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Biodiversity Flashcards

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1
Q

What are examples of biodiversity?

A
  • the differences between individuals in species
  • differences between populations of the same species
  • differences between communities and ecoystems
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2
Q

What different scales can biodiversity be assessed on?

A
  • species level in a habitat

* genetic level within a population

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3
Q

What does rich biodiversity allow?

A

Large scale ecoystems to function and self regulate

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4
Q

What happens if the biodiversity is reduced in one area?

A

The natural balance may be destroyed elsewhere becayse ecoystems are linked across the world

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5
Q

In what way are ecosystems linked across earth?

A
  • the air and water are purified by the action of a wide range of organisms.
  • waste is decomposed and rendered non - toxic by many organisms including bacteria and fungi: microorganisms in soil and water convert ammonia into nitrate iond which are then taken up by plants
  • photosynthesis by plants plays an important part in stabilising the atmosphere and the world climate
  • Plants absorb vast amounts of water from the soil which then evaporates into the atmospheee through transpiration, producing clouds which then produce rain. So plants help to determine where the rain will fall
  • Plant roots along witb fungal mycelia also hold the soil together, affecting how water runs off the soil surface and reducing the risk of flooding.
  • Plant pollination, seed dispersal, soil fertility and nutrient recyling in systems such ad the nitrogen and carbon cycles are vital for natural ecosystems and farming and all depend on rich biodiversity
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6
Q

Biodiversity provides genetic variation. What has this allowed us to develop and what can it help to cope with?

A

• It has allowed us to develop:
- the production of crops
- production of fisheries and forests
- livestock
- enables further improvements by cross - breeding and genetic engineering
• this variation will allow us to cope with problems arising from climate change and disease
• plant biodiversity also provides the potential of plants to produce chemicals that are important in many areas of human life including new medicines

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7
Q

What is the number of different species in an area called?

A

The species richness

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8
Q

What is the eveness of distributions of the different species called?

A

The relative abundance of the different types of organism that make up the species richness

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9
Q

Where are the areas of the highest biodiversity?

A

The wet tropics

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10
Q

What are biodiversity hotspots and what is the problem with these?

A

They are places of unusual biodiversity and endemism

The problem is that they often coincide with areas with resources that people want to use

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11
Q

What are endemic species?

A

Species that are found nowhere else

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12
Q

Why is it so difficult to prioritize areas for conservation?

A

Because the areas of greatest biodiversity are not always the areas with the biggest number of endemoc species

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13
Q

What is the best current model of why some areas have particularly rich biodiversity?

A
  • a very stable ecosystem allows complex relationships to develop between species
  • High levels of productivity can support more niches
  • in areas where organisms can grow and reproduce more rapidly it is more likely that more mutations occur, leading to adaptations which allow organisms to explout more niches
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14
Q

What are high levels of productivity?

A

Where photosynthesis rates are high

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15
Q

What is relative species abundance

A

The relative numbers of the different types of organism

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16
Q

What is more biodiverse in terms of relative species abundance or lack of it

A

It is more biodiverse if there is a high species abundance. An area with an even abundance of different species is more biodiverse than one containing the same number of different species but dominated by one or two of those species

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17
Q

What areas are more vulnerable to damage and loss and what is the problem with this?

A

Small isolated ecosystems such as islands, rainforests, coral reefs, bogs and wetland

Many of these areas are also biodiversity hotspots so if they are damaged many species will be lost.

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18
Q

What happens every time a species becomes extinct?

A

The biodiversity of the world decreases

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19
Q

What is the formula that gives a diversity index at the species level within a habitat?

A

D = N(N-1)/ sum of n(n-1)

D= diversity index 
N = the total number of organisms of all species 
n = the total number of organisms of each individual species: the abundance of each individual species
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20
Q

What does it mean if the value of the diversity index is higher?

A

There is a greater variety of living organisms found in the area

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21
Q

Give the features of an environment with relatively extreme environmental conditions

A
  • low levels of biodiversity
  • any change in the environment will have a big impact on population numbers
  • the ecoystem is unstable and susceptible to change
  • it also has a number of unfilled niches so an incoming organism can become established very rapidly and overpower an existing species is they are competing for food or territory
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22
Q

What can cause biodiversity to be lost?

