Can I speak my heart out?

I'll raise a warning before you begin reading: Just don't mind this blog. :) or just skip the lengthy intro!


In the past week, I was glued to my book ESSENTIALS OF ECOLOGY by Townsend, Begon and Harper (2008).


Oh before that!


I was almost frantic! I could not do my analysis confidently without a reference. I had two ecology courses waaaay back in college. (colorful chapter of my student life! we did transect line and quadrat analysis in a forest in Malagos [where Philippine Eagles are housed], beach [yukee!], looked for Lemna sp. in Calinan). And I only taught environmental science, but that was 2 years ago! I NEED A BOOK - a book I can hold, I can scribble on. I had a mission - find BEGON at all costs!











Attempt number 1: Find it in school library. I found three ecology books: (1) Elements of Ecology by Smith and Smith; (2) The Ecological World View by Krebs; and (3) Instant Notes in Ecology by Mackenzie, Ball and Virdee. But I beg of Begon... Begon who has conditions and resources!


Attempt number 2: Find it in my locker, where I store my college books. Achu! I found one ecology book: Ecology: Theories and Applications by Stiling. No "conditions" in the index.


Attempt number 3: Use my connections. Sent a text to my cousin Jepoy who studies in ADDU: Poy, I need a book by Begon, Townsend and Harper - desperate mode. Jepoy's reply: ate meron pero iba ang title. Me: Go! Hiramin mo! Jepoy: ay ate hiniram na. Me: Balikan mo ulit bukas! The following day, me: Jep, binalikan mo na? Jepoy: Te, out pa rin. my mind: I'll "printscreen", paste, crop, and print Begon's book from the website my teacher gave me - urgh!


Serendipity: I'm not in a good mood while in attendance to a meeting RE: Application for University Status. If the VPAA calls me to present my report on "commitment to high standard of education" I will literally CRY in front. Listening to the report about the library was a bit boring. And then she said "our OPAC website (online public access catalogue) could not be opened". Owwws? I tried to access it and I was able to use it. I keyed in B E G O N ... on the left side of the screen appeared copy:1. I scribbled the code (is it still the Dewey Decimal?) and waited for the meeting to be over (of course, I didn't present). I rushed to the school library and sweetly (oh so sweetly) asked the student assistant "tulungan mo naman ako o... ". In the end: I GOT MY BEGON (the left side of the picture is my hardbound)!!




Back to the past week -- And so I was glued to my Begon (I had it photocopied) even in the office trying to finish reading two parts on conditions and resources. I began carrying a backpack to school with five important things inside: cellphone, laptop, my Begon, campbell's biology, and bio 260 module (I stopped bringing EDRE 331 - i'll attend to it next week). As I read parts that catches my amazement, I share it to my co-teachers who are busy checking test papers. Their usual reaction "kuyawa oi!", "atik, naa diay ingon ana"... Let me share it with you --


1. Downy birch (the birch tree) seeds need to be CHILLED before it starts growth.

why? being chilled is a signal of winter. after this, they note that cold is over. hence, they will not be killed by "harsh" temperature. (Critical thinking: Suppose we place a birch seed inside the freezer, do you think it will germinate?)

2. Lodgepole pine seeds need to be HEATED BY FOREST FIRE before they germinate.

why? heat indicates that the ground is cleared (forest fire has killed the plants). Hence, new seedlings have a chance of being established. (Critical thinking: If we subject a lodgepole pine seed to flame, will it begin to germinate afterwards?)



3. When length of day shortens, cats develop thickened fur coat.

why? when length of day shortens, it means winter is approaching. Cats need their fur coat to keep them warm. (I want to observe a cat but I don't have one. Do you think it is still the same for cats in tropical countries? If I bring one from Korea, will it die of heat stroke here when December comes?)



4. Animals have evolved defenses against being attacked.

Adaptive coloration could be cryptic or aposematic. Cryptic coloration is when animals camouflage -- matching its background (image from: http://thefullwiki.org/Crypsis). Aposematic coloration is when animals advertize the fact that they are noxious or dangerous by bright, conspicuous colors and patterns. There is also a deceptive coloration exemplified by the hindwing markings of the moth which resemble the eyes of a much larger animal (iamge from:http://www.dimijianimages.com/Crypsis-mimicry-page3/Oi-moth-adult.htm)



Animals also exhibit mimicry such as that between the venomous coral snake and the non-venomous scarlet king snake (image from http://academic.reed.edu/biology/professors/srenn/pages/teaching/web_2008/mimics_MMMR/adaptation.html). Or that between a distasteful monarch butterfly and a delicious viceroy butterfly. KEY: the models (like venomous snake) should outnumber mimics (scarlet king snake) - why do you think so?



Given these amazing abilities of plants and animals, if all natural resources come to an end, who will bre greatly affected? I believe it will be the human race. Looking at the intricate relationship among conditions, resources, organisms and their interactions, other living organisms have developed ways to avoid and tolerate "extreme" environmental pressures. However, the human race is used to modifying nature rather than tolerating it. When nature's pressure becomes inevitable, we will be left with nothing to defend or secure ourselves with. Everything we do relies on nature's provisions - from food, clothin and shelter. Other organisms, given the "level of intelligence" they have, have obviously survived without thanks to technology and industries man has become dependent of.



