Quiz 2 Flashcards
What is the significance of local food?
Connects people, place, and ecology
What are some examples of ways in which conservation science and Indigenous knowledge can work together? ok i’m copy pasting from the slides but lowkey disagree with this in some ways
- Fill gaps in scientific understanding that may be difficult or impossible to obtain through other means
- Offer multiple lines of evidence
- Identify and address seasonal, experience, and scale based biases
- provide cultural and lived reality context for interpreting results
- enhance community support for and involvement in conservation science
- help to remedy the sterile dichotomy between science and knowledge
What are some challenges to the inclusion of local knowledge in the scientific realm?
- skepticism in the scientific community
- the difficulty of engaging with suitable knowledge holders
- the potential for Indigenous knowledge to be appropriated, marginalized, misunderstood, and misused
- challenges in assessing the validity, reliability, bias, and uncertainty of Indigenous knowledge
- determining how Indigenous knowledge and observations can be blended into something coherent while maintaining the integrity of both knowledge approaches
What is ethical space?
A space between the Indigenous and Western spheres of culture and knowledge that inspires an abstract space of possibility and creates the neutral zone of dialogue
Ethical spaces unfold through processes of authentic intercultural dialogue and exchange, offering the possibility for new insights into human identity and purpose with emergent outcomes across cultures to address shared challenges of sustainability
What is the Two Row Wampum-Covenant Chain treaty?
Developed between Haudenosaunee and newly arrived Dutch merchants
Offers an Indigenous-European framework for relationships between peoples from different laws and beliefs that can help to decolonize Western presumptions
Permits each side to retain its integrity through undertaking its own process according to its own worldview. At the same time, the two sides share information and work in partnership on issues of common concern.
What is Etuaptmumk (Two-Eyed Seeing)?
Shared by Mi’kmaq Edler Dr. Albert Marshall
Holds that scientific and Indigenous knowledges each have their own strengths, which are stronger when working together toward a common goal (gift of multiple perspectives)
Issues with the integration of Indigenous knowledge in the scientific realm
They are offered and emphasized amidst a colonial context in which science and research have actively contributed to the marginalization and disempowerment of Indigenous peoples
Extractive research
Research in an Indigenous context carried out primarily by non-Indigenous researchers, who set the conditions for it. Historically, research was conducted in a colonial manner, without the collaboration of the peoples concerned, and without any validation or feedback on the results once the studies were complete.
What are issues with conservation science and policy employing the precautionary principle?
The precautionary principle positions science as the exclusive knowledge domain and the absence of scientific information as reason for immediate conservation action
What is the precautionary principle?
Aims to be more cautious when information is less certain, not using the absence of adequate information as a reason to postpone action
What are alternatives to the precautionary principle?
Erring on the side of Indigenous people
Indigenous participation in decision-making (focus on Indigenous peoples, knowledges, and livelihoods)
What are the benefits of community-based participatory research?
Makes research in and with Indigenous communities more beneficial and relevant to its participants, and begins dismantling the extractive and colonial legacy of scientific research in these communities
Adopts a partnership approach and considers the power dynamics of the researcher, the collaborators and research participants
What are challenges with community-based participatory research?
Community involvement in research does not, in and of itself, create equitable relationships between researchers and Indigenous communities.
In many instances, the community helps participatory research more than the participatory research benefits the community
What is knowledge-production?
The collaborative process of bringing a plurality of knowledge sources and types together to address a defined problem and build an integrated or systems-oriented understanding of that problem
What does the success of knowledge co-production depend on?
1) Willingness to recognize and accept existence of different systems of understanding and practices
2) An ability to interrelate different systems of thought and perspectives in complex and uncertain decision contexts
3) A shared desire to use knowledge co-production to achieve mutually agreed outcomes
What are the four pillars that knowledge co-production should follow?
