book Principles
of Geology III & IV is available from The "Contradictions
of the Enlightment" section of Fordham's Modern History Sourcebook,
an excellent resource with many full texts or excerpts from key early scientific
texts such as those by Darwin, Spencer, Lyell, Huxley, and many others.
The entire text of Darwin's Origin
of Species is available from Literature.org, as is The
Voyage of the Beagle and The
Descent of Man.
The USGS has a thorough discussion and set of images of pages detailing
the types
and effects of volcano hazards, the location
of major eruptions, the deadliest
volcanic eruptions since 1500 A.D., and other
background reading.
A discussion of the After
Effects of Krakatau's Explosion is available from San Diego State University.
Sandia National Laboratories have a news release that discusses what
an asteroid strike would look like as well as what
effect an asteroid impact near New York City would have, as inspired
by the movie Deep Impact.
The original research paper that describes a possible 120km diameter
impact structure caused by an asteroid that could have caused the
extinction of 90% of all life 250 million years ago.
National Geographic has a page briefly discussing the asteroid impact
at the
end of the Permian, 250 million years ago, along with several links
to similar pages.
The Smithsonian Institution's Department of Paleobiology has a page
discussing the asteroid
hypothesis of the extinction that led to the extinction of the dinosaurs
65 million years ago.
Brittanica.com has an excellent discussion of community ecology, as
well as the concepts of a climax
community and ecological
succession.
R. J. Peacock, J. E. Williams, and J. F. Franklin have an interesting
paper online discussing Disturbance
ecology of forested ecosystems: implications for sustainable management
from the Proceedings
of the 1997 Conference of the Ecological Society of Australia, from
which several other related papers addressing conservation biology and
biodiversity are available.
Quinlan Consultants have an excellent discussion of the intermediate
disturbance hypothesis.
The United National
Convention to Combat Desertification has a fact sheet discussing the
causes
of desertification as well as many other aspects of the problem.
Sierra Club has a series of FAQ sheets discussing several components
of environmentalism, including habitat
loss.
A
Land Cover Change Monitoring Program: A Federal Agency Initiative (A
Report to the Committee on Environment and Natural Resources), is available
from D.L. Skole and C. O. Justice.
A Land-Use
and Land-Cover Change Science/Research Plan is available from B.L.
Turner II, David Skole, Steven Sanderson, Gunther Fischer, Louise Fresco
and Rik Leemans
A report entitled "What
Drives Deforestation In The Brazilian Amazon? Evidence from Satellite and
Socioeconomic Data" is available from Alexander S.P. Pfaff of the Massachusetts
Institute of Technology.
A report discussing the connection between Landscape
Ecology and Ecosystems Management is available from Thomas G. Barnes
of the University of Kentucky. It is also available for downloading as
an Adobe pdf file and discusses matrixes among many other related subjects.
Itaipu Binacional
discusses many of the features of its ambitious reforestation and corridor
construction plan that it has developed and implemented as part of its
massive hydroelectric dam on the Paraná River in Brazil.
Ecosystem
Fragmentation and its implications for Canadian Parks is discussed
by Canadian Heritage and Parks Canada.
An excellent discussion of the impacts of edge
effects in urban areas is available from the California State Parks.
A whimsical, but nonetheless interesting, discussion of avian nest parasites
entitled "Brood
Parasites or Where Did I Put That Egg?" is available from Christine
Tarski at About.com.
The Green
Corridors Management Strategy for the Upper Parramatta River Catchment
Trust located near Sydney, Australia is an interesting application of the
use of corridors for mitigating biodiversity loss from fragmentation.
Habitat
fragmentation, corridor construction in Florida, and its impact on the
Florida Panther is available from Florida Panther Net.
An impressive bibliography of the Effects
of Highways and Other Linear Developments on Wildlife Populations is
available from Anthony P. Clevenger of Parks Canada.
A page from Dr. Steve Archer of Texas A & M discusses how
multiple factors lead to tree encroachment in grasslands, including
land use practices (grazing, fire suppression), climate, and chemical atmospheric
changes (such as elevated carbon dioxide and nitrogen deposition). It also
has an extensive bibliography on these factors.
The abstract of an excellent article by Peter M. Vitousek, Carla M.
D'Antonio, Lloyd L. Loope and Randy Westbrooks entitled "Biological
Invasions as Global Environmental Change" is available from American
Scientist, published by Sigma Xi. This article is the source of the
statistic that 68% of extinctions are caused by exotics.
Information
on Exotic Plant Species of the Southwest is available from the USGS,
including exotic plant species lists for many of the Southwestern US states.
The Hawaii Cat Foundation
website discusses the magnitude of the feral cat problem in Hawaii.
