Tamarisk - the Noxious Western Tree

Saltcedar is one of several common names for an invasive non-native tree that is spreading rapidly through the intermountain region of the western United States, through the Colorado River Canyons, the Great Basin, California, and Texas. Other common names include tamarisk and salt cedar. The tamarisk is degrading the rarest of habitats in the desert southwest - the wetlands. Salt cedar invades springs, ditches, and streambanks. The tree has taken over more than 1 million acres of the precious Western riparian resource. Rapid Growth Rate Under good conditions, the opportunistic tamarisk can grow 9 to 12 feet in a single season. Under drought conditions, saltcedar survives by dropping its leaves. This ability to survive under harsh desert conditions has given the tree an edge over more desirable native species and causing a sharp decline in cottonwood populations. Regenerative Ability Mature plants can survive flooding for up to 70 days and can quickly colonize moist areas due to the constant availability of seeds. The plants ability to exploit suitable germinating conditions over a long time period gives saltcedar a considerable advantage over native riparian species. Habitat Mature tamarisk can also resprout vegetatively after fire, flood, or treatment with herbicides and can adapt to wide variations in soil condition. Saltcedar will grow at elevations up to 5,400 feet and prefers saline soils. They typically occupy sites with intermediate moisture, high water tables, and minimal erosion. Adverse Impacts The serious direct impacts of saltcedar are numerous. This invasive tree is now taking over and displacing native plants, specifically cottonwood, using its aggressive growth advantage in areas where natural native communities have been damaged by fire, flood or some other disturbance. Native plants have proven to be more valuable in retaining moisture on wetlands than tamarisk. The loss of these native species to tamarisk eventually leads to a net loss of water. A Water Hog The tamarisk has an extremely rapid evapotranspiration rate. There is a fear that this rapid loss of moisture could possibly cause serious depletion of groundwater. There is also an increased deposition of sediments in tamarisk-infested streams which causes a blockage. These sediment deposits encourage dense clumps of saltcedar growth which then promotes flooding during periods of heavy rain. Controls There are essentially 4 methods to control tamarisk - mechanical, biological, competition, and chemical. The complete success of any management program depends on the integration of all methods. Mechanical control, including hand-pulling, digging, use of weed eaters, axes, machetes, bulldozers, and fire, may not be the most efficient method for removal of saltcedar. Hand labor is not always available and is costly unless it is volunteered. When heavy equipment is used, the soil is often disturbed with consequences that may be worse than having the plant. In many situations, control with herbicides is the most efficient and effective method of control for removal of tamarisk. The chemical method allows regeneration and/or re-population of natives or re-vegetation with native species. The use of herbicides can be specific, selective and fast. Insects are being investigated as potential biological control agents for saltcedar. Two of these, a mealybug (Trabutina mannipara) and a leaf beetle (Diorhabda elongata), have preliminary approval for release. There is some concern over the possibility that, due to the environmental damage caused by tamarisk, native plant species may not be able to replace it if the biological control agents succeed in eliminating it.

