Word: ecosystems
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Until humans learned how to build ships, the problem of invasive species--nonnative flora and fauna that can quickly overrun an ecosystem--was virtually nonexistent. With the dawn of global trade, transporting critters to new continents was encouraged. Beginning in the 16th century, farmers in North America introduced wheat, rice, soybeans and cattle, among other imports, which today make up huge portions of U.S. food production...
Other measurements are a lot more difficult, though. It's reasonable to expect, for example, that ecosystems will change as plants and animals respond to a rising thermometer - but how do you measure the change of an ecosystem that may consist of hundreds or even thousands of species? (See pictures of the effects of global warming...
...project, is hoping a reborn aurochs could help restore the European countryside to a more natural state. To that end, the group would eventually like to replace the domesticated cattle that currently graze in Holland's nature reserves with the recreated wild cattle. "The aurochs was part of an ecosystem," says Henri Kerkdijk, manager of the project. "If you want to recreate the flora of the ecosystem, you also have to recreate the fauna." The idea came to Kerkdijk during a trip to Africa, where he was struck by the abundance of giant herbivores, even in areas where people were...
...government wants to do it, they can do it," says Peter Shadie of the International Union for Conservation of Nature. But that doesn't mean the park would fit his organization's definition of a protected area, which emphasizes the long-term conservation of nature and its associated ecosystem services and cultural values. "The definition [of protected area] has a lot of latitude," says Shadie. "At the end of the day, it is a class of land use purposely set aside for conservation, rather than a class of land use designed for people to live...
...what makes them so dangerous to the lakes. Asian carp aren't direct predators, but they eat plankton, which knocks out the bottom layers of the food chain. If they were to successfully establish themselves in the Great Lakes and start breeding, they could utterly disrupt the existing ecosystem, potentially starving out the trout and other native fish that make the Great Lakes a tourism hot spot. (See 10 species nearing extinction...