Team Members: Karishma Malhotra, AJ Johnson
Mark:
Patel, DK. 2015. “Diversity of Plants and their Role in Nature.” Journal of Biodiversity & Endangered Species. 3:e125. DOI: 10.4172/2155-6105.1000e125.
The author of this journal is a professor of rural technology at a university in India called Guru Ghasidas Vishwavidyalaya. The journal is fairly simple and gets to the point, which makes it useful when interpreting information. Patel writes about living environmental factors such as plants, animals, and microbes, and how they interact with non-living factors such as water, soil, and light. The journal also talks about photosynthesis and the food chain, and how they impact the environment.
Pugh, Thomas A.M., A. Robert MacKenzie, J. Duncan Whyatt, and C. Nicholas Hewitt. 2012. “Effectiveness of Green Infrastructure for Improvement of Air Quality in Urban Street Canyons.” Environmental Science & Technology. 46 (14), pp 7692–7699. DOI: 10.1021/es300826w.
The authors of this journal are professors and researchers at well-respected universities. To be specific, they have a focus on environmental science and teach at Karlsruhe Institute of Technology in Germany and the University of Birmingham. This article will be used in our project because it provides details as to how green infrastructure and biodiversity directly affect air quality. It also focuses primarily on Nitrogen Dioxide and particulate matter concentration in the atmosphere, which are two major factors in air pollution. Lastly, the best reason as to why this journal will be useful is because it focuses on urban cities, which goes well with our research on parks in NYC.
Zimmer, Carl. 2018. “‘Global Greening’ Sounds Good. In the Long Run, It’s Terrible.” NY Times, July 30.
The author of this article is a very well-known writer and science blogger who specializes in evolution and parasites. He is a graduate of Yale University and has authored numerous science books. This article focuses on how human intervention has been led to an increase in photosynthesis, and how this is not necessarily a good thing. Zimmer goes into detail about how extra carbon dioxide in the atmosphere can make plants less nutritious, and that more plants will not prevent climate change. The article briefly goes into detail about the interactions between plants and their surrounding environment.
Karishma:
Stinson, Kristina, Stuart Campbell, Jeff Powell, Benjamin Wolfe, Ragan Callaway, Giles Thelen, Steven Hallet, Daniel Prati, and John Klironomos. “Invasive Plant Suppresses the Growth of Native Tree Seedlings by Disrupting Belowground Mutualisms.” Public Library of Science, April 25, 2006.
This peer reviewed article explores the effects of foreign invading plant species on the native plants of an ecosystem. While the addition of diverse plants to any ecosystem is usually seen as a progressive change, this article explores the negative impacts by providing empirical data on how aggressive plant species steal resources from existing plant species and invade previously undisturbed ecosystems. The authors are very credible since they all hail from Departments of Biology from universities such as Harvard, Purdue, University of Guelph, and University of Montana.
Ebeling, Anne, Sebastian T. Meyer, Maike Abbas, Nico Eisenhauer, Helmut Hillebrand, Markus Lange, Christoph Scherber, Anja Vogel, Alexandra Weigelt, and Wolfgang W. Weisser. “Plant Diversity Impacts Decomposition and Herbivory via Changes in Aboveground Arthropods.” Public Library of Science 9, no. 9 (2014).
This peer reviewed article does a fantastic job of studying the effects of plant diversity on its surrounding ecosystem, and specifically how it indirectly affects decomposition and herbivory. The experiment used to gather data in this study assessed decomposer and herbivore communities, decomposition and herbivory itself and how each was affected by plant diversity. The results concluded that higher plant diversity led to higher decomposition rates and herbivory rates because the plants attracted different communities of herbivores and arthropods. This peer reviewed journal is credible because most authors hail from the accredited University of Jena, Institute of Ecology.
Virginia Institute of Marine Science. “Loss of Plant Diversity Threatens Earth’s Life-support Systems, Experts Say.” ScienceDaily. March 24, 2011. Accessed October 29, 2018. https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2011/03/110303153116.htm.
This popular media article explores the effects of declining diversity in plant species on overall ecosystem productivity. This large scale experiment conducted by the Virginia Institute of Marine Science is very interesting as it spanned 5 continents over the last two decades. Scientists were able understand the global impacts of the loss of biodiversity on Earth’s systems because of the large amount of data gathered. This article provides very strong support for our original research question as it asks a similar question and the credible scientists cited had the resources to complete experiments that we completed at BioBlitz on a smaller scale.
AJ:
Swan, Christopher. 2017. “Urban Nature: What Kinds of Plants and Wildlife Flourish in Cities?” The Conversation, June 26, 2017. Accessed October 27, 2018. Urban nature: What kinds of plants and wildlife flourish in cities?
Christopher Swan is an ecologist who specializes in plant life in urban systems. With a focus on the city of Baltimore, Swan’s main focal points in his study are, observing how city residents invest into plant diversity, the most common plants in cities, and the type of species that can survive in an urban environment the best. His article focuses mainly on the impacts of human actions on the biodiversity in the urban environment and how to learn from the past in order to better the future of thriving plant life in overcrowded cities.
Science News Releases. 2012. “Urban Areas Have More Plant Species than Rural Areas but They Die Younger.” Bits Of Science. April 18, 2012. Accessed October 27, 2018. http://www.bitsofscience.org/urban-rural-plant-species-ecosystems-5682/
This popular article mainly focuses on the success of plant life in Urban areas by studying the urban environment of Minneapolis. Recent studies that stated how although urban areas have higher plant life than other areas, they tend to live shorter lives because of human impact and other environmental reasons. With the loss of evolutionary data with these plants dying early, many species are losing out on their opportunity to adapt and evolve from the environment they are in.
Guest. 2012. “Big City Conservation: New York City’s Hidden Biodiversity.” Ecology Global Network. February 20, 2012. Accessed October 27, 2018. http://www.ecology.com/2012/02/20/new-york-conservation-biodiversity/
This popular article published on Ecology reminds us of how many of the world’s largest urban areas were once very rich in biodiversity and nature. However, we are able to see the ways in which urban environments like New York City are changing their ways to become more suitable for plant life to once again grow freely and lusciously. According to the article, although 2/3 of the world’s population will live in urban areas by 2025, it is vital to keep biodiversity and plant life protected for the sake of our future generations to thrive on this planet.
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