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ISCI 360 > Module 5: Biodiversity and Ecosystem (De)stabilization > Flashcards

Module 5: Biodiversity and Ecosystem (De)stabilization Flashcards

1
Q

why is it important to be concerned about the current rate of biodiversity loss (3)

A
  • biodiversity is needed to maintain human wellbeing
  • responsibility to protect who we share Earth with
  • biodiversity is beautiful
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2
Q

biodiversity

A
  • the variety of forms of life, from genes to species, through to the broad scale of ecosystems
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3
Q

genetic diversity (2)

A
  • all different genes contained in all living species
  • includes genes inside plants, animals, fungi, and microorganisms
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4
Q

species diversity

A
  • all of the different species as well as the differences within and between species
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5
Q

why is species diversity a harder to analyze then other diversity types (2)

A
  • species are defined by us
  • challenging to determine loss/extinction
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6
Q

ecosystem diversity

A
  • all different habitats, biological communities, ecological processes, and variation within individual ecosystems
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7
Q

is biodiversity uniform across the globe (2)

A
  • not uniform due to the availability of limiting factors across the globe
  • bottom of the food chain must be established before the top of the food chain can develop
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8
Q

what are some limiting factors for biodiversity (2)

A
  • water
  • sunlight
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9
Q

where is the most biodiversity on earth (2)

A
  • near the equator where sunlight and water is abundant
  • more diversity near shore (shallow seas) as there is more access to sunlight
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10
Q

ecosystem (2)

A
  • a biological community of interacting organisms and their physical environment
  • both biotic and abiotic components
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11
Q

what is the stock of an ecoSYSTEM

A
  • it can be biodiversity
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12
Q

what makes an ecosystem a good candidate to be a system (3)

A
  • it is full of interconnections
  • lots of influencing factors that create emergent properties that cannot be studied as individual component
  • contains lots of feedback loops
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13
Q

what kind of feedback loop is the nitrogen cycle

A
  • balancing/stabilizing feedback loop
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14
Q

what is driving biodiversity loss (2)

A
  • land use conversion
  • temperature changes
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15
Q

global biodiversity loss

A
  • over 58% of world’s land surface has experienced biodiversity loss significant enough to threaten ecosystem function
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16
Q

how has biodiversity loss affected the ecoSYSTEM

A
  • emergent properties/function is becoming damaged
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17
Q

what is the relationship between biodiversity and ecosystem function (2)

A
  • positively related; more biodiversity will allow for higher ecosystem functioning
  • more species allow for greater stability of the ecosystem
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18
Q

ecosystem function (2)

A
  • the collective life activities of plants, animals, and microbes and the effects of these activities
  • feeding, growing, moving, excreting waste, etc all have physical and chemical effects on the environment
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19
Q

old paradigm of biodiversity and ecosystem functioning (2)

A
  • environmental variation drives biodiversity and ecosystem functioning
  • environment affects biodiversity and ecosystem function, and ecosystem functioning affects biodiversity, but biodiversity does not affect the other sphered
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20
Q

what was studied to change the old paradigm of biodiversity and ecosystem functioning

A
  • isolating effects of biodiversity on ecosystem functioning
21
Q

what is the new paradigm of biodiversity and ecosystem functioning

A
  • biodiversity and environmental variation jointly drive ecosystem functioning
22
Q

how does having more species make ecosystems more stable (2)

A
  • different species will vary in responses to environmental fluctuations
  • allows for persistence of functionalities despite stressors on system
23
Q

species richness

A
  • number of species present
24
Q

species composition

A
  • identity of species present
25
Q

insurance hypothesis (2)

A
  • when different species are present, they are able to fulfil a variety of ecological niches within an ecosystem
  • by contrast, with monocultures, all of the individual plants are competing for the resources held within one specific ecological niche
26
Q

how does the subsystem (species) serve the larger system (ecosystem) (3)

A
  • species stability is lower when more species are present within the same niche
  • ecosystem stability is higher when more species are present within the same niche
  • species lose out to support ecosystem, but this inevitably supports the species again as the ecosystem is stable
27
Q

what happens if one species stability increases significantly overtime (eg. invasive species) (2)

