Conservation Biology

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Conservation Biology

• How do we view the natural world? What is its
  importance, value?
• Worth preserving for own sake?
• Ecosystems support us by providing ecosystem
  services

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What Is Biodiversity?

• The goal of conservation biology is to preserve
  biodiversity by
• Preventing extinction of species caused by human
  activity
• Maintaining large population numbers that sustain
  genetic diversity
• Preserving community interactions that sustain
  ecosystems

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What Is Biodiversity?

• Biodiversity refers to the variety of living
  organisms on the planet, including their genes,
  ecosystems, and community interactions

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Ecosystem Services

• Ecosystem services include processes through
  which natural ecosystems sustain human life
• Purify water and air
• Replenish oxygen
• Pollinate plants and disperse seeds

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Ecosystem Services

• Provide wildlife habitat
• Decompose wastes
• Control erosion and flooding
• Control pests
• Provide recreation

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Tamiflu is based on chemicals extracted from the
Chinese star anise
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Indirect Benefits

• Indirect ecosystem services have even greater
  impact on human welfare and include
• Soil formation
• Erosion and soil control
• Climate regulation
• Genetic resources
• Recreation

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Interfering with Ecosystem Services

• What are the effects when ecosystems are damaged?
• Direct
• Indirect

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Most people ignore ecosystem services because
they are free and it is hard to measure their
value.
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Mercury byproduct in water converted to methyl
mercury accumulates in tissues
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Sustaining the Variety of Life

• Extinction is a natural process.
• The average lifetime of a species is roughly 1
  million years.
• This means that at natural or background rates,
  one in 1 million species is expected to become
  extinct each year.
• Current rates of extinction are at least 100
  times higher than this background rate

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Sustaining the Variety of Life

• The elevated extinction rate is due to human
  activities that include
• habitat destruction (especially tropical
  forests)
• introduction of invasive species
• overharvesting
• and in the future, global warming

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Sustaining the Variety of Life

• Some species are much more vulnerable to
  extinction than others, and these species are
  geographically concentrated.

• Endemism is the ecological state of being unique
  to a place. Endemic species are not naturally
  found elsewhere.

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Sustaining the Variety of Life

• The intuitive notion that extinctions occur most
  often in areas where the most people live is
  wrong.
• Extinctions occur most frequently where habitat
  destruction (especially deforestation) overlap
  concentrations of vulnerable species.

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Sustaining the Variety of Life

• Probably one-half of the worlds species live in
  biodiversity hot spots.
• These are 25 mostly forested, tropical areas
  where human actions have removed gt 70 of the
  natural vegetation.
• These areas are hot spots for conservation
  efforts.
• The laws of biogeography explain how species are
  distributed across the world.

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Sustaining the Variety of Life

• Laws of Biogeography
• Most species ranges are very small few are very
  large.
• Species with small ranges are locally scarce.

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Southwestern Willow Flycatcher
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Sustaining the Variety of Life

• Laws of Biogeography
• Most species ranges are very small few are very
  large.
• Species with small ranges are locally scarce.
• The number of species found in a given area
  varies greatly and according to common factors.
• Species with small ranges are often
  geographically concentrated.

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Biomes- large land areas with similar
environmental conditions and characteristic plant
communities
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• The tropical rain forest biome

• Rainforests have the highest biodiversity of any
  ecosystem on Earth.
• Much of the animal life in rain forests is
  arboreal (living in the trees).
• Rain forests are being destroyed at a rapid rate
  for lumber, or are burned to clear land for
  ranching or farming.
• At least 40 of the worlds rain forests are now
  gone

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• Savannas

• The African savanna has probably the most
  diverse and impressive array of large mammals on
  Earth.
• Africas expanding human population threatens
  the wildlife of the savanna

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• Deserts
• Deserts are found in areas with less than 10
  inches of annual rainfall
• In many deserts, all the rain falls in just a few
  storms, and specialized annual wildflowers take
  advantage of the brief period of moisture to race
  through germination, growth, flowering, and seed
  production in a month or less.

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• Grassland Tallgrass prairies are found in Iowa,
  Missouri, and Illinois.

• These grasslands, on which grasses have grown and
  decomposed for thousands of years, contain what
  may be the most fertile soil in the world.
• Grasslands in North America have been almost
  completely destroyed and used for agriculture.

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• Grassland Shortgrass prairies are located in
  Colorado, Wyoming, and Montana.

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• The temperate deciduous forest biome

• Large predatory mammalssuch as black bear,
  wolves, bobcats, and mountain lionswere formerly
  common in deciduous forests, but hunting and
  habitat loss have eliminated the wolves and
  severely reduced the populations of the others.

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• Temperate rain forests

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• Taiga
• Stretches across all of northern North America
  and Eurasia.

