Conservation ecology Flashcards
Alexander von Humboldt 1
- wrote books
- context to do with everything
- science, exploration, political systems, conservation
George Perkins Marsh 2
lead to the government setting aside forests
- man and nature book
Henry David Thoreau 2
- conservationist and poet
- no one thought saving trees was going to be an issue but he wrote about the death of pines!!
alfred wallace 3
naturalist/collector from britain
- paper with charles darwin natural selection
- everywhere he went was still intact but he thought about the destruction of species
yosemite valley (4) - who was it protected by
- Abraham Lincoln (1864)
- 1872 established as a park
when (approx) was concept of biosphere created and who by (5)
- Austrian Suess
- 1875
- think global act global
3 national parks established from 1885-19 (6)
Banff, Jasper, and Mound Mckinley
when was international union for the conservation of nature (IUCN) created (approx) and how many countries (7)
- 1948
- 181 countries
- 6 protected area management categories
what is the suess effect?
ratio of heavy carbon isotopes (C14 or C13) in the atmosphere by the added mixture of fossil fuel derived CO2 (contains no C13 or C14)
Aldo leopold (7)
- 1948
- earth wounds can’t be seen by lay person
Silent Spring rachel carson (8)
- 1962
- DDT killing insects
- birds disappearing because insects disappearing
International biological program (9)
- 1964-1974
- ecological reserves emerged from this
when was the first photo of earth from the moon taken (10)
- 1968
- Apollo
United Nations population fund (11)
- 1969
- policy to allow funding of the construction of medical clinics and family planning clinics to give women a choice
- UN sponsored this
- this healed the population growth BUT the president did not like the idea of BC
first earth day (12)
1970
first land satellite (13)
- 1972
- global coverage of land use
- more capacity and resolution than what they were using b4
when and what is CITES (14)
- 1975 (drafted in 1963)
- convention of international trade in endangered species
- finding out what species are threatened/endangered
- fine/shut down airlines transporting them
how many countries involved in CITES by 2016
183
CITES appendix I
- species threatened with extinction: permits required!
- big cats
- 2 monkeys
- red panda
- asiatic elephant
CITES appendix II
- species not threatened but vulnerable: no permit required
- GW shark
- african grey parrot
- green iguna
- bigleaf mahogany
CITES appendix III
species that are protected in at least one party that has asked CITES to help controlling trade
how many plant and animal species in CITES
- 5000 animal species
- 28,000 plant
Ecological footprint. Who made it (15)
- 1992
- William Rees (UBC)
- guidlines and questions. Makes it personal. global picture relevant to each of us
- low ecological footprint is associated with low human developmental index
three categories for ecological footprint
- mobility
- shelter
- goods/services
how many hectares of land exists/person and what is the average that people have in canada
worldwide there exists 2.1 hectares per person
- average ecological footprint in canada is 8.8
projected earth population in 2100 (if growth rate same as 2011, 2 child fams, 1 child fams)
2011 growth rate: 18.5 billion
2 child fam: 8.7 billion
1 child fam: 1.4 billion
Kyoto protocol (16)
- 1997
- objective: reduce rate of global warming by limiting release of greenhouse gases
- first implementation period 2008-2012 - each country had to agree on a certain reduction in greenhouse gases
- 2nd commitment period: DOHA ammendment
- 2nd commitment period: DOHA ammendment (2012-2020)
Why did canada withdrawl from the first implementation of Kyoto protocol
- because we are an export market (2012)
what agreement did canada sign in 2009
Copenhagen agreement
what is the copenhagen agreement
a NON-BINDING agreement for canada to reduce greenhouse gases by 17% 2005 levels by 2020
- canada did not reduce their greenhouse gases
- said it would reduce them by 30% in 2030
what are the 6 protected area categories IUCN?
- strict nature reserve/wilderness area
- national and provincial parks: mainly for ecosystem protection and recreation
- national monument: for protection of specific natural features (world heritage sites)
- habitat/species management area (introduced species removal) – bringing this space back to original space
- protected landscape/seascape: orca pass international stewardship area??
- sustainable use of natural ecosystem - could not build city here… crown land (resources extracted)
how many km2 are protected? and what percentage of earth surface
25 million km2 (12.5%)!!!!!
what category has the most protected area
2 then 6
- national/provincial parks
- managed resource protected area
number of countries involved with IUCN now
- what is the average protected land in each country?
