NR 603 Exam 1
Typical human land use - answer Industry, agriculture, development. Impacts are
cumulative, persistent, and often far from source.
Land cover - answer physical state (habitat or vegetation type) of the land
land-cover change - answer reflects the change in cover type. Can be conversion,
increase/decrease, and fragmentation. Can be natural or anthropogenic.
Land use - answer The manner in which humans employ the land and its resources
Land-use change - answer How human use of the land has changed over time
Land-use legacy - answer Enduring consequences of land-use practices on ecosystem
structure and function decades or centuries or longer after they have occurred and
natural processes have been alive.
Legacy effects - answerRecognizing them can add explanatory power in understanding
modern conditions and managing for future conditions
Historical human land use - answerBegan about 10,000 years ago as burning to clear
land. Most intense changes over the last 150 years due to mechanized agriculture and
explosive human population growth
Human land use and the physical template - answerCan interact to shape landscapes
and eventually impact the plants and animals in the system.
Patterns of land use - answerCan change the rate and direction of naturals processes
and natural disturbances. They can also introduce new and novel forms of disturbance
Alternative stable states - answerA change, seemingly large or small, can shift and
ecosystem to a new state and reversal of the change may not result in a return to the
original conditions.
Baseline - answera reference point in the past against which the current state of the
system can be evaluated
Natural Range of Variation - answerSpatial and temporal variation in ecological
conditions, that are relatively unaffected by people, within a period of time and over a
geographical area. Necessary to see human impacts outside normal range of variation.
Need a deep-time perspective.
Typical human land use - answer Industry, agriculture, development. Impacts are
cumulative, persistent, and often far from source.
Land cover - answer physical state (habitat or vegetation type) of the land
land-cover change - answer reflects the change in cover type. Can be conversion,
increase/decrease, and fragmentation. Can be natural or anthropogenic.
Land use - answer The manner in which humans employ the land and its resources
Land-use change - answer How human use of the land has changed over time
Land-use legacy - answer Enduring consequences of land-use practices on ecosystem
structure and function decades or centuries or longer after they have occurred and
natural processes have been alive.
Legacy effects - answerRecognizing them can add explanatory power in understanding
modern conditions and managing for future conditions
Historical human land use - answerBegan about 10,000 years ago as burning to clear
land. Most intense changes over the last 150 years due to mechanized agriculture and
explosive human population growth
Human land use and the physical template - answerCan interact to shape landscapes
and eventually impact the plants and animals in the system.
Patterns of land use - answerCan change the rate and direction of naturals processes
and natural disturbances. They can also introduce new and novel forms of disturbance
Alternative stable states - answerA change, seemingly large or small, can shift and
ecosystem to a new state and reversal of the change may not result in a return to the
original conditions.
Baseline - answera reference point in the past against which the current state of the
system can be evaluated
Natural Range of Variation - answerSpatial and temporal variation in ecological
conditions, that are relatively unaffected by people, within a period of time and over a
geographical area. Necessary to see human impacts outside normal range of variation.
Need a deep-time perspective.
