1. Sustaining Wild Species Chapter 16

2. Review:
Explain the difference in genetic diversity, species richness, and ecosystem diversity.

3. What is Biological Diversity?
What changes have occurred to change the biodiversity of the earth?
Background extinction
Mass extinction
Adaptive radiation
What is different today?

4. Importance of Biodiversity
Biologist estimate that for every 2,000 species that have ever lived, 1,999 of them are extinct today.
Currently species extinction is occurring at a rate of 100 to 1,000 times the natural rate of background extinction.

5. Why are Alligators Special?
Using figure 16.2 in your text book, list the role alligators play in their environment.
What is the name for the role the alligator plays?
__________ _________ within an ecosystem provides the ecosystem with resilience, the ability to ______________.

6. Importance of Biodiversity
Economic: crop strains such as the winged bean plant (page 355), paper, fiber, dyes, lumber, oils

7. Importance of Biodiversity
Medical: drug source, testing for toxicity and drugs/vaccines
80% of the world’s population relies on plants or plant extracts for medicines.
At least 40% of all pharmaceuticals come from the genetic resources of wild plants, mostly tropical developing countries. Example: anticancer drugs
Rosy periwinkle produces chemicals that are effective against certain cancers --- childhood leukemia (page 354)

8. Importance of Biodiversity
scientific knowledge: how life evolved and functions
genetic engineering – the incorporation of genes from one organism into an entirely different species.
*We have skills to transfer genes from one organism to another but we do not have the ability to make genes that encode for specific traits. Why destroy the genetic diversity when it may hold the solutions?

9. Importance of Biodiversity
Ecological services: nutrient cycling, pollination, soil fertility, oxygen production, climate moderation, waste recycling, detoxification, pest control, gene pool/evolution
Remember Earth’s
Capital????

10. Importance of Biodiversity
Aesthetic and
Recreational
Ecotourism: wildlife tourism
Americans spend 3 times more to watch wildlife than to go to movies or on professional sporting events

11. Why Use the Precautionary Principle?
Aldo Leopold (page 353)
we have little understanding of the ecological roles of the world’s identified 1.75 million species
use precautionary principle to prevent the premature extinction of species as a result of our activities . Estimates are that on average species per day become extinct (above the background extinction rate)

12. Keystone species
A species that is crucial in determining the nature and structure of the entire ecosystem in which it lives; other species of a community depend on or are greatly affected by the keystone species, whose influence is much greater than would be expected by its relative abundance. These are most vulnerable to habitat loss.

13. Why Use the Precautionary Principle?
Ecosystems may lose their ability to support many forms of life because of the disappearance of local populations of key organisms

14. Why Use the Precautionary Principle?
Mathematical models indicate a time lag of several generations between habitat loss and extinction, primarily because habitat loss also removes potential colonization sites….
If this is true, biologist may be grossly
underestimating the magnitude of
the current biodiversity meltdown!

15. Three Levels of Extinction
Local Extinction: when a species is no longer found in an area it once inhabited but is still found elsewhere in the world.

16. Three Levels of Extinction
Ecological Extinction: Where there are so few members of a species left that it can no longer play its ecological roles in the biological communities where it is found.
Sea Otter

17. Three Levels of Extinction
Biological Extinction: Occurs when a species is no longer found anywhere on the earth. Biological extinction is FOREVER!!!

18. Endangered vs. Threatened
What is the difference in the terms endangered and threatened?
Endangered: has so few individual survivors that the species could soon become extinct over all or most of its natural range.
Threatened: still abundant in its natural range but is declining in numbers and is likely to become endangered. Examples: grizzly bear, southern sea otter, American alligator

19. Estimated extinction rate

20. Estimated Extinction Rates
Average annual extinction rate of Mammal and Bird species
8000 B.C - A.D species per 1000
1600 – species every 4 years
1900 – species every year

21. Estimated Extinction Rates
Extinction rate of All Species
several hundred
1985 several thousand
1990 at least 10,000
,000 – 50,000

22. Threatened

23. Endangered

24. Extinct

25. Ten Characteristics of Extinction-Prone Species
found in limited areas
small population size
low population density
large body size
specialized niches and feeding habits --- Giant Panda (bamboo)
low reproductive rates

26. Ten Characteristics of Extinction-Prone Species
fixed migrations
Flyway – An established route that ducks, geese,
and shorebirds
follow during
their annual
migrations.