169
- average of 8.5% of protected land in each country!
what country has the greatest % of protected area
Seychelles (94% protected)
what kind of countries have low % of protected areas?
rich countries
- Canada (9%)
- USA (12%)
South Moresby campaign (1975-1985)
- campaign to terminate logging and mining
- 1980: support by Haida Gwaii (eventual support by prov and fed govnment - 2010)
how is the government website deceiving?
- 167 new protected areas totaling over 2.7 million hectares created
- BUT over 60% of this area is subalpine or alpine
Of the 100 terrestrial protected ecosection in BC - 34 (most) have 0-1% of area protected
- 27 (mainly mountaintops) have 12% protected
how much mid elevation growth and old growth forests are protected in canada
ONLY 11% of the mid elevation growth protected
- of this growth only 3% of old growth protected
what percentage of BC is forested and what percentage of this is dedicated to commercial forest use?
- 56% forested
- 24% dedicated to commercial forest use
- 80% of forests have not been harvested but most will be
Major IUCN concerns (6)
- paper parks
- design shortcomings
- internal threats to protected areas
- external threats
- trans international boundary effects
- financing protected areas
paper parks
- most parks no implementation
- only 30% have monitoring/management/enforcement programs
design shortcomings
- areas where no industries/political practices are
a) small areas not enough for carnivores to live (n = 2500 and 100,000 km2) for carnivore persistence
b) position: largest areas lowest diversity (60% mountaintop)
internal threats
infringement, poaching, roads, groundwater reduction, disease, invasive species, highways
internal threats to tropical forests (inside the influence of management control)
- poachers go in anyway. No consequence
- of 18% protected, majority considered empty forests
what is happening to the sumatran rhino
- brink of extinction due to poachers and loggers
- extinct in 40 years
- poachers say they are hunting deer but going after endangered animals
how many poaching violations are happening in yellowstone/y
5000
~4000 large mammals killed on highways
- 3800 ungulates
- 200 large carnivores (mostly blackbears and wolves)
external threats to protected areas (outside influence of management control)
headwater effects, dams, acid rain, climate change, biocides, pathogens, invasive species, CFC’s
external threat bison
- bison coming in carrying brucellosis
- bacteria that spreads
- kills cattle
trans international boundary effects
- migration corridors (animals traveling from summer to winter habitats)
- don’t want this? maybe they bring back sketch shit
financing protected areas
need more money
- only spend $7 billion/y but need $40 billion
how much of the planet should be protected?
- 1/5 of earths surface should be protected
- 20%
when did there become areas protected from commercial fishing (marine protected areas (MPA))
1970-1980
- no-take zones!!
benefits of marine protected areas
- increased fish abundance
- increase presence of larger fish, exponential increase in reproductive output
- increase species diversity
- recovery of competitors, biodiversity and ecosystem processes
what % of the ocean is protected
6.4%
of marine protected areas
~ 15,000
- about 23,000,000 km2
re-definition of marine protected areas in 1990’s
intertidal or subtital terrain and associated flora, fauna, historical and cultural features which has been reserved by law or other effective means to protect part or all of enclosed environment
- commercial fishing now allowed in most MPA’s :(
- most MPA’s are about fishing management not conservation
what are no-take zones now called
marine reserves
- now a subcategory of MPA
what percentage of the ocean is marine reserves (no-take MPA’s)
less than 1%
- less than 25% of coastal countries have marine reserves
most active canadian province in the establishment of MPA’s
BC
What is MVP and MVA
MVP: minimal viable population to maintain 90% of genetic variability over 200 years
MVA: minimum viable area……
graph with heterozygosity and population size
- linear
- as population size increases, heterozygosity increases
what populations have little genetic variability
small populations…. duh
fragmentation study: where did most high-suitability habitat occur
outside of protected areas
MVP for cross-species
n = 4169
- this is context specific (doesn’t support for ecological and life history predictors)
what do they want to redefine endangered species as (4)
- safe
- vulnerable
- endangered
- critically endangered
- based of probability of extinction within a certain time period `
what are the probability’s and years of extinction after for the different categories
safe: 10% of extinction in 100 years
vulnerable: 20% of extinction in 20 years
endangered: 50% of extinction in 10 years
critically endangered: over 50% of extinction in 10 years
what is the probability of extinction of birds, mammals, and amphibians
12% of birds
20% of mammals
32% of amphibians
what would be the best was to enhance genetic diversity and prevent inbreeding (black bear study)
restoring migratory corridors
more practical approach: translocate 10 bears onto peninsula every 5 years
under isolation what could happen to the black bears alleles over 100 years
bears could lose 70-80% of rare alleles within 100 years
plantation forest matrix effects on fragmentation
- higher matrix quality can strongly influence biodiversity
- maintaining a small proportion of matrix as high-quality land could be good enough
butterfly study fragmentation
- sedentary behaviour
- despite this behaviour there was moderate levels of dispersal between patches (only if located w/i a distance of 3km)
- effective population sizes were low??
