Pollution, Habitat loss, Biodiversity, and Restoration Ecology

Instructor:

Michael Stine
North Florida Community College

Focus:

These papers and resources would be used in BSC1050 Man and Environment, at North Florida Community College. This is a 3 credit, non-majors biology course that is commonly taken to meet a general education requirement in science. The intent of the course is to provide students a broad overview of topics ranging from pollution, habitat loss, biodiversity, and restoration ecology. A challenge in this course when using a standard textbook is that topics are covered from a global perspective and I constantly need to relate the topics covered to issues in Florida in order to engage the students. In 2012 I switched to the Atlas of Florida’s Natural Heritage as the primary reference for this class in order to have a Florida perspective throughout.

This book is very information dense and relies on graphical display of most of the information. The extensive use of maps, figures and graphs are ideally suited for using CREATE tools to understand the topics. Since each topic is summarized in 2 pages, these topics can be used to provide the introduction to the primary papers. This 160 page book covers everything from geology, to pollution, to endangered species, land use changes, and management options.

The 8 topics identified represent introductions to the proposed list of primary articles.
For paper 2:
Pages 12-13 – Water resources
Pages 38-39 – Important extant ecosystems – fresh water springs
Pages 92-93 – Water and Biodiversity

For papers 3 & 4:
Pages 26-27 –Large extant habitats
Pages 44-45 – Pines
Pages 84-85 - Habitat loss and fragmentation
Pages 86-87 – Fire exclusion
Pages 112-113 – Prescribed fire

Overview:

Applicable for Courses:

Non-majors, Environmental Studies

Educational Level:

2YR/Introductory/Non-majors

Roadmap Objectives:

- Article: Heffernan, J. B. et al. 2010. Algal blooms and the nitrogen-enrichment hypothesis in Florida Springs: evidence, alternatives, and adaptive management. Ecological Applications 20(3):816-829.
- Content area/major concepts: karst geography, the water cycle, fresh water springs, water pollution, importance of dissolved oxygen in aquatic systems, land uses, and adaptive management of land uses.
- Methods or technology used to obtain data: water quality analysis of nitrates and dissolved oxygen, trend analysis, correlations, and regression analysis.
- How the CREATE strategy was used: To be determined.
- Biggest teaching challenge: The main challenge for the target students are the extensive use of statistical methods which would require a short summary of how to interpret the results without understanding the technique.
- Article: Thaxton, J. M. and W. J. Platt. 2006. Small-scale fuel variation alters fire intensity and shrub abundance in a pine savanna. Ecology 87(5): 1331-1337.
- Content area/major concepts: Importance of longleaf pine ecosystems for endangered species, fire ecology, management of endangered species, prescribe fire, & habitat restoration.
- Methods or technology used to obtain data: Flora surveys, prescribed fires, and experimental manipulation fire intensity.
- How the CREATE strategy was used: To be determined.
- Biggest teaching challenge: None are obvious.
- Article: Martin, J. A., et al. 2012. Wild Turkey habitat use in frequently-burned pine savanna. Forest Ecology and Management 285:179-186.
- Content area/major concepts: wildlife management, wildlife science techniques, fine scale analysis of ecosystems, fire adapted ecosystems, home ranges, & impacts of hunting of game species.
- Methods or technology used to obtain data: prescribed fire, rocket netting of turkeys, radio telemetry, MANOVA to determine home ranges and use within home ranges.
- How the CREATE strategy was used: To be determined.
- Biggest teaching challenge: Many of the figures are based upon multivariate analysis of data and would require instruction on how to interpret the results without understanding the statistical technique.
- Article:
- Content area/major concepts: This book is very information dense and relies on graphical display of most of the information. The extensive use of maps, figures and graphs are ideally suited for using CREATE tools to understand the topics. Since each topic is summarized in 2 pages, these topics can be used to provide the introduction to the primary papers. This 160 page book covers everything from geology, to pollution, to endangered species, land use changes, and management options.
  
  The 8 topics identified represent introductions to the proposed list of primary articles.
  For paper 2:
  Pages 12-13 – Water resources
  Pages 38-39 – Important extant ecosystems – fresh water springs
  Pages 92-93 – Water and Biodiversity
  
  For papers 3 & 4:
  Pages 26-27 –Large extant habitats
  Pages 44-45 – Pines
  Pages 84-85 - Habitat loss and fragmentation
  Pages 86-87 – Fire exclusion
  Pages 112-113 – Prescribed fire
- Methods or technology used to obtain data:
- How the CREATE strategy was used:
- Biggest teaching challenge:

Advice for Using Module/Activity:

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