Final Exam Study Questions - Module 5 (Fall 2024) - PDF

31 - Food Systems (Potts) 1.​ What are the primary concerns regarding food supply over the coming century, and what factors contribute to them? How is climate change expected to impact this issue? 2.​ What are two approaches (tools) to growing more food? (Don’t look yet at questions 3...

31 - Food Systems (Potts) 1.​ What are the primary concerns regarding food supply over the coming century, and what factors contribute to them? How is climate change expected to impact this issue? 2.​ What are two approaches (tools) to growing more food? (Don’t look yet at questions 3 and 5) 3.​ Tool 1: Expansion -- Continued expansion of area farmed (increase area farmed): What are some environmental benefits and environmental costs of increasing the area of global farmland? What landscape type is the key source of land converted to new farmland? 4.​ Other than forests, what other land is available for farming? What are the concerns with bringing this land into production? 5.​ Tool 2: Intensification -- Increasing yield per area farmed: What is yield potential? What is the exploitable yield gap? What limitations contribute to the yield gap? 6.​ What is the Green Revolution? What are examples of biochemical, mechanical and social innovations that came as part of the green revolution? What are the consequences? (See the chart on the 3 strands of the green revolution slide, also see slides in Lecture 36) 7.​ How did each of the following dimensions change (direction and magnitude) as a result of efficiency gains since the 1960s: Food production, undernourishment, food production per capita, and food price? 8.​ What are GMOs? What are examples of desirable changes to crops to increase yield? What are some pros and cons of GMOs? 9.​ There are enough calories to feed the world (food production is not the problem). What are examples of changes we could make to our food system to reduce the environmental impact of food production? 33 - Tropical Forests (Chambers) 1.​ What latitudes bound the tropics? Which general atmospheric circulation patterns do they encompass? 2.​ What type of vegetation dominates the tropical rainforests (e.g., woody plants/trees, herbs, shrubs, grasses)? How do rainforests in different regions differ in terms of vertical structure? What is convergent evolution? 3.​ A rainforest biome receives ________ mm of annual precipitation, has a short dry season of _____ months with dry months receiving less than _____ mm of precipitation. Despite this high amount of rainfall, why do many parts of the canopy experience mid-day water stress? 4.​ What are epiphytes? What benefits do they gain from growing on trees? 5.​ What factors influence soil formation in the tropics?  6.​ What 3 factors (or hypotheses) explain the latitudinal gradients in species diversity from the poles to the tropics? Explain each. 7.​ Tropical forests are the most productive ecosystems in the world, but occur where soils are very poor and deficient in nutrients. What does it mean that nutrients are tightly cycled (remember back to lectures in Module 2). Are the soils limited in nitrogen or phosphorus? What are the sources of these nutrients to the tropics? 8.​ How does sand influence vegetation types in the tropics? 9.​ How is climate change expected to influence temperature, precipitation and carbon fluxes (uptake and storage)? What kind of climate is expected under the different RCP scenarios? 10.​How is it expected to influence biomes? (Dr. Chambers showed Whittaker’s biome scheme and a proposed new version based on data.) 11.​How are forests changing under land use change? 34 - California Needs Grazing (Huntsinger) 1.​ How has the California grassland changed since colonization in the 1700s? What kind of plants were the native grasses in California (i.e., were they annuals or perennials? Be sure to look up these terms if you don’t know them)? 2.​ What is a “novel ecosystem”? What non-native grass species came to dominate the California grassland ecosystem? What happens to them if they are not grazed? 3.​ What are the benefits of livestock grazing? What does it mean to have a controlled application of grazing in management? Why are cows considered to be ecosystem engineers? 4.​ What are some examples of some species (e.g., plants, animals, or insects) or habitats that benefit from grazing? How does grazing benefit these species? (Think of 2-3 examples, Dr. Huntsinger gave ~7 examples) 5.​ Does burning have the same effect as livestock? Why or why not? How do grazed areas affect fire risk? 6.​ What is the intermediate disturbance hypothesis? How does (1) no grazing, (2) intermediate grazing pressure, and (3) intensive rotational grazing affect biodiversity? 7.​ Why is ranching important? 35 - Agriculture & Sustainability Pt. 1 (Bowles) 1.​ What components are needed for a sustainable agricultural system? What functions do these different components serve? 2.​ The green revolution developed technologies and practices that aimed to close the yield gap. How did the following change over time: fertilizer use, pesticide use, mechanization, irrigation, yield potential, yield gaps? 3.