Latitudinal Gradient of Species Diversity Essay -- Geography Geology N

Latitudinal Gradient of Species Diversity The latitudinal gradient in species diversity is one of the most striking patterns in the distribution of organisms on the planet. Simply put, the average number of species per unit area increases dramatically the closer the area is to the equator, almost entirely regardless of the type of organism being considered (Pianka, 1994). Researchers investigating the gradient have formulated a wide variety of hypothesis explaining the higher level of species diversity in the tropics. These include but are not limited to: a greater degree of evolution and radiation in tropical species due to the long and relatively stable geological history of the area, seasonal climatic stability and/or predictability, a higher level of productivity, an increased rate of competition and a higher predation intensity (Pianka, 1994). Another theory is that tropical soils somehow influence species diversity and thus cause the latitudinal gradient. This paper will further investigate this final theory by outlini ng the basic characteristics of tropical soils, summarizing the mechanisms invoked to explain species diversity with these soil characteristics, and evaluating how well this research agrees with what is known about tropical soils. For the sake of narrowing the topic somewhat, attention is limited to the soils of and research occurring in Latin America. Tropical Soils In the past, tropical soils have been over-simplified and misunderstood (Sanchez, 1976), and this situation plagued soil science at least until the late seventies (Van Wambeke and Dudal, 1978). Sanchez (1976) attributes this misunderstanding of tropical soils to the fact that when temperate region-trained soil scientists first went to the... ...s richness in Costa Rican forests: Journal of Biogeography, 7, 147-157. Jordan, C.F. and Herrera, R., 1981, Tropical rain forests: are nutrients really critical?: American Naturalist, 117, 167-180. Paoletti, M.G., Taylor, R.A.J., Stinner, B.R., Stinner, D.H., and Benzing, D.H., Diversity of soil fauna in the canopy and forest floor of a Venequelan cloud forest: Journal of Tropical Ecology, 7, 373-383. Pianka, E.R., 1994. Evolutionary Ecology, Fifth Edition: New York, Harper Collins College Publishers, p. 390-396. Sanchez, P., 1976, Properties and Management of Soils in the Tropics: New York, John Wiley and Sons, Chapters 2,3,4, and 5. Van Wambeke, A., and Dudal, R., 1978, Macrovariability of soils of the tropics, p. 13-28 in Stelly, M. (editor-in-chief), Diversity of Soils in the Tropics: Ithaca, Department of Agronomy, Cornell University Press.

Comparing the Electoral and Party Systems of China and Russia Essay

The collapse of the international socialist network changed the world at the turn of the century. The failure of the many socialist regimes ended the confrontation between East and West and provided an opportunity to restructure the international order. The individual states of East Asia, Central and Eastern Europe, China and the former Soviet Union took differing paths and chose differing restructuring strategies, which themselves led to different courses of transformation. The former hard-line socialist regimes of Russia and China had to face the challenges brought by the new world order specifically on altering its political structures. This paper would compare the government and politics of China and Russia focusing on the electoral laws and their impacts on the party system. Moreover, this would try to recommend some possible measures to ensure the development of democracy for both countries and to address some of their problems. Russia is a vast country with an imperial and authoritarian past. By area, Russia is the largest country in the world, almost twice the size of the United States. The population includes numerous minorities, with 36 national groups containing more than 100,000 people, Russia’s rulers have in the past been autocratic empire builders, basing their imperial expansion on control of the serf society and a rural community. Russia’s experience in communism represented a culmination of a authoritarianism. The Union Soviet Socialist Republics encompassing 15 European and Asian Republics, formed the former Russian Empire. The politics of Russia take place in a framework of a federal presidential republic. According to the Constitution of Russia, the President of Russia is head of state, and of a multi-party system with executive power exercised by the government, headed by the Prime Minister, who is appointed by the President by the parliament’s approbation. Legislative power is vested in the two chambers of the Federal Assembly of the Russian Federation, while the President and the government issue numerous legally binding by-laws. Although Russia has traditionally been ruled by absolute monarchs and dictators, it currently has a democratic system of government. Since gaining its independence with the collapse of the Soviet Union at the end of 1991, Russia has faced serious challenges in its efforts to forge a political system to follow nearly seventy-five years of Soviet rule. With a new constitution and a new parliament representing diverse parties and factions, Russia’s political structure subsequently showed signs of stabilization. As the transition period