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Las Cruces Biological Station
The Las Cruces Biological Station / Wilson Botanical Garden is located in the southern Puntarenas province of Costa Rica, and is the newest of the three research stations operated by the Organization for Tropical Studies (OTS). Las Cruces includes a biological research station, tourist facilities, and the botanical gardens started by Robert and Catherine Wilson, and bequeathed to OTS. Las Cruces is located in a mountainous region at an elevation of approximately 1,000 meters above sea level (m.a.s.l.). Surrounded mostly by pastures, coffee plantations and other agricultural areas, Las Cruces includes a relatively small 270 Ha forest fragment that ranges from 900–1300 m.a.s.l. As such, much of the research conducted here focuses on agroecology or studies of forest fragmentation Habitat fragmentation describes the emergence of discontinuities (fragmentation) in an organism's preferred environment (habitat), causing population fragmentation and ecosystem decay. Causes of ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Puntarenas
Puntarenas () is a city in the Puntarenas (canton), Puntarenas canton of Puntarenas Province, on the Pacific coast of Costa Rica. As the seat of the Municipality of Puntarenas canton, it is awarded the title of city, which is made from the Puntarenas District, Puntarenas, Chacarita District, Chacarita and El Roble District, El Roble districts. And as the city of the first canton of the province, it is the capital city of the Puntarenas Province as well, according to the Administrative divisions of Costa Rica. Toponymy The Puntarenas name comes from the portmanteau of Punta and Arenas, which means Point and Sands, respectively. Therefore, in English the name would mean "Sand Point". The name is first referenced by the arrival in February 1720 of the pirate Chipperton to the area, which recorded in his journals to have arrived to a "Punta de Arena", referring to the needle-like area on which the city stands today. The name is also given to the oddly shaped province of Puntarenas, ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Province
A province is almost always an administrative division within a country or sovereign state, state. The term derives from the ancient Roman ''Roman province, provincia'', which was the major territorial and administrative unit of the Roman Empire, Roman Empire's territorial possessions outside Roman Italy, Italy. The term ''province'' has since been adopted by many countries. In some countries with no actual provinces, "the provinces" is a metaphorical term meaning "outside the capital city". While some provinces were produced artificially by Colonialism, colonial powers, others were formed around local groups with their own ethnic identities. Many have their own powers independent of central or Federation, federal authority, especially Provinces of Canada, in Canada and Pakistan. In other countries, like Provinces of China, China or Administrative divisions of France, France, provinces are the creation of central government, with very little autonomy. Etymology The English langu ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Costa Rica
Costa Rica (, ; ; literally "Rich Coast"), officially the Republic of Costa Rica ( es, República de Costa Rica), is a country in the Central American region of North America, bordered by Nicaragua to the north, the Caribbean Sea to the northeast, Panama to the southeast, the Pacific Ocean to the southwest, and Maritime boundary, maritime border with Ecuador to the south of Cocos Island. It has a population of around five million in a land area of . An estimated 333,980 people live in the capital and largest city, San José, Costa Rica, San José, with around two million people in the surrounding metropolitan area. The sovereign state is a Unitary state, unitary Presidential system, presidential Constitution of Costa Rica, constitutional republic. It has a long-standing and stable democracy and a highly educated workforce. The country spends roughly 6.9% of its budget (2016) on education, compared to a global average of 4.4%. Its economy, once heavily dependent on agricultu ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Research Station
Research stations are facilities where scientific investigation, collection, analysis and experimentation occurs. A research station is a facility that is built for the purpose of conducting scientific research. There are also many types of research stations including: biological field stations, space stations etc. Research station sites might include remote areas of the world, oceans, as well as outer space, such as the International Space Station. Biological research stations developed during a time of European colonization and imperialism where naturalists were employed to conduct observations on fauna and flora. Today, the discipline is represented by a number of organizations which span across multiple continents. Some examples include: the Organization of Biological Field Stations and the Organization for Tropical Studies. Space stations were also developed over a number of decades through scientific analysis and writing, with the first design aspects of early space stat ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Organization For Tropical Studies
The Organization for Tropical Studies (OTS), founded in 1963, is a non-profit consortium of over 50 universities and research institutions based in the United States, Latin America, and South Africa. OTS manages a network of ecological research stations in Costa Rica and South Africa. The North American Office is located on the Duke University campus in Durham, North Carolina. OTS offers a variety of courses in Spanish and English for high school, university, and graduate students. Most of the coursework and research conducted at OTS stations focuses on tropical ecology, and the three research stations in Costa Rica are located in distinct ecoregions. Along with Cocha Cashu Biological Station and the Manu Learning Centre in Peru, and the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute on Barro Colorado Island in Panama, the OTS research stations in general (and La Selva in particular) provide some of the most important and productive sites of original research on neotropical ecology. OT ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Heliconia Hirsuta 1zz
