Need help for this essay. Questions 1–4: Answer the following essay questions in

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Need help for this essay. Questions 1–4: Answer the following essay questions in one to two short paragraphs. 1. Explain how human activities can cause an imbalance in biogeochemical cycling and lead to problems such as cultural eutrophication and fish kills. 2. Compare and contrast the traits and growth patterns of opportunistic versus equilibrium populations. Provide one example of each. 3. Compare and contrast indirect versus direct values of biodiversity, and provide examples. 4. Describe two traits that represent a sustainable society and two traits of a nonsustainable society.

Explanation / Answer

1.The global pressure of the human population is significantly altering the natural course of many of biogeochemical cycles of our earth leading to imbalance nutrients and compounds with the usual climatic and biological feedback mechanisms. These imbalances contribute to marine dead zones, climate change, ocean acidification, and many other environmental problems.Cultural eutrophication and fish kills are mainly caused due to the lack of oxygen also known as anoxia. Although eutrophication is naturally occurring, slow and inevitable process. When humans speed up that process by adding pollutants into our ecosystem, this will cause the death and premature aging of bodies of water due to the contamination with sewage, chemicals, and fertilizers. It will also cause cause the slow death of that body of water due to anoxia killing all living things within it.

2Opportunistic species use the r-strategy. They produce millions of eggs and sperm since only a small percent will
actually meet, join, and become offspring. Opportunistic species are often the first to colonize a new environment with a "boom and burst" growth pattern, with a short life cycle. They tend to “crash” when they run out of food, space. oxygen, sunlight, or whatever the limiting factor is in that environment. Examples are most insects. and corals. barnacles, clams. scallops and oysters. who spawn and fertilize their eggs in the water.
Equilibrium species use the K-strategy. The carrying capacity ofthe environment. These species produce much fewer offspring and usually brood them andlor take care of them in other ways. The populations of these species may rst grow exponentially. but the growth levels off when they reach the carrying capacity ofthe environment. They prefer a stable predictable environment and have along life cycle. Most birds and mammals use this strategy. as well as some live-bearing sh like dogsh sharks .

3.Biodiversity is the degree of variation of life. This can refer to genetic variation, species variation, or ecosystem
variation within an area, biome, or planet.Maintaining biodiversity has a direct economic value to humans, as well as indirect economic value because our ecosystem is affected by any imbalances in the environment. For example. a lack of trees will mean we don’t have enough oxygen to breath. A lack of sh will mean many animals that feed of sea creatures will die.

4.A few traits of a sustainable society is to use only renewable energy sources. Having a stable population. we would need to keep the population at about the same level. No more exponential growth. meaning that we would not have an economic system that needs growth to maintain itself. Another trait is recycling and reusing as much as possible. If we take what we have and use it again or use it for another purpose we save the need of having to produce another item. In doing so we can help cut back on our production and pollution. lt takes a bit more energy to recycle, but if we put items people no longer use back into the system we save the need of having to extract the resource from the Earth thus helping to reduce what we produce and the associated pollution. Some traits of a non-sustainable society would be primary use of non-renewable fossil fuel energy, which leads to creating smog, acid precipitation, and other pollutants entering our ecosystem. Over use of minerals and environmental resources such as water and land is another way societies become unstable. People overexploit environmental resources because they initially seem inexhaustibly abundant.

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