Chapter 23: Conservation Biology Flashcards

1
Q

How has the military base Fort Bragg helped with conservation?

A

it has helped preserve the longleaf pine savanna and helped save the endangered red-cockaded woodpecker because it prevented large areas from being converted to farmland, forestry, or housing

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2
Q

Contributing Factors of Longleaf Pine Savanna decline

A

-fire suppression, human population growth, and clearing for plantations of other trees, such as loblolly pine
-oringinally covered 30 million hectares, now it covers only 3% of that

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3
Q

What does the red-cockaded woodpecker done to adapt to the savanna?

A

-they require mature, living pines for nesting

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4
Q

What has reduced the red-cockaded woodpecker population size?

A

loss of habitat, which makes them vulnerable to genetic drift, inbreeding, and extinction

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5
Q

How many red-cockaded woodpeckers were killed by Hurricane Hugo in 1989 in one population?

A

70%

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6
Q

How many species are listed threathened with extinction on the Red List of Threatened Species?

A

23,250 species

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7
Q

Conservation Biology

A

-is an integrative discipline that applies the principles of ecology to the protection of biodeiversity
-the scientific study of biodiversity, how human activites impact it, and how to maintain it and prevent its loss

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8
Q

What is the key to conservation biology?

A

integrative approaches that involve farmers, landowners, the US military, and business community

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9
Q

How do people rely on biodiversity?

A

We use hundreds of domesticated and wild species for food, fuel, fiber, medicines, building materials, spices, and decorative items

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10
Q

Ecosystem Services

A

natural processes that sustain life, such as water purification, soil formation, pollination of crops, climate regulation, and flood control

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11
Q

Alfred Russel Wallace

A

warned in 1869 that humanity was at risk of obscuring the record of past evolution by bringing about extinctions

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12
Q

When and why did the Ecologists’ Union branch off from the Ecological Society of America?

A

-1948
-they wanted to focus on preservation of species

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13
Q

What must conservation decisions be based on?

A

sound scientific analysis

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14
Q

Is biodiversity increasing or decreasing globally?

A

decreasing

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15
Q

Alwyn Gentry

A

-devoted his life to identifying, classifying, and mapping plant diversity in Central and South America
-eyewitness to plant species extinctions and identified endemic species

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16
Q

What is the extinction rate of mammals and birds from the fossil record?

A

one species every 200 years

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17
Q

What is the average species life span and how does that relate to the current extinction rate?

A

-Life Span: 1-10 million years
-Average Life Span with current extinction rate: 10 thousand years (1 extinction per year)

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18
Q

How much higher were extinction rates in the 20th century than the background rate?

A

100 to 1000 times higher

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19
Q

What do estimates of current extinction rates rely on?

A

-the species-area relationship
-changes in the threat status of species
-rates of population decline or range contraction of common species

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20
Q

Can extremely small populations serve the same ecological function as larger populations?

A

No

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21
Q

What did the colonization of the Pacific islands cause for the bird populations?

A

extinction of up to 8,000 species of birds

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22
Q

Why are small populations the focus of much reserach?

A

they are more vulnerable to genetic, demographic, and encironemtneal stochasticity

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23
Q

Extinction Vortex

A

a cyclic chain of events causes a small population to decline even furthur and become ever more vulnerable to processes that lead to extinction

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24
Q

What does a spatial approach track?

A

changes in a species range

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25
Q

What did a study of 173 declining mammal species worldwide show?

A

that these species had lost 68% of their range area

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26
Q

What does the extinction of a species do to the community?

A

-consequence for that species’ predators, prey, and mutualistic partners
-may bring about secondary extinctions and affects ecosystem function

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27
Q

The _____ the interactions of a species in the food web, the _____ the effect of its removal

A

stronger, greater

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28
Q

What type of effects do range expansions have and how do they occur?

A

-positive and negative effects that occur because movement and introduction of species has increased over the last century

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29
Q

What effects do non-natives have on biodiversity?

A

-negative effects
-reduce the range of native species who may already be declining
-hurst specialist for a certain habitat the most

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30
Q

What is the spread of introduced species and native generalists and the decline of native specialists leading to?

