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Issue of Ecology , 4
Part I
The organization is called Latah Soil and Water Conservation District (LSWCD). In a broad term we specialize in restoring land to a healthier more natural state for both plants and animals. The Issue in Ecology that have chosen is “Biodiversity and Ecosystem Functioning:
Maintaining Natural Life Support Processes”, Number 4, fall 1999.
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Part II
Issue of Ecology Biodiversity and Ecosystem Functioning: Maintaining Natural Life Support
Processes, issue 4 .
Biodiversity is quickly shrinking with the growing world. The issue is having a negative effect on biodiversity around the world. The main causes of this issue include the development of land being managed such as Cropland, housing, or land being managed. Loss of biodiversity affects not only; human welfare, ecosystem stability, the economy, and the rate of extinction but also, the loss of diversity within an ecosystem. The effects of these can affect a multitude of different resources and ecosystems along with everyone and everything living within that ecosystem. Many experiments have been conducted to prove that these issues are real and happening today and every day. One consistent fact has been found throughout all these studies; as the number of species in a community decreases so does the ecosystem function. The future of new experimental studies should include, starting with more long-term studies, and studies not based solely on plants but also animals and organisms in the soil. Studies on both a large and small scale should also be conducted to observe which level is being affected more. Another

Chase Olson
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FOR-221 future experiment could include multiple ecosystems; for example testing whether findings from
2 lakes or grasslands and seeing if those test results can be applied more widely. This has already affected us in many ways. Our goal is to restore the land to its most natural state possible. Our organization has conducting multiple experiments to distinguish what the actual problem is what other kinds of work we could be doing to ensure this does not continue to happen in the future. I believe the next step in continuing success in revolving these issues include constantly updating the technology and finding ways to not just bring plants back to their natural habitat, but also animals and soil organisms.
In Mongolia research was conducted on grasslands to see how nitrogen affects ecosystems. This included nitrogen fixation and nitrogen deposition. Nitrogen deposition can lead to biodiversity loss and a decrease in the resilience of an ecosystem. Nitrogen fertilization at the right levels is used to help restore degraded lands back to a healthier state. Conductors of these experiments found that in the large mature community when nitrogen was added, species richness fell, this allowed annual species to take over. The opposite happened when they tested degraded land, adding nitrogen actually increased productivity and rhizomatous grasses took over.
In the article Higher effect of plant species diversity on productivity in natural than artificial ecosystems it describes the expected change in biodiversity. In the experiments artificial and natural land were conducted. The natural ecosystem experiment was conducted in the
Patagonian steppe, using a plant species diversity gradient, which included the removing of species while maintaining constant biomass. The experiment concluded that natural ecosystems net primary production aboveground increased along with the number of plant species. The overall conclusion between the artificial and natural ecosystem experiments is that a higher

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FOR-221 biodiversity affect occurs in the natural habitat compared to the artificial habitat; this suggests
2 effects of biodiversity in natural ecosystems could be much larger that currently thought.
Both of these articles have tested experiments involving biodiversity and healthier land.
This is everything that is strived for in our field office. Restoring land to its most natural or healthier state is our underlining motto. These articles do not directly deal with our organization; we do not add nitrogen to our soils although studies have proven it to help degraded land. It is time to adapt more techniques to help restoring biodiversity (Yongfei Bai, et al., 2010). All of the land that our district works on is depredated, properly adding nitrogen to help biodiversity is not going to negatively affect the land worked on. Research has been conducted to see if artificial or natural sites are being hit harder with the affects of losing biodiversity (Flombaum Pedro.Sala E.
Osvaldo. 2008) it was clear that natural sites were having a greater loss of biodiversity. The natural sites easily loose biodiversity, that is why a new approach is needed, not an efficient approach to save money, instead an approach that is more holistic. Some examples of how we could do this would be not driving on ungraveled roads like we have continuously done. The soil we plant in is healthier without compaction and traffic on it.
Yongfei Bai, Jianguo Wu, Christopher M. Clark, Shahid Naeem, Qingminpan,
Jianhuihuang, Lixia Zhang, Xingguo Han. January 2010. Tradeoffs and thresholds in the effects of nitrogen addition on biodiversity and ecosystem functioning: evidence form inner Mongolia
Grasslands. Volume 16, Issue 1, pg 358-372.
Flombaum Pedro.Sala E. Osvaldo. 2008. Higher effect of plant species diversity on productivity in natural than artificial ecosystems, USA. PNAS: Volume 105 no.16.

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