Impact of trees and forests on the Devonian landscape and weathering processes with implications to the global Earth's system properties – A critical review

Evolution of terrestrial plants, the first vascular plants, the first trees, and then whole forest ecosystems had far reaching consequences for Earth system dynamics. These innovations are considered important moments in the evolution of the atmosphere, biosphere, and oceans, even if the effects might have lagged by hundreds of thousands or millions of years. These fundamental changes in the Earth's history happened in the Paleozoic: from the Ordovician, the time of the first land plants, to the Carboniferous, dominated by forest ecosystems. The Devonian Plant Hypothesis (DPH) was the first concept to offer a full and logical explanation of the many environmental changes associated with the evolution of trees/forests that took place during this time period. The DPH highlighted the impact of deep-rooted vascular plants, particularly trees on weathering processes, pedogenesis, nutrient transport, CO2 cycling, organic and inorganic carbon deposition, and suggests further possible consequences on the marine realm (oceanic anoxia and extinction during the Late Devonian). Here we attempt to combine the DPH and the related expansion in biodiversity, the Devonian Plant Explosion (DePE), with the Biogeomorphic Ecosystem Engineering (BEE) concept. This idea connects tree growth and activity with initiation and/or alteration of geomorphic processes, and therefore the creation or deterioration of geomorphic landforms. We focus on trees and forest ecosystems, as the assumed dominant driver of plant-initiated change. We find that whereas there is a broad evidence of trees as important biogeomorphic ecosystem engineers, addressing the DPH is difficult due to limited, difficult to interpret, or controversial data. However, we argue the concept of BEE does shed new light on DPH and suggest new data sources that should be able to answer our main question: were Devonian trees Biogeomorphic Ecosystem engineers

Mammalian & Avian Community Response to African Elephant (Loxodonta Africana) Habitat Modification in Southeastern Kenya

African elephants (Loxodonta africana) play a significant role in the modification of their habitat, foremost by decreasing woody vegetation cover and density and in some parts of Africa high elephant densities damage small sanctuaries and preserves. For wildlife that depend on forested patches, this increased modification could lead to displacement and/or decreases in abundance. If suitable habitat is not available elsewhere, elephants and other wildlife may move closer to humans in search of resources, which can result in increased human-wildlife conflict. Evaluating this impact was one of the goals of the Elephants and Sustainable Agriculture in Kenya (ESAK) project that motivated the current study. Little is known regarding the effects of elephant habitat modification (EHM) on medium-to-large mammal and bird communities. Understanding the influence of EHM on such species can facilitate their management and possibly provide an ecological indicator of human wildlife conflict. To help inform this knowledge gap I compared mammal and avian richness, diversity, and community assemblages across differing severities (low, medium, high) of elephant modified habitats (woodland, shrub, and mixed wood/shrubland) within Rukinga Wildlife Sanctuary (RWS) in southeastern Kenya. From June-November 2022, I collected wildlife detection data via six wildlife transects and surveyed EHM through the observation of elephant tree damage (bark stripping, branch breaking, uprooting, main stem breaking). Patterns of species richness and diversity among habitats and EHM levels were evaluated using ANOVA, while principal component analyses were conducted for each habitat type to summarize patterns in community assemblages within and among EHM levels. Overall, EHM had no observable negative impacts on species richness and diversity for most medium-to- large mammal, raptor, and large ground bird species, with overall richness and diversity being highest in high EHM areas. EHM level did impact community assemblage, possibly through modifications to vegetation and/or by increasing habitat heterogeneity. Overall, this study provides evidence that elephants in RWS are not damaging habitats in a way that negatively impacts sanctuary viability, and in some cases may enhance it. Unfenced sanctuaries, like RWS, may be at less of a risk to elephant overpopulation as, unlike in fenced sanctuaries, they can leave the areas before any lasting impacts can occur. Promoting connectivity and movement between protected areas may be a possible way to decrease severe EHM impacts

The Effect of Shallot Bulbs Storage Duration and Paclobutrazol Treatments to Disease Attacks on Shallot Plant in Karo Highlands

A major challenge in the development of shallot seeds is the limited availability of qualified seed due to pathogen infection during the vegetative phase. The study aims to determine the effect of storage duration and paclobutrazol (PBZ) treatment to the resistance of shallots crop. The study was conducted at the Berastagi Experimental Fields, Vegetable Crops Research Institute in February to May 2017. The experiment was arranged by randomized block design with two factors. The first factor is bulbs storage duration, which is without storage and stored for 2 months. The second factor is PBZ treatment with levels ie 0, 0.5. 1, 1.5 and 2 mL/L. The observation parameters are the diseases percentage, diseases intensity, roots number, and roots length. The results showed that the shallot bulbs that singly stored had a significant effect on the diseases caused by Peronospora destructor, Alternaria porri, and Fusarium wilt with low percentage category. The PBZ treatment had not significant effect on all observation variables, but the interaction with 2 months storage duration had effect on root length at 60 days after planting (DAP)

Demythifying Melville: Charles Johnson\u27s Middle Passage and the Nightmare of Slavery

When I first picked up Middle Passage, I was struck by an odd sense of familiarity, for having read Benito Cereno that same year, I immediately noted a connection to Melville. I became curious to determine not only the nature of that connection but also how an analysis of it might enhance an understanding of Johnson\u27s text. I asked myself: Why does Johnson deliberately choose to retell Melville? A few reasons immediately suggested themselves: because Melville represents the canon of classic American literature and because he is an American writer who has adopted the \u27European perspective of the empire. Moreover, Charles Johnson, in telling the story from the point of view of a freed slave, is trying to revise a portion of the canon of slave narratives, and, by doing so, construct an alternate view of American history as well as an alternate history of American literature