''Heliconia'', derived from the Greek word (), is a genus of flowering plants in the monotypic family Heliconiaceae. Most of the ca 194 known species are native to the tropical Americas, but a few are indigenous to certain islands of the western Pacific and Maluku. Many species of ''Heliconia'' are found in the tropical forests of these regions. Most species are listed as either vulnerable or data deficient by the IUCN Red List of threatened species. Several species are widely cultivated as ornamentals, and a few are naturalized in Florida, Gambia, and Thailand. Common names for the genus include lobster-claws, toucan beak, wild plantain, or false bird-of-paradise. The last term refers to their close similarity to the bird-of-paradise flowers (''Strelitzia''). Collectively, these plants are also simply referred to as "heliconias". Description These herbaceous plants range from 0.5 to nearly 4.5 m (1.5–15 ft) tall, depending on the species. The simple leaves of the ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Meters Above Sea Level
Height above mean sea level is a measure of the vertical distance (height, elevation or altitude) of a location in reference to a historic mean sea level taken as a vertical datum. In geodesy, it is formalized as ''orthometric heights''. The combination of unit of measurement and the physical quantity (height) is called "metres above mean sea level" in the metric system, while in United States customary and imperial units it would be called "feet above mean sea level". Mean sea levels are affected by climate change and other factors and change over time. For this and other reasons, recorded measurements of elevation above sea level at a reference time in history might differ from the actual elevation of a given location over sea level at a given moment. Uses Metres above sea level is the standard measurement of the elevation or altitude of: * Geographic locations such as towns, mountains and other landmarks. * The top of buildings and other structures. * Flying objects such as ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Pastures
Pasture (from the Latin ''pastus'', past participle of ''pascere'', "to feed") is land used for grazing. Pasture lands in the narrow sense are enclosed tracts of farmland, grazed by domesticated livestock, such as horses, cattle, sheep, or swine. The vegetation of tended pasture, forage, consists mainly of grasses, with an interspersion of legumes and other forbs (non-grass herbaceous plants). Pasture is typically grazed throughout the summer, in contrast to meadow which is ungrazed or used for grazing only after being mown to make hay for animal fodder. Pasture in a wider sense additionally includes rangelands, other unenclosed pastoral systems, and land types used by wild animals for grazing or browsing. Pasture lands in the narrow sense are distinguished from rangelands by being managed through more intensive agricultural practices of seeding, irrigation, and the use of fertilizers, while rangelands grow primarily native vegetation, managed with extensive practices like co ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Coffee In The Global Economy
Coffee is a popular beverage and an important commodity. Tens of millions of small producers in developing countries make their living growing coffee. Over 2.25 billion cups of coffee are consumed in the world daily that amounts to 2.5 cups of coffee consumed per person on average. Over 90 percent of coffee production takes place in developing countries—mainly South America—while consumption happens primarily in industrialized economies. There are 25 million small producers who rely on coffee for a living worldwide. In Brazil, where almost a third of the world's coffee is produced, over five million people are employed in the cultivation and harvesting of over three billion coffee plants; it is a more labor-intensive culture than alternative cultures of the same regions, such as sugar cane or cattle, as its cultivation is not automated, requiring frequent human attention. Coffee is a major export commodity and was the top agricultural export for 12 countries in 2004; the world ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Farmland (farming)
Arable land (from the la, arabilis, "able to be ploughed") is any land capable of being ploughed and used to grow crops.''Oxford English Dictionary'', "arable, ''adj''. and ''n.''" Oxford University Press (Oxford), 2013. Alternatively, for the purposes of agricultural statistics, the term often has a more precise definition: A more concise definition appearing in the Eurostat glossary similarly refers to actual rather than potential uses: "land worked (ploughed or tilled) regularly, generally under a system of crop rotation". In Britain, arable land has traditionally been contrasted with pasturable land such as heaths, which could be used for sheep-rearing but not as farmland. Arable land area According to the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, in 2013, the world's arable land amounted to 1.407 billion hectares, out of a total of 4.924 billion hectares of land used for agriculture. Arable land (hectares per person) Non-arable land ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Forest Fragmentation
Habitat fragmentation describes the emergence of discontinuities (fragmentation) in an organism's preferred environment (habitat), causing population fragmentation and ecosystem decay. Causes of habitat fragmentation include geological processes that slowly alter the layout of the physical environment (suspected of being one of the major causes of speciation), and human activity such as land conversion, which can alter the environment much faster and causes the extinction of many species. More specifically, habitat fragmentation is a process by which large and contiguous habitats get divided into smaller, isolated patches of habitats. Definition The term habitat fragmentation includes five discrete phenomena: * Reduction in the total area of the habitat * Decrease of the interior: edge ratio * Isolation of one habitat fragment from other areas of habitat * Breaking up of one patch of habitat into several smaller patches * Decrease in the average size of each patch of habitat ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Agroecology
Agroecology (US: a-grō-ē-ˈkä-lə-jē) is an academic discipline that studies ecological processes applied to agricultural production systems. Bringing ecological principles to bear can suggest new management approaches in agroecosystems. The term is often used imprecisely, as the term can be used as a science, a movement, or an agricultural practice.Wezel, A., Bellon, S., Doré, T., Francis, C., Vallod, D., David, C. (2009)Agroecology as a science, a movement or a practice. A review. Agronomy for Sustainable Development Agroecologists study a variety of agroecosystems. The field of agroecology is not associated with any one particular method of farming, whether it be organic, regenerative, integrated, or industrial, intensive or extensive, although some use the name specifically for alternative agriculture. Definition Agroecology is defined by the OECD as "the study of the relation of agricultural crops and environment." Dalgaard ''et al''. refer to agroecology as the stu ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
