Word: ecosystems
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...Entomological Society of America, Metcalf pointed out that mosquitoes, May flies, midges and stone flies spend a great part of their lives as larvae in the water before metamorphosing into their more familiar buzzing selves. In a controlled experiment, Metcalf built a small tank to duplicate the ecosystem of a lake and its shore. He discovered that adult mosquitoes leaving the tank contained concentrations of DDT 100,000 times as strong as could be found in the water itself...
...north is a simple ecosystem with few distinct species. While a lake in California may contain several hundred species of phytoplankton, an Arctic lake has only a dozen. This lack of diversity, in ecological terms, is tantamount to vulnerability. Any species can be wiped out and no other species will take its place. The result is expressed in a word that many Alaskans have come to hate: fragility. Says Walter Hickel: "It used to be the hostile, frozen north; now it's the goddamn fragile tundra...
Ecologists are particularly concerned about the future effects of chemicals on the extremely complex tropical ecosystem. They know that removal of even one element, like leaves, will touch off a chain of related changes-all of them probably for the worse...
...technological society's constantly increasing energy is, he admits, a striking reinterpretation of the miracle of the loaves and fishes. One of Fuller's practical prescriptions-the recycling of used-car parts into the construction of new airplanes-could provide the basis for a 21st century ecosystem...
...Tropical forest study involves the South American rain forest-one of the earth's principal suppliers of oxygen. "Ecologically unwise use of the huge Amazon forest could have environmental repercussions with global effects," says Blair. "Yet we know less about this forest than about any other ecosystem...