Biodiversity, Resilience and Ecosystem Function Flashcards
What supports ecosystem systems?
Functional groups-ecosystem process-ecosystem-ecosystem service.
How can you distinguish between a healthy reef and a unhealthy reef?
Unhealthy reef normally are covered by macro algae
How to help a reef recover?
Take care of species of fishes that get rid of the macro algae.
What has happened to GBR?
It has lost 50% of its coverage.
How can we understand the services a system provides us?
To understand the services provided by a system you need to understand its foundations.
What are some foundations of a reef?
A fish (a functional group) its the algae in the coral reef( ecosystem) which provides the service of looking colorful and atractive without the algae (service)
What happened until 1990?
Average people had the chance to identify what was on the reef.
What changed that made us see the reefs in a total different way?
It was the massive bleaching in the coral reefs which made us study them now to save them.
What is a phase shift in a coral reef?
When a healthy coral goes to a macro algae state or sea urchin barren state or to be in a rock state.
What is the cause of most impact in the coral reefs?
Humans are the ones that impact most the coral reef.
What where the findings how overfishing affects the reefs?
One consequence the algae grow really high. Even if climate Change affects the reef they are able to recuperate if they have the fishes that help them to be stable, if there is overfishing It is really difficult for a coral to recuperate
What were the results of whats happened when the macro algae was released for the fish to eat it?
It took five days the algae disappeared. The fish species that normally eat algae didn’t eat It. They are just four species that would eat the macro algae.
What is the problem arised by the profesor?
The fish that consume the algae and the macroealgae are not protected =more algae and more coral reef affected.
Will biodiversity help the reefs?
The problem is more about the humans affecting the reefs and not about how many kinds of fish you have .
What is the situation in GBR?
21% aprox macroealgae dominante; 15% aprox less than 50% macroalgal cover, 28% there is more macroealgae than live coral.