Conservation Biology Because we love all da animals… (and plants… kind of, we just don’t act like it)

Why is this a thing? Because someone decided that: more biodiversity is good for the biosphere, extinctions caused by humans are bad, interactions in an ecosystem are good, and evolution is good.

What is biodiversity? Biodiversity Encompasses Genetic diversity- genetic variations in a population Ecosystem diversity- interactions in an ecosystem Landscape diversity- landscape can have plains, mountains, and rivers, but these can be fragmented to reduce environmental interactions

Well so what! Direct Value Indirect Value Medicines Agriculture Consumption Indirect Value Biogeographical Cycles Waste Disposal Freshwater Prevention of Soil Erosion Regulation of Climate Ecotourism

Cray Cray things that happen Habitat Loss Rainforests Coral Reefs Fragmentation and Deforestation Mangroves Overexploitation Exotic Invasion Feral pigs from Europe Kudzu from Japan Zebra mussels

Pollution blah blah blah Acid Rain will melt your face off Eutrophication, Wat? Ozone loss, Oh no! Organic Chemicals, oops! Global “dare I say it” Warming

How do fix it Restoration Ecology is sub- conservation biology that seeks scientific ways to return ecosystems to a state prior to their habitat degredation

Because that’s what we need, a little math in our science Hardy-Weinburg Because that’s what we need, a little math in our science

Measuring Evolution (like a boss) I wonder if things like Mutations, Gene Flow, Non random Mating, Genetic Drift, and Selection are having any effect on the population… what do I use? If the population is not evolving, then the predicted values are the same as the experimental values. <-null hypothesis

Some letter combinations you will need to know p- frequency of the dominant allele q- frequency of the recessive allele Formula for alleles: p+q=1 p2 –frequency of homozygous dominant q2 -frequency of homozygous recessive 2pq- frequency of heterozygous Formula for individuals: p2 + 2pq + q2 = 1

Fun Questions There are 100 students in a class. Ninety-six did well in the course whereas four blew it totally and received a grade of F. Sorry. In the highly unlikely event that these traits are genetic rather than environmental, if these traits involve dominant and recessive alleles, and if the four (4%) represent the frequency of the homozygous recessive condition, please calculate the following: The frequency of the recessive allele. The frequency of the dominant allele. The frequency of heterozygous individuals.

more A rather large population of Biology instructors have 396 red-sided individuals and 557 tan-sided individuals. Assume that red is totally recessive. Please calculate the following: The allele frequencies of each allele. The expected genotype frequencies. The number of heterozygous individuals that you would predict to be in this population. The expected phenotype frequencies. Conditions happen to be really good this year for breeding and next year there are 1,245 young "potential" Biology instructors. Assuming that all of the Hardy-Weinberg conditions are met, how many of these would you expect to be red-sided and how many tan-sided?