Class Test 2

Question 1

What are the three aims of captive breeding?

Answer 1

1. Building numbers for re-establishment
2. Public education and awareness
3. Research

Question 2

What are five problems of captive breeding?

Answer 2

1. Collecting stocks could endanger wild population
2. Loss of learned behaviour
3. Disease outbreaks
4. Costs of facilities and management
5. Genetic changes (adaption to captivity)

Question 3

What are four ways to reduce the genetic problems of captive breeding?

Answer 3

1. Maximise genetic variation
2. Minimise inbreeding (stud books)
3. Minimise genetic diseases
4. Minimise adaption to captivity (maximise generation time)

Question 4

What are three ways of reproductive technology?

Answer 4

1. artificial insemination
2. in vitro fetilisation
3. embryo transfer

Question 5

How can you preserve plants?

Answer 5

Tissue (cryopreservation)
Seed (extend dormancy)
Pollen (cryopreservation of female flowering parts)

Question 6

When are three times when captive breeding is necessary?

Answer 6

1. Population is the sole representative of the species
2. Numbers are declining fast
3. In-situ conservation is unlikely to help fast enough

Question 7

What is ‘reintroduction’?

Answer 7

An attempt to establish a species in an area which was once part of it’s historical range but from which it has been extirpated or become extinct. From captive bred or wild populations (stock translocation)

Question 8

What are three examples for reintroduction?

Answer 8

1. California Condor
2. Large Blue Butterfly
3. Arabian Oryx

Question 9

What features put a species most at risk?

Answer 9

Small population size, small range, specific habitat

Question 10

What features of a population do you need data on to assign it a IUCN red list catagory?

Answer 10

• Observable decline
• Geographical range and number of populations
• Total number of individuals
• Expected decline
• Probability of extinction

Question 11

What is the Minimum Viable Population?

Answer 11

The smallest population having a high chance of remaining extant for a given period of time. These parameters are user defined.

Question 12

What is the Population Viability Analysis?

Answer 12

It predicts future trends by running computer simulations many times and calculating the extinction probability.

Question 13

What is a landscape?

Answer 13

Two or more different ecosystems in close proximity

Question 14

What are the advantages of using corridors/stepping stones for protected areas? (4)

Answer 14

• Reduce isolation and increase colonisation
• Facilitate migration
• Enhance gene flow
• Provide alternative habitats

Question 15

What are the negative of corridors/stepping stones for protected areas? (3)

Answer 15

• May destroy unique population with new gene flow
• May facilitate movement of undesirable species
• May act as a sink

Question 16

What are the three layers of the Biosphere Reserve Concept?

Answer 16

1. Core
2. Buffer zone
3. Sensitive area

Question 17

What are the three main incentives for ecological restoration?

Answer 17

1. Material - benefits for ourselves
2. Existential - strengthen our relationship with nature
3. Heuristic - opportunity to study ecological processes

Question 18

What is restoration?

Answer 18

Assisting the recovery of an ecosystem

Question 19

What is rehabilitation?

Answer 19

Turning degraded land into useful land

Question 20

What is habitat creation?

Answer 20

Turning degraded land into wildlife sites, with no reference to the original use of the land

Question 21

What is the effective population size?

Answer 21

The number of individuals in a population contributing to the next generation

Question 22

Why is inbreeding bad?

Answer 22

It results in low heterozygosity. Heterozygosity improves fitness, for example with heterosis and the masking of deleterious alleles.