Glossary

Agro-Forestry

The practice of combining tree and shrub husbandry, agriculture and animal husbandry in an single farming system, with practical Sustainable benefits from their interaction

Arthropods

Arthropods are a group of animals which have jointed limbs but external, shell-like skeletons from which the internal organs hang Classes of insects include Insects, Crustaceans (crabs, shrimps and flees), Arachnids (mostly spiders), Myriapods (such as centipedes. See also, Classification of Life.

Bacteria

Bacteria (singular = a bacterium) are the Prokaryote being, with viruses, the most simple of the Classification of Life. They can barely be called even single-celled, since they have no nucleus.

Bacteria are essential in breaking down matter (without them we would suffocate in our own waste) and in fixing atmospheric Nitrogen for use by plants. However, other types are also the agents of diseases such as diarrhea, dysentery, cholera and typhoid. They have understandably been called the most powerful form of life in the universe.

Balance

Whereby in Natural Ecosystems, Decomposition balances Production.

Bioactivity

Bioactivity is the combination of Energy Flow, Productivity, Biomass and the Resource Cycles, measured by the speed of the resource cycles. It thus describes the living activities of an Ecosystem.

Biodiversity

Biodiversity or biological diversity refers to the variability among living organisms, including genetic and structural differences, between individuals and within and between species. And, it is the different Ecosystem in which they live and of which they are part.

In terms of plant diversity, the general rule is that the warmer and wetter the climate, the greater the diversity. It is not surprising, therefore, that no less than 13,500 plant species and about 1100 terrestrial vertebrates (and probably tens of thousands of uncounted invertebrates) are found in the Philippines.

See Genes.

Biogeozones, biogeographic zones or biomes

These are spatial delineations of the country into contiguous and more or less homogenous zones with related diversity in terms of the faunal and floral composition.

Biogeographical Regions

These divide the Biosphere (that part of the earth and its atmosphere in which life occurs) into regions of distinct and characteristic of combinations of plants and animals across a gradation of climates. They tend to be divided by oceans, desserts and massive mountain ranges. One useful classification defines eight Biogeographical regions:

1. the Nearctic Region – North America;
2. the Neotopical region – South America;
3. the Palearctic region – Eurasia and N. America;
4. the Afrotropical region – India and South East Asia;
5. the Oriental region – India and South East Asia;
6. the Australasian region;
7. the Oceanaic region; and
8. the Antarctic.

Biogeographical Sub-Regions

These define the Biogeographical Regions in more specific terms, more closely related to geographic factors such as climate and relative isolation. Thus the Philippines may be said to lie in the Indo-Malay region, which extends from humid tropical India through the entire length of the Malay Archipelago to New Guinea.

However, there remains great debate about the precise boundaries of biogeographical sub-regions. For instance, in terms of flora and fauna (plants and animals), Southeast Asia is divided by the Wallace Line, which divides Asian from Austro­­-Melanesian fauna (east of, and including the Celebes islands is Austro-Melanesia. The Philippines is further divided by the Merrill-Dickerson faunal division arises because during the last great ice age, starting about 600,000 years ago, sea levels dropped sufficiently to allow Palawan to become joined to Borneo while remaining separate from Mindoro/Luzon; similarly, Borneo remained separate from the Sulu Archipelago. Thus, Borneo and Palawan share many floral and faunal characteristics which are not found in the rest of the Philippines.

Biogeographical Sub-Regions are further sub-divided into Biogeozones.

Biomass

Biomass is the amount of living matter expressed in terms of weight per unit area or unit volume of water (e.g. glm). It is the total mass of life in an Ecosystem at any time: it is both the result of Productivity and an indicator, in terms of mass per unit area, of the productivity of the ecosystem. See Bioactivity.

Biosphere

That part of the earth and its atmosphere in which life occurs.

Carbohydrates

The prime source of energy in living things. Literally Carbon, Hydrogen and Oxyen which make up CH2O molecules. It is stores as sugar and starches in plants and is converted into fats in animals. See Photosynthesis. See Carbon Cycle.

Carbon Cycle

All living tissues contain carbon; thus the carbon cycle usefully exhibits how living things relate to the non-living parts of our planet. (With illustration)

Carbon Dioxide

Carbon Dioxide is an oxide of carbon, a colorless, odorless, incombustible gas present in the atmosphere. CO2 is essential for plant growth: plants take in CO2 and with water (H2O) produce Carbohydrates and give out Oxygen, (see Photosynthesis).

CO2 is also very important Greenhouse Gas (see Greenhouse Effect).

Carnivore

Meat eating animal, exclusively.

E.g. Tiger, Eagle, Crocodile, Barracuda.

There is no strict carnivore mammal which is endemic to the Philippines.

Chlorofluorocarbon (CFC)

Chlorofluorocarbon (CFC) are produced by aerosols, refrigerators and air conditioners. They are harmful to the Biosphere because they are destroying the Ozone Layer (already reaching 50% in Antarctica), which provides protection from ultraviolet rays, which cause skin cancer and even changes in the genetic code, DNA. (Leonardo Boff in Cry of the Earth, Cry of the Poor, Orbis Books, 1997).

CFCs are made up of Carbon, Chlorine and Fluorine. For years they were considered to be harmless but, in the 1970s, it was discovered that they break down in the Stratosphere (see Ozone Layer) producing Chlorine, which by reacting with oxygen, destroys ozone. Unfortunately many of the recently discovered alternatives to CFCs are Greenhouse gases, see the Greenhouse Effect.

Chromosomes

A rod-like of the cell nucleus, performing an important part in cell division and in the transmission of hereditary characters.

Chromosomes are made of lengths of DNA (Deoxyribonucleic Acid). DNA are ladder-like double chains of sugars and phosphates linked by special nitrogen bonds (the runners of the ladder ), the whole twisted into a spiral because of the unequal lengths of the nitrogen bonds (thus forming the famous double helix). It is the configuration of the nitrogen bonds that constitutes the unique codes for genetic information (e.g. the formation of the human eye, the color of a flower, the height of a mushroom). During cell division, in reproduction and growth, the double helix unravels to form two single strands enabling replication to create two identical chromosomes.

See Genes.

Classification of Life

CLASSIFICATION	EXAMPLE: HUMAN
Kingdom	Animal
Phylum/Order	Chordates
Class	Mammalians
Order	Primate
Family	Hominid
Genus	Homo
Species	Sapiens

Climate

Climate depends on latitude, continental position and altitude, and on both local and regional topography. Knowledge of the climate is essential to an understanding of the Philippines archipelago: as a Tropical Rainy Climate (alternatively described as Humid Tropical or Wet Equatoria), influenced by monsoon winds, and moderated at higher altitudes.

However, as a result of the mountain ranges, rainfall patterns are not the same throughout the country and a number of rainfall regions can be defined.

Climax

An ecological climax refers to the natural ecosystem that develops in a given Climate and location, where human activity is absent or limited. For instance: in most of lowland Philippines the Climax is some sort of Tropical Rain Forest inland and Mangrove Forest in many coastal locations); on the Prairies of North America the Climax seems to be Grassland (although, to what extent this was influenced by human induced fires for hunting Bison prior to the European invasion, is not fully understood).

In many parts of the world, humankind has so altered the environmental that even without further human interference the original climax vegetation is unable to establish. This could be called a “Sub-Climax”. Thus for instance, the “Sub-Climax” in many areas of South East Asia that were once Tropical Rain Forest, is a Imperator (Cogan) Grassland. In many parts of Europe, “the Sub-Climax” is Health.

See Vegetation Climaxes