week of 10/29 to 11/02: Forest Biology

10/29/2018

week of 10/29 to 11/02: Forest Biology

Read Now

Forest Biology

What is a forest?

A forest is a large area dominated by trees. a natural woodland unit consisting of all plants, animals and micro-organisms (Biotic components) in that area functioning together with all of the non-living physical (abiotic) factors of the environment.

The forest ecosystem is very important.

There are three major types of forests, classed according to latitude:

Tropical.
Temperate.
Boreal forests (taiga)

Latitude: the angular distance of a place north or south of the earth's equator, or of a celestial object north or south of the celestial equator, usually expressed in degrees and minutes.

Longitudes: are therefore imaginary circles that intersect the North and South Poles, and the Equator. Half of a longitudinal circle is known as a Meridian. Meridians are perpendicular to every latitude. Unlike, latitudes, there is no obvious central longitude.

https://www.roughguides.com/gallery/forests-of-the-world-forest-pictures/

10 Amazing Ancient Forests Around the World

types of forests

Tropical Rainforest:

Contain the greatest diversity of species of all biomes on earth.
Temperatures in tropical rainforests remain between 68 and 77 degrees Fahrenheit all year long. Winter is absent in these forests. Most tropical rainforests receive 100 inches of rain per year.
Trees in the tropical rainforests grow between 82 and 115 feet tall

Temperate Deciduous Forest:

Located in Eastern United States and Canada, Western Europe and parts of Russia, China and Japan
There are four distinct seasons in temperate deciduous forests
30 to 60 inches of rain per year

Temperate Coniferous Forest:

Typically found in coastal areas with mild winters and heavy rainfall or in in-land mountainous areas with mild climates
Temperate climate with temperature that fluctuates little throughout the year. High levels of precipitation (50-200 inches per year)

Boreal (Taiga) Forest:

Boreal forests are found in Canada, northern Asia, Siberia and Scandinavia (Denmark, Norway, Sweden, Finland).
About two-thirds of the world's boreal forests are found in Scandinavia.
Animals found here must be adapted to long, cold winters and usually have thick fur

microbiology: a glimpse

mushrooms are a big part of the ecosystem

Kingdom Fungi, one of the oldest and largest groups of living organisms
fungal cell walls contain chitin, a protein that also makes insect exoskeleton

phylogenetic tree

The Etymology of Phylogenetic: The term phylogenetic, or phylogeny, derives from the two ancient greek words φῦλον (phûlon), meaning "race, lineage", and γένεσις (génesis), meaning "origin, source".

A fungus is any member of the group of eukaryotic organisms that includes microorganisms such as yeasts and molds, as well as the more familiar mushrooms.
These organisms are classified as a kingdom, fungi, which is separate from the other eukaryotic life kingdoms of plants and animals

Eucarya: eukaryote, nucleus enclosed within membranes
Prokaryote: no membrane, a unicellular organism that lacks a membrane-bound nucleus, mitochondria, or any other membrane-bound organelle.
Bacteria: a member of a large group of unicellular microorganisms that have cell walls but lack organelles and an organized nucleus, including some that can cause disease.
Archaea: domain of single-celled microorganisms. These microbes are prokaryotes, meaning they have no cell nucleus
- Extremophiles: thrive in extreme environments
- we have yet to find a species that causes disease
- more complex RNA polymerases than Bacteria, similar to Eucarya
- Might be able to survive on Mars

fungal life cycle

https://hostdefense.com/

inoculation: Spores alight upon a growth medium (or substrate). If conditions are favorable, spores will germinate.

https://freshcapmushrooms.com

https://freshcapmushrooms.com/

fungal spores

spore germination: Fine fungal filaments known as hyphae grow from the spores. Compatible hyphae mate to create fertile mycelium.
- Fungal hyphae release digestive enzymes in order to absorb nutrients from food sources
- Mutualism: Certain species of fungi may form a symbiotic relationship with plants whereby both species benefit

hyphae

In most fungi, hyphae are divided into cells by internal cross-walls called “septate hyphae” for example “Aspergillus”, while some other fungi have non-septate hyphae, meaning their hyphae are not partitioned by septa and this type is called “Coenocytic hyphae“

mycelial expansion: Developing mycelium breaks down organic matter and absorbs nutrients from its surroundings. During this stage of growth, mycelium expands at an exponential rate. In its environment, mycelium encounters many competitors and predators which it repels with an amazing array of protective enzymes and compounds. In this sense, the mycelium is the immune system of the mushroom.
- hyphae are collectively together called a mycelium

hyphal knot: Mycelium condenses into hyphal knots, which then develop into “primordia” or baby mushrooms.

primordia formation: The mushroom organism produces an amazing array of enzymes and optimizes the constituents of both the mycelium and the developing fruitbody. Host Defense harvests during this peak stage of growth to capture an abundant constituent profile including polysaccharides (beta glucans, arabinoxylanes), glycoproteins, ergosterols, triterpenoids and other myco-nutrients.