The Hawaiian
Ant Group, allied with the Hawaiian
Ecosystems at Risk Project has an extensive set of online references
discussing ants in Hawaii.
Daniel Simberloff has an excellent review article on the Impacts
of Introduced Species in the United States available from the online
journal Consequences.
An interesting discussion of the impact
of marine bioinvaders and a large listing of links
to pages discussing Marine Bioinvaders is available from the Massachusetts
Bay Information Server from the MIT
Sea Grant.
Nonindigenous
Aquatic Species in a United States Estuary: A Case Study of the Biological
Invasions of the San Francisco Bay and Delta by Andrew N. Cohen and
James T. Carlton is available from the USGS, USFWS, and Connecticut Sea
Grant. The San Francisco Estuary may be the most invaded aquatic ecosystem
in North America - this report summarizes to what extent this is the case.
Background information on Exotic species is available from Living
Landscapes of the Columbia Basin, British Columbia.
A clearinghouse of websites discussing the effects
of free-roaming and feral cats on biodiversity is available from the
California Department of Fish and Game.
Jonathan Wells of University of California Berkeley has an interesting
page entitled: "Second
Thoughts about Peppered Moths: This classical story of evolution by natural
selection needs revising". Even though this page is hosted by a reactionary
creationist website, it provides some interesting reading. Keep the
political goals of the author in mind when reading it.
The EPA
has an entire site devoted to the phenomenon of Global Warming with
text addressing the climate changes, gas emissions, possible impacts of
global warming, and actions needed to address the phenomenon.
The Ice Core Working Group of the University of New Hampshire has a
page called "Ice
Core Contributions to Global Change Research: Past Successes and Future
Directions" that discusses the relationship between carbon dioxide
and methane levels in ice cores over long time periods.
"Why
is the Ozone Hole Over the Antarctic?", a question that is addressed
by a page from the EPA.
The Ozone
Hole Tour, from the Centre for Atmospheric Science of Cambridge University,
is an excellent introduction to the dynamics and implications of the ozone
hole.
Basic
chemistry of ozone depletion page from the Numerical Aerospace Simulation
Systems Division of NASA has an excellent explanation of the chemical processes
causing ozone holes.
Ozone
Production and Destruction page from the Atmospheric Chemistry Data
and Resources from The Goddard Space Flight Center of NASA also has some
short Quicktime videos demonstrating these processes.
A thorough discussion of the Kyoto
Protocol is available from the UN, including the full
text of the agreement.
The Woods Hole
Resource Center has many links to useful papers discussing several
aspects of climate change, some specific to the Amazon, Cape Cod, and many
other locales around the world.
Three new Working Papers on climate change policy by researchers at
CICERO (Center for International Climate and Environmental Research - Oslo)
are now available in electronic form: The
Kyoto mechanisms and the quest for compliance: Unresolved issues and potential
pitfalls, Decision-making
frameworks for climate policy under uncertainty, and Impatience
and climate policy.
A page from Dr. Steve Archer of Texas A & M discusses how
multiple factors lead to tree encroachment in grasslands, including
land use practices (grazing, fire suppression), climate, and chemical atmospheric
changes (such as elevated carbon dioxide and nitrogen deposition). It also
has an extensive bibliography on these factors.
The Society
for Ecological Restoration Internet Resources Site has a great deal
of information on Restoration
Ecology.
Save
the Albany Pine Bush has some information on the unique pine barrens
ecosystem in the Albany, New York area.
A write up from the US Fish and Wildlife Service has a very informative,
if text heavy, page describing the
political, geological, and ecological status of the Albany Pine Bush
in great detail.
Beyond
Fences: Seeking Social Sustainability in Conservation, Chapter 4.24 - Jobs
in Conservation by Larry R. Kohler and Carmen Aalbers of the World
Conservation Union (IUCN) discusses the importance of involving local
people in conservation strategies.
Environmental
Policies of the Society for Ecological Restoration from the Society
for Ecological Restoration is an excellent and brief primer on the
main factors that determine an effective restoration ecology program.
A brief description of the history of the Brazilian
Mâta Atlantica is available from American Electric Power.
The home page of the Instituto
de Pesquisas Ecologicas (IPÊ) has a great deal of information
on all the restoration and conservation ecology projects on which they
are currently working.
Hunting &
Biodiversity in Atlantic Forest Fragments in São Paulo, Brazil
by Laury Cullen, Jr of IPÊ
has a great deal of information about Morro do Diabo as well as of the
title subject.
IPÊ's
project in which they are creating corridors
that will connect the remaining fragments is also availalable from
Laury Cullen, Jr.
Ecosystems,
Biomes, and Watersheds: Definitions and Use by M. Lynne Corn of the
National Council for Science and the Environment in Washington D.C. has
an interesting critque of conservation biology as well as a discussion
of these definitions.
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