The Most Important Decisions Of Your College Career

Choosing a major is of the most important decisions of your college career and that’s why students start sweating profusely when it’s brought up. The life and career advice to follow your love, follow your passion, or follow your bliss, as different people call this â€Å"thing† out there, just patiently waiting ahead of you, has been the favorite and most quoted catch phrase and generic career advice, given by the all-knowing Gurus of life, to all the newbie’s starting out in life. Our passion for a particular job, industry or profession is not immediately found at the beginning of our path, but recognized somewhere in the middle of our path. Finding a passion is a lifetime activity that we get to practice in college in finding a major where we can revel in something that engages us at our best. Then the world will offer opportunities to work in areas that may become our passions that were never even on the radar screen. Steve Jobs and Cal Newport have ve ry different perspective on legitimacy of â€Å"follow your heart† concept’s application to finding your passion. â€Å"Follow your heart† is dangerous and limiting career advice. Passion is not something you follow. It’s something that will follow you as you put in the hard work to become valuable to the world. American educational culture is obsessed with the idea that we need to â€Å"find our passion† in order to be happy and successful doing the job you love. The title of Steve Jobs’ commencement address in 2005 at StanfordShow MoreRelatedHow to Choose a College Major (Process Essay)1161 Words   |  5 PagesHow to Choose a College Major At some point in the process of choosing a college, you may have to choose a college major, or at the very least begin to narrow your options. While being undecided for awhile is fine, you probably want to have some idea of what you want to do when you start the college application process. 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This is something that our parents teach us while growing up. What is more important of those teachings is the significance. If you can pursue any career path, then do it without the ideas of others. ThisRead MoreEssay about What ´s Personal Responsibility1038 Words   |  5 Pagesfor your own actions, Making a commitment and sticking to it. In order to be a success in college, you have to apply your life learned lessons to the equation, to balance both school and out of school priorities. Because You are responsible for the choices you make, you are ultimately responsible for your success. Be coming a master organizer and learning how to manage your time efficiently, will help you achieve your goals. Taking responsibility for all that happens while you are in college will

Growth In Writing Free Essays

Writing is one of my favorite things to do. Expressing yourself is so much easier when given time to think about what needs to be said. I would like to believe that I have a very rich writing history. We will write a custom essay sample on Growth In Writing or any similar topic only for you Order Now I keep a journal of all my daily events. I also keep a book close by so if I think of any poems I can write them down right away. My favorite piece of writing was a story that I wrote in my first semester English class. The name of the story was Fade. This Semester two of my classes will require me to turn in written assignments. This semester should not be two difficult in terms of how much writing I have to do. From my preliminary observations I can tell that I will have one short paper due in Art History 107 class. Although I only have one paper I have one paper, I have two essay exams in my History class. I believe that with some help the writing portion of this semester should be successful. The Art History paper has to be two pages long. I have to go to a museum and compare two of the exhibits to each other. Professor Cutis said that the first page of the paper should be talking about my reactions to the exhibits using the vocabulary that we learned in class. The second page should discuss the different time periods and there affects on how the critics might have critiqued the works of art. Also, we have to describe what kind of techniques the artist might have used and why. The most difficult part of this paper I believe will be trying to utilize the vocabulary that my professor wants us to use, and figuring out the right ways to critique the art. As for my essay exams in History, I have had a problem getting the right amount of details incorporated with the facts. I talked to my History professor and he said that the best way to know which details to add is to, read and re-read the notes from our lectures. I have been trying to take very detailed notes so it will not be a problem when the time comes for our first exam. To conclude, this semester seems like this semester will be smooth sailing when it comes to the writing aspect of my classes. I am hoping that with the help I receive from my writing class I can produce the best papers of my college career. How to cite Growth In Writing, Essay examples

