Discussions in the Desert
An exploration of the facets and factors that define a desert ecosystem.
Invitation to Explore…
Share your desert experience!
Little Grand Canyon
San Rafael Swell, Utah
Curiosities…
What fun microcosms exist in this vast land?
@Rio Mesa “What does the desert mean to you?”
So let’s plan a road trip!
There are 5 National Parks in Utah… Can you name them all?
Utah has 4 climate zones:
33% of Utah is True Desert (Canyonland and Great Basin)
What does it mean to be in a desert?
Let’s look at the data.
Do you live in a desert
Deserts can also be described as areas where more water is lost by evaporation than falls as precipitation.
Water in the desert…
“There are two ways to die in the desert, thirst and drowning.”
How to locate/make water?
Water on Mars…
“Life at extremes”
Boundaries: Man-made or natural?
Gobi Desert
Betcha didn’t think there were Bears out in the Barren land?
Largest Desert on Earth?
The Antarctic!
How does this work?
Less than 51 mm of rain a year.
90% of all freshwater
Hottest Desert?
The Lut Desert of Iran, as observed by NASA’s Earth Observatory. It was here that the hottest temperature ever was recorded between 2003-9. Credit: NASA
So let’s start playing in our sandbox
Challenge
Imagine you had a sandbox, how would you craft a desert ecosystem?
Step 1: Decide on a life strategy.
Roots in the Desert
How are plants adapted?
Let’s take a closer look at the soil
Cryptobiotic soil
Cryptobiotic soil
A form or a burrow?
Where do creatures sleep?
What’s the lesson behind ‘The Tortoise and the Hare’
In your own words:
What is the ‘moral’ of the story here?
'The slower when running will never be overtaken by the quicker; for that which is pursuing must first reach the point from which that which is fleeing started, so that the slower must necessarily always be some distance ahead.'
Meet the Desert Tortoise
Observations:
What else do we know about the desert tortoise?
95% of its life underground.
Tortoises depend on bushes for shade and protection from predators such as ravens and coyotes.
They have a short tail, and their claws aid them in digging burrows. Males have longer curved gular horns which protrude from their lower shells underneath their neck and head. They use these horns to combat other males and for butting and nudging females during courtship. Males also have shallow depressions in their lower shells while the females lower shell is flat. Most people cannot tell the difference between male and female until they are between 15 to 20 years old or eight inches in length.
Reproduction begins between ages 12-20, with clutch sizes of 1-14 eggs
Meet Sir Bagel!
Injured by a car, a ward of the state.
Likes apples, overcomes obstacles, and is a chill reptile.
Please help save my home and help my bros.
The hare
Hares are classified in the same family as rabbits.
They are similar in size and form to rabbits and have similar herbivorous diets, but generally have longer ears and live solitarily or in pairs.
Also unlike rabbits, their young are able to fend for themselves shortly after birth )precocial) rather than emerging blind and helpless.
Most are fast runners. ( (50mph)
Hare species are native to Africa, Eurasia and North America.
Both sexes are seem ‘boxing.’
Mate in a shallow nest called a form
Hares have jointed or kinetic skulls
Hares have 48 chromosomes and rabbits have 44
Who are you looking at? My name may be JACK RABBIT, but I’m really a hare!
Where are my buddies at? It’s time to drive our drone in a drove.
What’s the difference between a rabbit and a hare?
Let’s experience/experiment!
How could we see who wins? Run the race!
In one ending, a fire wipes out most of the animals in the forest….
The Desert Tortoise, a Keystone Species
Listen to this story and answer these question… https://one.npr.org/?sharedMediaId=909601061:909601481
Reflection:
How do fires affect tortoises?
Why are tortoises considered a “keystone species?”
Recent counts estimate that 2,000 adult tortoises live in the reserve, but that was before this year’s fires. The 2005 fire season directly killed 15% of the adult population in the most densely populated part of the reserve.
Let’s take a closer look at some of the autotrophs we’d find!
Get ready to make some observations and inferences!
Sage Brush
Artimesia
“Sage brush sea”
Barrel Cactus
Yucca
“Love flowers best in openness and freedom.”
Edward Abbey
Edward Abbey
Polemic: Industrial Tourism and the National Parks
a strong verbal or written attack on someone or something.
Sego Lily
State flower of Utah
Primrose
Sacred Datura
Juniper
Moss?!?