1) Context-based: situating the process in a particular context, place, or issue
2) Pluralistic: explicitly recognizing multiple ways of knowing and doing
3) Goal-oriented: by articulating clearly defined, shared and meaningful goals that are related to the challenge at hand
4) Interactive: by allowing for ongoing learning among actors, active engagement and frequent interactions
What are the characterizations of mode 1 vs. mode 2 approaches?
Mode 1: knowledge production (prioritizing theory, disciplinarity, universality, neutrality, detachment, and validity through logic, measurement and prediction)
Mode 2: developed in a context of application, recognized to be particular and situational, validated by experiential, collaborative, and transdisciplinary processes, with researchers recognized to be socially accountable, immersed and reflexive agents of change
What three things does the researcher’s positionality consists of?
- Their social positions
- Their personal experiences
- Their ideologies
–> the question of who is conducting research and why is ever-present in Indigenous and community-based research contexts
What is an organization that exists that supports reconciliation through research
Braiding Knowledges Canada
What is Project Arramat?
A team of Indigenous leaders, governments, and organizations, university researchers, and other contributors have come together to collaborate on research and action in support of the health and well-being of the environment and people.
Working to strengthen Indigenous voices and capacities to document their knowledge about the importance of the whole environment (including biodiversity) to the health and well-being of their communities.
About respecting the inherent dignity and interconnectedness of peoples and Mother Earth; life and livelihood; identity and expression; biodiversity and sustainability; stewardship and well-being
What is Goal A of the Global Biodiversity Framework?
The integrity, connectivity, and resilience of all ecosystems are maintained, enhanced or restored… increasing area by 2050
Target 1: By 2030, at least 30% of areas of degraded terrestrial, inland water, and coastal and marine ecosystems are under effective restoration
Target 2: Ensure and enable that by 2030, at least 30% of ecosystems are effectively conserved and managed through ecologically representative, well-connected and equitably governed systems of protected areas and other effective area-based conservation measures
How many national protected areas are covered?
On average, only 11%
(compared to the Aichi targets to have reached 17% of connected areas by 2020)
What is connectivity conservation?
The action of individuals, communities, institutions, and businesses to maintain, enhance, and restore ecological flows, species movement, and dynamic processes across intact and fragmented environments
Connectivity conservation is not the same as connectivity; it is about the actions we do
- social process interacted with an ecological process
- collaboration of many different institutions and actors
What are the two approaches to biodiversity conservation (in relation to human impacts landscapes)?
Population viability analyses: one species at a time approach (protecting a single species)
Landscape approaches: identity habitat, network and species’ requirements, prioritize areas to protect (protecting an area)
What is landscape connectivity?
The extent to which a landscape facilitates movement. An emergent and dynamic outcome of all movements and flows
The unimpeded movement of species and the flow of natural processes
What is ecological flows, ontogenic movement, energy matter, propagule dispersal, and gene flow in the context of landscape connectivity?
- Ecological flows: foraging, trophic interactions
- Ontogenetic movement: life-stages move between habitats
- Energy matter: nutrients, water
- Propagule dispersal: seed dispersal, larvae dispersal
- Gene flow: recent evolutionary
Why does action for connectivity targets must be multiscale?
Connectivity is also about the scale of flow: examples:
- inter-continental: bird and whale migration
- intra-continental: ducks
- landscape level: deer
- local scale: looking at how organisms use their habitats
–> every scale has a different solution
- inter-continental: migration pathways
- regional: protected area networks
- landscape: habitat corridors
- local: highway corridors
What is the trend of human footprint impact on animal movement distances
the more human footprint increases, the more movement is impacted
What is structural connectivity?
Continuous measures of land structure
- form in the landscape that allows movement
- measuring resistance of a landscape to movement
physical arrangement of habitat patches and disturbances
What is functional connectivity?
Actually changing how organisms move
how well organisms move through the landscape
What are examples of measuring movement?
Tagging (capture and mark)
Remove detection by satellite
Camera traps
Sightings/observations
Genetics (figure out how genetically connected populations are by the genetic structure that they share)
What do habitat corridors bring to extinctions?
Reduce extinction debts
What is applied connectivity science?