APPROACH TO CYBER SECURITY ISSUES IN NIGERIA: CHALLENGES AND SOLUTION

Cyber-space refers to the boundless space known as the internet. Cyber-security is the body of rules put in place for the protection of the cyber space. Cyber-crime refers to the series of organized crime attacking both cyber space and cyber security. The Internet is one of the fastest-growing areas of technical infrastructure development. Over the past decades, the growth of the internet and its use afforded everyone this opportunity. Google, Wikipedia and Bing to mention a few, give detailed answers to millions of questions every day. Cyberspace is a world that contains just about anything one is searching for. With the advent of these advancements in information accessibility and the advantages and applications of the internet comes an exponentially growing disadvantage- Cyber Crime. Cyber security has risen to become a national concern as threats concerning it now need to be taken more seriously. This paper attempts to provide an overview of Cybercrime and Cyber-security. It defines the concept of cybercrime, identify reasons for cyber-crime and its eradication. It look at those involved and the reasons for their involvement. Methods of stepping up cyber security and the recommendations that would help in checking the increasing rate of cyber-crimes were highlighted. The paper also attempts to name some challenges of cybercrime and present practical and logical solutions to these threats

The B-G News October 29, 1965

The BGSU campus student newspaper October 29, 1965. Volume 50 - Issue 24https://scholarworks.bgsu.edu/bg-news/2890/thumbnail.jp

Considering river structure and stability in the light of evolution: Feedbacks between riparian vegetation and hydrogeomorphology

River ecological functioning can be conceptualized according to a four-dimensional framework, based on the responses of aquatic and riparian communities to hydrogeomorphic constraints along the longitudinal, transverse, vertical and temporal dimensions of rivers. Contemporary riparian vegetation responds to river dynamics at ecological timescales, but riparian vegetation, in one form or another, has existed on Earth since at least the Middle Ordovician (c. 450 Ma) and has been a significant controlling factor on river geomorphology since the late Silurian (c. 420 Ma). On such evolutionary timescales, plant adaptations to the fluvial environment and the subsequent effects of these adaptations on aspects of fluvial sediment and landform dynamics resulted in the emergence, from the Silurian to the Carboniferous, of a variety of contrasted fluvial biogeomorphic types where water flow, morphodynamics and vegetation interacted to different degrees. Here we identify several of these types and describe the consequences for biogeomorphic structure and stability (i.e. resistance and resilience), along the four river dimensions, of feedbacks between riparian plants and hydrogeomorphic processes on contrasting ecological and evolutionary timescales.This is the author's accepted manuscript and will be under embargo until the 18th of September 2015. The final version is available from Wiley at onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/esp.3643/abstrac

"Tuath significa personas, significa lugar". Un Análisis Ecocrítico del Poemario de Grace Wells The Church of the Love of the World

Traballo Fin de Grao en Lingua e Literatura Inglesas. Curso 2022-2023The aim of this dissertation is to analyse Grace Wells’ third poetry collection The Church of the Love of the World. The relevant aspects that will be tackled are the individual and their relationship with the environment as well as the history of Ireland. In her ecopoetry , Grace Wells vindicates the importance of nature, spirit-of-place, memory, story, myth, the land, and ecological concern in local ethnic communities, which serve as global examples. These approaches are mainly developed throughout the whole collection with the purpose of enhancing biodiversity and ecological awareness of multiple environmental crises in contemporary society. Moreover, the portrayal of environmental issues that go beyond the landscape will be explored, that is, the treatment of the individual and the suffering in the context of a relationship with the nature. Significantly, globalization and the current iteration of Western culture have brought about the uniformity of the world and caused the loss of diversity by distancing human beings from nature and suppressing their love for the world. As for methodology, this study will employ the theoretical framework of ecocriticism in its different forms: ecofeminism, postcolonial ecocriticism, and eco-spirituality. Furthermore, this analysis will be accompanied by literary criticism such as Contemporary Irish Poetry and the Pastoral Tradition (2011) by Donna L. Potts in order to inquire the differences between ecopoetry and pastoralism. An additional and fundamental reference will be Eóin Flannery’s Ireland and Ecocriticism (2016), which provides a through ecocritical apparatus in the context of Irish literature. Finally, the article “The Ethics and Aesthetics of Eco-caring: Contemporary Debates on Ecofeminism(s) (2018) by Margarita Estévez Saá and María Jesús Lorenzo Modia, will orient this analysis thanks to its survey of the main debates within ecofeminis

The BG News June 16, 2010

The BGSU campus student newspaper June 16, 2010. Volume 100 - Issue 154https://scholarworks.bgsu.edu/bg-news/9257/thumbnail.jp

Response Of Late Carboniferous And Early Permian Plant Communities To Climate Change

Late Carboniferous and Early Permian strata record the transition from a cold interval in Earth history, characterized by the repeated periods of glaciation and deglaciation of the southern pole, to a warm-climate interval. Consequently, this time period is the best available analogue to the Recent in which to study patterns of vegetational response, both to glacial-interglacial oscillation and to the appearance of warm climate. Carboniferous wetland ecosystems were dominated by spore-producing plants and early gymnospermous seed plants. Global climate changes, largely drying,forced vegetational changes, resulting in a change to a seed plant–dominated world, beginning first at high latitudes during the Carboniferous, reaching the tropics near the Permo-Carboniferous boundary. For most of this time plant assemblages were very conservative in their composition. Change in the dominant vegetation was generally a rapid process, which suggests that environmental thresholds were crossed, and involved little mixing of elements from the wet and dry floras