Ecology

Ecology is a subdivision of science and it majorly deals with the learning of correlation that exists among living organisms and of the entire living beings together with their surroundings. The presumption behind environmental science does not plainly rule out the likelihood of a community to increase indefinitely.

Nevertheless, the situation cannot survive in reality. The ecological idea behind the impossibility is the issue of carrying capacity which states that any particular environment has a limited quantity of the resources that a specified living being will require. Therefore, if the populace of that specific organism expands excessively, it will in return drain those resources available and this will cause the population to fall. So it is clear that no ecological structure that is able to support unlimited increase of a populace, even on the aspect that the system, is being fueled by the apparently limitless power of the sun. The available resources presented in a community will be responsible for cutting short the population growth in that ecosystem. In addition, external forces like natural disasters are also known to destroy whole communities, thus preventing them from growing indefinitely.

When in a community the population exceeds its quotient of carrying capacity, it then enters into a condition termed as an overshoot. At this gauge, the population always declines to or even lower than the carrying capacity. Communities crash due to massive deaths that occur as a result of total exhaustion of the available resources. Also this may happen if organisms in the ecosystem are not quickly adapted to the current situation. On the other hand, the population may level off since it has various stored resources that are able to support their overblown numbers.

Human beings over time have been suffering from overpopulation majorly in the urban and productive areas and many views have been posed on whether humans are able to overcome these environmental limits which limit their growth. The humans can overcome this menace by for instance if the patterns of consumption are regulated by policies or even humans themselves, and, therefore, the ecological systems won’t be harmed. Moreover, humans are quite innovative and this has seen them even reclaim water bodies and also discover other sources of energy including solar and wind, thus scraping away the limitations of crude oil. It resonates with the regulation of resources’ consumption through either bringing in policies by the authorities or the people themselves as it would ensure that resources aren’t wasted.

Globally, there has been massive climate change due to global warming and this for instance has made glaciers to melt away at the Glacier National Park found in Montana. Variations in precipitation and temperature have pushed numerous animal species to migrate out of their habitats to places experiencing softer temperatures. Also due climatic changes, fire seasons have been noted to grow lengthy and more severe, thus causing the landscape to shift and become unbearable to the wildlife.

Air pollution has also threatened life in parks as the poor quality of air causes foul water, poison vegetation, and even block off views. For instance, the Great Smoky Mountains national Park has a large quantity of smog covering the atmosphere and this pollution emanates from industrial emissions and power plants in the surrounding area.

Water issues have also cropped even into parks and they are threatening both the terrestrial and aquatic life. The massive increase in water demand by humans has shrunk the water supplies in national parks, thus causing even death to the wildlife. Also, industrial effluence has found its way into water bodies, thus depicting the water off the air and also intoxicating it, therefore making it inhabitable. Moreover, less and less dependable precipitation on the direr and warmer planet has in fact worsened the situation.

Poaching has been going on for ages as people illegally kill wildlife for financial gains, but the practice has seen some animals reduce even into hundreds. For instance, Africa has suffered excessive poaching which has caused the decrement of animals like lions and rhinos, thus making them become protected by the governments, so as to prevent their extinction.

Gray wolves a long time ago used to roam in the U.S. in fact from Mexico to Canada and also from coast to coast. However, in the early 20th century, these species of wolves were severely killed in shocking numbers, eliminating them from the ecosystem by the 1930s. Animal protectionists and conservationists campaigned for the reintroduction of the gray wolves into the Yellowstone national Park in 1995 and their re-introduction greatly changed the Park’s biodiversity. The elks’ population had overgrown during the wolves’ extirpation period and this caused overgrazing and depletion of resources in the Park hence making it deplorable. The destruction of the landscape by the soaring numbers of elks affected even the other animals, thus making the park unmanageable.

The re-introduction of the gray wolves in the park brought in positive impact as since elks were the favorite prey for the wolves, they checked the highly growing elks’ population greatly. Overgrazing reduced, as the reduction in elks population resulted in gradual changes in the flora of the park as aspens, cottonwoods, and willows increased in numbers, thus making the park a tourism destination once more. Also wolves have checked the high growth of coyotes in the ecosystem, thus causing them to drastically restructure and change their territories as well as a boost in their prey which used to be young deer and hares. Dispersion of elks has ensured that beavers increase in their numbers as the pressure and competition they got from elks on willow pastures was neutralized by the re-introduction of wolves in the park.

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