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Remnant Natural Area
A remnant natural area, also known as remnant habitat, is an ecological community containing native flora and fauna that has not been significantly disturbed by destructive activities such as agriculture, logging, pollution, development, fire suppression, or non-native species invasion. The more disturbed an area has been, the less characteristic it becomes of remnant habitat. Remnant areas are also described as " biologically intact" or "ecologically intact." Remnant natural areas are often used as reference ecosystems in ecological restoration projects. Ecology A remnant natural area can be described in terms of its natural quality or biological integrity, which is the extent to which it has the internal biodiversity and abiotic elements to replicate itself over time. Another definition of biological integrity is "the capability of supporting and maintaining a balanced, integrated, adaptive community of organisms having a species composition, diversity, and functional org ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Hitchcock Nature Center Loess Prairie
Sir Alfred Joseph Hitchcock (13 August 1899 – 29 April 1980) was an English film director. He is widely regarded as one of the most influential figures in the history of cinema. In a career spanning six decades, he directed over 50 feature films, many of which are still widely watched and studied today. Known as the "Master of Suspense", Hitchcock became as well known as any of his actors thanks to his many interviews, List of cameo appearances by Alfred Hitchcock, his cameo appearances in most of his films, and his hosting and producing the television anthology ''Alfred Hitchcock Presents'' (1955–65). His films garnered 46 Academy Award nominations, including six wins, although he never won the award for Academy Award for Best Director, Best Director, despite five nominations. Hitchcock initially trained as a technical clerk and copywriter before entering the film industry in 1919 as a title card designer. His directorial debut was the British–German silent film ''Th ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Habitat
In ecology, habitat refers to the array of resources, biotic factors that are present in an area, such as to support the survival and reproduction of a particular species. A species' habitat can be seen as the physical manifestation of its ecological niche. Thus "habitat" is a species-specific term, fundamentally different from concepts such as Biophysical environment, environment or vegetation assemblages, for which the term "habitat-type" is more appropriate. The physical factors may include (for example): soil, moisture, range of temperature, and Luminous intensity, light intensity. Biotic index, Biotic factors include the availability of food and the presence or absence of Predation, predators. Every species has particular habitat requirements, habitat generalist species are able to thrive in a wide array of environmental conditions while habitat specialist species require a very limited set of factors to survive. The habitat of a species is not necessarily found in a ge ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Eastern Savannas Of The United States
The eastern woodlands of the United States covered large portions of the southeast side of the continent until the early 20th century. These were in a fire ecology of open grassland and forests with low ground cover of herbs and grasses. The frequent fires which maintained the woodlands were started by the region's many thunderstorms and Native Americans in the United States, Native Americans, with most fires burning the forest understory and not affecting the mature trees above. Before the arrival of humans about 15,000 years ago, lightning would have been the major source of ignition, the region having the most frequent wind and lightning storms in North America. The European settlers who displaced the natives blended the local use of fire with their customary use of fire as pastoral herdsmen in the British Isles, Spain, and France. In the southern pine savanna, each area burned about every 1–4 years; after settlers arrived burning happened about every 1–3 years. In oak� ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Tallgrass Prairie
The tallgrass prairie is an ecosystem native to central North America. Historically, natural and Historical ecology#Anthropogenic fire, anthropogenic fire, as well as grazing by large mammals (primarily bison) provided periodic disturbances to these ecosystems, limiting the encroachment of trees, recycling soil nutrients, and facilitating seed dispersal and germination. Prior to widespread use of the steel plow, which enabled large scale conversion to agricultural land use, tallgrass prairies extended throughout the Midwestern United States, American Midwest and smaller portions of southern Aspen parkland, central Canada, from the transitional ecotones out of eastern North American forests, west to a climatic threshold based on precipitation and soils, to the southern reaches of the Flint Hills in Kansas, to a transition into forest in Manitoba. They were characteristically found in parts of the upper Mississippi River Valley, in the central forest-grasslands transition, the centr ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Wisconsinian Glaciation
