Unnatural Kingdom

cientists are getting very creative with how they can save endangered species now thanks to advances in technology. Like with the Sierra Bighorns. The Sierra Bighorns were prayed on by Lions and at one point their population decreased to around just 100. Started in the early 2000s, people would fire net guns from helicopters to capture Bighorns fitted with collars with GPS and VHF radio transmitters. And then professional hunters tracked and darted every lion in the area to outfit them with collars that carried VHF radio transmitters. After that, Biologists at computer monitors to watch the Bighorn’s movements. So every time a lion kills multiple bighorns in a short period of time, the hunters use VHF radio waves and specially bred Lion hounds to find and kill it. Or you can do something like the Italian farmers who had bears eating their chickens and tearing up their commercial beehives. They put collars on the bears and when they came close to a sensor, hidden guns sprayed them and bright lights and loud sirens blared and scared them away.

    It’s great that they’re trying to bring back the Sierra Bighorns but it’s going to be a while before they’re totally back to normal. Every species should have some differences between them and the Sierra Bighorns aren’t going to be very diverse. It’s going to be growing from such a small population so the gene pool will also be small. But as the population grows so will the gene pool.

Topic 1: Public Health and Topic 2: Energy, Water Stress and Animal Waste Management

Topic 1: Public Health
IFAP facilities can be very harmful to workers, neighbors and even those living far away from the facilities through air and water pollution. The workers and neighbors of the IFAP facilities experience higher levels of respiratory problems. Workers can serve as a bridging population by transmitting animal-borne diseases to a wider population. The meat also has antibiotics in them to stimulate growth which can lead to a resistance in the body. So when you're prescribed antibiotics for something like strep throat, the antibiotics may not work because your body has developed a resistance to it. And a lack of appropriate treatment of enormous amounts of waste may result in contamination in nearby waters with very harmful levels of nutrients and toxins like bacteria, fungi and viruses.

Topic 2: Energy, Water Stress, Animal Waste Management in North Carolina
When large numbers of animals are raised together they're usually in confinement buildings which could increase the likelihood for health issues with the potential to affect humans which could result from disease carried by the animals or their waste. Animal waste could harbor a number of pathogens and chemical contaminants, but it's usually left untreated. Most of the time it's sprayed on the fields as fertilizer but that raises the potential for contamination with the air, water and soil. The water is a big concern. Groundwater contamination can affect drinking water supplies at a huge distance from the source. But there's a use for all that waste. North Carolina has begun using biomass as an energy resource and you can get that from agricultural resources like crops and animal waste.

Sources:
http://apps1.eere.energy.gov/states/images/maps/map_large_biomass_NC.jpg

EROI

1.)  We should use the Tar Sands before the Oil Shale due to the fact that the Tar Sands have a higher EROI.
2.) Both processes use heat. To get oil from oil shale you have to drill a hole 1,000 to 2,000 feet into the ground and then the shale goes to 700 degrees. But when you get oil from the Tar Sands, they’re being heated with steam to get the bitumen out

3. 3) The biggest difference between the two is you get way more oil from the Tar Sands.

44.) If we're thinking long term, offshore drilling is the smartest choice. It's the smartest choice because there's a higher EROI which means we can produce more oil without extra energy.

55.) When I workout I do the easiest workouts first because I'm lazy. But then I'm forced to do the hard ones but it doesn't matter because I'm huge.

Haber Process

    Have you ever been to New York City? Have you ever seen how crowded it is? Well if the population keeps growing the way it does, it could be like that everywhere. But with far less food. I think the Haber Process is a fantastic thing. I fully support anything that could provide man kind with resources for a little longer. And that is artificial nitrogen fertilizer. The only relevant thing I saw that opposed that was when Alan Weisman said “Before artificial nitrogen fertilizer became widely available, the world’s population was around 2 billion, when we no longer have it—or if we ever decide to stop using it—that may be a number to which our own naturally gravitates.” But why would we want to stop using it? If it is still providing us with resources, why stop a good thing? Yes, I do get that the population is growing to unlivable numbers. But that universal one child policy sounds pretty good. If we are really THAT worried about our population becoming out of control, why wouldn’t you support it? I get that babies are cute and everything but they’re obviously not helping the world by just being alive. There’s so many things that could reduce the Total fertility rate. Like is it really that hard to use birth control? Like it’s something that’s very useful that we can use to our advantage but we don’t and we have more and more children because of it. But I think the Haber process is very useful. Let’s maximize the amount of food we can grow until we can’t grow anymore. So maybe we’ll have somewhat of a surplus.

Final Draft Seneca River

Introduction: Seneca Lake is about 34.5 miles long. About 3.7 miles wide and has a depth of 630ft. So there could be a lot of different MacroInvertebrates in those 34.5 miles of water. The ecosystem has to be very diverse. There’s many different MacroInvertebrates in Seneca Lake. There’s crayfish, amphipod, stonefly larvae and mayfly larva.

The temperature of the lake varies. The lake can get as warm as 72 degrees fahrenheit  and it can as cold as 38 degrees fahrenheit. So with that information, can we figure out if the depth at temperature of the water can impact what organisms we’ll find in the water? And does pH and Dissolved Oxygen levels play a role too? I’m very interested to see that part because in the experiments I have done coming up to this one, I’ve really never seen a correlation between pH/dissolved oxygen and what kind of organisms are in that area.  

