1. What is biodiversity? Agenda for Tuesday Feb 7th Biodiversity notes
Work on review

2. What is biodiversity? Variety of life in an area
# of different species

3. Species Diversity increase as you go towards the equator
Biodiversity hot spots

4. 3 types of Biodiversity Genetic Diversity Species Diversity
Ecosystem Diversity

5. Why is diversity important to ecology?
More diverse = more likely to flourish
Multiple organisms in each niche

6. 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 resistant crops

7. 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 water filtration system or clean wetlands to filter water

8. Importance of Biodiversity
Aesthetic and scientific value
Camping
Hunting
Research
vs.

9. What role do humans play?
Extinction = species or larger group dying out / disappearing
Normal Background Extinction: activity from other organisms, climate change, and natural disasters -> Less concern!
1/3 to 2/3 of current species will go extinct in second half of this century -> A CONCERN!
Humans are increasing extinction rates to 1000 times normal background extinction rate.

10. But it’s just 1 Species
Keystone species – a species that plays a large role in an ecosystem
Removal impacts entire food web/ecosystem
Elephants, otters, prairie dogs

11. Non-native/Introduced and Invasive species
species that are not native to area
cause economic, env’t, harm or harm human health
No predators, parasites, and competition to keep in check – out compete
No natural enemies
Create monoculture
Non-native
Not from here
Not harmful
Pheasants

12. Common Invasives
Buckthorn
Zebra Mussels
Emerald Ash Borer
Silver Carp

13. Threats to biodiversity
Fragmentation
Edge effect
Habitat loss (#1)
Overexploitation

14. HUMANS Habitat Loss Fragmentation Edge effect Invasive species
Overexploitation
Habitat Loss
Invasive species
Threats to Biodiversity
Fragmentation
Edge effect

15. Human Impact How do humans decrease biodiversity?
land use, the cutting of vast areas of forest, pollution of the soil, air, and water, add/remove organisms
energy demand

16. Human Impact - pollution
Air pollution
acid rain
damage to the ozone layer
Smog
global warming
Biological magnification
Water pollution
Eutrophication (excess nitrogen)

17. Agenda for Wednesday Feb 8th
Conservation
Review

18. 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

19. Identify hot spots
Endemic species – species found only in one area

20. Conserving Biodiversity
Corridors
Connect habitat fragments
Allows animals to move safely
Can spread disease

21. Restoring Ecosystems
Abandoned land can recover to create a new ecosystem

22. Restoring Ecosystems
Bioremediation – using living organisms to detoxify an area
Gulf coast oil spill and bacteria
Biological Augmentation – adding natural predators to a degraded ecosystem

23.
On a sheet of paper:
3 things you learned
2 questions you have
1 topic you’d like to learn more about