Define the extent of PA and identify targeted species
Adopt many measures of connectivity and validate with movement data
Define the targeted areas, evaluate the scenarios, establish the priorities and apply them
How do we link data and models to quantify and predict connectivity change?
Chose our species, have our habitats, map where each species wants to be, have data on their movements, software helps us see which patches to prioritize to maintain connectivity, check with experts to ensure models make sense
How does projecting land use change help in connectivity conservation?
We can project the future of habitat loss, and therefore project the future of connectivity
- Ex. how will expanding urban areas impact connectivity for each species throughout time?
Why is it important to have a forward-looking view?
Protecting and restoring the 17% most connected forests today will maintain 72% of the connectivity in 2050
Sources of climate change?
Anthropogenic climate change: Fossil fuel burning –> increase in GHG (raising global temperatures)
Natural climate change: internal variability (el Nino, la Nina, external forcings (volcanic activity).
What is the IPCC?
Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change
The main governing body charged with summarizing the climate change literature
Established in 1988 by the World Meteorological Organization and the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP)
Reports published by the IPCC contribute to work of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC)
What is the UNFCCC
United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change
Main international treaty on climate change and is designed to stabilize GHG concentrations in the atmosphere at a level that would prevent dangerous anthropogenic interference with the climate system
How can you retrieve data on climate change throughout the years?
Ice cores
- air gets trapped as bubbles in ice cores (as snow compacts)
- analyzing water molecules, you can estimate past temperatures
- putting a sample of ice in a vacuum, rid it of modern air, and melt the ice so that the trapped bubbles surface
What does C12 and C13 proportions tell us about climate change?
C12 and C13 proportions allow us to determine whether CO2 comes from oceans, plants, or volcanos
- Plants prefer to take up C12 (this creates a distinct ratio)
- CO2 from oceans and volcanos have different ratios
–> C12 and C13 in the atmosphere increasing (more C12)
- fossil fuels are made up of ancient plants, burning C12 in the atmosphere –> rise in global temperatures
How have increased air and water temperature lead to cascading effects on other components of the Earth’s climate?
Aspects of global water cycle have been altered (intensification of heavy precipitation events)
The cryosphere (frozen-water portion of the Earth) has been altered with reduced ice caps, receding glaciers, and declining sea ice and snow
Extreme temperature events (heat waves and cold spells) have increased in several regions of the world
What are representative concentration pathways (RCPs)?
RCPs describe different levels of GHG and other factors in the atmosphere that might occur in the future that can change the amount of the sun’s energy trapped by earth (known as radiative forcings) –> different scenarios of what might happen
Adopted in 2014 (IPCC 5th report)
Climate researchers adopted 4 pathways (2.6, 4.5, 6.0, and 8.5 watts per squared meter) to explore a broad range of possible futures to evaluate the corresponding range of warming and climate changes
- scenario RCP 8.5 –> maximum impact (business-as-usual)
What was introduced during the 6th IPCC assessment AR6 in 2021
Introduced 3 new RCPs:
- 1.9: focuses in limiting warming to below 1.5 degrees C, the goal of the Paris Agreement
- 3.4: represents an intermediate pathway between RCP2.6 and RCP4.5
- 7.0: corresponds the medium to high-end of the range of future emissions and is an alternative baseline outcome (a business-as-usual type)
What are shared socioeconomic pathways (SSPs)?
The results of a separate modeling effort looking at how factors such as population, economic growth, education, urbanization, and the rate of technological development determine the level of GHG emissions
What are the 5 SSPs based on 5 socioeconomic narratives of the future?
SSP1: a world of sustainability-focused growth and equality
SSP2: a middle of the road world where trends broadly follow their historical pattern
SSP3: fragmented world of resurgent nationalism
SSP4: world of ever-increasing inequality
SSP5: world of rapid and unconstrained growth in economic output and energy use
–> these link to RCPs
- the worst case scenario: SSP5-8.5
What is a species climatic niche?
The set of climatic conditions to which the species is adapted
What can species do about climate change?
