1. Principles of Conservation Biology BIOL 4160

2. Biodiversity

3. Species Diversity Genetic Diversity Ecosystem Diversity

4. Species Diversity What is a species anyway? o A group of individuals that is morphologically, physiologically, or biochemically distinct from other groups. Morphological Species Concept o A group of individuals that can potentially interbreed in the wild and don’t (usually) interbreed with other species. Biological Species Concept

5. Difficulties with morphology

6. Species definitions can be tricky....

9. How do we classify species?

10. Taxonomy The practice and science of classification

12. http://www.barcodeoflife.org/ http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HU1ru9H332s

13. Speciation vs. Extinction Present rate of extinction: 100-1000 times faster than rate of speciation

15. Back to looking at species diversity

18. Figure 2.9

19. Ecosystem Diversity Ecosystem: a biological community, together with its associated physical and chemical environment

20. Species interactions Competition Predation Mutualism Symbiosis

22. Food webs Fig 2.13

24. Species “importance” Figure 2.14

25. Loss of keystone species, like otters, can drastically altering ecosystem dynamics

26. Ecosystem Engineers

28. Keystone Resources (examples) Deep pools in streams and springs Salt licks and mineral pools Hollow trees Rotting wood What else?

29. Ecosystem dynamics Resistance: ability to maintain the same state with ongoing disturbance Resiliance: ability to return to the original state following a disturbance

31. Patterns of Biological Diversity

32. Tropical rainforests 7% world’s land area >50% world’s species 5-30 million insect species 1,300 bird species (not incl. migrants or island endemics)

33. Figure 3.1 Madagascar

35. Contains 28/35 animal phyla on earth today Incredibly high productivity Great Barrier Reef 400 coral spp 1500 fish spp 4,000 mollusks 252 birds 6 turtles mid-Atlantic Seaboard 250 fish spp

36. Productivity – 2500g/m2/yr compared to 125g/m2/yr Clip

37. Factors influencing diversity Climate Environment Topography Geological age Others?

38. Species richness Climate and Environment

39. Species richness Complex Topography Great geological age Topography, Geological Age, Habitat Size Habitat size

40. Correspondence in species richness between different groups of organisms

41. Habitat size can have a large effect – Indian Ocean and west Pacific have a much larger reef area and correspondingly high richness compared to the west Atlantic

42. France Thailand 674,843 km 2 104 mammal species 283 bird species 513,120 km 2 241 mammal species 971 bird species 11625 plant species

44. Why so many species in the tropics? 1)Solar Energy, abundant rainfall leads to high productivity and large resource base 2)Longer periods of stability 3)Warm temperature, high humidity favorable for growth

45. Why so many species in the tropics? 4) High competition, high niche specialization due to predictability of environment 5) Pressure from parasites, disease 6) Large geographic area

46. How many species are there?

47. 2006 2010 Vertebrates – 62,305 Invertebrates – 1,305,250 Plants – 321,212 Fungi – 74-120,000

49. Canada