• Long and cold winters and short growing season,
  most of the trees are conifers
• large mammalswood bison, grizzly bear, moose,
  and wolf

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Tundra The arctic tundra is a vast treeless
regions bordering the Arctic Ocean, where winter
temperatures often reach 40F or below, and
rainfall averages 10 inches, making the tundra a
freezing desert.
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• Nearshore ecosystem

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• Coral reefs

When waters become too warm, the corals expel
their colorful symbiotic algae, leaving the
corals a deathly white this leads to coral
death. Continual global warming threatens all the
worlds corals.
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• The open ocean

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Sustaining the Variety of Life

• The costs of sustaining biodiversity are large,
  but so are the benefits.
• Benefits include food, water, fuel, climate
  regulation, and many other often undervalued
  services that are provided by healthy ecosystems.
• There are many possible solutions to conserving
  biodiversity.
• Ultimately, all solutions must benefit local
  human populations as well as endangered species.

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Sustaining the Variety of Life

• How can biodiversity be conserved?
• By encouraging conservation groups to purchase
  logging leases for sensitive tropical wilderness
  forests.
• By providing economic alternatives to displaced
  poor people who now clear the majority of
  tropical forests.
• By connecting now-fragmented forests through
  forest bridges.

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Sustaining the Variety of Life

• How can biodiversity be conserved?
• By promoting ecotourism to provide a cash
  incentive to local people to conserve the natural
  environment.
• By allowing preserved forest tracts to be used
  as capital in the Kyoto carbon-trading system.
• By promoting understanding of the economic
  benefits provided by intact ecosystems.

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Sustaining the Variety of Life

• Biology and Society

It is vitally important that we protect each and
every species.
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Should We Do Something?

• The U.S. has only 5 of the worlds population
  but produces 25 of the worlds greenhouse
  emissions.
• If all 6.4 billion people on Earth lived as the
  average American does, we would need 5.4 Earths
  to supply their demands!

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Top 25 questions in science

• What Is the Universe Made Of?
• What is the Biological Basis of Consciousness?
• Why Do Humans Have So Few Genes?
• To What Extent Are Genetic Variation and Personal
  Health Linked?
• Can the Laws of Physics Be Unified?
• How Much Can Human Life Span Be Extended?
• What Controls Organ Regeneration?
• How Can a Skin Cell Become a Nerve Cell?
• How Does a Single Somatic Cell Become a Whole
  Plant?
• How Does Earth's Interior Work?
• Are We Alone in the Universe?
• How and Where Did Life on Earth Arise?
• What Determines Species Diversity?
• What Genetic Changes Made Us Uniquely Human?
• How Are Memories Stored and Retrieved?
• How Did Cooperative Behavior Evolve?
• How Will Big Pictures Emerge from a Sea of
  Biological Data?
• How Far Can We Push Chemical Self-Assembly?
• What Are the Limits of Conventional Computing?

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Top 25 questions in science

• What Is the Universe Made Of?
• What is the Biological Basis of Consciousness?
• Why Do Humans Have So Few Genes?
• To What Extent Are Genetic Variation and Personal
  Health Linked?
• Can the Laws of Physics Be Unified?
• How Much Can Human Life Span Be Extended?
• What Controls Organ Regeneration?
• How Can a Skin Cell Become a Nerve Cell?
• How Does a Single Somatic Cell Become a Whole
  Plant?
• How Does Earth's Interior Work?
• Are We Alone in the Universe?
• How and Where Did Life on Earth Arise?
• What Determines Species Diversity?
• What Genetic Changes Made Us Uniquely Human?
• How Are Memories Stored and Retrieved?
• How Did Cooperative Behavior Evolve?
• How Will Big Pictures Emerge from a Sea of
  Biological Data?
• How Far Can We Push Chemical Self-Assembly?
• What Are the Limits of Conventional Computing?

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Sustaining the Variety of Life
At the background rate of extinction, one expects
1 in _________ species to become extinct each
year. a) 10 b) 1,000 c) 10,000 d) 1,000,000
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Sustaining the Variety of Life
Probably of all species live in
the worlds hot spots for biodiversity
conservation. a) 1/10 b) 1/4 c) 1/2 d) 9/10
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Sustaining the Variety of Life
The bulk of tropical forests are cleared by a)
multinational logging companies b) nationally
sponsored logging companies c) local logging
companies d) displaced poor people
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• Ecosystem services include all of the following
  except
• A) purifying water.
• B) decomposing waste material.
• C) recycling fossil fuels.
• D) controlling erosion.

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• Which of the following is the most important
  factor contributing to the reduction in
  population size of endangered species?
• A. Human Hunting
• B. Destruction of Habitat
• C. Automobile Accidents
• D. Mercury Poisoning

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• The greatest diversity of plants and animals is
  found in
• A. tropical rainforests
• B. temperate deciduous forests
• C. taiga
• D. savannas