Underwater Invader : A Small Group Of Aquatic Plants That Have Invaded Several Different Countries Essay

The reading that I chose for this assignment is from Chapter Six in the required book for class “The Sixth Extinction: An Unnatural History”. The chapter title is “The Sea Around Us” where the primary concentration of the chapter was the consequences that humans have on the planet with the focus on ocean acidification. This happens from the carbon dioxide we pump into the air and it slowly seeps back down into the oceans and slowly increases the PH level thus causing the ocean to be more acidic. In about one hundred years do you believe that, oysters, mussels, and coral reefs survive?

Native Plant Study- The area that Lake Doonella is located in has great vegetation and variety of native plants which gives the native animals and local residents a beautiful home as well as a lovely sight for tourists. There are numerous different plants in all different shapes and sizes that call this area home. Some plants even have berries growing on them in many different colours for the animals to feed off. During the field walk there were many trees and plants but the most commonly viewable one was the Scribbly gum. ( shown in .. (ref off iBooks)

Discovered in the 1990s, in small patches in Patapsco Valley State Park Wavyleaf basketgrass is a fast spreading, asian grass that thrives in the forested areas of Maryland. Gabriel Popkin says “Now the plant has spread to other parks

Underwater grasses, or Elodea, was observed as well. This wide variety of life is a good indicator of the water’s health.

* The efforts of “Terrigal Lagoon Bushcare” have been largely successful in keeping the lagoons around Terrigal ecosystems. Their actions have helped the native plants compete with the introduced species.

The Narwhal is a whale and is also known as the unicorn of the sea. It is in the family of bottlenose dolphins, orcas, and Belugas (World Wildlife Fund). The scientific name for the Narwhal is Monodon monoceros and it is Greek meaning one-tooth, one-horn. It can grow up to 13-16 feet in length and weighs almost 2 tons (4,000 pounds). The region they are usually located is around the Arctic waters of Canada, Greenland, Norway and Russia. They are known as unicorns of the sea because they have a tusk, one of their teeth, coming out of the front of the skull. According to the World Wildlife fund (2014), “Males most commonly have tusks, and some may even have two. The tusk, which can grow as long as 10 feet, is actually an enlarged tooth.” The

Habitat: Commonly found in terrestrial. Forest light gaps, slips, margins, disturbed sites, open habitats, riverbeds, cliffs, inshore and offshore islands, fernland, herbfield,

Starry Stonewort is thought to have first arrived in North America during 1978 where it made its way from the St. Lawrence River in New York (Schloesser et al. 1985). It is likely to have arrived from ballast water on ships that enter the Great Lakes; Starry stonewort spreads when plant fragments break off and are dispersed by boats and trailers (Escobar et al. 2016). Due to their distinctive bulbils not appearing until late in the season, it can go unidentified for lengthy periods of time (Pullman & Crawford). Otherwise, it resembles many other plants. Scientists have difficulty controlling this species of macroalgae; Starry Stonewort lacks a vascular system which makes it difficult to kill with an herbicide because the chemicals cannot be carried throughout

The Great Swamp National Wildlife Refuge, New Vernon, NJ, has different types of species and habitats. We started the observation from the shorter plants. First of all, the tour lady introduced poison ivy plants to us. She mentioned that if you see a hair rope plant, there is high probability that it could be a poison ivy. There were less short plants farther away from the water. There could be several reasons that the shorter plants are near or/and above the water. First, watery soil can only support shorter and less heavy plants, because near water the soil is too soft. Second, New Jersey has many deer and the deers’ predators are removed from the area because they cannot coexist with humans. Shorter plants are usually eaten by deer. The

With the increasing amount of disturbed habitats, invasive species could soon become the leading cause of ecological degradation (Soulé & Orians, 2001).  Invasive species can alter habitats in a number of ways.  Changes in the physical structure of the land are the most visually obvious.  Examples include narrowing stream channels, reducing sand supply to dunes, and stabilizing surfaces such as mudflats, and each invasive species goes about these changes in their own way.  For instance, the burrowing activities of Australian isopods cause the banks of tidal channels to collapse, leading to the widening of channels and the loss of vegetated salt marsh (Cox, 1999).  On the other hand, Japanese mussels that have invaded the San Diego area are stabilizing mudflats.  Although reaching Southern California in the 1960s,

On the Cabretta beach dunes, there is an abundance of vegetation that encompasses the area of the quadrant for each stop. The most plant diversity of one stop, was observed in a swale (Dune Stop 2), with weed oats, wax myrtle, rushes, and dog fennel. These four plants solely appeared in the swale. Sea oats and camphorweed were the most abundant plant types in the dunes; additionally, sea oats and camphorweed can be found in multiple dune environments. Sea oats were found in dune crests, between two troughs, and in the fore-dune, having most abundance in the crests, while camphorweed was found in inter-dune meadows, between two troughs, and in the fore-dune, having most abundance in the inter-dune meadows (Figure -). These two plants displayed significant height differences in various dune territories. In the crest, sea oats measured at a height of 105cm, but as they grow closer to the ocean, they increase by ~63cm. As for camphorweeds, they grew to be roughly 60cm in the inter-dune meadows and fore-dune; however, in between the two troughs, the plant stood at an average height of

Cheatgrass is the common name for the species Bromus tectorum L. and belongs to the grass family Poaceae (USDA 2015). This invasive plant was originally reported in eastern North America but now it is dominant in the Intermountain West (Huttanus 2009). The genetics of 192 North American populations of Bromus tectorum is studied so far (Huttanus 2009). Cheatgrass grows mostly in coarse texted soils whereas it cannot develop in saline or compacted soil (USDA 2014). In addition, it can invade rapidly in troubled areas such as burned areas, overgrazed rangelands, and cultivated fields. The spreading of the plant to shorter distance occurred as a result of transportation of hairy seeds by wind, birds, water, and to greater distance by vehicles carrying seeds in its undercarriage (USDA 2014).

The biodiversity effects of non-native invasive species have been described as “immense, insidious and usually irreversible” (Veitch and Clout, 2002). There is significant evidence proving that invasive species can cause severe economic, environmental and ecological damage (Mack et al., 2000). A lot of time and research has been devoted to dividing the world into regions with distinctive habitats and species. Numerous pathways, mostly anthropogenic, are breaking down these realms and facilitating the ecological and biological invasion of non-native species.

Majestic animals that live in the ocean are rapidly dying and subsequently washing up on numerous shorelines that touch the Pacific Ocean’s waters. Disposal of a variety of toxins and damaging waste finding a path into our oceans are to blame for the deaths, which are largely preventable. Sharks, sea turtles, whales, dolphins and birds are just fraction of the marine life that are suffering because they are becoming sick or are dying of starvation. Their food sources are diminishing or disappearing as the cycle of destruction continues on down to the tiny, minute plankton that are the core of the food chain in the ocean. Contamination is causing the sudden increase of marine life deaths in the Pacific Ocean. The most recent reports of dead sea animals found washed up on shorelines don’t state scientific evidence of the cause of the mysterious deaths.

Marketing has evolved through a change in production and consumption due to the advent of new technology (Ranchhod, 2004). The development of technology has also driven the globalisation of communication. During this period, consumers are facing a variety of choices (Jackson and Shaw, 2009). Thus, companies need to actively embrace these changing factors to grow their business and succeed in the marketplace.