Chapter 30 Flashcards
Biodiversity
Biological diversity: the amazing variety of living organisms that inhabit Earth. Conservation Biology to improve the well being of life on Earth and maintain its diversity.
What is conservation biology?
Is the branch of biology dedicated to understanding and preserving Earth’s biological diversity.
Conservation Biology: -Seek to conserve biodiversity at different levels:
Genetic Diversity is
The success and survival of a species depend on the variety and relative frequencies of different alleles in its gene pool. Genetic diversity may be crucial for a species to adapt to changing environments.
Conservation Biology: -Seek to conserve biodiversity at different levels:
Species Diversity is
The variety and relative abundance of the different species that comprise a community are important for the integrity and sometimes even the survival of the community.
Conservation Biology: -Seek to conserve biodiversity at different levels:
Ecosystem Diversity is
Ecosystem diversity includes the variety of both communities and the nonliving environment on which the communities depend. Diverse communities protect ecosystems by providing services such as providing shade, degrading wastes, and generating oxygen.
Conservation Biology: -Seek to conserve biodiversity-
What is required to maintain ecosystem function?
Genetic and species diversity, and the resulting diversity of community interactions.
Why is Biodiversity important?
Ecosystems, both directly and indirectly, support us.
Why is Biodiversity important? Practical uses for Biodiversity:
-What is an ecosystem services?
Are the processes through which natural ecosystems sustain and enhance human life. Ecosystem services include purifying air and water, replenishing oxygen, pollinating plants, reducing flooding, providing wildlife habitat, Generating soil and improving its fertility, detoxifying and decomposing wastes, controlling erosion, controlling pests, and providing recreational opportunities. (these services sustain human life)- Difficult to measure - we can’t pay for it -
Why is Biodiversity important?
- Economic Benefits
$33 trillion in benefits to humanity is contributed from ecosystem services every year. (twice the world’s national gross national product.)
- A report resulting from a 4 year effort by 1300 scientists concluded that 60% of all Earth’s ecosystem services were being degraded or used in an unsustainable manner.
Why is Biodiversity important? People use some Ecosystem Goods directly -
- Purchase of wild-caught fish that thrive from a healthy marine environment. - Hunting for food and sport is good for the economy of many rural areas. - Africa uses animals are used to harvest food, and they provide an important source of protein for a growing and poorly nourished population.
- In less developing nations: residents rely on wood from local forests for heat and cooking - Rain forests provide valuable hardwoods such as teak for consumers worldwide.
- Medicines used by 80% of the population of the world derived from plants , 3/4 of them prescribed in the US contain active ingredients that are now- extracted from natural resources (plants)
Why is Biodiversity important? Ecosystem Services Benefit people Indirectly -
Indirect services provided by healthy, diverse ecosystems make a greater contribution to human welfare than do goods harvested directly from nature. Example: ->
Why is Biodiversity important? Ecosystem Services Benefit people Indirectly -
SOIL FORMATION
It can take hundreds of years to build up a single inch of soil. THe rich soils of the Midwestern US accumulated under natural grasslands over thousands of years. Farming has converted these grasslands into one of the most productive agricultural regions in the world.
- Soil: with its diverse community of decomposer and detritivore organisms ( bacteria, fungi, worms, many insects, and others) - plays a major role in breaking down wastes and recycling nutrients.
- Rely on soil for waste decomposition
- Soil serves as a water purification plant, nitrogen-fixing bacteria in soil converts atmospheric nitrogen into a form that plants can use.
Why is Biodiversity important? Ecosystem Services Benefit people Indirectly -
EROSION AND FLOOD CONTROL
Plants block wind that blows away soil. Their roots stabilize the soil and increase its ability to hold water, reducing both soil erosion and flooding.
- Massive flooding is caused by conversion of the natural riverside forests, marshes and grasslands to farmland; thus greatly increased the runoff and accompanying soil erosion int the wake of heavy rains.
Why is Biodiversity important? Ecosystem Services Benefit people Indirectly -
CLIMATE REGULATION
Shade, reducing temperature, and serving as windbreaks, plant communities have a major impact on local climates.
- Forests influence water cycle by returning water to the atmosphere through respiration (evaporation from leaves). Amazon: 1/3rd to 1/2 of the rain comes from water transpired by leaves. Extensive clear-cutting of rain forests can cause climate to become hotter and drier, making it harder for the ecosystem to regenerate and damaging nearby intact forests as well.
- Forests affect global climate: They absorb carbon dioxide from the atmosphere, storing the carbon in their trunks, roots, and branches. 15% of the carbon dioxide produced by human activities results from deforestation; as trees are decomposed/burned they releases CO2, which contributes to global warming.
Why is Biodiversity important? Ecosystem Services Benefit people Indirectly -
GENETIC RESOURCES
Crop plants, like corn, wheat, and apples have ancestors that humans have selectively bred to produce modern domestic crops. Most food is supplied by 12 crops.
- Researches have identified genes in wild plants that might be transferred into crops to increase their productivity and to provide greater resistance to disease, drought, and salt accumulation in irrigated soil.
