© 2010 Pearson Education Canada 9 Conservation of Species and Habitats PowerPoint ® Slides...

© 2010 Pearson Education Canada

9Conservation of Species

and Habitats

PowerPoint® Slides prepared Stephen Turnbull

Copyright © 2013 Pearson Canada Inc.

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Upon successfully completing this chapter, you will be able to

• Characterize the scope and value of biodiversity on Earth

• Describe ways to measure biodiversity

• Evaluate the primary causes of biodiversity loss

• Specify the benefits and challenges of conserving habitat and the role of habitat fragmentation

• Contrast in situ and ex situ conservation approaches

• Compare and contrast traditional and innovative conservation efforts

• Outline reasons for setting aside parks, reserves, and other protected areas

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Central Case: Saving the Polar Bear: What Will it Take?

• “There will be no polar ice by 2060. Somewhere along that path, the polar bear drops out.”

• COSEWIC – polar bear would not be listed as a “threatened” species; why not?

• Polar bears coming into contact and interbreeding with other types of bears

• Polar bears are appearing more frequently in human settlements

• Traditional Inuit hunting practices are being affected by the loss of sea ice

• What will it take to save the polar bear?

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Our Planet of Life

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Biodiversity encompasses several levels• Biodiversity = sum total of all

organisms in an area

- Species diversity

- Genetic diversity

- Ecosystem diversity

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Biodiversity encompasses several levels (cont’d)

• Species Diversity = the number or variety of species in the world or in a particular region

- Species richness = the number of species

- Evenness or relative abundance = extent to which numbers of individuals of different species are equal or skewed

- Speciation generates new species and adds to species richness

- Extinction reduces species richness

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• Species Diversity

- Immigration is the inmigration of a species to an area

- Emigration is the outmigration of a species from an area

- Extirpation is the local extinction of a species

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Biodiversity encompasses several levels (cont’d)• Taxonomists = scientists who classify species using

physical appearance and genetics

- Domain- Kingdom- Phylum- Class- Order- Family- Genus- Species

• Every species has a two-part scientific name: genus and species

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• Genetic Diversity

- All species consist of individuals that vary genetically from one another to some degree

- Encompasses the varieties in DNA among individuals within species and populations

- The raw material for adaptation to local conditions

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• Genetic Diversity

- Populations with low genetic diversity are vulnerable

- Inbreeding depression = genetically similar parents mate and produce inferior offspring

- Genetic bottleneck = limited variety of genetic material is available to be passed along by the small number of surviving individuals to their descendants

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• Ecosystem diversity = the number and variety of ecosystems

• Also encompasses differing communities and habitats

• Rapid vegetation change and varying landscapes within an ecosystem promote higher levels of biodiversity

• Ecotones = where different types of habitats intermix

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Some groups hold more species than others

• Insects predominate over all other life-forms

- 40% of all insects are beetles

• Groups accumulate species by

- Adaptive radiation

- Allopatric speciation

- Low rates of extinction

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Insects outnumber all other species

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Measuring biodiversity is not easy

• Precise quantitative measurements are difficult

• About 1.8 million species but likely higher

• Incomplete for several reasons

- Some areas of Earth little explored

- Many species are tiny and overlooked

- Many organisms are difficult to identify

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Biodiversity is unevenly distributed on the planet

• Latitudinal gradient = species richness increases towards the equator

• Plant productivity and climate stability play key roles

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Biodiversity Loss and Species Extinction

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Biodiversity loss and species extinction• Canadian Species at Risk Act uses categorizes:

- Extinction = occurs when the last member of a species dies and the species ceases to exist

- Extirpation = the disappearance of a particular population from a given area, but not the entire species globally

- Endangered = species in imminent danger of becoming extirpated or extinct

- Threatened = species likely to become endangered in the near future

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Extinction and extirpation occur naturally• Paleontologists estimate 99% of all species that ever

lived are now extinct

• Background rate of extinction = natural extinctions for a variety of reasons

• 1 species out of 1,000 mammal and marine species would go extinct every 1,000 to 10,000 years

- 1 extinction per 1 to 10 million species for mammals and marine species per year

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Extinction and extirpation occur naturally (cont’d)• Earth has experienced five previous mass extinction episodes

• In the past 440 million years, mass extinctions have eliminated at least 50% of all species

• Today’s mass extinction is caused by humans and humans will suffer as a result of it

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Some species are more vulnerable to extinction than others

• In general, extinction occurs when environmental conditions change so severely that a species cannot adapt to the change

• Vulnerable = species that are of particular concern because of characteristics that make them particularly sensitive to human activities or natural events

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Humans may have started the sixth mass extinction