Can change their phenotype, altering their morphology, physiology, and/or behaviour to become better suited to the new conditions
They can change their phenology, altering the timing of life-cycle events like reproduction or migration in order to adjust important biological activities to be better suited to the environment
Species can shift their spatial distributions and move to more appropriate environmental conditions (range shifts)
How can species adapt to climate change?
These responses can arise by phenotypic plasticity in those individuals who genotype has the ability to express different phenotypes under different conditions
And/or
Via genetic adaptation, where variation within the population’s gene pool allows natural selection to weed out less fit phenotypes
How can we tell if whether the responses of species can counter the speed and magnitude of modern climate changes?
Modeling efforts have been used to predict response
- many modeling studies begin with one or more scenarios that predict the extent to which variables that affect Earth’s climate are likely o change (e.g. RCPs)
Global Climate Models are used to forecast future climatic variables. There are both atmospheric and ocean GCMs that are often coupled to form atmosphere-ocean general circulation models
What is a GCM?
A global climate model (GCM) is a complex mathematical representation of the major climate system components (atmosphere, land surface, ocean, and sea ice), and their interactions.
Earth’s energy balance between the four components is the key to long-term climate prediction.
How can we predict biological response to climate change?
Dynamic Vegetation Models (DVMs)
Climatic Envelope Models (CEMs)
What are Dynamic vegetation models?
DVMs focus on plant responses to climate change. Plant species are grouped into functional types that have similar physiological and structural properties
DVMs use time series of climate data to explain the current distribution of the plant functional types; and then, those relationships are used to project shifts in entire vegetation zones and biomes at a regional or global scale
What are climatic envelope models (CEMs)?
Focus on predicting the response of individual species to climate change
CEMs begin by developing response curves that describe relationships between the distribution of a species and variables like precipitation and soil moisture. These relationships are then used to describe a species climate niche (the set of climatic conditions in which the species is currently found)
If we assume that the climatic niche is fixed and is the primary control over the species’ distribution, one can compare the current climatic niche to that for future climate conditions predicted from a Climate Change Model
What are limitations of DVMs and CEMs?
Focus almost exclusively on one type of biological response to climate change–the ability of organisms to shift their distribution
Most of these models do not include the possibility that species could alter their local phenotype via plastic or genetic change
Thus, there is currently a push to develop more mechanistic climate envelope models that can provide improved predictions
What are the 6 biological components that influence a species’ response to climate change that models are accounting for?
1) Physiology
2) Demography, life history, and phenology
3) Species interactions
4) Evolutionary potential and population differentiation
5) Dispersal, colonization, range dynamics
6) Responses to environmental variation
What are ecosystem services?
The essential goods and services, ranging from medicines and building materials to fertile soils, clean water, and flood control that natural ecosystems deliver to people
What did the Millenium Assessment conclude about ecosystem services?
MEA concluded that human activities interfere with the delivery of ecosystem services on such a huge scale that human well-being is at risk
Conservation takes on a new urgency because it is not only about saving biodiversity, but also about protecting the ecosystem services on which human well-being depends
What are the 4 groupings of ecosystem services + examples?
Supporting: nutrient cycling, soil formation, primary production, photosynthesis
Provisioning: food, fresh water, wood and fiber, fuel
Regulating: climate regulation, flood regulation, disease regulation, water purification, pollination, moderation of extreme events, erosion regulation
Cultural: aesthetic, spiritual, educational, recreational
What are supporting ecosystems services?
The biogeochemical and ecological processes necessary for the production of all other ecosystem services
What are provisioning ecosystem services
Goods provided by nature that humans use as food, fuel, drinking water, building materials, medicines, etc.
What are regulating ecosystem services?
Control natural processes in ways that are favourable to humans
What are regulating ecosystem services?
For ex. coast marches, mangroves, and coral reefs help reduce flood damage by dampening storm surges
How does intensive cultivation impact soil water retention?
