assignment

topic : assignment
A• Below are the latitude/longitude co-ordinates
for four locations on planet Earth
• Find each of these locations in Google Earth (or
Google maps w/satellite images turned on if you don’t have Google Earth

already
installed) and zoom in so that you can see about a 100 x 100 km area
o Boreal forest (western Newfoundland, Canada):
 49 49 13 N 57 11 47 W
o Farmland/Forest  (Yunnan Province, PR China):
 25 07 06 N 103 09 42 E
o Tropical forest (Chiquibl, Belize, Central
America):
 16 47 44 N 89 03 11 W
o Coral Reef (Australia):
 20 37 35 S 150 27 57 E
• In-class assignment:
• Answer the following questions
about each of the four locations:
 Person A – Boreal,
 Person B: Farmland,
 Person C: Tropical Forest,
 Person D: Coral Reef.
o Examine each location at three scales (maximum
extents) –
 1: about 100-500 km; 2: about 10 km; 3: about 1
km
o Briefly describe the dominant pattern at each
scale
 What is the ‘grain’ of the dominant pattern (the
smallest size of objects)
 What is the ‘extent ‘of that pattern (the
largest size)?
 What does it look like?
o What are the dominant objects you observe that
make up the pattern?
o Draw a Stommel diagram of the system (combining
all three scales)
 Consider
• Scale
o Temporal (minimum and maximum time duration)
o Spatial (finest and broadest)
• Processes
o List at least two ecological processes
(interactions between abiotic and biotic parts of the system) that are

likely present
at each of the three scales;
• Decide on two things that are
similar across the four systems. One should be related to pattern, and

one to
underlying processes.
• Write a short (one paragraph) description of
those similarities.