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AP Environmental Science > Semester 1 Final - Unit 5 Chapters 9 + 10 > Flashcards

Semester 1 Final - Unit 5 Chapters 9 + 10 Flashcards

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1
Q

Reasons to avoid hastening the extinction of wild species

A
  • Species provide vital ecosystem services
    ——-Pollination, pest control, oxygen production
  • They provide valuable economic services
    ——-Ecotourism, medicinal drugs
  • Extinction can hinder speciation
    ——-It can take millions of years for nature to recover from large-scale extinctions
  • Many people believe that species have a right to exist regardless of their usefulness to humans
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2
Q

Orangutans

A
  • Only about 61,000 remain in the wild
  • Tropical forest habitat being cleared to grow palm oil
  • They are illegally smuggled and sold
  • Lowest birth rate of all animals
  • May disappear within two
    decades without urgent
    protective action
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3
Q

Greatest threats to species (acronym HIPPCO)

A
  • Habitat loss, degradation, or fragmentation
  • Invasive (nonnative) species
  • Population and resource use growth
  • Pollution
  • Climate change
  • Overexploitation
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4
Q

Habitat Destruction and Fragmentation (HIPPCO)

A
  • Habitat fragmentation occurs when large intact habitat divided into smaller, isolated patches
  • Caused by roads, logging, crops, and urban development
  • Barriers limit species ability to disperse and colonize areas, locate food and mates
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5
Q

Invasive Species (HIPPCO)

A
  • Many species introductions are beneficial
  • Nonnative species may have no natural predators, competitors, parasites, or pathogens
  • Nonnative species can crowd out native species
  • Viewed as harmful, invasive species
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6
Q

How to Control Invasive Species

A
  • Do not buy wild plants or remove them from natural areas
  • Do not release wild pets into natural areas
  • Do not dump aquarium contents or unused fishing bait into waterways or storm drains
  • When camping, only use local firewood
  • Brush or clean pet dogs, hiking boots, mountain bikes, canoes, boats, motors, fishing tackle, and other gear before entering or leaving wild areas
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7
Q

Case Study - the Kudzu Vine and Kudzu Bugs

A
  • Imported from Japan in the 1930s
  • Help control soil erosion
  • Spreads rapidly, taking over land
  • Very difficult to kill
  • Common fungus can kill Kudzu vine
  • Need to investigate harmful side effects
  • Potential benefits of Kudzu
  • ——-Medicinal and nutritional uses
  • ——-Potential uses as paper, biofuel
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8
Q

Population (HIPPCO)

A
  • Human population growth and rising resource use per person
  • Degrading wildlife habitat, exploiting animals and plants for survival
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9
Q

Pollution (HIPPCO)

A
  • Bioaccumulation occurs in individual organisms
  • Biomagnification occurs when a chemical becomes more concentrated as it moves up through food chains and webs
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10
Q

Climate Change (HIPPCO)

A
  • Will accelerate the sixth extinction
  • Major loss of diversity and ecosystem services
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11
Q

Overexploitation (HIPPCO)

A
  • Poaching and smuggling of protected animals
  • Organized crime involved because of huge profits involved
  • Elephants and rhinos killed for their tusks and horns
  • Tigers poached for skin and other body parts
  • Pet trade
  • —–Exotic birds, amphibians, reptiles, tropical fish
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12
Q

Bioaccumulation (Pollution in HIPPCO)

A
  • occurs in INDIVIDUAL organisms
  • an increase in the concentration of a chemical in a biological organism over time, compared to the chemical’s concentration in the environment
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13
Q

Biomagnification (Pollution in HIPPCO)

A
  • occurs when a chemical becomes more concentrated as it moves up through food chains and webs
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14
Q

How Can We Sustain Wild Species and the Ecosystem Services They Provide?

