What is biodiversity?
Agenda for Wednesday Feb 10th
1.Biodiversity and Conservation
Test Friday
What is biodiversity?
•Variety of life in an area
–# of different species
Species Diversity
•increase as you go towards the equator
–Biodiversity hot spots
3 types of Biodiversity
Genetic Diversity
Species Diversity
Ecosystem Diversity
Why is diversity important to ecology?
•More diverse = more likely to flourish
–Multiple organisms in each niche
Importance of Biodiversity
Direct Economic value
•Food, clothing, energy, medicine, shelter
•Preserve desirable genes
–Food crops – most crops come from a few species
•Close relatives exist in the wild
•Disease resistant plants in wild – create disease resistantcrops
Importance of Biodiversity
Indirect Economic Value
•Provide oxygen and remove CO2
•Natural processes clean water
•Protect against floods and droughts
•Water cycle, carbon cycle, wetlands
–New York City – create $6 Billion waterfiltration system or clean wetlands to filterwater
Importance of Biodiversity
Aesthetic and scientific value
•Camping
•Hunting
•Research
vs.
What role do humans play?
•Extinction = species or larger group dying out / disappearing
•Normal Background Extinction: activity from otherorganisms, climate change, and natural disasters -> Lessconcern!
•1/3 to 2/3 of current species will go extinct in second half ofthis century -> A CONCERN!
•Humans are increasing extinction rates to 1000 timesnormal background extinction rate.
But it’s just 1 Species
•Keystone species – a species that plays a largerole in an ecosystem
–Removal impacts entire food web/ecosystem
•Elephants, otters, prairie dogs
Threat to Biodiversity
Threat
Description
What organisms iteffects
How does it disruptan ecosystem?
Page 116
Non-native/Introduced andInvasive species
•Invasive
–species that are notnative to area
–cause economic, env’t,harm or harm humanhealth
–No predators, parasites,and competition to keepin check – out compete
–No natural enemies
•Non-native
–Not from here
•Not harmful
–Pheasants
Common Invasives
•Buckthorn
•Zebra Mussels
•Emerald Ash Borer
•Silver Carp
List 3 reasons biodiversity isimportant.
Agenda for Thursday Feb 11th
1.Finish notes
2.Review/work time
Test tomorrow
Threats to biodiversity
•Fragmentation
•Edge effect
Overexploitation
Habitat loss (#1)
Threats toBiodiversity
Invasivespecies
Overexploitation
•Fragmentation
•Edge effect
HabitatLoss
H
U
M
A
N
S
Human Impact
•How do humans decrease biodiversity?
•land use, the cutting of vast areas of forest,pollution of the soil, air, and water, add/removeorganisms
•energy demand
Human Impact - pollution
•Air pollution
•acid rain
•damage to the ozone layer
•Smog
•global warming
•Biological magnification
Human Impact - pollution
•Water pollution
•Eutrophication
–accumulation of nutrients in water (Nitrogen)
–causes excessive algal growth
–reduction in O2 levels and death of aquatic life
Conserving Biodiversity
How do we conserve and protect biodiversity?
•Endangered Species Act,
•Fishing and hunting regulations
•Protected areas
–National Parks
–State Parks
–International Protected areas
•Large reserves protected by buffer zone
•Identify hot spots
–Endemic species – species found only in one area
Conserving Biodiversity
•Corridors
–Connect habitat fragments which creates a largerpiece of land
–Allows animals to move safely
–Can spread disease
Restoring Ecosystems
•Abandoned landcan recover tocreate a newecosystem
Restoring Ecosystems
•Bioremediation – using living organisms todetoxify an area
–Gulf coast oil spill and bacteria
•Biological Augmentation – adding naturalpredators to a degraded ecosystem
•https://www.ted.com/talks/george_monbiot_for_more_wonder_rewild_the_world/transcript?language=en#t-248531
• On a sheet of paper:
–3 facts you learned
–2 questions you have
–1 topic you’d like to learn more about