Conservation biology

Question 1

What is conservation biology?

Answer 1

It seeks to integrate evolutionary theory with environmental reality to predict how an animal/population/species will react to future/current changes, usually human caused, in its environment/density/distribution. Most importantly, whether it will survive and what to do to prevent extinction.

Question 2

What are the two main goals in conservation biology?

Answer 2

Investigate human impacts on biodiversity and develop approaches to prevent biodiversity loss.

Question 3

What are the levels in which biodiversity loss can occur?

Answer 3

Genetic diversity, species diversity and ecosystem loss.

Question 4

What are the two patterns of extinction in the geological record?

Answer 4

Background extinction patterns and mass extinction.

Question 5

What is background extinction patterns ?

Answer 5

The long pattern of ecosystem change that leads to some species going extinct.

Question 6

What is mass extinction patterns?

Answer 6

Catastrophic spikes of extinction associated with sudden widespread ecosystem change.

Question 7

What are some of the current estimates for the rate of extinction?

Answer 7

1 species an hour, 27000 species a year.

Question 8

What are the 4 major threats to biodiversity?

Answer 8

Habitat loss or degradation, introduced species, overexploitation and climate change.

Question 9

What is the largest threat to biodiversity?

Answer 9

Habitat loss and degradation.

Question 10

What is fragmentation?

Answer 10

The process by which a large continuous area is reduced and divided into two or more isolated patches.

Question 11

What does fragmentation result in?

Answer 11

Reduction in population sizes and genetic diversity, increasing likelihood of local extinction and eventually global extinction.

Question 12

What are the three types of pollution?

Answer 12

Land pollution, air pollution and water pollution.

Question 13

What is land pollution?

Answer 13

The release of chemicals that leave vast areas unusable for most organisms.

Question 14

What is air pollution?

Answer 14

Large scale effects that lead to widespread complex ecosystem alteration.

Question 15

What is water pollution?

Answer 15

Eutrophication and dead zones.

Question 16

Why can introduced species be a problem?

Answer 16

They displace native species, they have fewer predators/pathogens, the disrupt the ecosystem function, the reduce the overall diversity, they transmit disease.

Question 17

What are some invasive characteristics?

Answer 17

The are weedy/adaptable, they are common and they have rapid dispersal.

Question 18

What are some common UK invasive species?

Answer 18

The japanese knotweed, the asian hornet, the american mink and many plant pathogens.

Question 19

What is overexploitation?

Answer 19

When humans take wild plants or animals at rates that exceed the systems ability to replace them.

Question 20

What organisms and systems are vulnerable to overexploitation?

Answer 20

Large organisms with slow reproductive rates and aquatic and terrestrial systems.

Question 21

What is bycatch?

Answer 21

The fish caught in fishing that are not needed and may die when returned to the sea.

Question 22

Why is species distribution limited?

Answer 22

There are energetic costs, limited resource availability and the fitness of organisms is higher under optimal conditions.

Question 23

What are some of the outcomes of changing climatic conditions?

Answer 23

Range shifts, plastic responses, adaptation and extinction.

Question 24

What are the levels in which strategies can be developed to preserve biodiversity?

Answer 24

Species level, community level and ecosystem level.

Question 25

What results in definite extinction of an organism?

Answer 25

If in the long term the mortality and/or emigration rates are higher than the birth and/or immigration rates.

Question 26

What are the three extinction mechanisms that affect migration, mortality and birth rates?

Answer 26

Demographic uncertainty, environmental uncertainty and loss of genetic diversity.

Question 27

What are meta populations?

Answer 27

They describe fragmented population occupying spatially separate habitat patches.

Question 28

What is source/sink modelling?

Answer 28

Source populations provide an excess of individuals which emigrate to and colonize sink subpopulations.

Question 29

What is landscape modelling?

Answer 29

When the matrix vary in permeability.

Question 30

What does metapopulation survival depend on?

Answer 30

Local population survival (affected by genetics, patch size and quality - population increases with patch size), unoccupied suitable habitat and suitable distances and sufficient migration for colonization of unoccupied habitat to occur - increase with small distances and corridors.

Question 31

What are genetic factors affecting small populations?

Answer 31

Genetic drift, founder effects, bottleneck effects and inbreeding depression.

Question 32

What is genetic drift?

Answer 32

The change in frequency of an allele in a population due to random sampling.

Question 33

When are the effects of genetic drift significant?

Answer 33

In small populations as the random sampling of poor alleles leads to a chance of extinction.

Question 34

What does genetic drift increase the likelihood of?

Answer 34

That alleles are lost, reducing genetic variation within a population.

Question 35

What are founder effects?

Answer 35

When a few individuals become isolated from the larger population to form a new one.

Question 36

What is the bottleneck effect?

Answer 36

When there is a sudden reduction in population size due to a change in the environment. The resulting gene pool may no longer be reflective of the original populations gene pool. If the population remains small, it may be further affected by genetic drift.

Question 37

What is inbreeding depression?

Answer 37

The relative reduction in fitness of inbred progeny in comparison to an equivalent outbred progeny.

Question 38

What does the reduction in mating individuals after drift or bottleneck events result in?

Answer 38

The increased likelihood of mating among relatives, increasing the expression of deleterious traits causing fitness reduction.