Conservation Biology, Biodiversity, and Global Climate Change

Vocabulary flashcards covering topics in conservation biology, types of biodiversity, species estimates, historical mass extinctions, and mechanisms of global climate change.

Biodiversity

The number and kinds of species and their abundance in a given location or on the planet.

Genetic Diversity

The variation of genes within a species or population, which links the potential for adaptation and survival to genetic variation.

Chemical Diversity

A measure of the variation of chemicals produced or stored by a species or group, which is often connected to genetic diversity.

Ecosystem Diversity

The variety of different ecosystems present on the planet or within a specified geographic area, enabling a great diversity of species to exist.

Lake Victoria

A large body of water in Africa that served as a site of extraordinary evolutionary adaptive radiation of cichlids, as well as a severe casualty of devastating biodiversity loss.

Endemic Species

Species that are naturally restricted and native to a single specific geographic location.

Biodiversity Hotspots

Geographic regions identified by Conservation International that cover only $2.3\%$ of the Earth's surface but contain endemic populations of $42\%$ of terrestrial vertebrate species and $50\%$ of world plants.

Latitudinal Diversity Gradient

The global distribution pattern showing higher species biodiversity at lower latitudes closer to the equator, influenced by ecosystem age, direct solar energy, and seasonal stability.

Mass Extinctions

Sudden and dramatic losses of planetary biodiversity that have occurred five times throughout Earth's history as documented in the fossil record.

Alvarez Hypothesis

The scientific proposition discovered by Luis and Walter Alvarez, Frank Asaro, and Helen Michels that an asteroid impact caused the end-Cretaceous mass extinction, evidenced by a global iridium spike at the K–Pg boundary.

Species-Area Relationship

The observed ecological relationship showing that the number of species present in a habitat increases as the size of the habitat area increases.

Catharanthus roseus

The Madagascar periwinkle, a plant species with medicinal properties that provides vincristine, a drug used to treat lymphomas.

End-Permian Extinction

The largest mass extinction event in Earth's history, occurring $251$ million years ago as Pangaea broke apart, killing approximately $70\%$ of land species and $84\%$ of marine species.

Climate

The long-term, predictable atmospheric conditions of a specific region, defined as the average weather measured year after year.

Weather

The short-term atmospheric conditions of a location, primarily focused on temperature and precipitation over a scale of days or weeks.

Oxygen-18 ($^{18}\text{O}$)

A heavy isotope of oxygen containing two extra neutrons that evaporates more readily from oceans during warmer air temperatures, used in ice core analysis to reconstruct past planetary climate.

Medieval Climate Anomaly

A historical period of mild global warming that occurred approximately $1,000$ years ago.

Little Ice Age

A period of slight cooling in the Northern Hemisphere occurring roughly $400$ years ago, causing severe agricultural failures such as the crop failures in Vermont in $1816$.

Milankovitch Cycles

Cyclic variations in Earth's orbit around the sun between spherical and elliptical shapes occurring every $19,000$ years, affecting solar radiation intensity and climate.

Greenhouse Gases

Atmospheric gases including $\text{CO}_2$, $\text{H}_2\text{O}$, $\text{CH}_4$, $\text{N}_2\text{O}$, and $\text{O}_3$ that trap heat by reflecting solar electromagnetic radiation back onto Earth's surface.

Ecosystem Services

Essential ecological processes that benefit human life, including plant pollination, soil maintenance, crop pest predation, atmospheric gas regulation, and wild food production.

Svalbard Global Seed Vault

A facility created to store seed samples of crop species and wild plant varieties to safeguard agricultural diversity against biodiversity loss.

Background Extinction Rate

The standard natural rate of extinction, historically estimated at $1$ out of every $1\text{ million}$ species per year, though present estimates sit near $100$ per million species per year.

Glacier Recession

The accelerated melting and retreat of accumulated land ice over the last $40$ years, adding water to the ocean and driving global sea level rise.