– Describe the elevation, climate, temperature and rainfall (and how they vary across time)
– Describe the ecosystem (What biome is it? Beyond that, describe the vegetation? What are the dominant plant species? What are the most famous / important / unique other species that are found there? Are there certain species that are “Ecosystem Engineers” or “Keystone Species” – yes, you need to look up what these are, they are new concepts that you should learn for this assignment). PAY ATTENTION TO ELEVATION, if your point is on a mountain or coast the local biome/ ecosystem might be very different from the regional biome.
– How diverse is it? (Is it a Biodiversity hotspot? Does it have a high diversity of plants? Birds? Mammals? Reptiles? Insects? See the various maps from course content.
– Describe the Environmental History of your place? Go back 5000 and 10,000 years.
– Describe how frequent fire is in your ecosystem and how fire impacts your ecosystem (see suggested readings to help you below). Explain why your place has higher or lower fire frequency that other places in Africa
– Describe the history of human influence on your ecosystem
– Discuss how environmental history (past and present climate) and past and present fire regimes impacted the biome, ecosystem and biodiversity of your place. Discuss how and why your place is different from other near by areas (This point is key to this assignment. To get an A on this assignment, you need to not only report each of the above pieces of information, but talk about how they interact with each other).