A

Establishing and enforcing national environmental laws and international treaties
Creating protected wildlife sanctuaries

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15
Q

Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora- 1975 (CITES)

A
  • Signed by 181 countries
  • Helps to protect species
  • became the only treaty to ensure that international trade in plants and animals does not threaten their survival in the wild.
  • why you can’t take peaches and stuff on planes
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16
Q

Convention on Biological Diversity (BCD)

A
  • Commits governments to reduce the rate of biodiversity loss
  • Ratified by 196 countries (not by the U.S.)
  • Law lacks enforcement mechanisms
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17
Q

Endangered Species Act (ESA)–1973 and amended several times

A
  • Identify and protect endangered species in the U.S. and abroad
  • Creates recovery programs for listed species
  • Forbids federal agencies (except Defense) from funding projects that jeopardize endangered or threatened species
  • Requires commercial shipments of wildlife come through certain ports
  • In 2015, 1,591 species officially listed
  • 90% of ESA-protected species are recovering at projected rate
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18
Q

Environmental Policy + How it’s made

A
  • Begins when citizens, interest groups, or corporations seek solutions to issues
    Policy lifecycle:
  • Identify problem
  • Research underlying science
  • Craft a policy solution
  • Monitor how well it works
  • Adjust policy as needed
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19
Q

Pelican Island

A
  • In 1903, Theodore Roosevelt established the first federal wildlife refuge
  • Pelican Island, Florida
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20
Q

Wildlife refuges

A
  • wetland sanctuaries
  • Provide habitats for one-fourth of U.S. threatened or endangered species
  • Harmful activities such as mining, drilling, and using off-road vehicles legal in most Refuges
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21
Q

Seed banks

A

Preserve genetic material of endangered plants

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22
Q

Three things that help out !

A

Seed banks, botanical gardens (live plants), Farms (can raise organisms for commercial sale)

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23
Q

Techniques for preserving endangered terrestrial species

A
  • Egg pulling
  • Captive breeding
  • Artificial insemination
  • Embryo transfer
  • Use of incubators
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24
Q

Ultimate goal of captive breeding programs

A
  • Releasing/reintroducing populations to the wild
  • Captive population must number 100–500 individuals
  • Public aquariums provide education
    ——–Not effective gene banks due to limited funds
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25
Q

Precautionary Principle

A
  • Act to prevent or reduce harm when preliminary evidence indicates acting is needed
  • Good strategy in other areas
  • Preventing exposure to harmful chemicals in our air, water, and food
  • Emphasis on preventing species extinction
  • —–Act early rather than when species is nearly extinct
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26
Q

Protecting Species and Ecosystem Services Raises Difficult Questions

A
  • Should we focus on protecting species or ecosystems and services they provide?
  • How to decide which species get attention?
  • Appealing to humans can increase public awareness of the need to protect species
  • How to determine which habitat areas to protect?
  • How do we allocate resources?
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27
Q

What can you do to protect species?

A
  • Do not buy furs, ivory products, or other items made from endangered or threatened animal species
  • Do not buy wood or wood products from tropical or old-growth forests
  • Do not buy pet animals or plants taken from the wild
  • Tell friend and relatives what you’re doing about this problem
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28
Q

Core Case Study - Costa Rica - A Global Conservation Leader

A
  • Costa Rica once covered in tropical forest
  • Suffered widespread deforestation between 1963 and 1983
  • Still harbors great biodiversity
  • Microclimates provide variety of habitats
  • More than 25% of its land is nature reserves and national parks
  • Government pays landowners to restore forests
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29
Q

Forest ECOSYSTEM SERVICES

A
  • Forests remove CO2 from the atmosphere
  • Helps stabilize atmospheric temperatures
  • Forests store water and release it slowly
  • Forests provide habitats for two-thirds of world’s terrestrial species
  • Forests provide biofuel, industrial wood, and traditional medicines
  • its ecosystem services are far greater in value than the value of wood and other raw materials
  • support energy flow and chemical cycling
  • reduce soil erosion
  • absorb and release water
  • purify water and air
  • Influence local and regional climate
  • store atmospheric carbon
  • provide numerous wildlife habits
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30
Q

Old growth forest

A
  • Uncut or undisturbed for 200
    years or more
  • Reservoirs of biodiversity
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31
Q

Second Growth Forest

A
  • Trees from secondary
    ecological succession
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32
Q

Tree plantation (tree farm, commercial forest)

A
  • Same-age trees clear-cut and replanted to supply industrial wood
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33
Q

Forests economic services

A
  • Fuelwood
  • Lumber
  • Pulp to make paper
  • Mining
  • Livestock grazing
  • Recreation
  • Jobs
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34
Q

