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Ecology and Natural History

Ecology and Natural History. Ecology : from Greek oikos , meaning house or dwelling place. Study of the relationships of organisms with each other and environment.

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Ecology and Natural History

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  1. Ecology and Natural History • Ecology: from Greek oikos, meaning house or dwelling place. Study of the relationships of organisms with each other and environment. • Natural History: scientific study of the whole natural world and its components including plants, animals, minerals in present and past, based primarily on observational approach.

  2. Jungle • Word roots = Hidustani word jangal, meaning wasteland, picked up by British colonial officers to mean vegetation occupying unattended area • Popularized by books such as The Jungle Books (1894-95) by Rudyard Kipling

  3. Positive images of tropics • Utopia, lost Eden, paradise • Winterless land filled with fantastic and unknown plants and animals • Riches of tropics – El Dorado • Great agricultural potential (Alexander Humbolt) • Botanical diversity – spices, medicines, fruits • Hollywood image of tropical paradise • Rain forest ecotourism

  4. Jan Breughel, The Garden of Eden with the Temptation and Fall of Adam and Eve, ca. 1600

  5. Henri Rouseau, The Dream, 1910

  6. Negative images of tropics • Source of evil, dangerous animals, disease • “region of horrors”, H. M. Stanley, Dark Continent • Savages, poverty, chaos • Jungle wars (e.g., Vietnam) • Poor and fragile soil of little agricultural potential

  7. Charles Christian Nahl, Incident on the Chagres River, 1867

  8. Humphrey Bogart drags the boat through the swamp in a scene from The African Queen, 1952.

  9. Tropics • Word roots  Greek for turning (of the sun) • Typical definition  approximately the area between the Tropic of Cancer (23º26’N) and the Tropic of Capricorn (23º26’S).

  10. Annual radiation load is highest in the tropics. Daily radiation load is the most constant in the tropics. “Night is the winter of tropics.” (From Osborn 2000)

  11. (from Osborn 2000)

  12. Total number of daylight hours is the same across the latitudes. The seasonal change of day length is little near the equator, but huge at higher latitudes. (from Osborn 2000)

  13. Köppen-Geiger classification for tropical climate • coldest month warmer than 18°C • restricted to 20°N to 20°S – consistent daylength and vertical solar beam • interrupted by mountains in western South America and East Africa (these are in class H)

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