27. Ten Characteristics of Extinction-Prone Species
feed at the top of long food chains or webs
have high economic value to people
need large territory :
The California Condor
(page 357)
Snow Leopard Coat

28. Three Root Causes of Extinction of Wildlife:
human population growth
economic systems that don’t value the environment
exploitation, degradation of wildlife habitats

29. Eight Human Activities Which Directly Increase the Wildlife Extinction Rate:
population growth
poverty
habitat loss
Example: Figure 16.9, page 360 The dusky seaside sparrow found only in the marshes of St. Johns River in Fla. became extinct in 1987 due to human destruction of its habitat.

30. What Type of Feedback Loop?

31. Eight Human Activities Which Directly Increase the Wildlife Extinction Rate:
habitat fragmentation
hunting/poaching (Carolina Parakeet, Prairie Dog)

32. Problems with Habitat Fragmentation
Increase exposed surface are making species vulnerable to predators, fires, etc
Patches are too small to support minimum breeding population
Fragmentation can create barriers that limit the ability of some species to disperse and colonize new area, find enough to eat, and find mates

33. Critical population density
Must have minimum viable population size: below this number the species’ survival may be jeopardized because males and females have a difficult time finding each other. Problems are:
Death rate exceeds birth rate as population falls below its critical size
Remaining small population can easily be wiped out by fire, flood, disease

34. Critical population density
Genetic diversity also decreases because the resulting smaller gene pool and inbreeding reduce population’s ability to respond to environmental changes through natural selection
An endangered species must number at least 10,000 and often more to maintain its evolutionary potential for survival.

35. Eight Human Activities Which Directly Increase the Wildlife Extinction Rate:
uses as pets/ decorations
climate change/pollution

36. Eight Human Activities Which Directly Increase the Wildlife Extinction Rate:
introduced species (alien species)
Examples: Kudzu, Brown Tree Snake,
Blue Water Hyacinth
**Be familiar with examples
of introduced species to
the US
(table 16.1 page 360)

37. Frogs…..
Bioaccumulation
Biomagnification

38. Facts to Know
Species is considered extinct when it has not been seen for at least 50 years or when the last of a few monitored individuals die.
endemic species: Found no where else on earth
range: The area in which a particular species is found

39. Bioinformatics
Organizing and storing useful biological information about wild species using a data base
Provides computer tools to find, visualize, analyze, and communicate biological information

40. .
Biophilia
An inherent affinity for the natural world (love of life)

41. Facts to Know
Commercial extinction: Depletion of the population of a wild species used as a resource to a level at which it is no longer profitable to harvest the species.
Where is declining biological diversity the greatest problem?
Florida, California, Hawaii Hawaii is #1

42. Facts to Know
Biodiversity Hotspots: Describes relatively small areas of land that contain an exceptional number of endemic species and are at high risk from human activities. (Page 359 figure 16.8)

43. Human Causes of Species Endangerment
Give three examples of:
habitat destruction, habitat fragmentation, or habitat degradation
invasive species (biological pollution)
pollution
overexploitation

44. How Important is the Tropical Rainforest?
Cover 7% of the Earth’s surface but has as many as 50% of the Earth’s species inhabit them

45. Tropical Deforestation and Degradation
Primary causes
Rapid population growth
Poverty
Exploitive government policies
Exports to developed countries
Failure to include ecological services in evaluating forest resources

46. Tropical Deforestation and Degradation
Secondary causes
Roads Mining
Cattle ranching - Cash crops
Logging Oil drilling
Tree plantations
Flooding from dams
Unsustainable peasant farming

47. What Happens When Tropical Rainforest Are Destroyed?
Birds that migrate from North America to the rain forest in Central America and the Caribbean have been declining in numbers faster than other migratory birds
The forest itself generates much of the rainfall in tropical rain forest. If half of the existing rain forest in the Amazon region of South America were to be destroyed, precipitation in the remaining forest would decrease.