A
  • natural events e.g. a volcano erupting

* human activities

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23
Q

Why is it hard to know when to mewsure biodiversity?

A

Because it changes all the time depending on wewther conditions ect.

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24
Q

What are mutations and how can they increase the gene pool of a population?

A
  • they are changes in the DNA structure

* they increase the gene pool in a population by changing the number of different alleles available

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25
Q

What is the relative frequency of a particular allele in a population known as?

A

The allele frequency

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26
Q

What happens if a mutation results in an advantageous feature?

A

The frequency of that allele in the population will be selecter for and so increase in frequency

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27
Q

What happens if a mutation results in a disadvantageous feature?

A
  • natural selection will sometimes result in it’s removal from the gene pool
  • it is normally retained at a low frequency unless it also transfers some benefits
  • a disadvantageous allele in one set of environmental conditions may become an advantageous allele if conditions change
28
Q

What may the changes in allele frequency due to natural selection lead to?

A

The evolution of a new species

29
Q

How do you build up a clear model of genetic diversity and what has made this possible?

A
  • by analysing the DNA ane comparing particular regions for similarities and differences
  • modern technology has made this possible
30
Q

Cheetahs have very little genetic biodiversity. What does this mean that they are in danger of?

A

Being wiped out by a single disease or small change in environment

31
Q

What models have proved to be a very useful tool for measuring biodiversity?

A

Models of the molecular phylogenetic relationships between related organisms based on DNA and other evidence

32
Q

What have scientists at the Natural History Museum done?

A

Built up contrasting maps of biodiversity based on both numbers of species and DNA similarities

33
Q

Why can the study that was done by the scientists at the natural history Museum be useful for conservation work?

A

Because if you are trying to choose an area with limited funding you must be sure you are choosing the area with the highest biodiversity. The value ot this type of data is that it can be used to highlight areas that need protection and with regular updating, provides a way of monitoring changes in biodiversity anywhere

34
Q

Describe the biodiversity of the Hawaiian islands

A
  • It has very rich species diversity with 100 species of bird and 10 000 species of insects
  • analysis of the DNA of the native populations shows that they are very closely related
  • all the insect species have evolved from only 400 species
  • all the bird species evolved from only seven founder species of land bird
  • Endenism is common here
  • places where endenism is common often have a rich biodiversity in terms of species numbers but relatively low genetic diversity.
  • this is a reason why sreas with many endemic populations are very vulnerable to disease
35
Q

What are the ethical reasons for maintaining biodiversity?

A
  • if we destroy the biodiversity of an ecosystem we are denying the future generations the oppurtunity to use these renewable natural resources
  • the natural world and the biodiversity within it is a great source of pleasure for many people and so should be protected and maintained
  • if biodiversity is lost when a species becomes extict, uniqur combinations of DNA are lost. People would argue that extinction and the loss of biodiversity due to human activities is unethical
  • human activities also have the potential to cause mass extinctions through global climate change and this interference with biodiversity on a massive scale is regarded as unethical
36
Q

What are ecosystems services?

A

Services provided by the natural environment that are of benefit to people

37
Q

What are provisioning services?

A

Ecosystems provide us with all sorts of provisions we need, including food, fibres for clothing, building materials, fuel, genetic resources for crop improvements, fresh water and medicines. The greater the biodiversity the more potential sources of all these services there are available to us

38
Q

What are regulating services?

A

Ecosystems are involved in processes such as water purification and sewage treatment, maintaining air quality, disease regulation, pest control and pollination.

39
Q

What are supporting services?

A

Biodiverse ecosystems provide support for other ecosystems services that we need. For example soil formation and nutrient cycling in the environment are both ecosystem services without which we could not grow food to eat

40
Q

What are cultural services?