Syntrichia caninervis, one of the most common Mojave Desert mosses, growing on the soil under a white milky quartz rock. Credit: Kirsten Fisher
Cottonwood
Sneaky Stomata
Agave (right)
Aloe (left)
Procedure: Hike out in the desert. Make sure to have your science notebook and water! Observe and sketch the leaves your find.
Before you go out, make a hypothesis: What do you think you will see?
Conclusion: Describe adaptations of the desert plant
(1) hairy or fuzzy leaves, (2) small leaves, (3) curled-up leaves, (4) wax-coated leaves, and (5) green stems but no leaves.
Leaf | Picture | Adaptation |
| | |
| | |
| | |
| | |
| | |
Observe a leaf
Plant Communities
What do you observe here?
Write one word to describe this picture
Students at Rio Mesa Field Station near Moab, Utah
What do you think they are doing?
The results of their Biodiversity Studies
Which area has the most number of plants?
= Richness
Which area has the most different types of plants
= Diversity
Species richness- How many plants are in an area
Species Diversity- How many
Invasives
Tamarisk- Salt Cedar
Biocontrol- beetles
What kinds of animals are able to survive in the desert?
List as many desert dwellers as you can think of
Adaptations for camels
Flying in the Sky
Crow or No
Vultures
Thrasher
Canyon Wren
Nighthawk
No
Desert Food Webs
Describe the path
Create a food web from these creatures at Coral Pink Sand dunes State Park
Great Basin Collared lizard
Scorpions
The estimated annual number of scorpion stings is 1.2 million leading to 3250 deaths (0.27%).
For every person killed by a venomous snake, 10 are killed by a scorpion
1,000 people a year killed by scorpions in Mexico.
Scorpions in the sky
Rocks in the desert
How do the rocks change over the landscape? How are they shaped by the environment?
Goblin Valley
What are those?
Hoo-doos!
How does a hoodoo form?
Changes in the rock by physical forces- wedging, freeze-thaw cycles.
Chemical forces- Acid breaks down calcium carbonate in rocks
Let’s find out who’s who with our hoo-doos!
How does erosion affect a softer rock, like pumice?
How do these look different from the Goblin Valley hoodoos?
Cappadocia, Turkey
What is the effect of erosion on clay soil?
Earth pyramids of Ritten — South Tyrol, Italy
Drumheller Hoodoos
Alberta Canada
Hoodoos as seismic gurus
How do we predict the fall of the hoodoos?
By knowing the strengths of different types of sedimentary layers, scientists can determine the amount of stress needed to cause those rocks to fracture.
"You need lots of instruments, so it's great if you can rely on nature and natural objects to help you."
An earthquake closer to home
Jupiter Crack
Ancient Art
The fragile nature of the desert
Writing on the Walls
Petroglyphs in the desert
Newspaper Rock,
Indian Creek
Choose one of the symbols from this petroglyph panel. What do you think the people who did this were trying to communicate? What was the ‘news’ of the day?
Desert Varnish
Grows from clay and iron and manganese oxides
Bacteria need water, so usually form where there is rainfall
Bacteria live on the desert varnish, oxidizing manganese and making build up
People in the desert
How do humans impact and interact with the desert ecosystem?
Where would you build your home in the desert?
How would life have looked if you could go back in time?
Who uses the land?
The issue of the commons and ‘multiple uses’
What is science?
An unbiased way of knowing
Uses data and observations
Asks ‘What is this?’
Are there other ways of knowing?
Traditional Ecological Knowledge
What is public land?
How do we care for the land?
Whose responsibility is it to protect the wild lands?
The Backpack Tax
Heard of Bear’s Ears?
How would you respond?
What are the ‘pros and cons’
What are the effects of human impacts on desert ecosystems?
Case study at Factory Butte
What effect do cattle have on the landscape?
“Large herds dung and urinate all over their own food, so they have to keep moving.”
Why should we care about ecosystems?
What are ecosystem services?
Ecosystem services are basically the things ecosystems provide to humans such as food, wood, fiber, conservation, recreation, carbon storage and clean water.
These services are often compromised when drastic environmental transformation occurs.
Examples:
Provisioning: “Big Cottonwood and Little Cottonwood Canyons provide me drinking water in the Wasatch.”
Regulating: “The forest up Millcreek gives me a calm place to be myself and hike with my family.”
Think and Reflect
Choose one of these services and write about what an ecosystem has provided to you.
Thanks for learning with me!
Other Resources