Soil’s water retention capacity absorbs rain and gradually releases it to feed plants, underground aquifers, and rivers
Intensive cultivation, by lowering soil’s OM content, can reduce this capacity, leading to floods, erosion, pollution, and further of OM
What are cultural ecosystem services?
The many emotional and psychological benefits that people obtain from nature
What is the Global Status of Ecosystems and Ecosystem Services?
Using a mix of expert panels and satellite imagery documenting habitat destruction, the MEA evaluated the status of the world’s ecosystems as well as global trends in the delivery of nature’s services
- summarized qualitatively–decreasing, increasing, mixed
–> most important finding: at least 2/3 of Earth’s primary ecosystem services suffered unmistakable declines between 1950 and 2000.
Have all ecosystem services declined during the second half of the 20th century?
No, productivity from all types of farming– cultivated crops, livestock, aquaculture, etc. increased during this period
How do we assess the net impacts of changes i ecosystem services?
Accounting of costs and benefits with a common currency (assigning monetary value to ecosystem services)
Economic value reflects importance or desirability, thus, different people may assign different values to the same goods or services
- many economic valuations do not simply produce a net economic value but also identify who is willing to pay a given amount
What are the three approaches to estimate value?
Stated preferences
Revealed preferences
Replacement costs
What is the state-preference method of valuation?
Based on what people say they would be willing to pay (WTP)
Contingent valuation: one proposes a specific environmental change and asks people how much they would be willing to pay to obtain one condition over another
What is the revealed-preference method of valuation?
Production function for a natural commodity that is sold commercial (ex. blue crabs and marshlands in the Gulf Coast)
Travel cost method: use data regarding the number of people that visit a particular habitat (ex. expense associated with travel to a Costa Rican rainforest in a given year)
- The travel-cost method measures the amount of money that people expend to use the resources (parks, rivers, beaches)
What is the replacement cost method of valuation?
How much it would cost to replace a natural service with a human-made alternative
What are payments for ecosystem services (PES)?
The people who benefit from the delivery of ecosystem services may live far away from the ecosystems that provide them
- Ex. a large coastal city enjoys freshwater and flood control provided by an upstream forest hundreds of km away
Through PES programs, governments or other parties financially reward landowners for conserving and restoring the flow of ecosystem services
Are ecosystem services connected to biodiversity?
Conservationists commonly justify the protection of species with the claim that reductions in the number of species may result in the loss of ecosystem services.
Results from experimental studies are mixed; however, there are studies that have confirmed that increased biodiversity improves ecosystem functioning.
And, there are certainly cases when the disappearance of a single species can have dramatic and cascading effects
- ex. abundance of cougars dropped precipitously in areas highly visited by humans (Utah) –> caused the decrease in vegetation by deer grazing –> exacerbated erosion of stream banks and fouling of stream waters by sediments –> lead to fewer fish
How can ecosystem services link conservation with human well-being?
The MEA’s focus on ecosystem services reflects a recognition that biodiversity may not stand alone at stage center of the conservation agenda
Conservation has the potential to attract a broader public support by demonstrating and communicating the link between human health and prosperity and the conservation of non-human species
Ex. for protecting humans from catastrophe, human health
What is the IPBES?
Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services
Intergovernmental body that assesses the state of biodiversity and of the ecosystem services it provides to society, in response to requests from decision makers
Mission to strengthen knowledge foundations for better policy through science, for the conservation and sustainable use of biodiversity, long-term human well-being and sustainable development
(to some extent, IPBES does for biodiversity what the IPCC does for climate change)
They have assessments on specific themes (ex. pollinators, pollination, and food production)
What are some key findings of IPBES assessment of pollinators?
A lot of money$$$ worth of annual global food production relies on direct contributions by pollinators
Nearly 90% of all wild flowering plants depend to some extent on animal pollination
16% of vertebrate pollinators are threatened with global extinction
Pesticides threaten pollinators worldwide, although the long-term effects are still unknown
What actions can be taken to safeguard pollinators?