Extinctions followed human arrival on islands and continents9-23



Humans may have started the sixth mass extinction (cont’d)

• Global extinction rate is 100 to 1000 times greater than background rate

• The Red List = an updated global list of species facing high risks of extinctions

- 23% of mammal species

- 12% of bird species

- 17% to 75% of all other species

• Extinction is only part of the story of biodiversity loss, the larger part of the story is decline in population sizes

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Humans may have started the sixth mass extinction (cont’d)

• The Living Planet Index quantifies degradation

- Between 1970 and 2007, the Index fell by 30%

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There are several major causes of biodiversity loss

• Reasons for biodiversity losses are multifaceted and factors may interact synergistically

• Causes of population decline:- Habitat alteration

- Invasive species

- Pollution

- Overharvesting

- Climate change

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• Think about in relation to Vancouver Island



There are several major causes of biodiversity loss (cont’d)

• Habitat alteration

- The greatest cause of biodiversity loss

- Farming simplifies communities

- Grazing modifies the grassland structure and species composition

- Clearing forests removes resources organisms need

- Hydroelectric dams turn rivers into reservoirs upstream

- Urbanization and suburban sprawl reduce natural communities

- A few species (i.e., pigeons, rats) benefit from changing habitats

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• Invasive species

- Introduction of non-native species to new environments

- Accidental: zebra mussels

- Deliberate: food crops

- Island species are especially vulnerable

- Invaders have no natural predators, competitors, or parasites

- Cost billions of dollars in economic damage

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• Pollution

- Harms organisms in many ways

- Air pollution degrades forest ecosystems

- Water pollution adversely affects fish and amphibians

- Agricultural runoff harms terrestrial and aquatic species

- The effects of oil and chemical spills on wildlife are dramatic and well known

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• Overharvesting

- Vulnerable species are large, few in number, long-lived, and have few young (K-selected species)

- The Siberian tiger (The 1989 political freedom in Soviet Union brought the freedom to hunt)

- Atlantic gray whale has gone extinct

- Thousands of sharks killed just for fins

- Gorillas killed for their meat

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• Climate change

- Global impact on habitat and biodiversity

- Greenhouse gases modifies global weather patterns and increases the frequency of extreme weather events

- Increases stress on populations and forces organisms to shift their geographic ranges

- Most animals and plants will not be able to cope

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• Over 2500 amphibian species worldwide are in decline

• Some may be lost before they are even discovered

• Amphibians are regarded as “biological indicators”

• Habitat loss, especially draining of wetlands, is the leading threat to amphibians in Canada

- Pollution, fragmentation also problems

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Benefits of Biodiversity

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Biodiversity provides ecosystem services• Provides food, fuel, and fibre

• Provides shelter and building materials

• Purifies air and water

• Detoxifies and decomposes wastes

• Stabilizes and moderates Earth’s climate

• Moderates floods, droughts, wind, and temperature extremes

• Generates and renews soil fertility and cycles nutrients

• Pollinates plants, including many crops

• Controls pests and diseases

• Maintains genetic resources as inputs to crop varieties, livestock breeds, and medicines

• Provides cultural and aesthetic benefits

• Gives us the means to adapt to change

The annual value of just 17 ecosystem services = $16 to 54 trillion per year

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Biodiversity helps maintain ecosystem integrity

• Biodiversity increases the stability and resilience of communities and ecosystems

- Decreased biodiversity reduces a natural system’s ability to function and provide services to our society

• The loss of a species affects ecosystems differently

- If the species can be functionally replaced by others, it may make little difference

- Extinction of a keystone species may cause other species to decline or disappear

• Precautionary principle: “To keep every cog and wheel is the first precaution of intelligent tinkering” (Aldo Leopold)

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Biodiversity enhances food security

• Genetic diversity within crops is enormously valuable

- California’s barley crops annually receive $160 million in disease resistance benefits from Ethiopian strains of barley

• Wild strains provide disease resistance and have the ability to grow back year after year without being replanted

• New potential food crops are waiting to be used

- Serendipity berry produces a sweetener 3,000 times sweeter than sugar

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Biodiversity provides drugs and medicines• Each year

pharmaceutical products owing their origin to wild species generate up to $150 billion in sales

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Bioprospecting in Costa Rica

Bioprospectors for pharmaceutical companies scour biodiversity-rich countries, searching for organisms that might provide new drugs, foods, or other valuable products. Many have been criticized for harvesting indigenous species to create commercial products that do not benefit the country of origin. Costa Rica reached an agreement with Merck for $1.1 million, a small royalty rate on any products developed, and training for Costa Rican scientists.

•Do you think both sides won in this agreement?

•What is Merck discovers a compound that could be turned into a billion-dollar drug?