extended into the mid-1990s, the power of the national government continued to wane as Russia’s regions gained political and economic concessions from Moscow. Although the struggle between executive and legislative branches was partially resolved by the new constitution, the two branches continued to represent fundamentally opposing visions of Russia’s future. One of the world’s oldest civilization consisting states and cultures dating back thousands of years ago is China. It is a cultural region, ancient civilization, and nation in East Asia. The deadlock of the last Chinese Civil War has resulted in two political entities using the name China: the People’s Republic of China (PRC), administering mainland China, Hong Kong, and Macau; and the Republic of China (ROC), administering Taiwan and its surrounding islands. It has the world’s longest continuously used written language system, and the source of some of the world’s great inventions including paper, compass, gunpowder, and printing. The People’s Republic of China is working within the framework of a single-party socialist republic. The will of Chinese citizens is expressed through the legislative bodies of the People’s Congress system. People’s Congress members at the county level are elected by voters. These county level People’s Congresses have the responsibility of oversight of local government, and elect members to the Provincial People’s Congress. The provincial People’s Congress in turn elects members to the National People’s Congress that meets each year in March in Beijing. Current political concerns in China include lessening the growing gap between rich and poor, and fighting corruption within the government leadership. The support that the Communist Party of China has among the Chinese population in general is unclear because national elections are mostly CPC dominated, as there are no opposition political parties and independent candidates elected into office are too scattered and disorganized to challenge CPC rule. According to Hague and Harrop, â€Å"Party systems are the interaction between the significant political parties. In a democracy, parties respond to each other’s initiatives in a competitive interplay. The party system also reflects legal regulation applying to all parties. In China, a dominant party system is in place wherein one party is a constant component of the executive, governing either alone or in coalition. The dominant party system was more common in the twentieth century than it is today and China is one rare example. The dominant party of the PRC is the Chinese Communist Party (CCP). The leadership of the CCP is enshrined in the PRC Constitution. State power within the PRC is exercised through the CCP, the Central People’s Government and their provincial and local counterparts. Under the dual leadership system, each local bureau or office is under the theoretically co-equal authority of the local leader and the leader of the corresponding office, bureau or ministry at the next higher level. The ruling Communist Party committee at each level plays a large role in the selection of appropriate candidates for election to the local congress and to the next higher level. China is a country that accepts involvement from multiple political parties. Apart from the CPC, the ruling party, there are eight political parties. They are China Revolutionary Committee of the Kuomintang, China Democratic League, China Democratic National Construction Association, China Association for the Promotion of Democracy, Chinese Peasants’ and Workers’ Democratic Party, China Zhi Gong Dang, Jiusan Society, and the Taiwan Democratic Self-government League. Most of them were founded during the anti-Japanese war and the national liberation war. They support the political leadership of the CPC, which has become their historical choice during the long years of cooperation with the CPC and through common struggles. Although there are other political parties present in China, these parties are not opposition parties, but parties participating in the discussion and administration of State affairs. Moreover, these parties serve to endorse CCP’s policies. Meanwhile, Russia is working on a multi-party system wherein the legislature comprises several minority parties, resulting in coalitions or minority government by the leading party. The multi-party system in Russia resulted to the rise of not just one political party unlike the case of China. Although, United Russia occupies the majority seats of the Duma, the seats obtained by the Russian Communist Party, as well as other parties, are significant in producing checks and balances to the Russian Assembly. Electoral systems were made to answer the question of how to convert votes into seats. In elections to the legislature, the main questions is whether an electoral system ensures that the seats obtained by a party are directly proportional to the votes received (Hague and Harrop 146). In China, the people do not directly elect delegates for the National People’s Congress (NPC). China practices democratic centralism wherein direct democracy is only practiced at the local levels and the elected delegates in the local people’s congresses in turn elect their representative at the NPC. Delegates for the local people’s congresses are elected using the first-past-the-post system (FPTP). FPTP is a