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The Life Sciences Recent Progress and Application to Human Affairs The World of Biological Research Requirements for the Future (1970) / Chapter Skim
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Ecology
Pages 115-121

The Chapter Skim interface presents what we've algorithmically identified as the most significant single chunk of text within every page in the chapter.
Select key terms on the right to highlight them within pages of the chapter.


From page 115...
... On any day he may be on a lake or the ocean, examining bottom mud with the use of carbon-dating procedures; following migratory patterns of birds, mammals, or fish by telemetry; computing the energy balance of a lake, of a terrarium in the laboratory, or of the southwestern desert; examining the history of a peat bog as recorded in its fossils; or engaging in a computer simulation of the total ecology of a rain forest. His tools are not uniquely his; they are whatever applicable tools science has made available.
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From page 116...
... As we have already seen, desert rodents evolved kidneys capable of secretion of extraordinarily concentrated urine.
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From page 117...
... ~ ~ . ~ ~ · ~ ·,1 ~ ~ ~ ~ 1 _ ~1_ ~ ~ A_ ~ I,: require careful study, combined with associated fossil analyses and exam~nation of current climatic conditions, to permit predicting the more important biological effects of future weather modifications when this becomes feasible.
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From page 118...
... Daphnia, a small freshwater crustacean, can maintain remarkably dense populations on an adequate food supply. If a modest grade of removal (fishing)
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From page 119...
... Biological control tests, new drugs, and repellents are obvious potential applications. It is this largely untapped potential and not sentimentalism that makes ecologists protectors of threatened species and of dwindling habitats that harbor unique combinations of species.
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From page 120...
... For example, the average efficiency of an Iowa cornfield is only about 2 percent, whereas the conversion of solar energy into organic matter by algae in a fertilized pond may be as high as 20 percent. The use of radioactive carbon dioxide as a tracer has permitted the construction of balance sheets of carbon flow, particularly in small lakes; chemical analysis reveals the total flow of mineral elements as well.
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From page 121...
... Ecological understanding is required to guide intelligent use of pesticides and of biological mech anisms for pest control; to indicate when ciear-cutt~ng or slash-and-burn ~nnronc~.h~.~ should he used as forests are put to new use; to give guidance to the appropriate scheduling for plowing, planting, burning, and normal agricultural practice; to predict the consequences of the introduction of new strains of crop plants (already it is clear that, on a single farm, genetic -en ~
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Key Terms

  • food supply
  • growing body
  • solar energy
  • herbivore populations
  • klamath weed

  • organic matter
  • plant species
  • density falls
  • hourglassshaped bog
  • otherwise suitable

  • food chain
  • falls sharply
  • permit predicting
  • birds maintain
  • drainage basin

  • future weather
  • leaves close
  • birth rate
  • actual ecologies
  • current climatic

  • water supply
  • usually occur
  • insect population
  • ecological niches
  • discharge coming

  • leaves continues
  • average efficiency
  • steady yield
  • peat bog
  • successfully raised


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