A case study of the Islet Terrestrial and Marine Ecosystem. This essay is on the case study of the Terrestrial and the marine ecosystem of Nukapu Island. The island is one of the fourteen Islands in Temotu Province the easternmost part of the Solomon Islands, approximately about 1mile in length with a narrow width along with a huge extensive coral reef (fig. 1)and is located at the latitude 10o08’18’’S and longitude 165o05’03”E [ (Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia) ].
This island is at the distance of 20km away from Santa Cruz the main bigger Island in Temotu Province and located alongside the other atoll islands (Nupani, Matema, Pileni, Makalumu, Nifiloli) [ (Seach, 1989) ]. There were about 110 people living on the island, most of them are old people and younger children. Most of the people have moved to settled in some other parts of Santa Cruz in order to get better education, medical attention and get along with the modern life since they can not make proper connection with the other bigger island because of its isolation.
The island got its name only when the first bishop of Melanesian, Bishop John Coleridge Patteson was murdered by an islander in 1871 [ (Seach, 1989) ]. The islanders earned income by selling their sea resources and depend mostly on the sea and land recourses for their survival; the soil there was good enough to produce root crops through out the whole year despite the rainy seasons and frequent disasters. This essay will focus on the terrestrial ecosystem and then will move on to look on the marine ecosystem.
The Essay on The Aran Islands Synge People Synges
Synges Romantic Vision of the Aran Islands When John Millington Synge made his way to the western most islands of Ireland he was in search of inspiration for his writing. The fruit of his journey was the fame-winning book entitled The Aran Islands. Synge had many purposes for this book, but one of the most compelling was his desire to write an anthropologically geared account of the people and ...
Since these is an atoll island there is no fresh water ecosystem and most of the fresh water that the people on the island is from the rain, by making a catchment form roof tops and to the tanks supplied by the community service (rotary, world vision).
Figure 1: Nukapu Atoll NASA image Firstly, the terrestrial ecosystems that are found on the island are: the coastal strand vegetation is a part of the natural territorial ecosystem found on the island.
This rocky vegetation occurs a few meters above the sea level mostly at the back of the island that is not occupy by islanders but can be used for picnics and resting place after a hard day work in the garden [ (Ivens, 2006) ]. The padanus plants and coconut tress (Table 1) are the dominant plant that is found in this ecosystem, these abundant species are very useful in the island for its leaves that are woven into mats, baskets and hats and the kernel from the fruit is eaten or crushed for its juice [ (Whistler, 1992) ].
Most of the younger coconut trees are found here and as moving inward the taller they become and into the entire center coconut tress are scattered through out because there is no proper plantation (Fig. 2) In the built in ecosystem in which the main village where people live, there were no permanent house except for the church that is ground built. Most of the houses were ground built because the island is vulnerable to extreme natural conditions like cyclone and sea level rise and the people are continuously moving inward.
Figure 2: coconut trees * For the cultural terrestrial ecosystem, the mature fallow forest in which mostly exotic plants are introduced for their importance. Bamboos for an instance are introduced to the island by those who have been to bigger islands like Santa Cruz because of its use as a building material for house. The different species of Bread fruit trees are also introduced for it was the main traditional food, when dried and it can be preserved for food in times of disaster. The elders of a family have to make sure that the young children (especially girls) to grow up knowing how to make dried breadfruit (nambo1).
The Essay on Balancing Ecosystems 3
First let me start off by introducing myself my name is Nicole Santa Isabel I live on the Big Island of Hawaii. Currently a student for the University of Phoenix taking a course in environmental science when I came across Glimmerville and its concerns with Grass Carp. Sparksville’s aquatic ecosystem is also having issues with balancing the ecosystem. This letter is to bring some light and maybe ...
The entire islanders are practicing shifting subsistence agriculture with home gardening where they produce their crops food apart from the sea food. They planted vegetables like beans, cabbage, shallot and which are all introduced by those who were able to make it to bigger islands along with root crops like taro, cassava, sweet potatoes. The wet land brackish water swamps are associated with marshland crops. Swamp taros as one of the main root crops grows perfectly on the swamps and are distributed around the center of the island in the swampy pot which have traditional history to have been dug up by angry villagers to sink the island and Sago palm (Fig. 1) trees with their leaves used to build houses. Next the aboitic and the aboitic factors that are affecting the terrestrial ecosystem, the salinity is the major concern affecting most of the terrestrial ecosystem this is resulting from the effects from the smaller size of size of the island [ (Townsend, et al. , 2008) ] ; most of the organisms that are now inhabiting the island are those that can survive this physical factor and be able to survive, grow and reproduce.