•Does this provide a good model for other countries, and for other companies?

weighing

the issues

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How Best to Conserve Biodiversity?•Most people view national parks and ecotourism as excellent ways to help keep ecological systems intact. Yet the golden toad went extinct despite living within a reserve established to protect it, and climate change does not pay attention to park boundaries.

•What lesson can we learn from this about the conservation of biodiversity?

weighing

the issues

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Biodiversity provides additonal economic benefits

• Ecotourism is particularly beneficial in developing countries

- Costa Rica: rainforests

- Australia: Great Barrier Reef

- Belize: reefs, caves, and rainforests

• Incentive to preserve natural areas and reduce impacts on the landscape and on native species

• Too many visitors can degrade the outdoor experience and disturb wildlife

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People value and seek out connections with nature

• Biophilia = connections that humans subconsciously seek with life- Our affinity for parks and wildlife- Keeping of pets- High value of real estate with

views of natural lands• Nature deficit disorder = alienation

from the natural environment- May be behind the emotional and

physical problems of the young

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Resources: “Biophilic Design” (film);Last Child in the Woods by Reichard Louv



Approaches to Conservation

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Conservation biology addresses habitat degradation and species loss

• Conservation biology = understanding the factors, forces, and processes that influence the loss and protection, and restoration of biological diversity

• Conservation biologists choose questions and pursue research with the aim of developing solutions to the problems of habitat degradation and species loss

- Applied and goal-orientated science, with implicit values and ethical standards

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Conservation biology arose in response to biodiversity loss

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Conservation biology addresses habitat degradation and species loss (cont’d)

• Use field data, lab data, theory, and experiments to study impacts of humans on other organisms

• Design, test, and implement ways to mitigate impacts

• Minimum viable population = how small a population can become before it runs into problems

• Organisms distributed as a network of subpopulations- Small populations are most vulnerable to extinction

and need special attention

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Island biogeography can help address habitat fragmentation

• Equilibrium theory of island biogeography = explains how species come to be distributed among oceanic islands

- Also applies to “habitat islands” – patches of one habitat type isolated within a “sea” of others (i.e. the basic concept also applies to terrestrial environments)

- Explains how the number of species on an island results from an equilibrium between immigration and extirpation

- Predicts an island’s species richness based on the island’s size and distance from the mainland

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• Species richness results from island size and distance• Fewer species colonize an island far from the mainland• Large islands have higher immigration rates• Large islands have lower extinction rates

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Island biogeography can help address habitat fragmentation (cont’d)




• Species-area curves

- Large islands contain more species than small islands

- They are easier to find and have lower extinction rates

- They possess more habitats

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• Habitat fragmentation

- Forests are fragmented by roads and logging

- Small forest fragments lose diversity fastest

- Starting with large species

- Fragmentation is one of the prime threats to biodiversity

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Captive breeding and cloning are single-species approaches

• Captive breeding – individuals are bred and raised with the intent of reintroducing them into the wild

- Zoos and botanical gardens

• Some reintroductions require international cooperation

- Whooping cranes in Wood Buffalo Park (Canada) and Gulf coast of Texas (U.S.)

• Some habitat is so fragmented, a species cannot survive once reintroduced

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Captive breeding and cloning are single-species approaches (cont’d)

• Cloning – a technique to create more individuals and save species from extinction

- Most biologists agree that these efforts are not adequate to recreate the lost biodiversity

• Even if cloning can succeed, ample habitat and protection in the wild are needed to save species

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Fragmentation and biodiversity

Suppose a critic of conservation tells you that human development increases biodiversity, pointing out that when a forest is fragmented, new habitats, such as grassy lots and gardens, may be introduced to an area and allow additional species to live there.

• How would you respond?

weighing

the issues

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Some species act as “umbrellas” to protect communities• Conservation biologists use particular umbrella species

as tools to conserve communities and ecosystems

- helps protect less-charismatic animals

• Flagship species – large and charismatic species used as spearheads for biodiversity conservation

- The World Wildlife Fund’s panda bear

• Some organizations are moving beyond the single species approach to focus on whole landscapes

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Conservation efforts are both national and international

• 2002: Species at Risk Act stresses cooperation with landowners and governments to avoid hostility

- Some say SARA is too weak

• COSEWIC (Committee on the Status of Endangered Wildlife in Canada) = expert committee that reports the status of species at risk

• 1973: UN Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES) – protects endangered species by banning international transport of their body parts

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Hot spots highlight areas of high biodiversity

• Biodiversity hotspots – prioritizes regions most important globally for biodiversity

- Support a great number of endemic species = species found nowhere else in the world

- The area must have at least 1500 endemic plant species (0.5% of the world total)