If I could just speak my heart out, I'll ask the subject area coordinator to give me one ecology teaching load - :) And as to taking care of nature (in civil law: like a good father of a family), I believe in Martin Luther King's -- Our lives begin to end the day we become silend of the things that matter.

Why don't we have panda bears?

When I was kid, I dreamed of working in the World Wildlife Fund (WWF) to take care of panda bears. It was just an influence brought by an american movie. When I went to school for my tertiary education, I was fond of calling myself panda eyes whenever I spend sleepless nights to study Comparative Vertebrate Anatomy under Dr. Ruth Gamboa.

Why don't we have panda bears here in the Philippines?

Grade school teachers explain that CONDITIONS are not favorable for pandas to live in our tropical country. Explanation beyond this term CONDITIONS is left to the innocent mind of gradeschoolers. I know, based on the american movie, that panda bears eat bamboo - we have bamboos here in the Philippines!


With this in mind, let us put CONDITIONS and RESOURCES into place. With conditions, I mean PHYSICAL CONDITIONS and with resources, we refer to AVAILABILITY OF RESOURCES.

photo was taken in Bohol way back 2006. it was a biologist's dream - to see tarsiers (one of the smallest primates on earth)

Physical Conditions are physicochemical features of the environment which are not consumed nor used up by the activities of organisms (Townsend et. al, 2008). These include:

1. temperature

2. humidity

3. pH (power of Hydrogen)

Resources ,on the other hand, may be biotic or abiotic components of the environment. In contrast with conditions, resources are consumed for organisms growth and development. These include:

1. solar radiation

2. carbon dioxide

3. water

4. mineral nutrients

The key indicators whether one is a CONDITION or a RESOURCE are:

a. Is it consumable? YES - resource; NO - condition

b. Will it still be available to another consumer? YES - condition; NO - resource

Let us entertain two of the two given examples: temperature and solar radiation.

Temperature induce a range of physiological responses in organisms. (physiological = characteristic appropriate for an individual's normal functioning). Suppose two butterflies live in an area where the temperature is around 26 degrees Celsius. Do you think one butterfly can consume the temperature? Will this 26 degrees Celsius be available to the other butterfly?

Solar radiation is important to photosynthetic organisms. Suppose two plants thrive on a forest floor. One is a narra tree while the other one is Mimosa pudica (makahiya). These two needs solar radiation in order for their photosynthesis to occur (to produce food). Narra grows taller than makahiya, hence, having its leaves in the atmosphere, it could catch solar radiation. And this solar radiation is USED by the tree to do photosynthetic activities. The makahiya lives under the shade of the narra tree. Do you think the used solar radiation will still be available for the makahiya under the narra tree?

Resources, because it is consummable, may run out (Solar radiation may not run out as long as the sun shines in the area; other resources such as those for food is feared to run out). Because of organisms' need for resources for their survival, growth, and development, a relationship among organisms is formed - it could be competition for these resoruces.

Going back to our panda bear- we may have bamboo plants here in the Philippines. It is a resource for panda bears. However, conditions in our country, specifically the heat (temperature), may not be "healthy" for panda bears. Their thick fur will work at their great disadvantage when they are in the tropics.

In order to survive, organisms could do any of the three: AVOID, TOLERATE, or SPECIALIZE. Panda bears could tolerate the high temperature in the Philippines. However, tolerance comes with increased expenditirue of energy. Or, they could specialize by having thin fur instead of the designed dense fur in response to the cold Chinese sub-tropical climate. (This brings us to the realization that keeping animals in captivity is tantamount to being "inhuman")

Three Important Concepts in Ecology

What is a concept? A concept is an idea, an impression or a perception on something. Here, I present my three important concepts in Ecology - the study of environmental systems.

Concept 1: Living and non-living things in a particular community (place) are interrelated.

Living things (organisms/biotic factors) in a particular "oikos"(place where they live) are interconnected with each other and with their environment (non living/abiotic).

Cheetah, for example (the one we see in a Pepsi commercial), depends on its prey, the gazelle, for survival. Survival in the sense that the gazelle is the FOOD. Without food, organisms will not survive. Similarly, snakes and crocodiles feed on bats who are trying to hide from an eagle. Bats occupy the lower portions of a tree to evade the sights of an eagle not knowing that just below, crocodiles and snakes are already waiting.

Leaving the context of biotic dependent on biotic factors, we have animals (imagine those in the outback of Australia) that thrive near water resources. Here our biotic factors, the animals, are dependent on an abiotic factor which is water.

2. The relationship between living and non-living organisms will influence the behavior of organisms.

Let us take predation as relationship referred to in this concept. The race between the predator and its prey influence the living behavior of both the prey and the predator. This influence may be on the shape and behavior of the organisms, such that these are molded by the need TO HUNT or TO ESCAPE. Example for this is that of the elephant which "reshaped"to become the largest land animal in order to prevent being preyed upon by cheetahs, tigers and lions. Hence, you should not be surprised why tigers and lions just look at the huge meat passing in front of them.

3. Organisms undergo an update of genes in order to survive.

An analogy for this concept is that of books. Authors revise/update their books in order to be saleable. If books are left unrevised, say still in the 1960s, then nobody will buy it since it lacks facts from current discoveries or newly developed theories. In ecology, organisms similarly update genes - although not at their own will. Cheetah, from parent to offspring, receive the üpdated genes, hence they become faster in order to hunt to survive. Gazelles on the other hand, also receive and update genes to develop greater stamina and turning quickly in order to escape to survive.