Word: ecosystems
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...salvage operation is financed by a group of Ohio investors who put up $7 million. Aboard the recovery ship Arctic Discover is a team of scientists studying the ecosystem around the sunken steamer. But Thompson concedes that new knowledge is merely a fringe benefit. Says he: "Without the gold, we would not be here...
...rain forest is deceptively fragile. Left to itself, it is an almost self-sustaining ecosystem that thrives indefinitely. But it does not adapt well to human invasions and resists being turned into farm- or ranchland. Most settlers find that the lush promise of the Amazon is an illusion that vanishes when grasped...
...Angeles. The result, as bumper stickers, outraged postcards to the Governor, and sober scientific studies have all amply declared, is that this country's oldest lake, and one of its most unusual, is being destroyed. Even the Los Angeles department of water and power concedes that the Mono Lake ecosystem could collapse. "We feel comfortable that we have 20 years before it's going to happen," says David Babb, a staff naturalist. There is time for more studies. But for now, he says, the ) department has no way to replace its Mono water, 100,000 acre-feet a year...
Realizing that if elephants vanish, so might tourists, some African nations are determined to slow down the killing. In addition, the animal is a vital part of Africa's unique ecosystem. For eons, elephants have knocked down trees, helping to give Africa its distinctive mix of forest and savanna and opening up the land for other big mammals...
...tropics the crucial question is how large a forest must be to sustain itself. If a park or protected area is too small to support some of its animal and plant life, the ecosystem will decline even with protection. As yet, no one knows the minimum critical size of a rain forest, but in 1979 Thomas Lovejoy, now at the Smithsonian Institution, set up a 20-year experiment with the cooperation of the Brazilian government to determine just that for the Amazon region. Among the findings: the smaller the forest, the faster the decline of insects, birds and mammals...