<text>You are about search for bibliographical information in the water resources database, brought to you by the New Mexico Museum of Natural History and the USDA Forest Service Partners in environmental education. To start browsing through the bibliography, just click on the mouse.</text>
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<text>Do you live in an arid climate? If so, there are probably many varieties of cacti in your area. On the previous page you saw four common types of cacti native to New Mexico and Arizona.1. As a class or individually, identify some other types of cacti in your area.2. Are there any cacti that are unique to your area or state?3. Name two national parks named after cacti. HINT -- One is in Arizona and the other is in Arizona and California.4. When do the cacti bloom in your area. Do different cacti bloom at different times? 5. When is the earliest bloom?6. When is the latest bloom?</text>
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<text>From: jhurst@ese.ogi.edu (Jim Hurst)Newsgroups: sci.environmentSubject: Re: A different viewKeywords: Feedback loops coming to a neighborhood near you!Message-ID: <24845@ogicse.ogi.edu>Date: 2 Aug 91 00:22:45 GMTReferences: <40910451@hpindda.cup.hp.com> <1466600061@cdp> <1991Jul26.055338.3334@menudo.uh.edu> <1991Jul26.131915.27889@athena.mit.edu> <1991Jul30.105907.282@falcon.aamrl.wpafb.af.mil> <24741@ogicse.ogi.edu>Sender: news@ogicse.ogi.eduOrganization: Arid WestLines: 60I wrote:>Brett Kottmann writes:>>The North African coast was once a large grain>>producing area that kept the Roman Empire fed.>>>>Now it is desert, with only the Nile remaining. The biggest change? >>Lack of precipitation, caused by a decrease in the amount of airborne>>particles....>Your line of reasoning ignores some pretty well established feedback loops>that influence meso-scale climate: albedo and surface temperature. I would like to follow up on this, with a selection from a paper I was reading on the role of forests and CO_2 cycling. Here's an exerpt from the paper "A Review of the Role of Temperate Forests in the Global CO_2 Balance" by Robert Musselman and Douglas Fox, of the much beloved USDA Forest Service, in the Journal of Air and Waste Management, June 1991 (many good footnotes deleted).Begin quote:Forest Environment RelationshipsClimate interacts with forests in a very dramatic matter. In a sense, trees represent one of nature's strategies for dealing with a variable climate. Forest ecosystems have somewhat of a buffering capacity on climate. For example, forests can recirculate moisture on a regional level. Tropical deforestation can cause regional changes in surface temperature, evapotranspiration, and precipitation. Large changes in forest ecosystem structure (which apparently is now occuring in the tropics) may be necessary before we can detect changes in regional carbon and water balances. Subtle climate change effects are likely to be very difficult to differentiate from other effects on forests.Forests are dynamically coupled to the atmosphere. The boundary between forests and the atmosphere is a site of movement of trace gases in both directions, depending upon vegetative and microclimatic factors. Forest canopies have lower albedo (solar reflectivity), enhanced roughness, and larger minimum stomatal resistances than agricultural crops. Forests can be a large source of water vapor to the atmosphere through evapotranspiration from leaf surface areas much greater per hectare than ground surface areas.Forests exists in specific locations because of a dynamic equilibrium between the vegetation and the extant climate-forced micrometeorological conditions. These micrometeorological conditions are somewhat modified by the ecosystems itself, especially in more mature ecosystems with large amounts of biomass [like Ancient Forests! 8^) ]. Although certain micrometeorological conditions are necessary for forest trees to become established and to grow, once established, forests may resist succumbing to climatic changes detrimental to their continued existence. For example, forests several hundred years old have survived climatic perturbations under which seedlings could not become established. In fact, the right conditions for seedling survival and establishment may occur only every several decades. However, if climatic changes are os such magnitude that conditions necessary for reproduction and establishment do not return, the forest cannot be replaced beyond its lifespan. The longevity of some forest ecosystems may allow a forest ecosystem to exist long beyond the conditions which favored its establishment.Jim (jhurst@ese.ogi.edu)</text>
