The Effects of Acid Rain in the Temperate Deciduous Forest
The temperate deciduous forest has many environmental threats, such as deforestation, introduction of non-native species, overgrazing, and much more. One prominent issue, other than the cutting down of trees, is the constant occurrence of acid rain and pollutants in the air. Acid rain is essentially rainfall made acidic due to atmospheric pollution that causes environmental harm, typically to forests and lakes. The main cause of this dilemma is the industrial burning of coal and other fossil fuels, and the waste gases produced in this process contains sulfur and nitrogen oxides, which combine with atmospheric water to form harmful acids.
Acid rain does not have a direct effect on …show more content…
The carbon cycle does not necessarily begin at a certain point, but instead plants pull carbon (in the form of carbon dioxide) from the atmosphere to make food through a process called photosynthesis. Through food chains, animals get carbon from the plants and other organisms they feed on. When these plants and animals die and decompose, the carbon goes back into the soil. Some of the carbon is submerged deep into the ground and eventually forms fossil fuels. When humans burn these fossil fuels, the buried carbon is released back into the atmosphere, and the cycle restarts. The process in which acid rain is formed has to do with fossil fuel combustion, therefore it doesn’t affect the cycle itself, but the effects of the released …show more content…
Acid rain lowers the pH, and in turn causes fish to die due to the imbalanced salts found in their tissue. Acid rain can also cause phytoplankton to die. This affects other organisms in the ecosystem because they are a common food source. An example of a food web that could be changed would be phytoplankton that gets eaten by dragonflies and trout, the dragonflies are then consumed by salamanders, and the salamanders and trout are both consumed by eagles. The entire food chain could be impeded if the main source of energy (phytoplankton) were to die out due to the acid rain. The dragonflies and trout would lose their main food source, therefore decreasing their population, which would therefore decrease the salamander population, and so
The temperate deciduous forest has many environmental threats, such as deforestation, introduction of non-native species, overgrazing, and much more. One prominent issue, other than the cutting down of trees, is the constant occurrence of acid rain and pollutants in the air. Acid rain is essentially rainfall made acidic due to atmospheric pollution that causes environmental harm, typically to forests and lakes. The main cause of this dilemma is the industrial burning of coal and other fossil fuels, and the waste gases produced in this process contains sulfur and nitrogen oxides, which combine with atmospheric water to form harmful acids.
Acid rain does not have a direct effect on …show more content…
The carbon cycle does not necessarily begin at a certain point, but instead plants pull carbon (in the form of carbon dioxide) from the atmosphere to make food through a process called photosynthesis. Through food chains, animals get carbon from the plants and other organisms they feed on. When these plants and animals die and decompose, the carbon goes back into the soil. Some of the carbon is submerged deep into the ground and eventually forms fossil fuels. When humans burn these fossil fuels, the buried carbon is released back into the atmosphere, and the cycle restarts. The process in which acid rain is formed has to do with fossil fuel combustion, therefore it doesn’t affect the cycle itself, but the effects of the released …show more content…
Acid rain lowers the pH, and in turn causes fish to die due to the imbalanced salts found in their tissue. Acid rain can also cause phytoplankton to die. This affects other organisms in the ecosystem because they are a common food source. An example of a food web that could be changed would be phytoplankton that gets eaten by dragonflies and trout, the dragonflies are then consumed by salamanders, and the salamanders and trout are both consumed by eagles. The entire food chain could be impeded if the main source of energy (phytoplankton) were to die out due to the acid rain. The dragonflies and trout would lose their main food source, therefore decreasing their population, which would therefore decrease the salamander population, and so