fruitbody selection: From thousands of primordia, the growing organism selects the most promising few to develop into mature fruitbodies.

mature fruitbody: The organism channels all of its energy and nutrients to develop the fruitbody, which will then produce spores. Spore generation is the sexual reproduction phase of the mushroom life cycle.

spore release: The fruitbody releases spores into the environment for propagation. Those that land on a favorable substrate (or growth medium) can germinate, beginning the life cycle anew!

http://fungially.com

fungi foster an egalitarian network of RESOURCES and Data Transfer (communication) between plants of various species that keep the planet alive

Protozoa: is a single-celled organism that is a eukaryote (which are organisms whose cells contain membrane-bound organelles and nuclei). Most have flagella to move around.

Protozoans:

https://www.carlsonstockart.com/

nematode

Nematodes are among the most abundant animals on Earth. They occur as parasites in animals and plants or as free-living forms in soil, fresh water, marine environments, and even such unusual places as vinegar, beer malts, and water-filled cracks deep within Earth's crust. Called roundworm: unsegmented cylindrical body, tapering at both ends

How Fungi decompose stuff

Isotopes: Carbon-12, Carbon-13, and Carbon-14 are used for Carbon Dating, used to find the age of prototaxites

Prototaxites: is a genus of terrestrial fossil fungi dating from the Late Silurian until the Late Devonian periods, approximately 430 to 360 million years ago

more on the yew tree mentioned in the video

The type of tree that scientists thought the fossils represented instead of prototaxites.

One of the oldest wooden artefacts ever discovered by modern humans was made from Yew – a spearhead found in Essex dated at approximately 450,000 years of age.

Top 10 Facts about the Yew

Geologic Periods

numbers are in millions of years

plant disease

Disease etymology: Middle English (in the sense ‘lack of ease; inconvenience’): from Old French desaise ‘lack of ease,’ from des- (expressing reversal) + aise ‘ease.’ "discomfort, inconvenience, distress, trouble,"

Monoculture: the cultivation of a single crop in a given area.

Living beings do not grow well in a monoculture, the genetic diversity is limited and disease can kill more of the population because there is lack of diversity in immune defense.

Our agriculture is usually based on monoculture

Pathogen: a bacterium, virus, or other microorganism that can cause disease.

plant virus

plant bacteria

Bacteria reproduce by binary fission. In this process the bacterium, which is a single cell, divides into two identical daughter cells. Binary fission begins when the DNA of the bacterium divides into two (replicates).

binary fission= Bacterial reproduction

Bacteria: binary fission and asexual reproduction

Bacteriophage Viruses infecting bacteria.

Bacteriophage:
a virus that parasitizes a bacterium by infecting it and reproducing inside it.

bacteriophage replication

Phage etymology: to eat

plant immune system

Gene for gene model modifies genetics
for plant adaptation

Punnet Square

Gene for Gene Hypothesis: mutual recognition of host and pathogen is not by the genes themselves but by their coded proteins

Plants make antifungal, antibacterial, and antiviral chemicals to stay healthy.

If they need to drop a leaf to get the pathogen off they do, it is called apoptosis

Plants do not need our help to fight disease, plants have lived here for millions of years, they just need to be left alone and not be harmed by human activity, they are however, surviving the human activity.

people thoughts on mushrooms,
only here to be taken into consideration

A hypothesis on how human brains might have doubled in size with the help of mushrooms over a short period of time, in biology time, only two million years... only a possibility: a hypothesis that biologists like to consider.

Speaker Paul Stamets: Expert Mycologist and Author, https://fungi.com/

Featuring Terence McKenna, Author and lecturer that studied Ecology and Resource Conservation at University of California, Berkeley

Always consider the source, and please don't take substances from strangers

Theory of how animals moved onto land...
and became mammals

synapsida

A group of animals that includes mammals and every animal more closely related to mammals than to other living amniotes
- Amniote: from Greek ἀμνίον amnion, "membrane surrounding the fetus"
The non-mammalian members are described as mammal-like reptiles
Existed 312 million years ago, during the Late Carboniferous period
Synonymous with therapsids, therapsids evolved from pelycosaurs 275 million years ago, pelycosaurs are not considered a mammal like reptiles
Cynodonts ("dog teeth") (clade Cynodontia) are therapsids that
First appeared in the Late Permian (approximately 260 Ma).
- The group includes modern mammals (including humans)

cynodonts

Benjamin Burger, PhD
Associate Professor of Geology
Utah State University
Uintah Basin Regional Campus – Vernal, Utah
320 North Aggie Blvd. Vernal, UT 84078
benjamin.burger at usu.edu
(435)-722-1778

Order Pelycosauria

The first order of synapsids to arise in the Late Carboniferous to Early Permian, around 310 Million years ago, were the pelycosaurs, making up around 70% of all the tetrapod genera alive in the Early Permian. The pelycosaurs are split into six families: http://palaeo.gly.bris.ac.uk/palaeofiles/fossilgroups/synapsida/pelycosauria.html

