Week 2 -Biodiversity Flashcards
What are biodiversity hotspots?
Biodiversity Hotspots where lots of species can be found in a relatively small area. Biodiversity “hotspot” is the new buzz word in conservation biology.
Where is marine biodiversity?
Marine biodiversity is mainly in the the archipelago between Mainland Southeast Asia and Australia + a little bit in the Caribbean
Marine biodiversity is concentrated in regions of high river flow, deforestation, nutrient and sediment input, declining water quality
Marine biodiversity is concentrated in regions of high population size and growth, with a high level of dependence on marine resources for protein World Population and in these areas of marine biodiversity
What is the depth refuge hypothesis?
For a lot of invertebrate groups, biodiversity is greatest at
intermediate depths, at the edges of the continental shelves, in depths of 1,000-3,000m. It is unlikely we have had a major impact on marine biodiversity at this depth…
yet!. Some have proposed a depth refuge hypothesis that argues species with broad
depth ranges will be resilient to human impacts on shallow water marine habitats. This
may be true as long as we can limit the extent to which modify the deep ocean floor.
What is phylogenetic diversity?
Phylogenetic diversity is used as a general term for a range of measures that consider the total length of all the branches linking a set of species on their phylogeny (“evolutionary tree”) and so reflect species’ evolutionary uniqueness. One of the first such measures is simply the sum of the branch lengths.
What is Biodiversity-Productivity relationship?
Many have argued that more productive ecosystems,
such as tropical rainforests, support more species (i.e. productivity = cause, diversity =
effect). Any human impact that reduces productivity is likely to cause species to go
extinct. However, years of experimental work have shown us that reducing the number of
species in an ecosystem reduces productivity (i.e. diversity = cause, productivity = effect).
Any human impact causing local extinctions will reduce ecosystem function. The reality
that diversity and productivity can be both cause and effect means that there can be no
debate of whether or not we should be protecting species or ecosystems… doing either
one can be effective and doing both is ideal.
What is the diversity index?
a measure of biodiversity that increases both when species richness increases and when there is a ore even abundance of individual species e.g Simpsons S
What is taxonomic distinctness?
an index that weights species according to how closely species are taxonomically related. Species from different orders are weighted more highly than species from different “Families”, which are weighted more highly than species from different ‘Genera”
