Unit 7 Worksheet 3
Chapter 57 – Conservation Biology
- How many species are there?
8-9 million eukaryotic species… we’re not including bacteria and archaea
- Why is biodiversity important?
Biodiversity can be thought of as the tree of life. It describes the evolutionary relationships among all life forms.
Biodiversity has both economic and biological benefits.
Communities that are more diverse appear to be more productive, more resistant to disturbance and invasion, and more resilient than communities that are less diverse.
Increased species richness increases the surfaces provided by ecosystems.
The prosperity, health and happiness of humans are dependent upon the preservation of biodiversity and functioning ecosystems.
Collectively, all the direct and indirect benefits that humans derive from organisms and ecosystems they compose are called ecosystem services.
- What are the 5 major threats to biodiversity? Describe each.
Habitat destruction: 50% of total land surface has been altered by humans. Humans cause habitat destruction in many ways: logging, burning forests, grazing livestock, filling in wetlands, development. One of the worst is deforestation. Habitat fragmentation is one of the most pervasive forms of habitat degradation. It’s the breakup of large, continuous areas of natural habitat into small, isolated pieces.
Overexploitation = harvesting of wild organisms by humans faster than the population can reproduce. This is the dominant threat for marine species.
Invasive species = new organism introduced to environment that causes damage to it.
Pollution = industrial pollutants can cause acid rain and contribute to greenhouse gases. Pharmaceutical drugs are released in human urine and pass through wastewater plants into streams and rivers.
Pesticides and herbicides can biomagnify in food chains
Nutrient runoffs can cause eutrophication, which is excessive richness of nutrients in a lake or other body of water, frequently due to runoff from the land, which causes a dense growth of plant life and death of animal life from lack of oxygen.
Climate change = the average global temps increased 0.74 degrees Celcius during the 20th century. Oceans are becoming more acidic, precipitation patterns change, severity of extreme weather events is increasing, sea levels are rising, melting ice caps.
- Describe some of the conservation successes.
Give Swordfish a break!! Stopped eating swordfish and restored the population.
Clean water act made regulations for factories so they stopped polluting water.
Clean air act made LA go from smog filled air to having relatively clear air now! Kids were getting asthma and are now healthy.
- Which species are at greatest risk?
Amphibians. 41% are threatened.
- How do we protect and restore biodiversity?
Read, think, and talk with others to develop your knowledge and beliefs about human’s role in the world.
Consider what you do with your money and time. – Reduce, reuse, recycle – Reduce meat consumption – Reduce flying – Walk or bike more often – Choose a career in line with your beliefs
Realize that your choices may not be the same as others, so lead by example.
Take the long view…. Ask yourself how your actions might affect the experiences of your great-grandchildren.
Be active in the political process.
- What is an endemic species?
Species found in a particular area and found nowhere else
- What’s the difference between resistance and resilience?
Resistance is a measure of how much a community is affected by a disturbance
Resilience is a measure of how quickly a community recovers following a disturbance
- What is an endangered species?
Species whose numbers have decreased so drastically that it is almost certain to go extinct without effective conservation efforts
- True or false: the majority of biologists agree the the 6th mass extinction in the history of multicellular life is now occurring.
TRUE
- What is the difference between exotic and invasive species?
Exotic = non-native
Invasive = damaging
- Global warming and global climate change refer to the same phenomenon, but with different emphases. Describe them.
Global warming: the increase in the average temperature of the planet
Global climate change: the sum of all the changes in local temperature and precipitation patterns that result from global warming