Her Kind by Anne Sexton Analysis free essay sample

After reading the poem Her Kind by Anne Sexton a lot of thought and emotion arises. It leaves a lot to be questioned and can be interpreted in many different ways depending on the reader. I perceive it as the author symbolically describing her experience with manic episodes that she endured, but she describes it all in the second person perspective. She writes of a witch who is dark spirited, twelve fingered, mentally abnormal, and isolated from her community. I translate her description of the witch as a oman simply experiencing her darkest hour. She is angry, hurt, conflicted, depressed and prefers to shy away from others. She feels unaccepted, misunderstood, and monstrous. She is experiencing enraged behavior due to the lack of comfort within herself; A crazy woman consumed by her own thoughts. The Author describes the witch finding Shelter in the woods. Im unsure if shes referring to an actual physical place, but I believe it is symbolic for a state of mind she goes into. We will write a custom essay sample on Her Kind by Anne Sexton Analysis or any similar topic specifically for you Do Not WasteYour Time HIRE WRITER Only 13.90 / page The woods is her mental safe house so to speak. Fixed the suppers for the worms and elves I interpreted as her calming her own thoughts of mischievous interference (as per elves), and when she speaks of worms shes referring to the slow consumption of her mental health which she is trying to fight. Whining, rearranging and disaligned is referencing the witches thought pattern and process. She has constant unorganized, racing and droneful cognition. I translate the conclusion of the poem as the description of the Authors, Anne Sextons, reluctant, yet necessary hospitalization. Symbolically, she is being transported to the hospital and as she waved her nude arms at the villages going by theoretically it is her putting up a fight during her transport. Learning her last bright routes, survivor I decipher as the advisement of the treatment options available to her at the hospital. Where your flames still bite my thigh and my ribs crack as your wheels wind I depict as her receiving a shot to induce sedation and her fighting while being restrained and that the closer she gets to the hospital the ore she feels a sense of regret and shame. She is embarrassed that her mental deficiency has come to this point and she wasnt strong enough to gain control of herself. A woman like that is not ashamed to die to me says she is so distressed, meek, humiliated, and fatigued by her mental instability, that death to her would not be a negative occurrence, if anything, she welcomes it and sees it as a way out. Her Kind is a very strong poem and is a very insightful look into a womans head ho is unbalanced and a bit unhinged. I feel sympathetic for Anne Sexton, who I have affirmatively believe the poem is regarding. It appears that she struggled with her illness and had to go through a lot to try to get some sort of mental stability. It seems aggravating, painful, and burdensome to have uncontrollable thoughts of anger, sorrow, rage, and shame. The poem suggests that Anne Sexton fought an intricate battle which sadly came to an end by her own hand. Her Kind by Anne Sexton Analysis By katal

Worker Bees Essays - Beekeeping, Bees, Insect Reproduction

Worker Bees THE BEE ESSAY The worker bees live a very short life. Their average life span is about six weeks. The worker bees are the sterile females of the bee population. They feed honey and pollen to the queen of the hive. The worker bees are called nurse bees when they enter into this stage. They produce a jelly called royal jelly which is high in protein. They give this royal jelly to the queen bee and she feeds it to her young ones. Then worker bees start to produce a honeycomb from the wax that they secrete. During this stage they can also fan their wings to circulate fresh air. The house bee is a young worker be about 2 weeks old bee who only works in the hive. The queen bee is the head honcho of the whole hive. The queen really doesn't do much. She sits in the hive and has the babies. The queen secretes a substance called queen factor which keeps all of the other female bees from becoming sexually mature. The queen is fed royal jelly to further her development as she becomes a grown bee. The queen's number one priority is to reproduce. Once she successfully does that, her job is pretty much done with. The queen is very special because she can do all of her mating in the air. The queen only mates once in her life, but in that one mating session she can produce as many as a million eggs a year. When the queen feels that the hive is getting crowded, she ventures off into the wilderness with a few of her worker bees to search for a new beginning (a new hive). Then, when the queen dies another queen will take her place and start the whole thing all over again. The drones are also placed on this earth for one main reason. That reason is to satisfy the queen. Drones are unfertilized eggs whose jobs consist of supplying the queen bee with the sperm when she is ready. Then the drones are either eaten by the queen or stung by the workers and evicted from their home. They live a very tragic life. The drone's structure is also kind of odd because the drone does not possess a stinger. So, they cannot really protect themselves when they need to. The queen bee releases a substance called queen factor which is a pheromone. When she releases this substance, the other bee's behavior is affected. They act as if they were under the influence. They really are because the queen factor acts as a drug in that it affects the way that their body functions. The queen also causes the bees to march in a line as if they were in a marching band. What they are doing is following the queen factor. Bees communicate by special dances that they perform for special occasions. This may seem kind of odd, but this is actually true. German biologist Karl von Frisch first discovered these special dances after 25 years of hard research. The bees do the dance according to their food source and it's position. They also involve the sun in their communicative dances. The scout would go out and find some food and then return and do a dance like motion. He would circle once to the left and then once to the right, and that is where we got the name of the round dance. Another dance was also discovered. This dance was called the waggle dance. The bee would go in a straight forward motion and waggle their little abdomens. Later, we discovered that the round dance was a dance done for food sources closest to the hive, but the waggle dance was performed for food sources closest to the sun.. They do these dances to communicate to the other bees and tell them if the food source is either close to the hive or closer to the sun. Science Essays