A

A biodiverse and healthy ecosystem is important for human health and well-being and is also used in recreation and educatuon. In some areas the economy of a country can depend on people visiting to observe its wild animals and plant life

41
Q

What is the economic result if biodiversity is neglected or destroyed and give examples

A
  • It is very expensive
  • when human activities cause natural disasters such as hurricanes, floods or forest fires it costs lots of money to put things right
  • if areas become deserts and soil is eroded away as a result of deforestation there is both an economic cost and a human cost as people cannot farm and therefore suffer malnutrition
  • if non - sustainable resources are harvested and not replaced, that industry will collapse along with the ecosystem
42
Q

What impact does loss of biodiversity have for the future?

A
  • it can cause potential financial losses for the future
  • any loss of biodiversity reduces the chances of finding a new drug, a new food or some genes that can be used in a crop plant to increase yield or increase resistance to disease
43
Q

What does conservation mean?

A

Keeping and protecting a living and changing environemnt

44
Q

What does the active process of conservatiom involve?

A
  • reclaiming land after industrial use
  • helping set up sustainable agriculture systems in the developed world
  • protection of a single threatened species
  • global legislation on pollution levels and greenhouse gas emissions
45
Q

What are the two main ways of conerving animals and plants?

A

Ex- situ conservation and In-situ conservation

46
Q

What is ex-situ conservation? When does it take place and what does it do?

A
  • the conservation of components of biological biodiversity outside their natural environemts
  • it is done when an organism is threatned with extinction or there is not enough time to conserve their habitat or protect them in-situ
  • ar worst this enables the genetic materi to be conserved
  • at best a breedint popualtion can eventually return species to thei natural habitats
47
Q

What are two ways in which the long - term health of our plants can be maintained?

A

Crossbreeding crop plants back to original wild plants or using wild plants to supply genes for genetic engineering

48
Q

What do botanic gardens do?

A

Maintain collections fo many of the worlds most interesting and unusual plants

49
Q

What were rhe two aims of the millennium seed bank at Kew Gardens that was set up in the 60s?

A
  • to collect and conserve the seeds of the entire Uk native flora by the year 2000
  • to conserve the seeds of an additional 10 % of the flora of the whole world by the year 2010 with a particular focus on the drylands which are experiencing some of the most rapid loss of habitat
50
Q

What do seed banks do and how do they work?

A
  • they can preserve many plants in a state of effective suspended animation
  • Live seeds are collected from tbe wild, removed from the fruit and cleaned
  • they are screened using x-rays to make sure that they contain fully developed embryos
  • then they are dried, put in jars and stored at between -20 and -40 ° where many will remain capable of germinating for up to 200 years
  • generally the lifespan of a seed doubles for every 5°c drop in temperature of 2% fall in relative humidity
51
Q

What are the advantages of storing seeds?

A
  • most plants make huge numbers of seeds so they can be collected without damaging the natural population
  • seeds are usually small so large numbers of them can be stored relitavely cheaply in a small space
  • they contain all the genetic material of the plant so they are a record of the genetic make-up of a species as well as a potential new plant for the future
52
Q

What plants have seeds that do not store well and how are they conserved instead? What are the advantages and disadvantages of this?

A
  • crop plants such as mango, rubber, oak, avocado, cacao and coconut
  • they may be grown where they are found naturally in field banks such as plantations, orchards and arboretums or as tissue cultures. However field banks take up a lot of room and a lot or work to maintain
  • using a tissue culture to conserve plants. Growing plants as needed takes up a lot less space and time but allows more variety to be conserved
53
Q

What happens in captive breeding programmes?

A

Individuals of an endangered species are bred in zoos and parks in an attempt to save the species from extinction. Usually the ultimate aim is to reintroduce captive-bred animala into the wild to restore the orginal populations

54
Q

Name two species that have been saved by captive breeding and succesfully reintroduced into protected areas in their own countries

A

The californian condors and Przewalski horses

55
Q

What are the problems with captive breeding and reintroduction?

A
  • there is not enough space or sufficient resources in parks and zoos for all the endangered species
  • it is often difficult to provide the right conditions for breeding
  • reintroduction to the wild unless the original reason for the species being pushed to the edge of extinction is removed
  • animals that have been bred in captivity may have great problems in adjusting to unsupported life in the wild
  • when the population is small the gene pool is reduced and this can cause serious problems. Zoos try to overcome this by keeping detailed records of the genetic data of their breeding individuals. Sperm can be swapped with other zoos to maximise genetic variation in the offspring
  • reintroduction programmes can be very expensive and time - consuming and they may fall
56
Q

What is cross - species cloning and what do scientists feel about this?