Grey-crowned babbler habitat loss/fragmentation on gene flow study
- investigated gene flow before and after fragmentation
- identified first gen migrants and dispersal events
- looked at genetic bottlenecks
- estimated effective population sizes
- and population structure
results
- conectedness is severely compromised
- low recent immigration
- fragmentation lead to clear divisions of sub populations
- patterns of gene flow have changed over time
- the effective population size are too low for long-term viability
solutions
- translocations to promote gene flow
what # of translocations needed for persistence of genetic variability and increased survival
- n=5 (really good)
- 1 or 2 good
critical habitat approach (3)
- forest age structure
- nesting trees (snags)
- nutrient pulses (salmon)
critical habitat
the habitat required for species’ recovery and persistence
age structure of trees
diversity of birds, fungi etc scales with the age structure of trees
- e.g. important that owls live in old growth
why are snags important
- wildlife trees, nesting trees
- Critical habitat!! the diversity of species is correlated with the # of dead snags
albalone critical habitat study
- uncertainty what concludes the critical habitat
- stalling recovery process
what are the approaches to conservation biology
1) fragmentation
2) critical habitat
3) identifying biodiversity hotspots
4) identifying endemic species
5) park design
6) restoration ecology
what are biodiversity hotspots
- areas with high species diversity
- areas with high density of individuals within a species
2 biodiversity hotspot examples
- monarch butterflies (logged)
- green turtles swimming all the way to atlantic to lay eggs from africa
what species does triangle island have thats high biodiversity
- largest seabird colony in BC
- largest auklet colony in the world
hotspots
18 hotspots together make up 20% of the plant species in 0.5% of the earths surface!
what was the median forest protection in biodiversity hotspots?
8.4%!!
how many species deemed at risk of extinction?
22,500 approx
what indicates high marine biodiversity hotspots
- concentrated food resources
what is an endemic species
- species unique to an area
- occur in all countries and all ecosystems
- most common on large islands furthest away from continents
AS EXTINCTION DECREASES AND ISOLATION INCREASES (IMMIGRATION DECREASES) AND AREA INCREASES SPECIATION INCREASES!!
What countries are important in identifying these evolutionary species?
south and central america??
- origin of species or something
single large or several small (SLOSS) park design
- study said several small because they could contain habitats of only high quality
what shape is best for this?
circle
- less edge per SA
- depends on species though, if they lived in mountain range or coastline may not want to live in circular area
what shape would you want if there was a lot of pathogens?
linear
- less passing on the disease
benefit of a triangular plot?
- same thing with pathogens, sometimes good to have some isolation
when is it good to have large reserves and when is it good to have smaller reserves (park design)
large reserves- landscape subjected to forestry for the first time
small reserves - in a highly fragmented forested landscape
different categories of park design (4)
- single large or several small (SLOSS)
- shape
- position
- corridors
how to resolve the SLOSS debate
increase overlapping to stop creating habitat “islands”
- fewer large reserves are better
pros and cons of dams. dam removal trends
pros: important as green source of power
con: expense of a lot of aquatic ecosystem
- a lot of dams are now getting removed
reintroduction of wolves
- ate elk along the river
- elk moved out to the forest, no longer grazed at these rivers
- shrubs and insects along the rivers and lakes started to come back
- grizzly bear pop went up because there was more berries
wolf, coyote, vole study
more voles within 3 km of wolf den
- wolves scare away coyotes that eat the voles
- restoration of wolves could be a tool for regulating predation at lower trophic levels
where is invasive alien species especially a problem and what are the major invadors
islands
- cats, dogs, pigs, rats
eradication of what caused endangered birds to come back in south georgia
rats!!
- decimated wildlife population in south georgia
- glaciers confine rats to distinct areas making eradication possible
red and arctic foxes problem
- red and arctic foxes native to alaska
- introduced to more than 400 islands by fur murchants
- aleutian breeding reduced, almost extinct…
- eradicated foxes off islands and goose came back
restoration ecology subcategories
- identical critical issues in restoration?