Take A Wife, Make Sure Shes White Professor Ramos Blog

Take A Wife, Make Sure Shes White When you finally take a wife, make sure she’s white, my father told me. Go to college, become a professional, take a wife, and make sure she’s white. Even though my mother had been white and she still ran off with the ranch hand. The one whose Spanish was better than his English even though he’d lived in America since before I was born. My father raised me by himself in a small Texas town where there was nothing to do except ride horses, go to church, or study. And our horses didn’t trust me much. They whinnied and whined every time I tried to fit them with the brown saddle I’d gotten for Christmas. It was sleek, smooth, and shone brilliantly after being oiled and conditioned, but it didn’t get much use aside from being admired. Instead, I spent Sunday mornings in church and the rest of the week I would study. I needed to go to college, become a professional, take a wife, and make sure she was white. Moving into my dorm at university, I mistook my roommate for one of the movers. Back home, my father taught me that America was the land of opportunity. Opportunity for Mexicans to come, not pay taxes, and use up all our resources. And yet, all of our ranch hands were Mexican because he could pay them so little and work them as hard as the horses. My father must have also seen opportunity. My roommate corrected me, helped me build my bed anyway, and then I helped him unbox his things into drawers. He didn’t have a lot of things, so it went by quickly. We walked down to a cafe nearby and drank lemonade to cool down. I told him how hard I worked to get here. â€Å"That’s nice,† he said, â€Å"but I probably worked harder.† ~ I had been teaching for many years before you walked into my classroom, your dark skin and dark eyes that immediately drew me to you. You were different than those before you. Your skin the color of freshly oiled leather and smelling sweet as a flower. But just as one must let a dog come to you, otherwise it becomes all frightened eyes and snapping teeth, I waited. Finally, you approached me half way through the school year for extra credit. It wasn’t extra credit you wanted, was it, Clemencia? I took you under my wing, I showed you what could be possible when you saw yourself the way I did. You were my Malinalli, my Malinche and you loved it. Do you remember? How much you loved being tangled together in my white sheets, your brown skin glowing more and more the harder I kissed you? I kissed you like you’d never been kissed and I loved you like you’d never been loved. A girl your age didn’t know love, what it meant or how it felt. Someone had to teach you. And wasn’t I was your teacher? ~ I was married when you and I met. We were married in a church, said our vows under the watchful eyes of God, and signed our prenuptial agreement under the watchful eyes of our lawyers. It was just a precaution, because I loved her. Did I? I loved parts of her. She was as pale as the milk from her father’s dairy farm and her hands were soft with pink-painted nails that never chipped. She was a porcelain doll and she was mine.   But I did not like to touch her like I touch you for fear of her breaking. You, my Malinalli, I was never afraid of breaking. Not you, who would call my home at ungodly hours of the night and my wife next to me would answer. Excuse me, honey, it’s for you. And I put the phone to my ear and you were just laughing like that was the funniest thing you’d ever heard. I couldn’t break you, I realized, because you were already broken. ~ And now you see, that’s why I had to marry her and not you. Because she understood the importance of image just like my father did. I was up for a position on the school board. â€Å"What would they say,† I asked of you, â€Å"If I had a young, wild brown girl for a wife?† You said nothing. You must have known I was right. You said nothing as you took me in your arms, held me close enough I could hear your heartbeat, and drew me in deeper under your spell. I was trapped under your spell that day, too. That day my son was born. I’d gotten the call, your wife is at the hospital. She’s going into labor early. It was shocking for everybody, but inconvenient for me. I didn’t want that child, she did. You did. And now they both think they can interrupt my day? They wanted me to come running, but stayed here, with you. You were the only one I’d loved amongst the others before you and the few after. It was you, only you. ~ My surprise when I saw you at the museum. She was with me, but you were the most beautiful work of art in that whole exhibit. Even the students with you watched with admiration while you spoke to them about one of the photographs. Briefly, I wondered which among them you’d taken into your bed to teach the way I taught you. I knew it was a bad idea, but I needed to speak to you. Not even the strongest of conquistadors could resist the allure of your golden skin. Greedy bastard, I was, but some men really can have it all, only if they’re willing to take it and make it theirs. â€Å"This is Megan,† I said as my hand rested on the small of her back. She was all skin and bone and some plastic. Nothing like you at all, my Malinalli. ~ I invited you over that week she was gone. She took the boy to her family’s for Christmas and a part of me hoped she would never come back. What a gift that would be! But she would and that’s why it would be best if we made this the last time. Surely you understood? You’d told me to give her a baby so I wouldn’t be tempted to leave her. But this day, I told you about my responsibilities as superintendent, as father, as husband. I could never marry you then. I could never now. Still, we spent one of the holiest days of the year together. Oh God, you cried out, but it was me, not God, picking you apart, putting you back together, and watching you sleep after. I suspect it was that last night together when you’d vandalized Megan’s things. Am I right? The gummy candy? She was finding them for two weeks after, victim to such a childish prank. I bought her new things because a red lipstick is easy to replace, blood red, rose red, ruby. But you vandalized her life, as well. You left your mark on her and she was never happy again after that. Even after the last gummy bear was found, she was afraid there was always one more lurking, where she couldn’t see it just yet. ~ When you asked me, son, if you could go to your friend’s house, I knew. Right away, I knew. You were in high school, you said your band was getting together to practice. You lied. I didn’t even have to ask her to know that’s where you were. It was no coincidence I sent you that school, knowing the art program would catch your eye, just like she caught my eye all those years ago. I gave her her job. I gave her my love. I gave her you. Your mother needn’t know. She’s happiest living her life wrapped in ignorance like it’s that silky Italian robe she loves so much. She loves her things, you most of all. So I won’t tell her. ~ Sometimes, I lie awake at 2 a.m. and wonder if we can’t see God because he’s afraid of us. He looks down upon the Earth, upon the streets we roam, upon the sheets we lie in. And he sees what he created and is afraid. Or maybe, he’s proud of us that we can leave so deep an imprint that others can stand at the edge, look too closely, and fall in.

