American Patriot - Bundys; Restore Late Pleistocene Function - Reading

Who are the Bundys?

an LDS (Mormon) family that grazed cattle on federal lands by permit in the Gold Butte area for generations

In 1989 USFWS Emergency listed the Mojave population of the desert tortoise as?

endangered under the ESA

In 1990, USFWS converted desert tortoise to?

threatened

What USFWS decision did they issue?

required BLM to reduce or revoke ranchers' grazing rights on public lands in desert tortoise habitat

When were ephemeral grazing permits were allowed?

only in years with above average rainfall and thus, annual plant growth

In 1993, what did BLM do?

lowered the number of cattle that Bundy was allowed to graze and limited when and how grazing could occur

In protest, what did Bundy do in response to BLM lowering the number of cattle allowed to graze, and how much could it occur?

stops paying grazing fees, but continued grazing

What were some fermentation traits?

Large-bodied hindgut grazers

Large-bodied ruminants

Large-bodied hindgut grazers:

Fermentation in the large intestine

Large-bodied ruminants:

Fermentation in the rumen (foregut)

What were some advantages of hindgut fermentation?

• Fast passage of food, able to eat large amounts quickly

• Better at handling diets that vary widely in quality

  • Better suited to environments where forage is abundant, and intake rate is more important than extracting every possible nutrient

What were some advantages of ruminants?

• More efficient digestion of low-quality fibrous plants

• Recover most microbial protein, providing a lot of amino acids

• Can survive on poor quality forage

What did figure 1A describe?

Species richness per continent

What did figure 1B describe?

Global herbivore trait space

• Arrows indicate how particular traits shape trait space axes

• Points indicate species

• fill density indicates their density distribution

What did figure 1C describe?

Changes in continental trait space from extinctions and introductions

• More functional groups/ecosystem function in the Late Pleistocene than today

• Implies loss of ecosystem functionality between LP and now

• Not just loss in species richness

What did figure 2A describe?

Change in trait space volume and functional dissimilarity

• All depict a loss, looking at just the native species

• Trait space is a metric of functional diversity (= functional richness)

• Turnover = unique space trait

What did figure 2B describe?

Total functional dissimilarity patterns to the late Pleistocene

• calculated from the overlap of four-dimensional trait space

• New species = new function?

What did figure 3 describe?

Select introduced herbivores and their extinct nearest neighbors in those continents most impacted by extinctions and introductions

• By body mass and dietary guild

• Restricted by climate zone and continent

• Functions interchangeable

What did figure 4 describe?

The loss and restoration of key metabolic ecosystem functions

• Forty-four percent of introductions restore extinct functional groups, restoring 14 of 51 extinct dietary body mass groups across continents

What is Conservation Biology?

an applied multidisciplinary field of science that seeks to understand human-caused changes to biodiversity and the impact of these changes on natural systems, and to investigate responses to mitigate these challenges

What is Conservationist?

one who advocates or practices the sensible and careful (sustainable) use of natural resources

What is a Preservationist?

one who advocates for land, natural systems, and organisms to exist without significant human interaction

What are the three main goals of Conservation Biology?

All of the above

What is the biological species concept?

species are groups of actually or potentially interbreeding populations which are reproductively isolated from other such groups

Infection prevalence at Lower Blue Point Spring

Bd is extremely temperature sensitive

• In summer, confidence level is 0: no frogs sampled at this time have this fungus

• As temperatures cool, more animals are infected with fungus - hammered in the winter

In summer, confidence level is 0:

no frogs sampled at this time have this fungus

As temperatures cool, confidence level is 1:

more animals are infected with fungus - hammered in the winter

How did Resident frogs survive against the chytrid pathogen?

Potentially exposed to small levels of infection and can build resistance to it, adapt over time

Later sampling results found that Bd had disappeared from the site Oct-Nov 2021,2022, 2023

Assumed two things occurred:

1. Really hot summer

2. A pool that was created that was fish-free, favored by frogs, water stayed cooler, and frogs stayed there. When the water dried out, no frogs remained there to maintain the fungus (small change in environment)

What was the Younger Dryas 14-12.9 ka?

Climatic pattern at the end of the last glacial period may have been different than earlier glacial-interglacial transitions

Northern Hemisphere plunged back into and then out of glacial conditions within decades

• A climatic period where the Earth plummeted to really cold temperatures

During the Younger Dryas, the Northern Hemisphere plunged:

back into and then out of glacial conditions within decades

Why was the Younger Dryas important?

hypothesized that it was an unusual event that had a part in the mass extinction of animals