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Group 3
From sea to land, from land to sea
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Introduction
Ecosystems are made of many interconnected biotic and abiotic components. A biotic component may be connected to another via an ecological interaction, such as predation, or it may be connected to an abiotic component, such as nitrogen soil content. Human activities that impact one of the components of an ecosystem can negatively affect a whole chain of interactions. McCauley et al. (2012) report on the breakdown of a long interaction chain linking diverse ecosystem components of a remote Pacific atoll.
Long interaction chain linking forests to manta rays (Fig. 1 from McCauley et al. 2012)
Assignment
Understand the dynamics occurring in the Pacific atoll ecosystem by simplifying its components and compare it to the dynamics affected by human impact.
Proposed Questions
- What are the minimal components of the Pacific Atol system needed to understand its dynamics?
- How does human activities influence the interaction chain found in the human-free Atol?
References
- McCauley et al (2012) From wing to wing: the persistence of long ecological interaction chains in less-disturbed ecosystems Scientific Reports 2:409 DOI: 10.1038/srep00409 link