1. What role may fire play in ecological succession, and how may fire be used in the management of certain ecosystems?

Fire resets the successional clock in some ecosystems. It can be used to manage unwanted shrubs.

2. What is meant by ecosystem resilience? What can cause it to fail? How does this relate to environmental tipping points?

Ecosystem resilience is its ability to return to normal functioning after a disturbance.
If forests are removed from a landscape by human intervention and the area is prevented from undergoing reforestation by overgrazing, the soil may erode, leaving a degraded state that carried out few of the original ecosystem's functions.
The tipping point is a situation that can move the ecosystem in one direction or another.

3. In what ways is human population ecology similar and different from that of other organisms?
   a. Why is it difficult to determine a carrying capacity for humans?

We resemble growth rates of r-strategists (exponential, J shaped curve) but we also have high levels of parental care and late (and slow) reproductive rates (like history of a slower growing equilibrium species with the growth of r strategist).
Definition of 'human population' is different than most populations of organisms (not confined to a small area - due to tech). Unique in our ability to regulate our reproduction, use fite, store our food, change our habitats to suit our needs.

4. How has the global human population changed from prehistoric times to 1800?
   a. From 1800 to the present?
   b. What is projected over the next 50 years?

- Neolithic Revolution
• Neolithic Revolution: The development of agriculture begun by human societies around 12,000 years ago, leading to more permanent settlement and population increases
• Specialization of labor, trade with other settlements/commerce, greater storage of food/preservation, - reduced mortality rate, expanding agriculture
- Industrial Revolution
• Industrial Revolution: During the 19th century, the development of manufacturing processes using fossil fuels and based on applications of scientific knowledge.
• Costs: pollution, exploitation
- Medical Revolution
• Medical Revolution: Medical advances and public sanitation led to spectacular reductions in mortality, beginning in the late 1800s and extending to the present.
• Diseases such as smallpox, diphtheria, measles, scarlet fever - black plague/cholera (epidemics)
• Louis Pasteur and others - found diseases caused by pathogens
• Vaccinations, treating sewage/water, 1930s discovered penicillin, nutrition
- The Green Revolution
• Green Revolution: The development and introduction of new varieties of (mainly) wheat and rice that have increased yields per acre dramatically in many countries since the 1960s.
• Pesticide ance: the ineffectiveness of a pesticide when the target organisms are no longer affected by it
• Resistance: the development of more hardy pests through the effects of the repeated use of pesticides in selecting against sensitive individuals in a pest population
• Cost: increased erosion, soil and water pollution, loss of native plant varieties, pesticide resistance
- The Newest Revolution
• Environmental Revolution: In the view of some, a coming change in the adaptation of humans to the rising deterioration of the environment. The Environmental Revolution should bring about sustainable interactions with the environment.
• Hopefully come through technology

5. How does the World Bank classify countries in terms of economic categories?

- 1. High-income, Highly developed, industrialized countries
• 1.13 billion in 2010
• 2010 GNI per capita is $12, 296 (w/ average of $38,658)
• Includes US, Canada, Japan, Republic of Korea, Australia, New Zealand, countries of Western Europe & Scandinavia, Singapore, Taiwan, Israel, several Arab states
• Sometimes divided further OECD and non-OECD
- 2. Middle-income, Moderately developed countries
• 4.92 billion
• 2010 average GNI per capita is $3,764
• Includes Latin America (Mexico, Central America, S. America), N. and S. Africa, China, Indonesia, southeastern Asian countries, Arab states, Eastern Europe, countries of former U.S.S.R.
- 3. Low-income, developing countries
• 0.8 million people in 2010
• 2010 average GNI per capita less than $1,005 (average $510)
• Includes E. W. Central Africa, India, countries of S. Asia, few former Soviet republics
- Developed Countries: The high-income industrialized countries - US, Canada, western European nations, Japan, Korea, Australia, New Zealand, as well as many middle income countries such as Latin America, China, eastern Europe, many Arab states.
- Developing Countries: Countries in which the gross domestic product is less than $936 per capita. Includes nations of Africa, India, other countries of southern Asia, and some former Soviet republics.

6. What three factors are multiplied to give total environmental impact?
   a. Are developed nations exempt from environmental impact?
   b. Why or why not?

- IPAT formula: A conceptual formula, proposed by ecologist Paul Ehrlich and physicist John Holdren, relating environmental impact (I) to population (P), affluence (A) and technology (T) [I = PAT]
- IPAT fits well with carrying capacity
- ImPACT: A refinement of the IPAT formula that separates the effects of Technology (T in the equation) into two components that incorporate the different effects of consumption of resources.
- Effect of Wealth
• Wealthier countries can more easily afford tech. to lower/be green, give poor quick ways to improve their economies, eventually also take care of environment
• Issues like disease in water might improve, problems like waste increase with wealth
• Wealth allows people to care for their area, but often pushes environmental problems to other, poorer places

7. What are the environmental and social consequences of rapid population growth in rural developing countries?
   a. In urban areas?

