Looking at various environmental sections of the rainforest.
I looked into the Amazonian delta.
9/23/02: As a
member of the Fauna subgroup, I will be helping to achieve the ends stated
above. Currently, I am researching the fauna present in the Amazon
delta.
Delta: an alluvial deposit of rock
particles dropped by a stream entering a body of water; plain underlain
by an assemblage of sediments where velocity of the stream into standing
water is suddenly reduced; low, alluvial tract of land deposited near the
mouth of a river, often triangular shaped, crossed by many distributaries
(http://rove.to/brazil/amazon-river-delta/)
How to Tell if Fauna are "healthy"
9/27/02: Goal for the
group is to find a way/ways to monitor fauna.
Various Ideas and Thoughts from class
10/17/02
Search for indicator species.
Ratio of changes in population of indicator species to other species-
Not specific populations, but ecosystem in general.
Bats: insectivorous, fruit eaters.
Monitoring: sonar? video?
Bacteria: effect vs. accumulation
indicators. Will this apply to land and water animals? Will
it harm the animal/ even perhaps necessary to kill them? Cannot do if species
is rare.
High-level animal: harpy eagle,
jaguar? Accumulation of toxins in them, deforestation. Go after
species that has shown decline - affected by the toxins. Perhaps
an indicator of deforestation. How much forest can, if absolutely
necessary for plan to work, be cut to minimize the harm to the rainforest?
Maybe this species can be the limit; if it can survive with a certain amount
of forest left, perhaps so can the entire ecosystem (as a whole).
Also, if a population is present in many areas, and then dies out in a
particular area, that may say something about the conditions of that area.
Amphibians - tracking through laying
eggs on the shore.
Look for problems and then species
that show those problems, or vice versa?
10/23/02
Deadline set:
Have all research finished within two weeks from now
(about Veteran's Day weekend).
I am back to looking at high level species. Possibilities
discussed as high level indicators are jaguars, capybaras, caimans, and
peccaries. Would piranhas be good? There are more than 12 species
in the rainforest, and different species eat different things (fruit, small
water organisms... and, for red-bellied piranhas, flesh...).
10/24/02
General Information from research:
Wilson, D.E. "Bat Faunas: a tropic comparison." Systematic
Zoology. 1973. 22: 14-29.
parasite in bats: 7 species of mites
found in 133 Brazilian free tailed bats.
van Straalen, Nico M. "Assessment of soil contamination
- a functional perspective." Biodegradation. 2002. 13(1): 41-52.
Have article, looks very informative,
will look through asap.
potentially useful resources:
Costanza et al (1992) in Ecosystem Health
Domsch (1984) in Plants and Soil. 76: 367-378
"Effects of pesticides and heavy metals..."
Doran and Safley - soil health and productivity
Elliot (1997) - Rational for developing bioindicators
of soil health.
Muller, A.K., K. Westergaard, S. Christensen, S.J. Sorensen.
"The Diversity and Fuction of Soil Microbial Communities Exposed to Different
Disturbances."
Microbial Ecology. 2002. 44: 49-58.
"Lag time before soil respiration increased following
addition of glucose or alfalfa substrate was longer in Mercury contaminated
soil subjected to heat treatment prior to substrate addition, thus indicating
reduce resistance to a new disturbance in the Mercury contaminated soil
as compares to the control soil."
Chinchilla F.A. "Diets of Panthera Onca, Felis Concelor
and Felis paradalis (Cartivora: Felidae) in Parque al a Siena Corcardo,
Costa Rica." Revista Di Biologia Tropical. 45(3): 1223-1229.
Diets of jaguars, pumas, and ocelot
studied (1993-1994). 50 km of trails studied monthly for fecal material.
Analysis of relative frequency of occurrence and relative estimations of
biomass showed that mammals were most frequent prey of these felids, and
repties and birds were less important to their diets. Preys
of jaguar puma have body weight of over 2500g, while those of ocelot are
less. No changes in food habitats across study, though trophic diversity
of jaguars and ocelots increase in dry seasons.
11/15/02
We have redistributed groups, so now I am also working
with a pollution group. I have finally written out my notes
from reading a really informative article on soil health (it would have
been great to have found this at the start of our research; it comes to
many of the same conclusions that we [the fauna group] spent quite a while
coming to).