Metabolic Processes

Metabolic Processes

1. McGlynn is collecting dead insects and leaf litter from the rainforest floor to understand how animals affect the decomposition of dead plant matter in a tropical rainforest. This helps McGlynn to understand the way carbon moves through the forest since and to test that carbon moves in and out of the atmosphere more in a tropical forest than any other ecosystem. He is measuring also how much photosynthesis is taking place since there are leaves on the ground and not as much in the trees, so that would result in why there is more carbon in the environment of a rainforest. Some of the bugs that were dead already would not have had enough oxygen to help them sustain their life. With a low production of oxygen, insects will not get the right amount that will help them with cellular respiration. When the insects that are dead decompose, the carbon dioxide will be released from cellular respiration as waste and will be released into the atmosphere as well.

2. When Townsend said that the tropical forests are the United States of carbon dioxide emissions and uptake he means that rainforests are large ecosystems and that means they create more carbon dioxide than a regular ecosystem, but also create more oxygen as well. They relate it to the United States since the states is seen as the most power country and tropical rainforests are the most powerful in cycling carbon. Photosynthesis relates to what Townsend meant because carbon dioxide is used up and release oxygen. Since rainforests tend to be very large, the more plants there is means the more carbon dioxide is absorbed from the atmosphere in the plants.Due to the rainforest always being damp, the stomata on the leaves remain open and allows photosynthesis to keep working.

3. Carbon dioxide fertilization is a prediction that plants will grow more if there is more carbon dioxide in the air. There has been an increase in the carbon dioxide released in the air by pollution from deforestation and the smoke released from factories, cars and what we have become accustomed to in our way of life now. Since there is more carbon dioxide in the air, the plants should absorb it better and grew faster.When plants are kept in a greenhouse, the space is restricted and it can be easier to test which plants are good carbon sinks but it is unrealistic since a greenhouse is not the same size as a rainforest and there is no walls blocking carbon dioxide in an actual ecosystem. Greenhouses also have no animals like the ones found in a rainforest ecosystem that will release carbon dioxide from cellular respiration. They also do not have a change in temperature which would allow the process of photosynthesis to either slow down or speed up in a real ecosystem. Gulledge says that there is no real evidence of carbon dioxide fertilization effect in a real