Bigger head
Ate fish and smaller animals, first carnivores
Canine teeth

Dimetrodon

The skeleton of a Dimetrodon, with extremely long neural spines to support the sail.
Reproduced with kind permission from Benton and Harper, 1997

Ophiacodon

The skeleton of Ophiacodon, the largest and best known of the earliest pelycosaurs.
Reproduced with kind permission from Benton and Harper, 1997

notes from the bbc documentary on our inner fish/reptile

Around 375 million years ago some very daring fish started leaving the ocean and trying to breathe air
This was eventually a thing
The fish species split off into amphibians and reptiles
The fossil record is rich in the karoo mountains in South Africa. This is where the excavation in the documentary takes place
Later on there were mammal-like reptiles
- They had teeth that looked more mammal like
- Developed mammal-like behaviors
- Part of their jaw became a set of three ear bones that are now found in mammals, these bones are called: malleus, incus, and stapes

what is time?

These changes happened over millions of years and do not defy religion, time is relative.
We currently measure time using Cesium 133, the element most commonly chosen for atomic clocks: https://science.howstuffworks.com/atomic-clock3.htm
Time is something that we agree on, not a mandate of the universe

SOME DEFINITIONS

Atomic Clock - A precision clock that depends for its operation on an electrical oscillator regulated by the natural vibration frequencies of an atomic system (as a beam of cesium atoms)

Atom - The smallest particle of an element that can exist either alone or in combination; the atom is considered to be a source of vast potential energy

Cesium 133 - An isotope of cesium used especially in atomic clocks and one of whose atomic transitions is used as a scientific time standard

SI Second (atomic second) - The interval of time taken to complete 9,192,631,770 oscillations of the cesium 133 atom exposed to a suitable excitation

transition from reptile to mammal

375 million years ago

monotremes

Echidnas and the platypus are the only egg-laying mammals, known as monotremes. The average lifespan of an echidna in the wild is estimated around 14–16 years.

The female lays a single soft-shelled, leathery egg
22 days after mating, and deposits it directly into her pouch
Egg weighs 1.5 to 2 grams (0.05 to 0.07 oz)[16] and is about 1.4 centimetres (0.55 in) long
While hatching, the baby echidna opens the leather shell with a reptile-like egg tooth.
Hatching takes place after 10 days of gestation; the young echidna, called a puggle, born larval and fetus-like,
Sucks milk from the pores of the two milk patches (monotremes have no nipples) and remains in the pouch for 45 to 55 days

platypus

monotremes: Mammals that Lay eggs

gondwana?

Gondwana, also called Gondwanaland, ancient supercontinent that incorporated present-day South America, Africa, Arabia, Madagascar, India, Australia, and Antarctica. It was fully assembled by Late Precambrian time, some 600 million years ago, and the first stage of its breakup began in the Early Jurassic Period, about 180 million years ago. The name Gondwanaland was coined by the Austrian geologist Eduard Suess in reference to Upper Paleozoic and Mesozoic formations in the Gondwanaregion of central India, which are similar to formations of the same age on Southern Hemisphere continents:

ENCYCLOPÆDIA BRITANNICA:
https://www.britannica.com/place/Gondwana-supercontinent

Is Gondwana the same as Pangea?

The reformed Gondwanan continent was not precisely the same as that which had existed before Pangaea formed; for example, most of Florida and southern Georgia and Alabama is underlain by rocks that were originally part of Gondwana, but this region stayed attached to North America when the Central Atlantic opened.

Pangaea, Gondwanaland, Laurasia and Tethys. a large supercontinent that existed existed ~225 million years ago at the .. between the close of the Paleozoic and start of the Mesozois (at the Permo-Triassic).

The oldest of the supercontinents is called Rodinia and was formed during Precambrian time some one billion years ago.

Another Pangea-like supercontinent, Pannotia, was assembled 600 million years ago, at the end of the Precambrian. Present-day plate motions are bringing the continents together once again.

nothing visible is permanent,
not even the position of the continents

Continental Drift: the gradual movement of the continents across the earth's surface through geological time.

slow but constant, change is the norm

mass extinctions

The big five mass extinctions

Biologists suspect we're living through the sixth major mass extinction. ...
Late Devonian, 375 million years ago, 75% of species lost. ...
End Permian, 251 million years ago, 96% of species lost. ...
End Triassic, 200 million years ago, 80% of species lost. ...
End Cretaceous, 66 million years ago, 76% of all species lost.

The Cretaceous–Paleogene (K–Pg) extinction event, also known as the Cretaceous–Tertiary (K–T) extinction, was a sudden mass extinction of some three-quarters of the plant and animal species on Earth, approximately 66 million years ago.

0 Comments

Alma d' Arte Biology