A
  • the cloning of animals using closely related species as surrogate mothers
  • it could theoretically be used to save endangered species
  • some scientists believe it can be used to bring back species that have recently become extinct
  • other scientists feel that this research js a waste of valuable resources, at least until the conditions which drove the organism to extiction have been adressed
57
Q

What is In-situ conservation?

A

The conservation of ecosystems and natural habitats, and the maintenance and recovery of viable populations of species in their natural surroundings. It is the internationally accepted primary conservation strategy

58
Q

How is land in the UK protected from development and allowed to sustain a rich diversity of animals and plants?

A
  • In england there are over 200 national nature reserves covering around 90 000 hectares of countryside
  • there are sites of scientific interest (SSSIs) covering another 7% of land. These are usually quite small areas that contain a particularly rich diversity of life or a group of endangered plants of animals that thrive there
59
Q

What are the biggest unite of protected land in the UK? Give examples

A

The 15 members of the National Park family. They are managed with a view to the best possible compromise between economic demands and the conservation of the countryside and the wildlife

Examples inclue the New forest, the Peak district, Snowdoniaz and the Cairngorms

60
Q

What are international examples of national parks?

A
  • the great barrier reef marine park (australia): This protects more than 2900 coral reefs which are home to some of the greatest marine biodiversity in the world
  • Volcanoes National Park (Rwanda): this contains 5 volcanoes that are covered in rainforest and bamboo. It is home to much biodiversity including 178 species of birds and the mountain gorilla
  • Serengeti National Park (Tanzania): has great migrations of wildebeest and zebra that take place every year. Also has a population of leopards, lions, cheetahs, elephants, rhinos and buffaloes
  • Semuliki National Park (Uganda): covers part of the only lowland tropical rainforest in east africa. The area has a high level of biodiversity of both animals and plants
  • Kanha National Park (India): has saal and bamboo forests, grasslands, lakes and streams and is home to many endangered species including tigers
  • Everglades (USA): large subtropical wilderness which is home to 36 protected species
61
Q

What are examples of In-Situ conservation strategies?

A
  • habitat restoration and recovery
  • strategies for sustainable use and management of biological resources
  • managed recovery programmes for threatened or endangered species which might involve ex-situ breeding programmes
  • The genetic diversity of ecosystems is monitored within specific areas, as are any threats to biodiversity (these threats range from the invasion of an alien species to the over-exploitation of a resource
  • the preservation of traditional knowledge and traditional land management
  • formulation and implementation of appropriate legislation
62
Q

When land is set aside for conservation who are there often conflicts between and why?

A

The needs of the people living there and the needs of the animals and plants that are being conserved

It costs money to maintain and conserve the area which could be spent on education and health instead

People need the land to live and earn money but their activities can lead to pollution, erosion and many other activities

63
Q

How can habitats and ecosystems be conserved with less conflict?

A

By encouraging sustainable methods of land use

64
Q

What is sustainable forestry?

A

Instead of using illegal logging operatione in rainforest practice such as ‘slash and burn’ (cutting down all the trees and burning the ground afterwards) to harvest wood and clear the soil for farming, harvest the trees selectively and replant for the future

65
Q

Sustainable agriculture includes farming methods that minmise damage to the environment and avoid monoculture. Give examples of these methods

A
  • using organic fertilizers where possible
  • minimising the use of artificial fertilisers and chemical pesticides
  • using biological pest control
  • maintaing hedgerows
  • planting in rotation to avoid the soil becoming exhausted
  • large scale farming is vital to provide the food we need but often sustainable methode such as usint biological pest control can incresse yields and improve profits while being cheaper in the long term than using chemicals
66
Q

Apart from agriculture and logging what else needs to be sustainable?

A

Tourism. It needs to do minimal damage to the environment and provide jobs and money for the local people

Biology (15 decks)

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