Countries with Rapid Growth
- Prior to Industrial revolution, humans survived through subsistence agriculture (small, isolated relatively stable populations, this system was basically sustainable)
- After WWII, modern medicines introduces (death rates plummeted, population boom)
- What happens when farms become too small to support the next generation... VVV
- Land Ownership Reform
• Patterns Kept Rural People in Poverty: Collectivization - gathering farmers into group farms. Originated within 20th century communism.
• Patterns Kept Rural People in Poverty: Ownership by Wealthy few - common result of colonialism in 19th/20th century. Can disrupt social order.
• Ex. China - when it abandoned collective agriculture in 1978 and reassigned most private land to small farmers, productivity went up 6%.
• Ex. South Africa - 87% agricultural land held by white Africans, only small amount of low quality land available to black Africans.
- Intensifying Cultivation
• Introduction of more highly productive varieties of basic food grains in Green Revolution - usually done to increase cash crops (may or may not help local farmers)
• Concerns: working the land harder - deterioration of soil, decreased productivity, erosion
- Opening Up New Lands
• Sounds good, but no such thing as "new land" - means converting natural ecosystems to agricultural production (losing goods and services and often not well suited)
• Use of steep hillsides, marginal lands, cut forests - not long term solution
- Illicit Activities
• (need or greed, desperation) Income obtained from illegal activities (drug-related crops, poaching)
- Migration Between Countries
• Perception poorer countries believe they can improve well being by moving to wealthier country - need more and younger workers (should welcome)
• Problems with immigration: prejudice, want higher birthrates instead of more immigrants)
- Refugees
• Migration from poor/middle country to poor/middle country
• Leads to refugee camps (with diseases and hunger), easy targets for exploitation (parents paid for children to work).
- Migration to Cities
• Urbanization (in 2008 more than half population lived in cities)
- Challenges to Governments
• Population growth and migration - outpacing economic growth and provision of basic services (in Developing Countries)
• Most pressing issue massive poverty from population growth

8. Describe the negative and positive impacts of affluence (high industrial consumption) on the environment.

- US have high environmental impact (from each of us), high population increase
- Affluent county provides amenities (safe drinking water, sanitary sewage systems and treatment, collection and disposal of refuse), we can afford gas and electricity, not destroying our parks and woodlands - we can afford conservation management, better agricultural practices, pollution control
- Consume may resources - lead in production of pollutants
- Effect of affluence - it enables the wealthy to clean up their immediate environment by transferring their wastes to more distant locations and allows them to obtain resources from more distant location. Also provides people with opportunities to exercise lifestyles choices consistent with concerns fro stewardship/sustainability.
- World's wealthiest 20% are responsible for 76% of natural good consumption

9. How do the population profiles and fertility rates of developed countries differ from those of developing countries?

- Population Projections for Developed Countries
• Sweden boom group getting older, stable production of new youth. Italy/Japan decline (not replacing babies)
• Graying of the Population
o Graying: The increasing average age in populations in developed countries and in many developing countries that is occurring because of decreasing birthrates and increasing longevity.
o Example: Italy, Japan
o Natural Increase: The number of births minus the number of deaths in a given population. The natural increase does not take into account immigration and emigration and is the percent of growth (or decline) of a given population during a year. It is found by subtracting the crude death rate from the crude birthrate and changing the result to a percent.
o Solution: allow more immigration (but implications to art, culture, religion)
o Many developed countries
• Less Graying Here (US)
o Fertility rate rise in late 1980s and projected stabilize between 290 million and 300 million
- Population Projections for Developing Countries
• Fertility rates generally declining, but still well above replacement level
• Average TFR (Total Fertility Rate) (excluding China) is currently 3.2
• Populations profiles of developing countries have a pyramidal shape.
• Burkina Faso and Indonesia
o Burkina Faso TFR - 6.3
o Burkina Faso: lowest income countries, big increase, high fertility rate
o Indonesia - population growth rate lower than Burkina Faso, large population may stabilize earlier, but it has a lot of population momentum
o Highly developed countries facing problems of graying population
o High fertility rates in developing countries maintain exceedingly young population

10. What is meant by population momentum?
    a. What is its cause?

- Population momentum: A property whereby a rapidly growing human population may be expected to grow for 50-60 years after replacement fertility (2.1 live births per female) is reached. Momentum is sustained because of increasing numbers entering reproductive age.
- In a young population (like Burkina Faso), momentum is positive (small portion in upper age groups and many young people entering their reproductive years)
- In a population (like Europe) momentum is negative (low fertility, shrink population