NAU Biology BIO 326
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BIO326 : Individual : Environmental Variation : Lesson

Environmental Variation: Lesson


The red line gives the best post-1992 Solar spectum estimate, and the yellow line shows the spectrum of a blackbody having temperature 5780 degrees Kelvin, which is the temperature needed to give the same total power, given by the integral over the spectrum, also known as the solar constant, which here is about 1370 W/m2. [Various measurements of the solar constant give values between 1365 and 1372. It is also not constant in time, but varies over the ~30-day solar rotation period, with an amplitude of about 4 W/m2, or about 0.3 percent, during the maxima of the 11-year solar sunspot cycle, and much less during sunspot minima.]
Original URL of this figure is http://climate.gsfc.nasa.gov/~cahalan/Radiation/SolarIrrVblackbody.html


Glossary terms that are important in this lesson: Adiabatic cooling, biome, cation exchange capacity, clay, edaphic, El Niño, endemic, epilimnion, Hadley cells, humus, hypolimnion, laterization, life zone, mesic, overturn, podzolization, rain shadow, riparian, serpentine barrens, thermocline, upwelling, xeric.

Use the outline below to guide your study of the material in this lesson. The outline follows the book, but indicates those topics the instructor feels are most important for you to learn in the course. You should read all the pages assigned, open and study the links, and learn the glossary terms.

Temperature, moisture, and light are seldom constant for long. Variations in these and other factors change the conditions under which organisms have to live. In this section, we will see the range of conditions in which organisms live.

I. Environmental Patterns: Global, regional, local

  1. Global climate

  2. Seasonal climate

  1. Lake cycles
    • Differences in temperature result in differences in water density
    • Local seasonal "oscillations"
    • Major oscillation: El Niño

  2. Topography and geology
    • Gradients in elevation
    • Gradients in moisture
    • Gradients in substrate
    • Landscape ecology

  3. Soils: chemically and biologically altered material
Profile

II. Biomes

  1. Large scale distributions of species

  1. Aquatic systems
    • Streams and rivers
      • Pools and riffles
      • Downstream drift
    • Lakes
      • Littoral
      • Limnetic
      • Benthic
    • Estuaries
    • Oceans: photic, neritic, oceanic
Stream

When you have completed this lesson, go on to Review Questions


E-mail Professor Gaud at gaud@jan.ucc.nau.edu
or call (520) 523-7516
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