CH. 60 BIODIVERSITY AND CONSERVATION

Biodiversity encompasses:

• genetic diversity of a species

• variety of species in an area

• variety of ecosystem on a landscape

Why should biodiversity be protected?

• Humans depend upon other species for food, medicines, and industrial products

• ecosystems provide ecosystem services, including clean air and water

• humans have ethical responsibility to protect biodiversity

biophilia

• love of live

• human desire to affiliate with other life in its many forms

conservation biology

branch of ecology seeks to investigate and reverse the loss of biodiversity

restoration ecology

• uses ecological principles to help repair degraded areas

biodiversity hot spots

small areas with unusually high concentrations of endemic species and endangered species

endemic species

are found in a relatively small geographic area

fragmentation

splitting of habitats that causes populations to become isolated from each other→remedy includes maintaining corridors to connect habitat patches

bioremediation

the use of living organisms to detoxify polluted ecosystems

the goal of sustainable development:

maintain the productivity of earth’s ecosystems indefinitely