The Florida Panther System

Prompt #1:

In a connected system of parts the arrival of something new requiring shared resources will change the system. Different variables affect how society interacts, down to how a single person acts. This has been happening from the beginning of living organisms. Ecosystems change, environments collapse and new technology is introduced. For example, western expansion less than two hundred years ago would not have been possible or as successful without the iron horse also known as the train. During the early colonial period, South America was one of the earliest continents to be affected. Native tribes often had to transition to a new way of life as the spanish brought new weapons, tools and materials that changed their system.

There cannot be an ecosystem or environment without some form of diversity. Forests that dominantly had only one type of tree are hugely in danger of destruction. This destruction will not come from human hands, but from nature itself, as diseases can easily devastate the environment. With diversity, the system can remain healthy for if one type of plant is wiped out, there are many others to take its place and fill the gap.

The Florida Panther is in grave danger of becoming extinct very soon. There are fewer than one hundred of them left in today 's wilderness. There are ways to breed them which will create more, but there are dangers of inbreeding because of low diversity. Side effects of inbreeding include things such as high mortality rates, diseases and infections. To counter this, scientists are breeding Florida Panthers with Texas Cougars to create more diversity to create healthy systems.

-”Panther Helpful Websites” by SES Community Capra explains that diversity must be used to create a more resilient community. For example a “community lacking diversity, such as monocropping agriculture devoted to a single species of corn or wheat, a pest to which that species is vulnerable can threaten the entire ecosystem” (25). If agriculturists would grow many different types of crops making the network more complex, there will be less of a chance of the entire harvest being

The price of Ivory is now at the highest price it has been, because of how much cultures value it. Cultures value Ivory for its beauty, as well as its ability to be shaped into artistic creations. In today 's world thousands of Elephants are killed only to take the tusks to sell to these cultures that believe it to be so valuable, which are mainly China, Japan, and the United States. If this resource was not considered so valuable the Elephants would not be in danger of extinction.

-Elephant Watch by Peter Canby

If you walk into most households around the United States, most families and individuals would argue to you that recycling is very important. These people say this because they believe that what they are throwing out is valuable enough to pay for it to be recycled and turned into new items of value. However, the article Recycling Is Garbage claims that recycling these materials that have been deemed as valuable to be pointless. There is not necessarily a right or wrong answer, but if you choose to believe the resources that we throw away every day to be valuable, then your actions will be based on that principle.

-Recycling Is Garbage by John