​ What do agricultural systems that use green revolution technologies look like in terms of: crop types; external inputs such as fertilizer and pest control; water; landscape; and labor? 4.​ What are the tradeoffs of industrialized agriculture in terms of environmental costs? How does industrialized agriculture contribute to the majority of environmental problems? Give examples from the lecture.  5.​ What are the tradeoffs of industrialized agriculture in terms of social costs? Give examples from the lecture. 6.​ Does our current system meet the definition of a sustainable agricultural system in question 1? 36 - Agriculture & Sustainability Pt. 2 (Bowles) 1.​ What is the definition of Agroecology? What is the goal of agroecology? What are diversified farming systems? 2.​ What does it mean that agroecology is a knowledge-intensive field? What knowledge (or traditions) does agroecology draw from? What does it mean to be site-specific? 3.​ Define the following terms: Associated biodiversity, complementarity, facilitation, ecosystem services (from Module 2) 4.​ What is intercropping? How does it enhance biodiversity and ecosystem services over space? How does it compare in terms of the amount of food grown compared to monoculture? 5.​ What is crop rotation? How does it enhance biodiversity and ecosystem services over time? What are cover crops (as opposed to cash crops) and what are examples of ecosystem services they provide? 6.​ What are hedgerows and buffer strips? How do they enhance biodiversity and ecosystem services at the field and landscape scale? (Or what ecosystem services do they provide)? 7.​ What are cover crops? What benefits do they produce for the agroecosystem? What are the barriers and incentives for adoption? 8.​ How do agroecology and industrialized agriculture compare in terms of the following dimensions: (a) reliance on biodiversity and ecosystem services, (b) external inputs, (c) site-specific, (d) human labor, (e) knowledge-intensive, and (f) agricultural innovation? 9.​ Why don’t farmers just change? 10.​What is food sovereignty? 37 - Threats to Oceans 1.​ Is coral an animal, plant or mineral? 2.​ Which of the following are true for ALL corals? [A. They make reefs. B. They are tropical C. They live in shallow water. D. All of the above. E. None of the above]. 3.​ Which is true for coral reefs? [A. They are tropical or subtropical B. They occur in shallow water. C. They can be found in freshwater lakes]. 4.​ Why are coral reefs important ecosystems? 5.​ What major symbiotic relationship is found with coral in coral reefs? Explain. 6.​ What is coral bleaching? 7.​ Name 5 human-caused threats to coral reefs 8.​ What is the cause of ocean acidification? 9.​ What are some consequences of ocean acidification on specific marine life? 10.​ Describe the magnitude of ocean acidification that has already occurred (both in terms of pH and in terms of hydrogen ion concentration). 38 - Fire and Forests (Stephens) 1.​ What is fire policy in the US? What is fire suppression and when did this practice begin? 2.​ What are the 5 components of a fire regime? Define each of them. 3.​ What is a forest stand (wikipedia is a good place to look)? Describe a low-severity fire in terms of changes to the changes in overstory, the fire return interval, what kind of vegetation is killed. Describe a high-severity fire in terms of changes to the forest structure and how it is defined. Which type of fire regime is the dominant process in California historically? 4.​ Yellowstone National Forest (in Wyoming) has a fire regime that includes high-severity fires every 100-300 years. What strategy for regeneration do the trees in this area use? Do conifers in California use the same strategy? 5.​ What is a mastication fuel reduction treatment? What did the researchers do and how many treatments did they do? How did ladder and surface fuels change over time? What happened to the surface fuels? 6.​ What is a prescribed fire fuel reduction treatment? Is it low or high-intensity? What did the researchers do and how many treatments did they do? How did ladder and surface fuels change over time? 7.​ What is the difference between cultural burning and “industrial” burning in terms of focus and size of area treated? 39 - Activity 5: Adaptive Management 1.​ How has the California Delta changed in terms of land use and condition from the early-1800s to early 2000s? 2.​ What is a water export? Where does water exported from the Delta go? 3.​ Why do we continue to allow water to flow to the Delta even in drought years? 4.​ What is adaptive management? 5.​ What are co-equal goals? Think of an example of a co-equal goal from the activity day that you identified for your complexity sector. What sector did your team identify could you work with toward that co-equal goal that could be achieved simultaneously? 40 - Big Ideas and Making Connections There are not any study guide questions for this lecture 40 because no new material was introduced. However, there were some puzzles linked from the slides that you can think about if you didn’t do any during the class session.