Putting a Price on Nature’s Ecosystem Services

A

Ecological economists estimate value of earth’s ecosystem services
- Waste treatment ($22.5 trillion per year)
- Recreation ($20.6 trillion per year)
- Erosion control ($16.2 trillion per year)
- Food production ($14.8 trillion per year)
- Nutrient cycling ($11.1 trillion per year)
- Since 1997, the world has been losing ecosystem services valued at $20.2 trillion per year
- Ongoing source of ecological income If used sustainably
- Need to use full-cost pricing to include value of ecosystem services in prices of forest goods and services

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35
Q

Selective Cutting (Tree harvesting)

A

Intermediate-age or mature trees cut singly or in small groups

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36
Q

Clear cutting (tree harvesting)

A

Removing all trees in an area

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37
Q

Strip cutting (tree harvesting)

A

Clear-cutting in strips

38
Q

What is the first step in tree harvesting no matter what?

A

First step: building logging roads

39
Q

Surface fires

A
  • Usually burn leaf litter and undergrowth
  • Provide several ecological benefits
40
Q

Crown Fires

A
  • Extremely hot–burn whole trees
  • Kill wildlife
  • Increase topsoil erosion
41
Q

Improving management of Forest Fires (Allow, Prescribe, Protect, Use)

A

Prescribed burns
- Remove flammable material and underbrush
Allow fires on public lands to burn
- As long as structures not threatened
Protect structures in fire-prone areas
- Thin nearby trees and vegetation
- Eliminate use of highly flammable construction materials
Use drones with infrared sensors to detect fires and monitor progress in fighting them

The U.S. Smokey Bear educational campaign
- Pros and cons of fires

42
Q

Deforestation

A

Temporary or permanent removal of large expanses of forest for agriculture, settlements, or other uses

43
Q

Natural Capital Degradation in Deforestation

A
  • Water pollution and soil degradation from erosion
  • Acceleration of flooding
  • Local extinction of specialist species
  • Habitat loss for native and migrating species
  • Release of CO2 and loss of CO@ absorption
44
Q

Tropical forest deforestation

A

removing large areas can lead to drier conditions that make it difficult for the forests to grow back. These forests are usually replaced by savannas.

45
Q

In what countries especially are boreal forests facing deforestation?

A

Especially in Alaska, Canada, Scandinavia, and Russia

46
Q

Case Study - Managing Public Lands in the United States

A

Forests of the eastern U.S. decimated between 1620 and 1920
- Some have grown back naturally through secondary ecological succession
Large areas of old-growth and second-growth forests cut down and replaced with biologically simplified tree plantations
- Growing threat: hardwood forests cleared to produce wood pellets for export

47
Q

Temperate Forests Disappeared Rapidly in the United States

A
  • In 1620, (a) when European settlers were moving to North America, forests covered more than half of the current land area of the continental United States.
  • By 1920, (b) most of these forests had been decimated.
  • In 2000, (c) secondary and commercial forests covered about a third of U.S. land in the lower 48 states.
48
Q

Places with heavy deforestation

A

Mostly in Africa, Southeast Asia, South America

Indonesia leads world in tropical deforestation

49
Q

Various causes of deforestation

A
  • Population growth
  • Poverty of subsistence farmers
  • Ranching
  • Plantation farms–palm oil
  • Lumber
  • Global trade
50
Q

Methods to Sustain Forests

A
  • Emphasize the value of their ecosystem services
  • Halt government subsidies that hasten their destruction
  • Protect old-growth forests
  • Harvest trees no faster than they are replenished
  • Plant trees to reestablish forests
  • Debt-for-nature swaps and conservation concessions
  • Protect forests in return for aid to the government
  • Crack down on illegal logging
  • Purchase only sustainably produced wood
51
Q

Maximum sustainable yield (forests)

A

Harvest maximum amount of trees that will not reduce future yield

52
Q

Ecosystem-based management

A

Minimize harmful harvesting impacts on ecosystem

53
Q

Adaptive management (forests)

A

Harvest forests, evaluate results, and modify approach

54
Q

More Sustainable Forestry

A
  • Include ecosystem services of forests in estimates of their economic value
  • Identify and protect highly diverse forest areas
  • Stop logging in old-growth forests
  • Stop clear-cutting on steep slopes
  • Reduce road-building in forests and rely more on selective and strip cutting
  • Leave most standing dead trees and larger fallen trees for wildlife habitat and nutrient cycling
  • Put tree plantations only on deforested and degraded land
  • Certify timber grown by sustainable methods
55
Q

