sfairfield's blog

There were control factors I had to consider when writing my methods. The first was the day of the week and time of day, due to Durfee Conservatory only being open Monday through Friday from 10AM to 4PM. The location of the photographer, orientation of the camera, and framing of the subject were also relevant factors, due to the various angles from which my species could be captured, necessitating that I be specific about where the photographs were taken from and how they were taken in order to ensure the replicate images would be as similar as possible. In addition, the particular digital program I used to create the figure needed to be relayed because so many of the details involved in the production were specific to inkscape, and would likely not carry over to a different program. Within the editing software, I had to control for the size, color, and placement of all of the components of the figure, including the photographs, the labels, the arrows, and the background.

          In James Cameron's film, Avatar, an alien tribe on the distant planet of Pandora fights the human invaders bent on mining their forest home. In The Nature of Things episode, titled the Real Avatar, the indigenous people of the Cordillera del Condor area of Peru face a similar predicament, as they fight against the Peruvian government and private mining and oil interests to defend their home, in an effort to preserve both biodiversity and their traditional way of life. Though there had been a previous agreement between the tribe and the government to establish a protected conservation area, the election of a new president, Alan García, led to the passage of new laws to open that land to privatization and development in the name of profit. These decrees disregarded the prior promises made to the indigenous people, and instead granted access to corporations, including a Canadian mining company and an American oil company, whose extraction activities threaten to pollute the area. The mountain range where many of these private development projects are meant to take place are comprised of a portion of the Amazon Rainforest, and also act as the sources from which rivers flow. The local tribes rely on these ecological features, traditionally viewing their environment as a living thing which provides for them and which they must protect. 

In this section, Pearce discusses water usage in southeast Asia, western Africa, the Middle-East, and England, with a particular focus on the consequences of dam building and agricultural irrigation. I found it interesting that a common theme throughout Pearce’s analysis of most of these regions seemed to be upstream countries staging development projects on rivers that subsequently have negative impacts on downstream countries. First it was China’s dam-building on the Mekong, causing adverse effects on the fisheries of Laos, Cambodia, and Vietnam, then Ethiopia building a dam on the Omo River, causing the significant decline in water levels of Lake Turkana, and finally Afghanistan building a dam on the Helmand River, contributing to the complete destruction of the Hamoun wetlands over the border in Iran. The common motives for the constructions of these dams seemed to be energy from hydroelectricity and irrigation of crops, both of which were prioritized by each of the governments over the long term sustainability of their respective water ecosystems.

In this section Pearce discusses the water usage in the western United States and at the southern U.S. border. He notes that the heavily subsidized farming industry in these regions grow “thirsty” crops like cotton and alfalfa, which require higher than average amounts of water, and furthermore, that the farms are heavily subsidized by the U.S. government. I found it interesting that Pearce alleges these subsidies lead to increased wastefulness in terms of water usage. I was also surprised to learn of the apparently bleak condition of the Rio Grande River, due to massive levels of over extraction and pollution. In addition, the role of snowpack in feeding California’s rivers and lakes was something I had not been previously aware of, and learning about how the long drought irreparably damaged the state’s aquifers such that they are unlikely to ever retain the amount of water they once could was deeply concerning. The part discussing Las Vegas’ successful implementation of water conservation policies was one hopeful note in the section.

I chose to record an interspecific interaction between a fiddle-leaf ficus tree and the vine plant growing up its trunk. I chose these two species for four reasons. These plants are located within Durfee Conservatory, a greenhouse complex open to the public, which is convenient both in that it is insulated from winter weather and that it is near Morrill, where our class takes place, and thus easy for me and whoever would replicate my methods to access. In addition, their location is fixed and their interaction is perpetual, meaning they can be found and their relationship documented regardless of the time lapsed between my observations of them and my partner’s observations of them. Furthermore, their precise location within the greenhouse is near easily identifiable landmarks such as the west doorway, the bench by the west doorway, and the koi pond, which meant that I could describe where they are in the conservatory in such a way that my partner could easily find them amongst the many different, densely growing plants. Finally, I chose these two species out of all the species in Durfee simply because I thought they looked interesting in a purely aesthetic sense, and therefore something I would enjoy taking pictures of. However, this was a minor motivation, and my primary consideration was ease of replicability.