A

taxonomic homogenization

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31
Q

What is a positive effect non-natives can have?

A

provide habitat or food for rare species (rare cases)

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32
Q

What do species introductions increase?

A

regional biodiversity because the number of non-natives introduced to a region typically exceeds the number of native species that become extinct

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33
Q

What habitats are particuarly vulnerable to invasions and extinctions?

A

islands

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34
Q

What did the survey of American Samoa find (Cowie 2001)?

A

-found 19 of 42 native species of land snails and 12 non-native species
-high abundance of non-natives with natives declining
-Non-native predators contributed to the decline of natives
-homogenization of land snails is widespread on Pacific Islands

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35
Q

Rahel (2000)

A

-examined the change in number of species shared between all possible pairs of the lower 48 states
-On average, pairs of states shared 15 or more species than they did at the time of European Colonization

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36
Q

What are primary threats to biodiversity?

A

habitat loss, invasive species, overexplotation, pollution, disease, and climate change

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37
Q

What contributed to the extinction of the Pyrenean ibex?

A

overexplotation and competition with domesticated livestock

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38
Q

How many mammal species are currently threatened with extinction?

A

1,197 species

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39
Q

What are the primary threats to extinction of mammals?

A

loss of habitat, unregulated hunting, accidental mortality, pollution, and disease

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40
Q

How much of Earth’s land surface and marine ecosystems have been modified by humans?

A

-60% of land and all marine ecosystems

41
Q

How much of Earth’s primary production is done by Humans?

A

25%

42
Q

What is the most important factor contributing to global declines in biodiversity?

A

impact of human activities on natural habitat

43
Q

Habitat loss

A

conversion of an ecosystem to another use

44
Q

Habitat fragmentation

A

breaking up continuous habitat into patches amid a human-dominated landscape

45
Q

Habitat degradation

A

changes that reduce quality of the habitat for many, but not all, species

46
Q

How much of the Atlantic Forest of Brazil has coincided with Brazil’s human population?

A

70%

47
Q

How much of the Atlantic Forest of Brazil had been cleared?

A

92%

48
Q

What is the theory as to why no bird extinctions have occured in the Atlantic Forest of Brazil?

A

time lag

49
Q

Causes of habitat degradation

A

invasive species, overexplotation, and pollution

50
Q

Invasive species

A

non-native, introduced species that sustain growing populations and have large effects on communitites

51
Q

How much of the world’s Unionoida population is in North America?

A

1/3

52
Q

What are the effects of introducing the Nile Perch into Lake Victoria?

A

reduced diversity and abundance of the native cichlid fishes
-about 600 cichlid species have been recorded, most are endemic
-Nile Perch predation has resulted in the extinction of 200 species of cichlid

53
Q

What increases vulnerability to invasive species?

A

habitat loss and degradation

54
Q

What percentage of Hawaiian tropical dry forests have been reduced by?

A

-90%

55
Q

Hickman et al. (2010)

A

-measured the impact of Nitrogen cycling in kudzu plants
-nitrogen mineralizatioin reates increrased and more nitric oxide was released from the soils

56
Q

What is the best stratefy for combating invasive species?

A

prevent their arrival

57
Q

As human population increases and natural habitat shrinks, the ____ of many species from the wild has become unsustainable

A

harvesting

58
Q

What has removed large vertebrate faunas in tropical forests?

A

unregulated hunting

59
Q

What has led to declines in abundance and size of top predators in the oceans?

A

overfishing

60
Q

Bycatch

A

Forr every ton of fish caught by commercial trawlers, 1 to 4 tons of other marine life is brough onboard

61
Q

What is the effect of repeated trawling of the sea bottom?

A

degradation of benthic habitat and impacts species such as corals and sponges

62
Q

What is the speed of habitat recovery following trawling?

A

slow

63
Q

What is the relationship between market value and harvesting?

A

increases in market values increases harvesting, leading to overharvesting

64
Q

Approach to preventing overexplotation

A

determine sustainable levels of harvest and establish regualtory mechanisms to achieve those levels

65
Q

What are other factors that contribute to declinging populations?