Reducing the demand for harvested trees

A
  • Improve the efficiency of wood use
  • 60% of U.S. wood use is wasted
    Make tree-free paper
  • Kenaf
  • Rice straw
  • Hemp
    Reduce use of throwaway paper products
56
Q

Methods to sustain the productivity of grasslands

A
  • Control the numbers and distribution of grazing livestock
  • Restore degraded grasslands
57
Q

Rangelands

A
  • Unfenced grasslands in temperate and tropical climates that supply forage for animals
58
Q

Pastures

A

Managed grasslands or fenced meadows used for grazing livestock

59
Q

Effects - Overgrazing of grasslands

A
  • Reduces grass cover
  • Compacts the soil
    ———–Lessens capacity to hold water
    ———–Leads to erosion of soil by water and wind
  • Promotes invasion of plant species that cattle won’t eat
60
Q

Rotational Grazing

A

Cattle moved around
regularly

61
Q

Holistic herd management

A

Short term trampling by moving herd aerates the soil
- Increases nutrient recycling and soil fertility by pressing decaying grasses into the soil

62
Q

Managing Rangelands more Sustainably

A
  • Rotational grazing
  • Fence off damaged areas
  • Holistic herd management
63
Q

Stats on wetlands disappearing

A
  • The United States has lost more than half of its coastal and inland wetlands since 1900.
  • Other countries have lost even more, and the rate of loss of wetlands throughout the world is accelerating.
64
Q

WHY have people drained, filled in, or covered over swamps, marshes, and other wetlands ?

A
  • to create rice fields or other cropland
  • to accommodate expanding cities, suburbs and resorts
  • to build roads
  • to extract minerals, oil, and natural gas
  • to eliminate breeding grounds for insects that cause diseases such as malaria
65
Q

Preserving and Restoring Wetlands

A
  • Only about 6% of the country’s remaining inland wetlands are federally protected, and state and local wetland protection is inconsistent and generally weak.
  • Private investment bankers can make money by buying wetland areas and restoring or upgrading them or creating new wetland. This creates wetlands banks or credits that the bankers sell to developers.
  • However, it is difficult to restore, enhance, or create wetlands.
66
Q

Case Study: Florida Everglades

A
  • To help preserve the Everglades system, in 1947, the US government established Everglades National Park.
  • However, this protection effort did not work because of a massive water distribution and land development project to the north.
  • Much of the original Everglades has been drained, paved over, polluted by agricultural runoff, and invaded by a number of plant and animal species.
    -The biodiversity of the Everglades has been decreasing, mostly because of habitat loss, pollution, and invasive species.
  • About 90% of the wading birds in Everglades National - Park have vanished.
  • In addition, populations of vertebrates, from deer to turtles, are down 75–95%.
67
Q

Comprehensive Everglades Restoration Plan, has several ambitious goals:

A
  • world’s largest ecological restoration project
  • Restoration of the flow of the Kissimmee River
  • Removal of canals and levees that block natural water flows south of Lake Okeechobee
  • Conversion of large areas of farmland to marshes
  • Creation of 18 large reservoirs and underground water storage areas for the lower Everglades and south - Florida’s population
  • Building a canal–reservoir system for catching the water now flowing out to sea and pumping it back into the Everglades.
68
Q

How can we Sustain Terrestrial Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services ?

A
  • Restore damaged ecosystems
  • Establish and protect wilderness parks
  • Identify and protect biological hotspots
  • Highly threatened areas of biodiversity
  • Protect ecosystem services
  • Share areas that we dominate with other species
69
Q

RESTORING Damaged Ecosystems

A
  • Map world’s terrestrial ecosystems and create inventory of species
  • Identify resilient and fragile ecosystems
  • Protect the most endangered ecosystems and species
  • Emphasis on protecting plant biodiversity and ecosystem services
  • Restore degraded ecosystems
  • Provide incentives to landowners
70
Q

Strategies for SUSTAINING Terrestrial Biodiversity

A
  • Protect species from extinction
  • Set aside wilderness areas
  • Establish parks and nature preserves where people can interact with nature
  • Identify and protect biodiversity hotspots
  • Shift new development to lands already cleared or degraded
  • Protect important ecosystem services
  • Increase crop productivity on existing cropland
  • Rehabilitate and restore partially damaged ecosystems
  • Share areas we dominate with other species
71
Q

PROTECTING Biodiversity HOTSPOTS

A
  • 34 biodiversity hotspots
  • Cover 2% of Earth’s surface, but 50% of flowering plant species and 42% of terrestrial vertebrates
  • 1.2 billion people
  • Only 5% of the total area of these hotspots is truly protected
72
Q

Biodiversity hotspot def

A

regions that contain a high level of species diversity, many endemic species (species not found anywhere else in the world) and a significant number of threatened or endangered species`

73
Q

1964 Wilderness Act

A

U.S. government may set aside undeveloped tracts of public land

74
Q

How much of U.S. land is protected?