- ensuring greater diversity of habitats to promoting sustainable agriculture
- supporting traditional practices such as those that manage habitat patchiness and crop rotation
- wider education and knowledge-exchange
- decreasing exposure of pollinators to pesticides
- improving managed bee husband
What are the three conventions borne from the Rio summit?
- FCCC (Framework Convention on Climate Change)
- CCD (Convention to Combat Desertification)
- CBD (Convention on Biological Diversity)
What are the three objectives of the 1992 CBD?
1) The conservation of biological diversity
2) The sustainable use of its components
3) The fair and equitable sharing of benefits arising out of the use of genetic resources
–> parties are obligated to inventory and monitor biodiversity, incorporate the concepts of conservation and sustainable development into national strategies and economic development, and preserve indigenous conservation practices
What is the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework (GBF)?
Adopted during the 15th meeting of the conference of the parties (COP15) following a 4 year consultation and negotiation process
Supports the achievement of the Sustainable Development Goals
Amount of the Framework’s key elements are 4 goals for 2050 and 23 targets for 2030
How does the CBD work?
The COPs make decisions advancing the implementation of the Convention, often delegating work by creating appropriate working groups and setting out their agendas
These subsidiary bodies or working groups meet outside of the COPS to work on issues and topics delegated to them
The groups negociate packages of reports and recommendations for the COP that can be included as draft decisions for use during negotiations
What is the SBSTTA?
The Subsidiary Body on Science, Technical and Technological Advice is an advisory body to the COPs which provide scientific and technical assessments and recommendations to the COP for Consideration. Through comprised of government representatives, SBSTTA can accept submissions of documents for consideration from civil society organizations
What is the WGPA?
The Working Group on PAs was created in 2004 to support and review the implementation of the Programme of Work on PA.
What is the WGRI?
Established in 2004 to create a more effective process of reviewing the work of the Convention, the Working Group on the Review of Implementation reviews the progress and effectiveness of existing work under the convention
What are the 3 groupings in the GBF?
- Reducing threats to biodiversity
- Meeting people’s needs through sustainable use and benefits sharing
- Tools and solutions for implementation and mainstreaming
What are the COP16 progresses?
- Formation of new permanent subsidiary body to represent Indigenous Peoples and local communities (IPLC) and the role their active participation and traditions will play in achieving the goals of the GBF.
- An agreement to operationalize a new global mechanism (the Cali fund) to share the benefits derived from digital sequence information with developing countries and IPLC.
- Since COP15, 44 countries have submitted their National Biodiversity Strategy and Action Plants (NBSAPs), and 119 countries have submitted one or more national biodiversity targets.
- So far, 11 donor countries and the gov. of Quebec have contributed $400M to the GBF fund, with an additional $163M pledged during COP16.
- Parties approved a Global Action Plan for Biodiversity and Health (One Health) recognizing that the health of ecosystems, animals, and humans are intertwined.
What is pending after COP16?
- Discussions must resume to finalize a strategy for resource mobilizations to help secure $200B/yr by 2030 to support biodiversity initiatives worldwide
- Need to create a dedicated global financing instrument for biodiversity to articulate, receive, disburse, and mobilize funding from the GBF Fund.
- The decision to adopt the amendments to the Monitoring Framework (MF).
What is functional redundancy?
Relationship between number of species and number of unique functional roles played by those species to maintain the functioning of the ecosystem
What is IPBES?
The Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services is the intergovernmental body which assesses the state of biodiversity and of the ecosystem services it provides to society, in response to requests from decision makers.
What is the difference between the old and new paradigms of Biodiversity Ecosystem Functioning (BEF)?
Old: species are impacted by human disturbances –> these alterations change the functions –> the functions influence the number of species we see
New: recognizes the roles that species are playing in these functions, quantifying the strength of arrow going from biodiversity to functions (new arrow)
What is the definition of ecosystem?
Combined plant and animal communities plus their physical environment
What is ecosystem functioning?