The Wisconsin glaciation, also called the Wisconsin glacial episode, was the most recent glacial period of the North American ice sheet complex, peaking more than 20,000 years ago. This advance included the Cordilleran Ice Sheet, which nucleated in the northern North American Cordillera; the Innuitian ice sheet, which extended across the Canadian Arctic Archipelago; the Greenland ice sheet; and the massive Laurentide Ice Sheet, which covered the high latitudes of central and eastern North America. This advance was synchronous with global glaciation during the last glacial period, including the North American alpine glacier advance, known as the Pinedale glaciation. The Wisconsin glaciation extended from about 75,000 to 11,000 years ago, between the Sangamonian Stage and the current interglacial, the Holocene. The maximum ice extent occurred about 25,000–21,000 years ago during the last glacial maximum, also known as the ''Late Wisconsin'' in North America. This glaciation ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
European Colonization Of The Americas
During the Age of Discovery, a large scale colonization of the Americas, involving a number of European countries, took place primarily between the late 15th century and the early 19th century. The Norse explored and colonized areas of Europe and the North Atlantic, colonizing Greenland and creating a short-term settlement near the northern tip of Newfoundland circa 1000 AD. However, due to its long duration and importance, the later colonization by the European colonial powers of the Americas, after Christopher Columbus’s voyages, is more well-known. During this time, the European colonial empires of Spain, Portugal, Great Britain, France, Russia, the Netherlands, Denmark, and Sweden began to explore and claim the Americas, its natural resources, and human capital, leading to the displacement, disestablishment, enslavement, and even genocide of the Indigenous peoples in the Americas, and the establishment of several settler colonial states. The rapid rate at which so ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Midwestern United States
The Midwestern United States (also referred to as the Midwest, the Heartland or the American Midwest) is one of the four census regions defined by the United States Census Bureau. It occupies the northern central part of the United States. It was officially named the North Central Region by the U.S. Census Bureau until 1984. It is between the Northeastern United States and the Western United States, with Canada to the north and the Southern United States to the south. The U.S. Census Bureau's definition consists of 12 states in the north central United States: Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Michigan, Minnesota, Missouri, Nebraska, North Dakota, Ohio, South Dakota, and Wisconsin. The region generally lies on the broad Interior Plain between the states occupying the Appalachian Mountain range and the states occupying the Rocky Mountain range. Major rivers in the region include, from east to west, the Ohio River, the Upper Mississippi River, and the Missouri River. The 2020 ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Macroinvertebrate Community Index
Macroinvertebrate Community Index (MCI) is an Index (statistics), index used in New Zealand to measure the water quality of fresh water streams. The presence or lack of invertebrate, macroinvertebrates such as insects, worms and snails in a river or stream can give a Bioindicator, biological indicator on the health of that waterway. The MCI assigns a number to each species of macroinvertebrate based on the sensitivity of that species to pollution. The index then calculates an average score. A higher score on the MCI generally indicates a more healthy stream. The MCI (Macroinvertebrate Community Index) relies on an allocation of scores to freshwater macroinvertebrates based on their pollution tolerances. Freshwater macroinvertebrates found in pristine conditions would score higher than those found in polluted areas.Stark, J. D. (1993) Performance of the Macroinvertebrate Community Index: Effects of sampling method, sample replication, water depth, current velocity, and substratum on ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Floristic Quality Assessment
Floristic Quality Assessment (FQA) is a tool used in the United States to assess an area's ecological integrity based on its plant species composition. Floristic Quality Assessment was originally developed in order to assess the likelihood that impacts to an area "would be irreversible or irretrievable...to make standard comparisons among various open land areas, to set conservation priorities, and to monitor site management or restoration efforts." The concept was developed by Gerould Wilhelm in the 1970s in a report on the natural lands of Kane County, Illinois. In 1979 Wilhelm and Floyd Swink codified this "scoring system" for the 22-county Chicago Region. Coefficient of conservatism Each plant species in a region is assigned a coefficient of conservatism, also known as a C-value, ranging between 0 and 10. A plant species with a higher score (e.g. 10) has a ''lower'' tolerance to environmental degradation such as overgrazing or development and therefore is naturally restr ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Fire Ecology
Fire ecology is a scientific discipline concerned with the effects of fire on natural ecosystems. Many ecosystems, particularly prairie, savanna, chaparral and coniferous forests, have evolved with fire as an essential contributor to habitat vitality and renewal. Many plant species in fire-affected environments use fire to germinate, establish, or to reproduce. Wildfire suppression not only endangers these species, but also the animals that depend upon them. History of wildfire suppression in the United States, Wildfire suppression campaigns in the United States have historically molded public opinion to believe that wildfires are harmful to nature. Ecological research has shown, however, that fire is an integral component in the function and biodiversity of many natural habitats, and that the organisms within these communities have adapted to withstand, and even to exploit, natural wildfire. More generally, fire is now regarded as a 'natural disturbance', similar to flooding, S ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