Research Question:  How is the depth and temperature of the water affect what organisms we’re going to find in the water?

Hypothesis:  I think the deeper/warmer part of the lake will be the most diverse. Since the lake is so deep, I feel like there’s much more room for different MacroInvertebrates. Also, in similar experiments they have found that the population of the lake is much more diverse in the deeper water than the shallow water.

Variable Identification:  

Controlled Variable	Method to control the variable
Where we test. How deep the water is.	Keep track of the exact latitude and longitude. Measure the depth.

Experimental Setup This lab was done on Seneca River in Geneva, New York.

Procedure:

1.) Twist the end of the rope around one hand 2-3 times and grasp with a fist. Don't let go! This grip is to ensure the net isn't tossed overboard when it is cast.

2.)Make sure the clasp at the bottom of the net is closed! If it isn't, the sample will not be captured and the net will need to be recast.

3.) Lower the net over the side of the boat until it floats freely in the water. Walk slowly from the stern to the bow of the boat and then back again, gently dragging the net behind you. Try to walk at a steady pace so that the net stays at a fairly constant depth and does not scrape the side of the boat. Since water clarity is an indication of the presence of phytoplankton, use the secchi disk reading as an indicator of productivity. If the secchi disk reading is less than 7 meters, traverse the length of the boat twice. If it is greater than 7 meters, make 3-4 trips to make sure you collect enough plankton in your net.

4.) Back at the stern of the boat, gather the line up until the net is vertical, hanging freely, and level with the railing. Using the provided wash bottle (filled with tap or lake surface water, not distilled water), wash down any plankton clinging to the sides of the net into the small grey cup attached to the lower end of the net.

5.) Raise the net slightly, keeping it vertical. Grasp the grey sample cup and swing it on board, making sure not to spill the sample.

6.) Hold the provided plastic beaker under the sample cup and attached rubber tubing and release the tubing clamp, allowing the sample to flow into the beaker. If it appears that some sample has clung to the inside of the grey sample cup, carefully use a small amount of water from the wash bottle to rinse it into the beaker. You don't want to dilute the sample.

7.) The beaker can now be taken to the lab for analysis. Remember to rinse it out when the plankton sample is no longer needed (using either tap or distilled water) and replace it in the net box.

Data:

	Sample 1 a	Sample 1 b	Sample 2 a	Sample 2 b	Sample 3 a	Sample 3 b
Latitude	N 42D 49.940’	N 42D 50.840’	N 42D 51’	N 42D 49.97’	N 42D 51.491’’	N 42D 51.554’’
Longitude	W 76D 57.970’	W 76D 57.522’	W 76D 58’	W 76D 57.94’’	W 76D 57.762’	W 76D 57.562’
Sample temp.	13D Celsius	7D Celsius	13D Celsius	7D Celsius	13D Celsius	13D Celsius
Sample depth	38.9m	10m	10m	54m	Surface	0m
P.H.	7.3	7.4	7.4	7.4	7.5	7.3
Chloride	200 ppm	143 ppm	300 ppm	180 ppm	200 ppm	140 ppm
Dissolved Oxygen	30 ppm	10.4 ppm	6 ppm	10.4 ppm	10 ppm	10 ppm

Species	1A	2A	3A	1P	2P	3P
1	2	2	1	1	1	6
2	2	2	1	1	1	1
3	2	1	3	1	1	7
4	3	7	1	16	2	5
5	0	2	1	2	5	1
6	0	1	1	0	2	1
7	0	0	1	0	4	0
8	0	0	0	0	1	0

Results :

http://nces.ed.gov/nceskids/createagraph/index.asp?ID=bfd14cb52cd44ed4ab6b4e332377b93b

Diversity (Simpsons Diversity Index)

Discussion:

This picture shows dissolved oxygen levels in different depths of Seneca Lake. Since all of our tests were taken at different depths and we got different readings in different depths, this could explain why. Oxygen is absolutely necessary to all life and if they get too low if can be stressful to the life down there. So that could affect the population

Evaluation:  I think this was a somewhat solid experiment. But like in any experiment, there’s a certain amount of human error. I think to get a 100% accurate reading you would have to collect more Macroinvertebrate continuously all day. Just to be totally sure.

Conclusion: As you can see I found a very diverse

References –  "Lake County Water Atlas." Seneca, Lake: Ecology. N.p., n.d. Web. 29 Oct. 2015.

"Does Water Level Affect Benthic Macro-invertebrates of a Marginal Lake in a Tropical River-reservoir Transition Zone?" Does Water Level Affect Benthic Macro-invertebrates of a Marginal Lake in a Tropical River-reservoir Transition Zone? N.p., n.d. Web. 29 Oct. 2015.

"Seneca Lake." - A Guide to Hotels, Bed and Breakfasts in the Finger Lakes. N.p., n.d. Web. 29 Oct. 2015.

"Water Treatment Solutions." Why Is Important the Oxygen Dissolved in Water. N.p., n.d. Web. 19 Nov. 2015.




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