Bullying in Schools Causes, Effects and Possible Solutions Assignment

Bullying in Schools Causes, Effects and Possible Solutions - Assignment Example It is reported that around 14% of the victims of bullying report poor self-esteem, depression, anxiety and suicidal thoughts as a result of bullying. In addition, there is the stunning revelation that most of the bullying occurs on school grounds (Olweus, 2013). Scholars have identified so many reasons behind bullying and none of these reasons exhibits considerable supremacy. The first cause as identified by people like Rigby (2007) is the family background of the bullies. It is found that the students who belong to families which are dysfunctional have three times more chance to be a bully at school. In addition is the finding that when the children belong to families where there is good parent-child relationship, the chance of becoming a bully is considerably reduced. Moreover, people like Olweus (2013) have observed a link between media and bullying. The children who watch violence in the media for long hours are more likely to exhibit violent behavior and aggression at school. It seems that when children watch violence in media, they fail to learn the socially acceptable ways of behavior and start dealing with day-to-day life in the way they watch in media. In other words, children learn what they observe, and when there is a lot of violence in media, children fail to distinguish between fiction and reality and resort to violence in real life. In the opinion of Olweus (2013), some students are more likely to be bullies because of certain individual characteristics. To illustrate, the ones who are bullies generally have above average physical strength. In addition, they are more aggressive in their behavior and exhibit little compassion towards the sufferings of others. Thus, Olweus (2013) reaches the conclusion that bullying behavior is considerably linked to individual traits. Thus, as the bullies share certain similarities in their physical and psychological makeup, the victims of bullying too exhibit certain common characteristics. For