Mars One Biome: Boreal Forest

Mars One Biome: Boreal Forest

by: Tom Grivet-Seyve, Nora Peachin, Eden Hilton and Eric Xu

Types of Plants and Animals

Flora:

• Cold-tolerant evergreen trees with needle-like leaves such as pines, firs and spruce

Fauna:

• Woodpeckers
• Hawks
• Moose
• Weasels
• Red foxes
• Wolves

• Deer
• Snowshoe hares
• Chipmunks
• Squirrels
• Shrews
• Bats

Food Web

Examples of Producers

• Bearberry/Kinnikinnick
• Lichens
• Crowberry
• Elderberry
• Wild roses
• Wild onions
• Thistle
• Garlic

Food Chain

Why a Boreal Forest?

Grass -->

Snowshoe Hare -->

Red fox

• Most fitting to the current atmoshpere on Mars: dry, cold, lifeless desert
• Many trees to produce oxygen and wood
• Easily sustainable plant and animal life

How will the Ecosystem be Affected if Plants were Removed?

Connections between Abiotic and Biotic Factors:

• Herbivores would starve to death, and so would the scavengers and carnivores that eat them
• Decomposers would survive for a while, eating the dead things, but eventually die as well
• Everything except some bacteria, fungi and protists would survive
• Humans would suffer even IF we engineered an synthetic food source
• Oxygen levels would decrease, and stabilize at a lower concentration
• No plants= carbon not stored= oxygen not produced!
• Immediate problem would be lack of food

• Bird species migrate south during the winter because of the extremely cold temperatures (behavior)
• Wolves have thick, oily, frost-resistant fur that helps them survive the cold (structure)
• The mountain hare has long legs (a structural adaptation) that it uses to jump and get away from predators with (a behavioral adaptation)
• The trees present have a notable climatic tolerance and survive on rather infertile soils. Pines survive on very sandy soils like those in northern Europe whereas spruce requires more loamy and clayey soils with more nutrients (structure)

Water Cycle

Carbon

Most, if not all of the precipitations are in the form of snow.

Almost no evaporation during the summer.

The Carbon Cycle is important in boreal forests.

Store 22 percent of all carbon on the land surface in soil.

Boreal forests store more carbon than any other forest.

Nitrogen

Plant growth in the boreal forest is generally limited by the availability of nitrogen.

The presumed cause of this limitation is slow mineralization of soil organic nitrogen

Strengths and Weaknesses

Strengths of the Eco-Dome:

Weaknesses of Eco-Dome:

• Simple in terms of species required (little biodiversity)
• Only a few diseases will apear and the balance is solid and complete.
• The temprature of cold forrest is low so compares with other ecosystem it will need less energy for heat.

• The nutrient of the soil is poor and acidic
• The producers, consumers and decomposers can't always adapt the environment
• The biodeliversity is small so the balance of the eco-dome is very fragile
• The supply of water and oxygen maybe not enough.