- It must have lost 70% of its habitat due to human impact

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There are 34 global biodiversity hotspots2.3% of the planet’s land surface contains 50% of the world’s plant species and 42% of all terrestrial vertebrate species

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Hot spots highlight areas of high biodiversity (cont’d)



Community- based conservation is increasingly popular

• Community-based conservation = conservation biologists actively engage local people in protecting land and wildlife

- Protecting land deprives people access to resources

- Can guarantee that these resources will not be used up or sold to foreign corporations and can instead be sustainably managed

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Innovative economic strategies are being employed

• Debt-for-nature swap = a conservation organization pays off a portion of a developing country’s international debt

- In exchange for a promise by the country to set aside reserves

- Fund environmental education, and

- Better manage protected areas

• Conservation concession = conservation organizations pay nations to conserve, and not sell, resources

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Parks and Reserves

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Why do we create parks and reserves?

• Enormous, beautiful, or unusual features inspire people to protect them – monumentalism

• Protected areas offer recreational value to tourists, hikers, fishers, hunters, and others

• Protected areas offer utilitarian benefits and ecosystem services

• Parks make use of sites lacking economically valuable material resources or that are hard to develop

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Why do we create parks and reserves (cont)?

• There are 43 national parks in Canada

• Many sites in a parks system also serve as wildlife refuges

• Some find hunting in parks objectionable

- Hunters often in forefront of conservation

- Ducks Unlimited Canada

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Why do we create parks and reserves (cont)?

• Not everyone supports land set-asides

• Wise-use movement – dedicated to protecting private property rights; opposing government regulation; transferring federal lands to state, local, or private hands; promoting motorized recreation on public lands

- Farmers, ranchers, trappers, mineral prospectors, as well as groups representing industries that extract timber, mineral, and fossil fuels.

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Parks and reserves are increasing internationally

• Many nations have established national park systems and are benefiting from ecotourism

• Parks in developing countries do not always receive the funding, legal support, or enforcement support they need to manage resources

• Many of the world’s protected areas are merely paper parks

- Costa Rican parks initially received little funding

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Parks and reserves are increasing internationally (cont’d)

• World Heritage Sites – under national sovereignty but are designated or partly managed internationally by the United Nations

• Biosphere reserves – tracts of land with exceptional biodiversity that couple preservation with sustainable development to benefit local people- Core area- Buffer zone- Outer transitional one

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• Cores and corridors – proposals to connect major parks, such as the “Yukon to Yellowstone” initiative are intended to increase landscape connectivity



Conclusion• Loss of biodiversity threatens to result in a mass extinction

• Primary causes of biodiversity loss are:

- Habitat alteration, invasive species, pollution, overharvesting of biotic resources, and climate change

• Human society cannot function without biodiversity’s pragmatic benefits, but biodiversity also enriches our experience and quality of life

• Science can help save species, preserve habitats, restore populations, and keep natural ecosystems intact

• Video link to Spoil, about the endangerment of the Central Coast ecosystem: http://www.pacificwild.org/site/dispatches_from_the_rave/1296589563.html

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QUESTION: ReviewWhich level is NOT included in the concept of biodiversity?

a) Speciesb) Geneticsc) Ecosystemsd) All of the above are included in this concept

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QUESTION: Review

What happens when a species experiences “inbreeding depression”?

a) The species becomes too large for the resource baseb) Genetically similar parents mate and produce inferior

offspringc) Genetically similar parents mate and produce

superior offspringd) The number and variety of species increases

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QUESTION: ReviewAccording to the concept of “latitudinal gradient,” which of the following happens?

a) Species richness increases towards the equatorb) Species richness decreases towards the equatorc) Species richness decreases over timed) Countries like Canada have many more species than

expected

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QUESTION: ReviewWhich of the following is the major cause of extinction?

a) Invasive speciesb) Pollutionc) Habitat lossd) Overharvesting

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QUESTION: ReviewBiodiversity does all of the following, except…

a) Provide ecosystem servicesb) Decrease food securityc) Maintain ecosystem functiond) Provide aesthetic benefits

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QUESTION: ReviewAccording to the theory of island biogeography, which island would have the highest species richness?

a) A large island, close to the mainlandb) A large island, far from the mainlandc) A small island, close to the mainlandd) A small island, far from the mainland

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QUESTION: ReviewA “biodiversity hotspot” is…?

a) An area located near the equatorb) An area that supports few, but large, speciesc) An area that contains naturally high numbers of

peopled) An area that contains a large number of endemic

species

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QUESTION: Interpreting Graphs and Data

Where would ecotourists go to view the maximum species richness on these islands?

a) Redondab) Montserratc) Puerto Ricod) Hispaniola

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