type of non-proportional system wherein parties are not rewarded in proportion to the share of the votes obtained. Specifically, FPTP takes the plurality form of non-proportional representation where a candidate only needs a plurality of votes to win a seat and a majority of votes is not required. In Russia, seats in the Duma were formerly elected half by proportional representation (with at least 5% of the vote to qualify for seats) and half by single member districts. However, President Putin passed a decree that all seats are to be elected by proportional representation (with at least 7% of the vote to qualify for seats) to take effect in the December 2007 elections. Particularly, Russia is adapting the list system to confer delegates for the Duma. The list system is the most common method of proportional representation in which parties submit a list of their candidates and then the votes they obtain determines the percent of seats they get. In proportional representation, the goal is to represent parties rather than territories. For China, the adoption of the list system is recommended to develop a genuine opposition party. For many decades now, the rule of the CCP did not face any significant challenger in China. There have also been secessionist movements due to some ethnic and cultural cleavages such as the Tibetans who are lobbying from independence from China. The adoption of the list system would allow the voice of the minority to be heard in the NPC thus ensuring the democratic rights of the people. It will also make China less prone to violence, just like what happened in the Tiananmen Massacre were students on protest were open fired by Chinese military, since grievances can be acknowledge in government institutions such as the NPC. It is necessary to abolish democratic centralism since government processes are easily manipulated by local bureaucrats to advance their own selfish gains. Political reform in China is a matter of opening the ‘nominally open’ elections to other political parties. For Russia, the current electoral system is well on its way to democratize the Russian political system. However, the recent decree of Putin would make it difficult for smaller parties to obtain a seat in the Duma. Seven percent is such a high threshold and may cause the marginalization of the smaller parties and the domination of the more established ones. A lower threshold is hereby recommended and that Putin’s decree for the December 2007 elections should be repealed because it is a hindrance for the continuous democratization of Russia. These formerly hard-line socialist regimes have adopted measures to cope up with the new international order. However, not both were able to give way to democratization due to the electoral and party systems that they adapted.

What Is the Moral of the Scarlet Letter Essay - 1116 Words

The scarlet letter is a text written by Nathaniel Hawthorne in 1850 a fictional work which tells about the history of England during the puritan age and the story of women named Hester Prynne. The author feels this text as a romantic work because the text includes about love and the adulteress. The text involves facts and fiction of the author such as the â€Å"Custom-House is a fact and real, while the author was working as a surveyor in the Salem custom house in Massachusetts. The custom house was actually a building were the taxes are paid , one day he discovered some documents and manuscripts and the piece of cloth with the letter† A†. Hawthorne decides to read the manuscripts. Hawthorne then†¦show more content†¦To expose the faults of Hester is a must but its not necessary because no one has the rights to expose or confess her sin to public which can ruin her life and can also cause death. Without knowing the truth behind her sin the society has no rights to force her to stand in scaffold to face public shame and guilt which disheartens Hester and her child. So, Hester committing a sin plays an important moral to the text scarlet letter. The nature of puritan society is also an important moral of the scarlet letter as the puritan society was different from other society during 17th century. The society and the people followed a strict puritan laws and regulation with moral values. Thomson (2011) notes that â€Å"the Puritans were staunch believers in crushing evil within a person and society in order to ensure the thriving of what they termed righteousness, for puritan’s sin was a result of wickedness, but disagrees that sin damned a person forever. Puritans strongly believed in predestination†. The particular society known as puritan age was different from other society in terms of peoples believe their custom and other values. For puritans people who commit sin are punished whether its men or a woman, a person should bear the shame and guilt forever. Hester is forced to wear the letter A for her shame and to stand in crowd. However puritans believed in bringing goodness in society and evil to beShow MoreRelatedWhat Is the Moral of the Scarlet Letter? Essay952 Words   |  4 Pages Nathaniel Hawthorne is famous for his long fictional work the scarlet letter in 1850, which is still considered as the most important work of him. The scarlet letter involves the presence of facts and figures to support the text and also includes the fictional work in the text. Hawthorne was