A

Only 5% of U.S. land is protected as wilderness
More than half of it in Alaska

As human population and ecological footprint expand, increasingly difficult to establish new wilderness areas

75
Q

on global national parks

A
  • More than 6,600 national parks in 120 countries
  • Most too small to sustain large animal species
  • Some so popular that human use is degrading
  • 63 US national parks
76
Q

Factors that degrade national parks

A
  • Popularity
  • Off-road vehicle use
  • Cell phone towers
  • Nonnative species
  • Nearby air pollution and traffic
  • Overdue maintenance and repairs
77
Q

Nature reserves - Optimal size

A

SIZE: large :
- large nature reserves typically sustain more species and provide greater habitat diversity than small reserves

78
Q

Nature reserves: Optimal shape

A
  • HABITAT CORRIDORS can benefit species
    Allows migration in response to climate change
79
Q

Nature reserves - Optimal edge effect

A

BUFFER ZONE concept
Strictly protect inner core of reserve
Sustainable resource extraction in buffer zone

80
Q

Principles of Biodiversity

A
  • Respect biodiversity and understand the value of sustaining it
  • Rely less on fossil fuels and more on direct solar energy
  • Place a value on ecosystem services and help implement full-cost pricing
  • This is very utulized in Costa Rica!!
81
Q

Megareserves (Costa Rica)

A
  • large conservation areas
  • Designed to sustain about 80% of the country’s biodiversity
  • Protected inner core surrounded by two buffer zones that local people can use
82
Q

Life raft ecosystem

A

regions where poverty is high, populations are dense and communities are highly dependent on their ecosystems and the services they provide for their livelihoods

  • Areas with high poverty levels
  • Most people depend on ecosystem services for survival
  • Residents, public officials, and conservation scientists would work together
    ——–Win–win principle of sustainability
83
Q

Ecological restoration examples

A
  • Replanting forests
  • Reintroducing keystone native species
  • Removing harmful invasive species
  • Removing dams
  • Restoring grasslands, coral reefs, wetlands, and stream banks
84
Q

Four-step strategy for carrying out rehabilitation

A
  • Identify causes of the degradation
  • Stop the degradation by eliminating or sharply reducing those factors
  • Reintroduce keystone species, if possible
  • Protect from further degradation
85
Q

Reconciliation ecology

A

Invent and maintain habitats for species diversity where people live, work, and play

86
Q

Community-based conservation

A
  • Plant garden as food for bees, butterflies, and other pollinators
  • Eliminate or reduce pesticide use
  • Provide nesting boxes for birds
87
Q

What Can You Do? - Sustaining Terrestrial Biodiversity

A
  • Plant trees and take care of them
  • Recycle paper and buy recycled paper products
  • Buy sustainably produced wood and wood products and wood substitutes such as recycled plastic furniture and decking
  • Help restore a degraded forest or grassland
  • Landscape your yard with a diversity of native plants
88
Q

Nature reserves - benefits of connected core habitat “nodes”

A

prevents habitat degradation

89
Q

Background extinction

A

the natural evolution and elimination of species from the Earth over a long period of time.

  • also called the normal extinction rate
90
Q

mass extinction

A
  • when species vanish much faster than they are replaced. This is usually defined as about 75% of the world’s species being lost in a short period of geological time - less than 2.8 million years.
  • The dying out of a large number of species within a relatively short period of time
91
Q

Indicator species

A
  • species which can provide information on ecological changes and give early warning signals regarding ecosystem processes in site-specific conditions due to their sensitive reactions to them.
92
Q

Percent change / increase equation

A

| (final-initial) / initial | X 100

final value - initial value / initial value | X 100

AP Environmental Science (10 decks)

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