Encompasses a variety of phenomena, including ecosystem properties, stocks of biomass, flows of nutrients or fluxes of gases
What is the definition of ecosystem goods and services
Only when referring to the subset of functions of utilitarian value to humans
- a subset of ecosystem functions that humans value
What is a functional trait?
Trait that influences ecosystem properties and species’ responses to environmental conditions
Ex. plants that fix N, length of hummingbird beak, bumble bee and fuzziness
What is a functional group?
A set of species that have similar effects on a specific ecosystem process, or similar responses to environmental conditions
What is the complementarity hypothesis?
Linear relationship: the more species richness, the more ecosystem functions
Every species has a unique niche –> humps represent niches of functions
What is the Rivet hypothesis?
Eventually you get an overlap in niches (saturation of niches)
Hypothesis motivating functional redundancy
At the saturated point, if you remove a species, you would see no impact. Only after you remove a significant amount of species do you see a loss of function
What is the drivers and passengers hypothesis?
Similar to rivet, but staircase
Acknowledges that not all species have equal effect on ecosystem functioning
Some species are drivers (doing all the work), others are passengers (less impact on ecosystem)
What is the selection effect?
When species with higher average yields, when grown alone, dominate the functioning of the multispecies communities
Outcome of having many species contributing to productions, but there is a huge disparity from one or few species (big effect due to dominance of one of a few species)
dominance by species with particular traits affects ecosystem processes
Conclusion of BEF relationships?
Strengthens over time (species rich plots became more productive than the monoculture over time)
Selective effect at first
- root effects take time to happen
- over time, climate is changing
–> contribution of functional role to functioning of ecosystem is time dependent
–> Biodiversity matters to the functioning and we observe complementarity as the primary relationship
What can enhance and stabilize ecosystem productivity?
Temporal and spatial insurance effects
- different species are contributing different things in different parts of the world
Species are insuring the functioning of a community when the environment is changing/fluctuating
response of species to different environmental conditions ensures the functionality of ecosystem
Happy ecosystem = response diversity + functional (trait) diversity
Does biodiversity change impact the magnitude of ecosystem functioning?
Yes
- evidence has been obtained primarily at small scales but research is now showing impacts at regional and global scales
- biodiversity is linked to ecosystem services (nature’s contributions to people) and their supply
- economic, health, and security benefits of nature are enormous
What is the definition of Biological Invasion
The spread and establishment (i.e. forms of self-sustaining population) of a species into a region beyond its natural range (i.e. where it evolved)
- Contentious definition since some want to include human involvement in the definition
The process by which a species passes a geographic barrier and becomes established in a new region
- Invasions is both described by the process and the event (passes geographic barrier, and establishes a new region)
How can invaders interact with one another?
Ex. Canal was built –> sea lamp prey knocked out the dominant predator –> and then alewite came in
Are all Invasions range expansions, and all range expansions invasions?
No, All invasions are range expansions
However, not all range expansions are invasions
What are the stages of the invasion process?
- Introduction
- Establishment (formation of a self-sustaining population)
- Population expansion (impacts often detected here)
- Geographic spread (natural or human-assisted dispersal)
(even if a place is hospitable, an establishment can still fail)
What is an invasive species?
A non-native species that spreads rapidly (i.e. a highly successful invader)
Note: most introduced species are not invasive; a species may spread at different rates in different regions
What is the issue with this definition of “invasive species”: a species undergoing a population outbreak that causes adverse ecological or economic effects
This definition can also apply to native species
A species may be invasive in some regions but not others
What is the definition of impact (in the context of invasions)? What are its different levels?
A measurable change to the properties of an ecosystem
- Individual organisms: injury, mortality
- Genetic
- Population: abundance, age structure
- Community: diversity, food web structure
- Ecosystem: productivity, nutrient cycling, habitat quality
Can the term “native invaders” be conflated with non-native invaders?
No, since non-native invaders do not necessarily need a disturbance for them to take over (just need introduction)
Native species need a disturbance (ex. otters removed –> increase in sea urchins –> decrease in kelp –> extinction of stellar sea cow)
Native invasions can be remedied by the re-establishment of the constraint
Ex. Non-native plants are 40 times more likely to become invasive than native plants.
