BIO220H1 Lecture Notes - Lecture 21: Guano, Primitive Equations, Paleocene
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BIO220H1 Full Course Notes
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Bio220h1 winter 2019 from genomes to ecosystems in a changing world. Lecture material left over from lecture 20 (biochemical cycles): Unlike nitrogen, we cannot synthetically create phosphorous products. However, we can mine phosphorous in the form of guano from sea islands and bat caves. There is a lot of phosphorous rich guano on many oceanic islands as birds on the island have no natural predators, and have a readily available supply of fish, leading to dense populations of seabirds. The fish obtain phosphorous from cold water upwellings that occur near the oceanic islands, bringing phosphorous rich sediments up to the surface. In addition, because of the dry climate of the islands, rain is quite rare, and thus, the guano is rarely washed off into the ocean. Throughout earth"s history, the world has seen many changes in climate, accompanied by major biota shifts, species" range shifts, evolutionary change, ecological redistribution, etc.