48. What Happens When Tropical Rainforest Are Destroyed?
As the land became drier, organisms adapted to moister conditions would be replace by organisms able to tolerate the drier conditions. Many endemic species would become extinct.
Disruption of the evolutionary process.
Tropical Rainforest has supplied the base of ancestral organism from which adaptive radiation occurs.
Are we eliminating nature’s ability to replace its species through adaptive radiation?

49. Overfishing
Tragedy of the commons???
Commercial fishing methods

50. Bycatch
Bycatch is the term used for the accidental capture of non-target species in fishing gear. Humpback whale entangled in a fishing net.

51. Bycatch

52. Conservation Biology
The scientific study of how humans impact organism and the development of ways to protect biological diversity.

53. Conservation Biology What are the concepts that guide it?
Large habitats are more effective at safeguarding species that several habitat fragments
Large areas of habitat typically have the potential to support greater species richness.
It is better if areas of habitat for a given species are located close together rather than far apart.

54. Conservation Biology
Areas that are inaccessible to humans are better than human accessible areas.
It is more effective and more economical to preserve intact ecosystems in which many species live than to work on preserving individual species one at a time.
Higher priority is given to preserving areas that are more biologically diverse than others. (Remember the Hot Spots?)

55. Three Techniques of Conservation Biology
1. Ecosystem Approach
In situ conservation
Protecting habitats
Restoring damaged or destroyed habitats
Preserve balanced populations of species in their native habitat
Establish legally protected wilderness areas and wildlife reserves
Eliminate or reduce the populations of nonative species

56. Three Techniques of Conservation Biology
2. Species Approach
Identify endangered species and give them legal protection
Preserve and manage crucial habitats
Ex situ conservation
Zoos, aquarai, botanical gardens, seed banks
Reintroducing endangered species to nature

57. Three Techniques of Conservation Biology
3. Wildlife Management Approach
Manages game species by:
Using laws to regulate hunting
Establishing harvest quotas
Developing population management plans
Using international treaties to protect migrating game species such as waterfowl

58. Wildlife Refuges
Teddy Roosevelt established Pelican Island off Florida’s Atlantic coast as the 1st wildlife refuge to protect the brown pelican (1903)
Now have 508 refuges, 85% are in Alaska
¾ are wetlands for protection of migratory waterfowl

59. Laws, Acts, and Organizations
CITIES
Lacey Act
Endangered Species Act
Wild Bird Conservation Act
Magnuson Fisheries Management and Conservation Act

60. United States Lacey Act (1900) Endangered Species Act (1973)
Prohibits transporting live or dead wild animals or their parts across state borders without a federal permit
Endangered Species Act (1973)
Endangered or threatened species cannot be hunted, killed, collected or injured in the United States

61. The Endangered Species Act
There are over 1100 species on the list – 60% are plants and 40 % are animals. Hawaii leads this list (298+). Each year about 85 species are added to the list
Requires all commercial shipments of wildlife and wildlife products enter or leave the country through one of nine designated ports.

62. The Endangered Species Act
National Marine Fisheries Services (NMFS) identifies and list endangered and threatened ocean species.
U.S. fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS) identifies and list all other endangered and threatened species.
Adding or removing a species from the list must be based on biology, not economic or political reasons

63. The Endangered Species Act
Forbids federal agencies to carry out, fund, or authorize projects that would either jeopardize, destroy or modify the critical habitat.
Fines and jail sentences can be imposed on private lands to ensure protection of the habitats of endangered species.

64. Rules of the Endangered Species Act
There are over 1100 species on the list – 60% are plants and 40 % are animals. Hawaii leads this list (298+). Each year about 85 species are added to the list
Requires all commercial shipments of wildlife and wildlife products enter or leave the country through one of nine designated ports.

65. Wild Bird Conservation Act
Imposed a moratorium on importing rare bird species

66. Magnuson Fisheries Management and Conservation Act
Gives the federal government authority to manage fisheries in the zone between 3 and 200 miles off the U.S. shore. There is no limit on the number of U.S. fishing vessels, but quotas can be imposed on the quantity of fish taken.

67. Other Solutions Biosphere Reserves
Reintroduction of endangered species
Restoration Ecology