Why did cat invasions impact islands more than mainland sites?
- no islands have cats naturally (evolutionary mismatch)
- less refuge (nowhere to go)
- smaller populations
- nature of the habitat (constrained size) and they tend to have less evolutionary experience to various lifeforms
Why does context matter when discussing invasions?
Many species threatened in their home range are invasive and disruptive elsewhere
What is the environmental matching hypothesis?
The impact of an invader is inversely correlated with distance from its environmental optimum (i.e. the further more envr optimum, the smaller impact an invader will have)
ex. Saint-Lawrence and Ottawa river having different water chemistry
What is the leading cause of extinction?
Invasions!
True or False: all invasions have an impact
True: many impacts appear to be small, whereas others are significant and some are devastating
True or false: the environment where a species evolved affects it’s ability to invade
True: impacts are governed by evolutionary relationships between the invader and the invaded community
What is the purpose of the seed vault?
seed preservation in case of extinctions
reservoir of genetic diversity
- breeders use this bank
What are the threats that domesticated vs. wild species face?
Domesticated: loss of varieties (genetic diversity) accompanying modern agriculture
Wild: habitat destruction, small populations, climate change, etc.
What two main threats does a reduction in population size engender?
Demographic threat: population likely to go extinct to do environmental stochasticity
Genetic threat
What are the three genetic threats posed by small population size?
Inbreeding depression (loss of viability)
Loss of diversity (loss of adaptability due to genetic drift)
Ineffectiveness of selection (loss of adaptability; mutational meltdown–longer term)
Why are deleterious mutations more of an issue in small population compared to larger ones?
Many deleterious mutations that contribute to fitness reduction are recessive
Individuals in historically large populations harbour several deleterious and recessive mutations (usually different ones)
Not a problem in a large, random mating population as these mutations end up being masked in a heterozygous state
But with inbreeding and population size reduction, these deleterious recessive mutations may end up homozygous, and be expressed –> reduced viability or reproductive success
–> inbreeding depression
(in other words, inbreeding increases the chances that a deleterious recessive allele will be expressed)
What is the definition of inbreeding depression
The reduction in vigour (health) of offspring who are descendants of inbreeding (e.g. descendants of sibling mating, first cousin mating, etc.)
Is inbreeding depression likely to be a problem in ALL small populations?
No –> purging of mutations
- Some populations with long history of inbreeding could have purged mutations
- Weakest individuals removed from population (mortality due to phenotypic expression of mutation)
- Purging can remove the most highly expressed deleterious mutations in populations
Ex. zoo populations: intentionally inbred to remove the most extreme types of deleterious mutations
Why not simply introduce unrelated individuals into inbred populations?
Risk of introducing genes that are maladapted to the environments
Genes may not be beneficial for the population you are trying to conserve
What is genetic drift?
a random process that causes the frequency of a gene variant in a population to change over time
Population over time drift to a state where the population has lost one of the alleles and has become more genetically uniform
- more likely to happen in a small population
- chance beings to govern the outcome
How does genetic drift connect to inefficient selection?
A response to selection on quantitative traits requires that there be genetic variation at the many genes coding for that trait. If there is a selection for a new optimal, the population will shift towards this.
However, if you lose variation and the population variance decreases, the optimal could fall outside of the range that the population can adapt to (inefficient selection).
How does genetic drift connect to loss of adaptive process?
Genetic drift drowns out the signal
- even though an allele is under selection in a large population, the small population can lose this allele despite the fact that it is advantageous
In other words, drift effects can drown out favourable alleles in small populations
What is the hope in remedying the impacts of inbreeding depression, loss of diversity and ineffectiveness of selection?
Habitat corridors
Genetic rescue
- begin with a small, unhealthy population –> outbreeding leads to higher diversity and increased fertility –> population grows and there is lower mortality –> natural selection leads to stable population
