COMPLETE BIOME VIDEOS

The subalpine fir forests of the Wasatch Mountains in Utah are examples of alpine boreal forest.

The topic of biomes is a major one in the AP Environmental Science curriculum.  To document the characteristics of the world's major biomes, Arts and Academic Publishing has prepared a series of videos.  The first in this series explores the concept of biomes and the roles of climate, topography and edaphic factors in determining the geographic distribution of these major subdivisions of Earth's surface.  It then goes on to examine four terrestrial biomes: tundra, boreal forest, temperate seasonal forest and temperate grasslands.  For each of these four, the prevailing plant life, limiting factors, climate and animal life are reviewed.

Arts and Academic Publishing is the publishing partner of Bird Conservation Research, Inc.  BCR offers a variety of free laboratory activities, videos, PowerPoints and publications also suitable for the AP Environmental Science curriculum.

SPECIES COMPETITION AND ESKIMO CURLEWS

The Rufous Fantail of the tropical Pacific competes with the larger Tinian Monarch

Another of the videos in the environmental science series that is available through our internet publishing partner, Arts and Academic Publishing is entitled Species Competition. It begins by exploring community assembly: how it is that particular physical environments come to be occupied by particular groups of species. It then examines how species within such communities might come into competition for such resources as food and living space. The video then goes on to explore ideas about discrete communities as opposed to communities of environmental gradients, where assemblages of species gradually pass from one to another. It examines in more detail the types of environmental gradients that occur along an ordinary New England wooded hillside. The video goes farther afield in examination of niche overlap and instances of inter– and intra-specific competition, looking at examples not only from New England but also from tropical regions.

This is one of several topics covered in the latest Bird Conservation Research newsletter.  In addition, it reports the latest news on the forest bird survey of southern New England and on the ongoing search for the Eskimo Curlew.