A

air and water pollution, climate change, diseases

66
Q

Pollutants

A

cause physiological stress and contribute to habitat degradation and biodiversity loss

67
Q

Endocrine-disrupting contaminants

A

interfere with reproduction, neurological development, and immune function in mammals

68
Q

What are ECDs?

A

some are ersistant organic pollutants that can enter marine food webs and undergo bioaccumulation and biomagnification

69
Q

Ross 2006

A

-showed that levels of PCBs and PBDEs were very high in marine mammals in British columbia

70
Q

What are some chemicals that are found in marine organisims?

A

PBDEs (flame retardants)
EDCs

71
Q

What has been the effect of global warming?

A

-hundreds of species have shifted their ranges in response to global warming
-only a few cases of direct endangerment, expected to increase

72
Q

Is habitat loss greater in the tropics or polar zones?

A

tropics

73
Q

Is climate change greater in the tropics or the polar zones?

A

polar zones

74
Q

Should conservation biology focus on species or habitat?

A

Both are important. Must understand species biology in order to protect its habitat

75
Q

What does the US Endangered Species Act mandate?

A

identification and protection of critical habitats for each species listed

76
Q

Genetic Analyses

A

-small populations are vulnerable to geneitc drift and inbreeding, which result in loss of variability and fixation of deletrious alleles
-these effects increase the risk of extinction and can ruin efforts to conserve a species

77
Q

Genetic Rescue

A

-used to save the florida panther population in the early 1990s after it decreased to 25
-they released 8 texas pumas into southern florida
-panther numbers tripled, levels of genetic variation doubled, and frequency of genetic abnormalities decreased

78
Q

How are molecular genetics used to identify sources of ilegal wildlife products?

A

Example: identification of illegally harvested whale species in meat that was labeled as either dolphin or Southern Hemisphere mink whale, which are illegal to hunt

79
Q

Forensic conservation biology

A

demand for ivory led to widespread slaughter and decline of African elephants
-was banned but then illegal trade started
-used DNA (PCR) to track where tusks came from

80
Q

Population Viability Analysis (PVA)

A

allows ecologists to assess extinction risks and evaluate management options
-probabilites of population persistence are calculated under varous scenarios

81
Q

What is PVA used for?

A

-assess risk of extinction of a population
-identify particularly vulnerable age or stage classes
-determine how many individuals are needed to establish a new population
-determine a safe number of animals to harvest

82
Q

What is the problem with models?

A

unknown critical factors can be left out so they have be constantly be refined and tested

83
Q

Ex situ Conservation

A

-removal of extremely small populations from the wild and propagate it in sheltered conditions

84
Q

Problems with Ex Situ programs

A

very expensive and have had limited success

85
Q

What is the main legislation to protect threatened species?

A

Endangered Species Act (ESA)

86
Q

Fish and Wildlife Service and National Marine FIsheries Service

A

are the agencies that list species, identify critical habitat, draft recovery plans, and carry out actions to increase abundance of the species

87
Q

How many native species are protected by the ESA?

A

1,300

88
Q

Convention on Internation Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora

A

regulates trade in endangered species as a result of an international treaty

89
Q

Convention of Biological Diveristy

A

acknowedges that declining biodiversity is a problem shared by all people
-framework for nations to develop conservation plans

90
Q

What can help maximize protected biodiversity with limited resources?

A

prioritizing species

91
Q

What does species rarity depend on?

A

geographic range, habitat specificity, and population size

92
Q

How many different types of species rarity is there?

A

7

93
Q

What do IUCN assements take into account?

A

population size, geographic area occupied by the species, rate of decline, and risk of extinction

94
Q

Surrogate Species

A

prootecting habitat for one species, such as the red-cockaded woodpecker can result in protection of other species

95
Q

Flagship species

A

a charismatic organisim that people will want to give protection to , such as the mountain gorilla

96
Q

Umbrella Species

A

protection of its habitat will serve as an umbrella to protect many other species with similar habitat requirements

97
Q

Walters et al.

A

tested the hypothesis that lack of suitable habitat was limiting woodpecker populations by bulding artificial nest cavities and placing them in clusters

98
Q

Cooperative Breeders

A

males born in previous years help their parents raise young