actually inspired from the manuscripts he got in the custom house in Salem while he was working as an executive officer or the surveyor in custom house where the taxes are paid, their he foundRead MoreSummary Of The Scarlet Letter 1329 Words   |  6 PagesJanuary 2016 Morality in The Scarlet Letter In The Scarlet Letter, Hawthorne describes many defining instances of different characters’ morality. Some of the characters’ opinions are very different, but the people of the town have a general morality that leads Hester Prynne and Arthur Dimmesdale to deal with their sins differently in public, than in private. First, Hester’s morality, is not very defined at the beginning. She seems as though she does not care what other people think of her. SheRead MoreSymbolism, Use Of Color, And Themes Of Nathaniel Hawthorne s The Scarlet Letter1657 Words   |  7 Pagesand Themes in The Scarlet Letter The Scarlet Letter is regarded as the first symbolic novel in American Literature for Nathaniel Hawthorne s skillful use of symbolism and allegory. The novel is also said to be the greatest accomplishment of American short story and is viewed as the first American psychological novel, which makes Hawthorne win an incomparable position in American Literature. Hawthorne’s â€Å"unique gift† for using this kind of skills taps into the roots of man s moral nature and givesRead MoreStereotypes in the Scarlet Letter1441 Words   |  6 Pagesnovel The Scarlet Letter that some dogmatic attempts by society to label a person by his or her actions in the past will fail. Subjectivity across the community and throughout time changes the meaning of a symbol society implements to control an idea. The scarlet letter â€Å"A† Hester Prynne wears exemplifies this. The town wants the object to arouse feelings of ignominy towards Hester; however, not everyone who meets Hester inter prets it the same way. The town originally regards the letters as a significationRead MoreEssay Sin, Guilt, and the Mind of Nathaniel Hawthorne1490 Words   |  6 PagesSin, Guilt, and the Mind of Nathaniel Hawthorne      Ã‚   Nathaniel Hawthornes works are notable for their treatment of guilt and the complexities of moral choices. Moral and religious concerns, in short, are almost always present in Hawthornes work(Foster, 56). Given Hawthornes background, it is not a stretch of the imagination to say that his novels are critiques of Puritanism. Hawthorne lived in the deeply scarred New England area, separated from Puritanism by only one generation. His grandfatherRead MoreSymbolism From The Scarlet Letter867 Words   |  4 PagesEmalee McCracken Mrs. Voshell Honors English 10 21 December 2016 Symbolism in The Scarlet Letter There are many forms of symbolism found in The Scarlet Letter. Hawthorne, the author uses his many forms of symbolism to project a lesson or moral created throughout the story. Even each of the main characters has a different moral representation. Guilt, repentance, purity, and strength each are shown through the eyes of a different character. Pear, Hester Prynne, Chillingworth, and Reverend DimmesdaleRead MoreSpheres in Scarlet Letter Essay1627 Words   |  7 Pagesare. Nathaniel Hawthorne also criticizes the Utopian ideals that societies often hold in his novel, The Scarlet Letter. The main character, Hester goes astray from the rules of her Puritan town and must wear a scarlet letter on her chest to declare her sin. The scarlet letter isolates Hester from the pressures to conform to society, giving her the opportunity to find her individualistic moral perspective in life and she shares this revelation with Dimmesdale. Hawthorne conveys this concept of individualismRead MoreBeing Earnest By Oscar Wilde1332 Words   |  6 Pagesindirectly connected to the idea of moral ambiguity that The Scarlet Letter portrays. Nathaniel Hawthorne’s classic novel The Scarlet Letter depicts the actuality of romance, sin, and revenge rooted in the 17th century American society. Strong Puritan beliefs of the characters in The Scarlet Letter created many different forms of moral ambiguity that can be described as illustrating both good and evil. Among the characters in the Scarlet letter with such moral struggle, Dimmesdale is presented toRead MoreIs the Scarlet Letter a Proto Feminist Novel1510 Words   |  7 Pages21, 2012 Is The Scarlet Letter a Proto Feminist Novel? â€Å"Is The Scarlet Letter a Proto Feminist Novel?† The Scarlet Letter is a very well-known novel, between the scandals and lies. It starts off with a woman named Hester Prynne. Hester decides to leave her husband behind to migrate to Boston. A couple years later, Hester gives birth to a baby girl named Pearl in prison. Hester refused to reveal the father of Pearl. The town then forces Hester to wear a scarlet letter A upon her dressRead MoreSymbolism Of The Scarlet Letter By Nathaniel Hawthorne923 Words   |  4 Pagesits exact connotation. In literature, the symbol can be a person, item, circumstance, or action that has a more profound significance in the writing. In The Scarlet Letter, by Nathaniel Hawthorne there are four main symbols that the reader would notice. The symbols include, the colors red and black, the meteor, Pearl, and the scarlet letter itself. Hawthorne uses symbolism in the novel to communicate his message. In this Puritan society a group of men and women gather around a door that is heavily