For an instance, is the introduced pigs and chickens, they are now integrated with the culture as the source of food during big village gatherings (cultural ceremonies, feastings, compensations) and income. Some of the other exotic plant that are introduced are said to be of medicinal values for an example is the pawpaw tree (Table. 1),it was a belief that the roots of the younger plants can be crushed and cooked with coconut cream and drunk as a treatment for Gonorrhea2 which is also an introduced disease.
The bark of the ironwood tree (Table 1) is crushed and the liquid is squeezed out and can be taken as a three days dose treatment for those who have been sick of Net? 3. The common sickness on the island is the common cold, malaria4 was introduced to the people there by those islanders who are living on Santa Cruz and since there are a large number of anopheles mosquitoes on the island the sickness can spread very quickly and once treated the island can be free again from malaria.
The Term Paper on Coral Reefs And Algae
Coral Reefs and Algae Coral reefs are unique ecological systems of the Earth Nature. These systems are very complicated and provide natural balance in the global ocean environment. Unfortunately, the human technological activity impacts coral reefs in the same harmful way as it impacts other ecological systems. Coral reefs are inhabited of approximately 25% of marine species. They are very ...
The climate change situation has really been affecting the island and the sea level rise is the major issue, since the size of the island is really small. This is one of the reasons why many of the islanders have moved to bigger islands like Santa Cruz and make settlements there. This really affect the human community and the ecosystem near the shore lines (Fig. 3) , more trees and plants have been washed out and the people continues to move inland to avoid houses being washed out during bigger tide seasons.
More over, soil fertility is quite unstable but it becomes more fertile during the past century due to the Figure [ 1 ]: shows the washed away ecosystem * droppings of the sea birds and the swamp plant reproductions, organisms decompositions contributes greatly to the fertility of the soil [ (Lobban & Maria, 1997) ]. Since these islands are very young in geological time of the islands’ formation and about a foot above sea level; it is protected by the extended reef that lies at about 3 iles around the island the organism that are found are also very young [ (Rev. Drummond, 1930) ]. For this island as an atoll, many exotic animals found but have now been evolved with time and now has adapted to the physical environment of the island [ (Cox & Moore, 2000) ]. There are no bigger organisms than the domesticated pigs and chicken and most of the other wild animals are sea birds that are given in Table1 and they live on trees at night and busy during the day building nest on the tree branches and looking for food out in the ocean.
Plant species like coconut trees have been cut down so that other important food trees like Breadfruit (Table [ 1 ]) are planted this way because they cannot survive in crowded areas with lots of competition for space. The wild animal like rats (Table1) hides in the bushes under the trees, on the shore crabs dug their home in the sand. The islanders also has contribute greatly to the alteration of the terrestrial ecosystems, they cleared trees for their gardening and uses the wetland for taro patches they hunted the sea birds for their feathers for ceremonies.
Extreme natural event are also affecting the habitat for an instance is the cyclone some of the few bigger trees are blown down resulting in the loss of habitat for the birds. Secondly, the marine ecosystem includes the intertidal zone, lagoon, coral reef; island self and the open ocean. The marine ecosystem is the main source of income which came from shark fins, clams, shells, beach-der-mars, fish, turtles and trochas. It is also the main source of food protein and survival; it is everything that the people of the island have for their economies and existence.
The Term Paper on Dubai Palm Island
United Arab Emirates(UAE) is a country located on the Eastern side of the Arabian Peninsula bordering Saudi Arabia on one side and Sultanate of Oman on the other side. The country has its major coastlines strategically placed on the Arabian Gulf and others on the Oman Gulf. The country consists of seven different emirates which include Abu Dhabi, Dubai, Fujairah, Sharjah, Ajman, Umm Al Quiwan and ...