          The differences of the placement of the letters within the white boxes are likely due to my stating in my methods only that I “arranged each text object so that they were in the center of a white square.” I did not indicate a specific action I took within inkscape to ensure the letters were actually centered, leaving how to achieve the centering to the reader’s discretion and therefore producing different results. The fact that the “a” and “b” labels were wider and the “c” label was narrower in Figure 2 than their counterparts in Figure 1 were likely a result of the creator of Figure 2 using the handles of the text objects to disproportionately resize the letters. These two factors together likely caused the different size spaces between the letters and the edges of the white boxes. The differences in the placement of the arrows relative to the edge of the images was probably due to me describing the location of the arrows in my methods not as being a specific distance from the edges, but located relative to objects depicted in the photographs, and the photographs being framed differently so that those components were in slightly different positions. The differences between the arrow heads in each figure was a result of me and my partner picking different styles, likely due to me not specifying which style I chose in my methods. 

          There were differences in the framing of each of the three photos which comprise the figures. Image “a” of Figure 2 diverged from the original in that it was framed such that the edge of the koi pond was not visible near the bottom of the frame, while more of the roof was visible near the top of the frame. Image “b” was also framed differently between each figure, with Figure 2 displaying a different side of the trunk of Species 1, more of the south-facing windows of the greenhouse on the right, and less of the concrete walkway along the bottom of the frame than did Figure 1. The leaves of Species 2 in Figure 2 appeared larger than in the same image in Figure 1, and are presented at a different angle. In addition, the koi pond was not visible in the background of image “c” of Figure 2 the way it was in image “c” of Figure 1.

          The differences in framing were likely the result of a combination of standing in a different position when taking the photographs and holding the camera at a different height or angle. For instance, in image “a” of Figure 2, the whole framing appeared as though shifted up relative to image “a” of Figure 1, such that the edge of the koi pond was not visible along the bottom and more of the roof of the greenhouse was visible along the top. This was probably due to the camera being held at a higher height at the time of the photograph. This may be the same reason the edge of the walkway along the bottom of image “b” of Figure 1 was not visible in image “b” of Figure 2. Images “a” and “b” likely showed a different side of the tree and vine due to the photographer standing in a slightly different position when taking the photo. The leaves of the vine in image “c” of Figure 2 likely appear larger than in image “c” of Figure 1 because the photographer was standing closer to the subject when the photograph was taken.

The set of three photographs which comprise each figure were dissimilar to one another in their coloring. Image “a” of Figure 2 displayed darker hues relative to the corresponding image in Figure 1. This was evident in both the greenery of the plants and the colors of surrounding objects, such as the pipe to the left of Species 1 and the door to the west entrance to the right of Species 1. In Figure 1, the pipe and door were visible as white and light teal respectively, while in Figure 2, they appeared as dark grey and dark greyish teal respectively. Image “b” of Figure 2 displayed slightly paler, less vivid colors than its counterpart in Figure 1, most prominently visible in the leaves of Species 2 and the small ferns at the base of the trunk on Species 1. Image “c” of both panels displayed similar colors.

          I chose to record an interspecific interaction between a fiddle-leaf ficus tree and the vine plant growing up its trunk. I chose these two species for four reasons. These plants are located within Durfee Conservatory, a greenhouse complex open to the public, which is convenient both in that it is insulated from winter weather and that it is near Morrill, where our class takes place, and thus easy for me and whoever would replicate my methods to access. In addition, their location is fixed and their interaction is perpetual, meaning they can be found and their relationship documented regardless of the time lapsed between my observations of them and my partner’s observations of them. Furthermore, their precise location within the greenhouse is near easily identifiable landmarks such as the west doorway, the bench by the west doorway, and the koi pond, which meant that I could describe where they are in the conservatory in such a way that my partner could easily find them amongst the many different, densely growing plants. Finally, I chose these two species out of all the species in Durfee simply because I thought they looked interesting in a purely aesthetic sense, and therefore something I would enjoy taking pictures of. However, this was a minor motivation, and my primary consideration was always ease of replicability.