14: Conserved and restored areas Flashcards
What is the Degradation of ecosystems continuum
different levels of degradation from completely artificial to natural
Conservation must occur across many levels
What value do unprotected areas have in terms of conservation?
Reconciliation ecology, restoration ecology, urban conservation
Types of non-protected conserved areas
- military land
- unprotected public forests, grasslands, public waterways, undesirable areas
Land sharing vs land sparing
Land sparing: industrial/intensive agriculture supported by reserves (some natural habitat, some farmland)
Land sharing: less intensive agriculture that supports biodiversity (wildlife friendly farmland)
Pros and cons of land sparing? Land sharing?
Sparing = cost effective (more $/ha), large unused habitat, but fragmentation
Sharing = connection, less fragmentation but disease and conflict
What is countryside biogeography
Proposed alternative to island biogeography
Isolated fragments in agricultural matrixes can retain a high number of species
Can be applied to similar landscapes (e.g. urban areas)
What are the shape of decay functions
Function of biodiversity against human activity intensity
Type 1,2,3
Slide 13
Example of an indigenous protected and conserved area
Tweedsmuir provincial park
Co-management of Bear populations by Nuxalk Nation
Hunting ban, bear viewing managed cooperatively
What is ‘30 by 30’
Goal is to reach 30% of land and ocean protection by 2030
What does ecosystem management emphasize? It manages…
Emphasizes ecological functions, services, large spatial/temporal scales
Manages traditional commodities, biodiversity, works across jurisdictional boundaries
What is natural disturbance? What does it mean to be natural?
Disturbance = no single reference state
Natural/historical range of variation
What is ecological integrity
Retain ecological composition, structure and function
What is the Natural Disturbance Model
Emulate natural disturbance via landscape-level management
Patch size, disturbance frequency
Why is Ecosystem-level conservation used? (3)
Too many species to manage them all individually
Habitat is main threat for most species
Ecosystems are components of biodiv that merit conservation in their own right
Conservation is motivated by…
a desire to protect biotic systems from anthropogenic threats
Natural means…
the condition of a species or ecosystem as it would be today in the absence of anthropogenic disturbances (ecological reference state)
What is Ecological Integrity
Summary measure that describes the condition of an ecosystem relative to the ecological reference state
Not very meaningful (ecosystems far too complex)
An ecosystem has ecological integrity when (3):
- it has the living and non-living pieces expected in its natural region
- its processes occur with the freq and intensity expected in its natural region
- displays resilience to perturbation
What is the composition, structure and function of an ecological reference state?
Composition: variety and abundance of species in a system
Structure: spatial arrangement of ecosystem components at multiple scales
Function: ecological processes characteristic of the natural ecosystem
What is the natural range of variation of an ecosystem?
Since ecosystems are dynamic, we characterize them using the mean and variance of individual ecosystem components, processes and states over time
Slide 30 graph
What is the ecological reference state? vs management target?
baseline for conservation. What we would like to achieve from a biocentric perspective
What we actually manage for after considering competing management objectives
Ecosystem management of forestry is easier to achieve with…
few users of a similar type (e.g. foothills: mostly industry)
What are indicators of sustainable forestry management (SFM)
- biological diversity
- stability/resilience of forestry systems
- soil and water quality and quantity
- carbon cycle
Disturbance is a natural feature of forest ecosystems, so if human disturbances can …
be made to emulate natural disturbances, ecological integrity should be maintained
Ecological reference state parameters for forests
Stand composition (age), stand structure (height), landscape patterns (patch metrics), ecological processes
What is the CBFA? What are the goals
Canadian Boreal Forest Agreement: 21 forest companies and nine ENGOs
Goal to recover SAR, have world-leading forest practices standards, climate change, have a network of PA’s
What is reconciliation ecology
Emphasizes Urban Ecology, accept human domination of most landscapes. Look for new ways to increase biodiversity in them.
Want to generate benefits for people and other spp
Manage urban-exploiting, hyper-abundant spp
What are hyper-abundant (urban-adapting) wildlife
An urban challenge
Often impact SAR
Exploit anthropogenic habitat change
May not be invasive or alien
Often attract well-meaning animal or wildlife protection
Conventional vs aggregated forestry harvest
Conventional is random without accounting for biology
Aggregated: there is connection between habitat which is almost continuous
What is the Yellowstone to Yukon conservation initiative
Functional connectivity for grizzly bears between Yellowstone and Yukon
What is restoration ecology
Goal is to return ecological function to degraded areas
Cannot recover full ecological functions
Restoration ecology often promotes…
Some archetypical component
- particular species
- particular communities
- particular ecological function
Restored ecosystems deliver fewer…
benefits with more costs
Graph on slide 78**
Four options for going about restoration
- No action (passive restoration)
- Rehabilitation (e.g. remove invasive)
- Partial restoration
- Complete restoration
graph slide 79**
What is resilience
Ability of a social or ecological system to absorb disturbances while retaining the same basic structure and function
Capacity to adapt to stress and change
Economic effects of urchin in kelp forests
Urchin destroy kelp forests which costed $562 billion
What are alternative stable states?
Catastrophic shifts between states can occur in nature and are often difficult to reverse
Drawing on slide 87
What is ‘hysteria’ when ecosystems change
Vegetation declines slowly, then very suddenly
What are conservation thresholds
Points or zones of catastrophic change
Ecological tipping points
What is a bioindicator test
Stress a bioindicator to find out where the conservation threshold is
Example of a biodiversity threshold
Diversity, stability and resilience of the human gut microbiota
Persistent stressors that reach the threshold lead to change from healthy stable state to degraded stable state
Slide 92
Name the five characteristics that make ecosystems more resilient
- Latitude
- Resistance
- Precariousness
- Panarchy
- Adaptive capcity
Describe the five characteristics that make ecosystems more resilient
- Latitude: max amnt a system can change before losing ability to recover (crossing threshold)
- Resistance: ease or difficulty changing the system
- Precariousness: how close current state is to threshold
- Panarchy: degree to which one hierarchical level of an ecosystem is influenced by others
- Adaptive capacity: change in stability landscapes and resilience