The marine ecosystem of this atoll still remain natural with no cultural (no technology modification) effects apart from food and resources exploitation. The marine ecosystem provides food for the sea birds in which contribute to soil fertilization with their droppings. They also went out to fish for shark, they usually killed up to 20 sharks and just took the fins to sell and buried the body on the shores, and turtles were also hunted for their shells to make earrings, bungles, necklace and other important art and craft for custom ceremonies.
Most of the sea resources from the entire habitat collectively are over exploited by the villagers and also by people from the bigger islands who came by. The effects of the warmer water has been affecting the coral reefs, causing coral bleaching the evident is seen when the coral turn white and became brittle. This affects the coral ecosystem since it is the habitat of most of the reef fish and the sea shells, the coral mutually lives with the zooxanthellae a microorganism that conduct photosynthesis for the corals’ growth in return provide shelter for the zooxanthellae [ (Bidlack & Jansky, 2011) ].
The zooxanthellae is a food for most of the shells and fish found in that particular marine ecosystem (Figure [ 2 ]), this photosynthetic microorganism when encounter more heat and salinity change tends to die out or move to other deeper cooler sea water areas abandoning the coral to die out [ (Bidlack & Jansky, 2011) ]. The ocean current has been noticed to be changing during these past years and it flows stronger through the lagoon and the new sea areas that are form from washed off land. Once a part of land is washed down the side line is drawn and will continues for years (Fig4).
Eroded soil sediments from the agricultural areas and the clearance for gardening and along with the washed off shores ended up in the sea by the wave and sea current, covering up the sea grass, coral Figure 4 shows the washed off land * Reef and some settled in the lagoon destroying parts of the ecosystems by avoiding expose of organism to sunlight. Lastly, the isolation of the island has greatly affects the ecosystem that it resulted on being distinct from the bigger islands like Santa Cruz and it was seen as most of the species on the island has been introduced by humans since they cannot migrate alone [ (Lobban & Maria, 1997) ].
The Essay on How Human Activities Negatively Affect the Ecosystem
In various ecosystems, negative changes have been seen as consequences of human activities. Specifically, these various activities of people have been observed to contribute directly and indirectly to the negative changes and implications in one of the major ecosystems, the marine ecosystem. This paper suggests that many of the human activities employed in the environment, specifically the marine ...
The sago palm and coconut as the common for the linage of the gymnosperms endemic species on the island were introduced by humans, even though coconut might migrate alone from other bigger pacific islands by the sea.
Heron clam shark humans Phytoplankton Reef fish zooxanthellae Diagram 1 Shows the interconnection of these terrestrial and marine ecosystem. From pubs. usgs. gov To conclude, the essay is based on the case study of terrestrial and marine ecosystem of the island and since it is a small atoll with no fresh water ecosystem. There is a greater interaction between the organism on the land and that on the marine, the islanders depends much upon their sea resources for income and food.
There is also interruption on these ecosystems by natural and cultural factors and this lead to some of the difficulties that they are now facing. Therefore the people on that island should now be looking at their use and consumptions of the sea resources to avoid over exploitation and the loose of organism is the nearby future. The clearing of the forest is also to be considered because the soil erosion is really affecting the coral reefs and the lagoon ecosystem, there should be more introducing of endemic plant species for food and to build houses.
Since there is an uncontrolled raising sea and this is a global issue but is affecting the island on a higher scale in compared to the size. These is an alarming, since it was clearly shown that not long the island will washed out completely with no terrestrial habitat for land organism including the humans. Appendix Nambo1- Bread fruit that cut into squares and are dried and stored, crunchy when eaten Gonorrhea2- sexually transmitted infection Net? 3- A sickness that has been believed to be caused by the sea evil spirit that is following the rainbow during rainy days.
The Essay on The Impacts of Oil Spills on Marine and Terrestrial Ecosystems
Buy custom Impacts of Oil Spills on Marine and Terrestrial Ecosystems essay In this paper am going to examine the factors contributing to oil spills, and their effects on marine and terrestrial ecosystems. This addition of phytoplankton leads to depletion of oxygen levels in water, making it hard for survival of animal and plant population in the water. These oil spills do not only affect the ...
The symptoms are severe head ache, high fever and bad dreams. Malaria4- A viral disease that is passed by the anopheles mosquito, can be cured by taking antibiotic dose from the hospital Note: pictures that are marked with (asterisk)* are taken in 2012 during Christmas holidays.