Conservation Exam One

Conservation goals

1. Document biological diversity, 2. Investigate human impact on ecosystems, 3. Develop practical approaches to prevent extinctions.

Biodiversity

The variety of life in the world or in a particular habitat or ecosystem.

Extirpation

A local extinction of an animal that can still be found in other places.

Preservation Ethic

The belief that natural areas have spiritual value greater than monetary value.

Resource Conservation Ethic

Natural resources should be managed for the greater good.

Land Ethic

Human land use should enhance or improve biodiversity.

Cladistic Species Concept

Grouping species by shared and derived traits.

Speciation

The origin of new species, the focus of evolutionary theory.

Alpha diversity

The number of species in a specific area.

Beta diversity

Measurement of how unique particular sites are within a region.

Keystone species

Species with relatively low biomass but high impact in their community.

Externalities

Hidden costs or benefits not directly involved in an exchange.

Perverse subsidies

Government promotion of environmentally damaging activities with tax breaks.

Ecosystem Integrity

How ‘intact’ an ecosystem is.

Intermediate disturbance hypothesis

The theory that the highest diversity occurs in landscapes with intermediate levels of disturbances.

Intristic Value

The value that a species has for its own sake.

Ecological Economics

The field that studies the interactions between economic and ecological systems.

Mutualism

A relationship between two species where both benefit.

Existence value

How much a person is willing to pay to protect a species.

Ralph Waldo Emerson: Transcendentalism

John Muir: Preservation Ethic 

Gifford Pinchot: Resource Conservation ethic, sustainable development

Aldo Leopold: Land ethic, ecosystem management 

Ellen Swallow: taught first ecology class, chemist, water testing

Rachel Carson: wrote Silent spring, helped ban DDT

Transcendentalism

John Muir 

Preservation Ethic

Gifford Pinchot

Resource Conservation ethic, sustainable development

Aldo Leopold

Land ethic, ecosystem management 

Ellen swallow

Taught first ecology class, chemist, water testing

Rachel Carson

Wrote Silent Springs, helped by DDT

Which diversity metric provides a measurement of how unique particular sites are within a region?

Beta diversity

Keystone species

• have relatively low biomass and high impact in the community.

What was the main barrier that prevented the population recovery of the Greater Prairie Chicken in the paper by Westemeier et al. 1998?

Low genetic diversity

Which of the following people is the main proponent of the preservationist ethic, which affirms that natural areas have spiritual value beyond what can be gained by economic exploitation?

John Muir

According to Shannon's Index, if two communities had the same species richness, the one that was dominated by a few species would have ________________  diversity relative to the community that had a more even distribution.

Less

Which taxonomic group has the most described number of species?

Insects

In which area would you expect to find a community with the greatest overall biodiversity?

Warm year-round and relatively high precipitation

A shark is an example of a:

Secondary consumer

The amount of money people are willing to pay to protect a species from going extinct for future generations is:

Bequest value

Tax breaks to companies that support non-profitable resource extraction are known as:

Perverse subsidies

Which of the following is an open- access resource?

Air

What is a main difference between the gross domestic product (GDP) and the Genuine Progress Indicator (GPI)?

• The GPI accounts for environmental and human health factors.

Indigenous people living near a  forest obtain firewood from the forest for cooking fuel. When the forest is cleared for agriculture, they no longer have that fuel source and must buy cooking fuel (kerosene) from the market at a price of $1.18/ gallon. The value of $1.18/gallon represents the ________________ value for an equal fuel amount in firewood.

Consumptive use

Healthcare costs associated with diseases caused by pollution from a proposed nearby factory are not taken into account in the cost-benefit analysis. This is known as:

An externality

Which of the following is an example of productive use value?

Rosewood exported for making guitars

GDP

Gross domestic product index of national products

GPI

Genuine progress indicator includes loss of farmlands and impact of effects of pollution on human health

ESI

Environmental stability index