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<text>Robert M. Sullivan DRAFT "Water as a Medium For Life" December 10, 1990 HOW LIFE IS ADAPTED TO THE TEMPERATURE FACTOR In the arid southwest, three basic aspects of the physical environment that are important to all organisms include (1) surface features and soils, (2) temperature range, and (3) amount of precipitation. Combinations of these result in a great varity of habitats, each with its distinctive living conditions. Protoplasm, the living substance of life, is surprisingly adaptable in its abilty to endure a wide range of temperatures. Some bacteria are able to survive at a low temperature of -454 degrees F and a high temperature of -284 degrees F. Killifishes live in water at a temperature of -204 degrees F and blue green algae thrive in hot springs at 190 degrees F. At the other extreme, above-ground parts of woody plants can withstand temperatures well below zero degrees F. Frogs have survived experimental temperatures of -18 degrees F, and fishes, -4 degrees F. However, more complex forms of life, such as land plants and vertebrate animals, can only live within a much narrower temperture range. New Mexico is a land of extremes in both temperature and precipitation. Temperatures in New Mexico can range from a low of -40 degrees F along the windswept alpine slopes of the Sangre de Cristo Mountains, to a high of 120 degrees F in the white gypsum sands of the southern Tularosa Basin. The temperature at which a particular organism can best carry on reproduction and other living activities is called the optimum temperature. Plants and High Temperatures. -- Excessively high temperatures are a hazard to plants only where the water supply becomes limited. High temperatures therefore become a significant environmental factor in arid regions of the southwest, where rainfall is less than xx cm (10 inches) a year. Temperature limits the distribution of many plants by its effect upon reproductive activities. Flowers and fruits cannot tolerate as low temperatures as foliage. HOW LIFE IS ADAPTED TO THE WATER FACTOR A major problem facing land-dwelling plants and animals is how to obtain sufficient water and, once having secured it, how to conserve it. Since the ultimate source of all water on land is rainfall, this factor in the environment is a very critical one. Precipation varies from great scarcity to a superabundance and so creates habitats varying widely in the availability of water. Water is a factor in the environment while yet a vapor in the atmosphere, when falling as snow, hail, or rain, and when it finally accumulates in the ground. In all three situations it plays an important role in the distribution of wildlife and its adaptations to meet too little or too great amounts of water.Xerophytes. -- are plants adapted to live where water is scarce--in deserts or on windswept mountain slopes. They are the dominant plants in areas with less than ten inches of rain a year, or in areas where higher winds increase the transpiration rate. Xerophytes form the characteristic vegetation of deserts and exhibit many unusual adaptations that aid these plants to survive in arid hahitats. Adaptations are of three types: (1) those that 1essen the loss of water by transpiration; (2) those that conserve water in storage tissues; and (3) those that make the root system more effective in obtaining water.Reduced transpiration is brought about as in evergreen trees, by development of small leaves with a waxy or hairy surface; this method of lessening transpiration can be seen in the foliage of sage brush and creosote brush, two common desert shrubs. Transpiration is also reduced by discarding the leaves during dry spells. The cacti are the champion water conserves among all xerophytes. Cacti have no leaves at all; it is the green compact stem that assumes the task of photosynthesis. Transpiration of the stem is reduced by an impervious outer surface and by the interlacing spines, which create a blanket of air close to the stem, more humid than the air of the environment (Figure of a xerophytic community consisting of plants adapted to living in a very dry habitat--i.e., cactus community).Water conservation by storage is accomplished by special types of leaves, stems, and roots. Storage of water in underground parts of the plant is found in the Arizona night-blooming cactus, although among most of the cacti water is stored in an enlarged and succulent stem. Numerous kinds of barrel and hedgehog cacti illustrate this principle. When rain does come to the desert, plants must be ab1e to absorb as much water as possible. often as rapidly as possible. Water absorption becomes another important factor in the life of the xerophyte. Successful xerophytes obtain their water by two types of root systems, one of which relies on extending as far as possible in all directions around the plant, the other, on penetrating deeply into the subsoil. Xerophytes have a special problem when it comes to reproduction because flowering and seed germination must coincide with the rainy season. Many desert annuals bloom at the same time immediately after the first spring rains; covering the desert floor with a carpet of colorful hues. Seeds are produced rapidly often within a few weeks . But if seeds germinate at once they would perish in the ensuing dry season. It may also be months, even years before another rainy season makes seed germination possible. Many seeds are adapted for such an emergency by a coating that prevents immediate germination. Consequently they lie dormant until a wet spell provides sufficient moisture to dissolve the resistant outer covering of the seed. Seeds of some xerophytic annuals require a period of several years before the seed coat can be effectively dissolved for germination to take place. Sullivan, Robert M. "Water as a Medium For Life." Draft paper written for the exhibit "Arid Lands, Sacred Waters" at the New Mexico Museum of Natural History and Science. 10 December 1990.</text>
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<text>Sullivan, Robert M. "Water as a Medium For Life." Draft paper written for the exhibit "Arid Lands, Sacred Waters" at the New Mexico Museum of Natural History and Science. 10 December 1990.</text>
