16 - Humans Conserving Evolution

Question 1

What is conservation and where do we fail?

Answer 1

It is about conserving the process of evolution and the resilience of the Bioblob. We fail to recognise the dimension of time and how things came to be.

Question 2

How does a 1 degree rise in temperature affect Australian species?

Answer 2

They move up 1km in altitude or 125km south.

Question 3

What are the positive proofs of global warming?

Answer 3

Mega tsunamis and Super volcanoes.

Question 4

Where do we get the deep time history of Australian biota? What has happened to the total biota over time?

Answer 4

Riversleigh World Heritage in the NT - documents the last 24 million years. We’ve lost 44% of family level diversity.

Question 5

How much land is needed for long term conservation? How much have we currently dedicated?

Answer 5

300,000 squared km = 20% of Australia. We currently only have 11%.

Question 6

Where do we get the extra land for conservation?

Answer 6

Innovative uses of agricultural land. Limiting monocultures which reduce native biota.

Question 7

Why are we losing so much biodiversity? (3 reasons)

Answer 7

Land clearing of native vegetation, introduced predators, introduced herbivores.

Question 8

What is CSU? List 4 strategies.

Answer 8

Conservation through sustainable use (of native resources on private land). Strategies: protected land, ecotourism, sustainable harvesting of native species, native species as pets.

Question 9

Advantages of kangaroos include:

Answer 9

Healthy tasty meat, suited to survive droughts, soft feet mean less loss of topsoil, produce less methane, etc.

Question 10

What is deExtinction? List 2 project.

Answer 10

Using recovered DNA to attempt to resurrect extinct species. e.g. Thylacine and Lazarus (Gastric Brooding Frog) Projects.