A
  • sub-optimization; subsystem benefits at the cost of system
  • ecosystem stability will go down and may collapse
28
Q

resilience

A
  • ability of an ecological system to return to its initial state after being changed in some way
29
Q

resilience vs stability (2)

A
  • stability is staying at ONE stable state
  • resilience can be described as bouncing from each stable state
30
Q

the adaptive cycle (3)

A
  • dynamic systems do not tend towards some equilibrium state
  • they pass through characteristics phases of growth, conservation, collapse, and renewal
  • this cycle does not tend towards stability, but rather resilience
31
Q

the adaptive cycle: coral reef (2)

A
  • coral has went extinct and come back/evolved multiple times
  • for humans, this evolution is not short enough to be relevant, so we need to find a solution to stop reef from hitting tipping point
32
Q

tipping points

A
  • critical threshold where a small change has a large, long-term consequence for a system
33
Q

why are tipping points useful

A
  • predicting point in time where the system moves from one state to the next
34
Q

resilient ecosystem vs vulnerable system: tipping points (2)

A
  • troughs are much deeper in resilient systems
  • vulnerable systems have shallow troughs following by a deep regenerative trough that is too long to be significant to humans (eg. desert state)
35
Q

what systems are approaching tipping points that are concerning to humans (2)

A
  • coral reefs becoming bleached
  • fish stocks collapsing
36
Q

extinction (trophic) cascade

A
  • well-ordered ecosystems can become disordered in a cascade-like way when biodiversity is impacted
37
Q

extinction trophic cascade: whales (7)

A
  • overharvesting of plankton-eating whales allows plankton-eating and less nutritious fish to thrive
  • nutritious fish are outcompeted by plankton-eating fish
  • sea lions and harbor seals decrease as less nutritious fish cannot sustain them
  • killer whales don’t have enough pray and being to prey on sea otters
  • sea otters decline
  • sea urchins, the food source of sea otters, increases
  • kelp forests are thinned by sea otters and can no longer support fish eaten by eagles….etc, etc
38
Q

how do giant kelp forests support biodiversity (2)

A
  • similar ecosystem type to coral
  • persistent giant kelp forests create and modify habitats, year after year
39
Q

how does loss of kelp forests affect biodiversity (3)

A
  • changes coastal biodiversity
  • more understory seaweeds, sponges, anemones, and sea fans
  • fewer fishes, invertebrate carnivores, and invertebrate herbivores
40
Q

functional redundancy

A
  • when there is more than one species with a similar ecological role in a system
  • allows for greater resilience of the ecosystem
41
Q

species composition vs species richness (2)

A
  • species composition may be more important than species richness
  • species composition is the identity of the species, whereas species richness is the amount of species in general
42
Q

ecosystem services

A
  • conditions and processes through which natural ecosystems, and the species that make them up, sustain and fulfill human life
43
Q

ecosystem functions vs service (2)

A
  • function: all emergent properties
  • services: category of emergent properties beneficial to humans and would require payment or creation if the ecosystem did not exist
44
Q

what are some ecosystem services (6)

A
  • tourism
  • food
  • oxygen/nutrients
  • substate stability (agriculture)
  • water filtering and purification
  • pollen deposition
45
Q

how would humans replace ecosystem services

A
  • synthetics services that require a lot of money and energy
46
Q

Ecological/Green Economics (3)

A
  • views economic activity as occurring within an environmental context
  • economy is a subsystem of nature
  • emphasis on preserving natural capital
47
Q

how do green economics view economic growth (3)

A
  • recognize that economic growth cannot continue indefinitely
  • growth is limited by carrying capacity of the earth’s ecosystem
  • value a steady state economy/circular economy
48
Q

how does the green economy achieve a circular economy (5)

A
  • equitable distribution of goods and services
  • incorporations of social values in decision-making
  • improvement of human well-being
  • social justice: inclusion of marginalized groups
  • concern for future generations
49
Q

what aspects of the economy and environment are connected (4)

A
  • human activities and economic/cultural benefits
  • global changes: biogeochemical cycles, land use, species invasion, and biodiversity
  • ecosystem processes
  • ecosystem good and services

ISCI 360 (11 decks)

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