- reconstruction of degraded habitats to pre-disturbance state
- reintroduction of recently extinct populations
- removal of exotic species
- augumentation of ecosystem processes (bird cell phone tower)
- the longterm persistence of human society and environmental processes thru ecological management
what happened when deer were introduced to haida gwaii?
- deer spread rapidly (started with 30, in 2015 > 100,000)
- ate all shrubs
- people put fences to protect their yard, more diverse in these areas
2 major threats to freshwater ecosystems
- flow diversion
- exotic fish
- exotic fish have more of a negative impact
- flow restoration had no effect where exotic fish still remained
- flow restoration is also more expensive
who introduced broom?
captain walter grant
- planted on VI
- competitive… native to mediterranean areas of europe
- no natural predators
what are the concerns about global warming and invasive species
- global warming is increasing the rate of spread of invasive species
invasive species definition
species that are not native to the province or outside their natural distribution, and can negatively impact BC’s environment, people and/or economy
what is a new form of genetic pest management
inserting genetically engineered DNA sequences (vectors) into invasive species to reduce the damage caused by them (insert vector into mosquito)
what is a gene drive
genetic engineering that can propogate a particular set of genes thru a population
- adding, deleting, disrupting, or modifying genes
- used to exterminate insects carrying pathogens
- can be misused, or unintended consequences
- gene drive might spread across an entire species instead of a local population
- could drive species to extinction
gene drive in mice
- used CRISPR to put a gene in mice the modifies coat colours
- the mice baby had inherited CRISPR itself so this modified the unmodified chromosome… homozygous??
cell phone towers and bird fatalities
- changed the light on these towers so it wasn’t flashing
- removed a major portion of problem
yellowstone to yukon
- takes away IBT effects
- connected yellowstone and yukon???
- mountain biodiversity conservation
why are zoos important
- maintain breeding stock of some fish
- preserve rare mammals
- if you take a skin graft from cheetah and compare it with other cheetas: genetically identical
- marmots would have been extinct if it wasn’t for toronto zoo (6 marmots were reproduced)
species in africa, america, and asia
- they were all comparable to large mammal species: weighing over 100 pounds (50,000 to 10,000 years ago)
- NOW: america can’t compare has lacks these big mammals. about 13,000 years ago modern hunters slaughtered big animals and drove many species to extinction. some keystone species causing a second wave of extinction
pleostocene rewilding
deliberately promote large, long lived species over pest and weed assemblages
- bring large animals from african and asia to america
- might not work due to these large species evolutionary history (and expensive)
- replacing local rather than global extinctions would produce benefits to refaunation
INTERNATIONAL MOVEMENT: how much of the earth do they want to allocate for conservation
1/2
- say enough habitat exists
what has the largest possible conservation netwrok globally
zoo and aquarium community
what organization defines responsibilities of these zoos and aquariums?
WAZA
- founding member of IUCN
possible fixes for global warming (7)
- carbon credits
- hydroelectricity
- nuclear power
- photovolaics
- wind
- geothermal
- new technofixes
what are carbon credits
- credit of currency for reducing output of greenhouse gases
- give monetary value to the cost of polluting air
1 credit = 1 ton oc CO2
hydroelectricity pros
- high ecological impact
- low cost
- few carbon emissions
- damns
nuclear power pros and cons
pros: unlimited potential, no carbon emissions
cons: cost, high risk (weapon, ecological and health)
fission and fusion
- fusion: 2 nuclei come together to produce a lot of energy
- fusion: break apart an unstable nucleus
photovoltaics
- conservation of light into electricity (using semiconducting materials)
- use is growing each year
pros and cons of photovolatics
pros: no carbon emissions, high potential, low risk
feed-in tariffs/net metering
multiyear contract at guaranteed rate
- 3x retail price???????
wind pros
- high potential, low risk
- worldwide electricity gen
what country (and what % of it is powered) uses wind the most
spain
50% of country powered by wind
- most of the world powered by china and US
geothermal pros
- high potential globally
- internal heat generated and stored in the earth
- drilling large hole and extracting water
new-technofixes example
solar-hydrogen economy
solar hydrogen economy pros
- high potential, low risk
what is the solar-hydrogen economy?
- solar panels that dissociate water to hydrogen and oxygen
- used to generate electricity during nightime!!
- during day photovolitics power home
- excess energy is used to split water into H and O for storage
- at night these are recombined in a fuel cell to produce electricity while un cant
