Conservation Bio Exam 2

Aldo Leopold

A forester, game manager, scientist, teacher, and writer: visionary of a land ethic; pioneer of wildlife management, published “Game Management.”; father of wildlife management; “A Sand County Almanac”; land ethic remains a philosophical foundation of conservation biology

The Land Ethic

A thing is right when it tends to preserve the integrity, stability, and beauty of the biotic community. It is wrong when it tends otherwise

Period of environmental awareness (1960’s and 70’s)

Rachel Carson, President Nixon, U.S. Congress, Informed/concerned citizens

Multiple-Use Sustained Yield Act of 1960

Stated that national forests shall be administered for outdoor recreation, range, timber, watershed, and wildlife and fish purposes; to use in a manner calculated to foster and promote the general welfare to create and maintain conditions under which man and nature can exist in productive harmony

Multiple-Use

means that all various renewable resources should be managed so they are utilized in the combination that will best meet the needs of the American people.

Sustained Yield

Means achievement and maintenances in perpetuity of a high level annual or regular periodic output of the various renewable resources without impairment of the land’s productivity

EPA monitors

Air quality, water quality, radiation and pesticide

Clean water act (1972)

Primary federal law that protects our nations waters, including lakes, rivers, etc.

Convention on international trade in endangered species of wild flora and fauna

Prohibits importing or exporting wildlife or plants, their parts, or derivatives of certain species unless permitted to do so by both the importing and exporting country

Endangered species act (1973)

Authorizes the determination and listing of endangered and threatened species ad their habitats; prohibits unauthorized taking, possession, sale, and transport of all endangered and threatened species or destruction of their habitats, the later includes any government agency

National forest management act (1976)

Secretary of agriculture must assess forest lands, develop a management program based on multiple-use, sustained yield principles, and implement a resource management plan for each unit of the national forest system

Conservation biology (1980’s)

Micheal Soule; traditional management is not stopping the loss of biological diversity; new approach is needed to generate new ways of thinking and managing

E.O. Wilson

MacArthur R.H. and Wilson E.O. 1967: the theory of island biogeography

Theory of Island Biogeography

Forms much of the theoretical underpinnings of conservation biology

1980’s disasters

Shows the tenuous and fragile side of industrial technology. Among them are the Bhopal mass poisonings in India, the Chernobyl nuclear reactor disaster in Ukraine, and the Challenger shuttle and Exxon Valdez oil spills in the U.S. (warnings about global climate change become more convincing as evidence mounts)

Mid-2000’s

Global climate change report by the UN and the National Academy of Sciences firmly establishes scientific basics for concern

Evolution

The change in the genetic makeup of a population over time

Population

A group of similar individuals that can and does interbreed (individuals occupy same place at the same time)

Genetic makeup (gene pool)

Sum total of all genes of all individuals in a population

Two interrelated phenomena of evolution

Adaptations, natural selection

Conservation

Denotes policies and programs for the long term retention of natural communities under conditions which provide the potential for continuing evolution

Preservation

Provides for the maintenance of individual groups, but not for their evolutionary change (zoos and gardens preserve but not conserve)

Adaptations

Over the course of time, the # of species, multiples that is, a single species can give rise to two or more descendant spp.

Natural selection

Process though which factors in the environment exert pressures that favors some individuals over others to produce the next generations (how evolution “works”)

Natural selection

Process though which factors in the environment exert pressures that favors some individuals over others to produce the next generations (how evolution “works”)

Differential reproduction

A conditions which all better adapted members of a population reproduce over poorer adapted; genetically controlled phenotypic characteristics of organisms that “fit them” to the particular set of environment conditions in which they can persist, and which increase the organism’s fitness

Fitness

An individual’s ability to contribute genetically to succeeding generations, not just strong and fast

Assumptions and mechanisms involved with the process of natural selection

1. Living things produce more offspring than there are available resources

2. Thus, there is a struggle for existence, living things face a constant battle to survive

3. There exists variation of traits within a population or species, the individuals in a population/species vary in their phenotypes (variations useful in battle for persistence must sometimes occur over thousands of generations)

4. This variation is inheritable; it is a reflection of variations in genotype, traits of parents passed onto offspring (those variants best adapted to the conditions of their life are most likely to survive and reproduce themselves, adaptations are inheritable, they will be passed onto their offspring)

5. Time, its going to take time (units = selection pressures could actually take thousands of years to play out) (ex. Horses took 50 million years to evolve)

Darwin quote

Natural selection acts by preservation and accumulation of infinitely small inherited profitable modifications and causes much extinction while inducing “divergence of character” to explain how new species arise and why they differ from one another phenotypically

Vermivora

Caterpillar eating bird family (warblers)

Stabilizing selection

Selection against both extremes; population after selection is mostly in the middle of graph

Directional selection

Selection against an extreme; one of the tails is being selected against; population after selection is mostly on one side or the other

Disruptive selection

Selection against the mean; middle is low while tails are high

Speciation

The evolutionary process by which one ancestral population splits into two or more genetically distinct, reproductively isolated species; the engine that drives biological diversity

Contemporaneous

Existing or occurring in the same period

Allopatric speciation

The formation of new species that occurs when populations are geographically separated (ex. Panamic porkfish - common ancestor shared with og porkfish and separated by the Panama Canal)

Sympatric speciation

The formation of two species from one initial population without a physical barrier/geographic isolation; must involve reproductive isolation; arguably rare because gene flow will be impactful and inhibit divergence

Assortative mating

Each size preferred mate likes it

Conservation biology

A mission or crisis oriented science, where quick action is needed and failure can have devastating effects

Biodiversity

The millions of plants, animals, and microorganisms, the genes they contain, and the intricate ecosystems they help build into the living environemnt

Genetic diversity

The genetic variation within species; increases when offspring recieve unique combinations of genes and chromosomes from the parents via recombination during sexual reproduction, mutations are largely responsible

Genes

Units of chromosomes that code for specific proteins

Gene flow

Another way genetic diversity can be increased among populations; occurs when an individual from one population of species X immigrates into a different population of species

Specialists

Those species that have narrowed well-defined niches or life requirements (e.g. diet, space) typically have less genetic diversity than those species that can fulfill life requirements in a broader array of environments and conditions (e.g. generalists); many of the species that have been extirpated by humans in the last 10,000 years were specialists (bachman’s warbler)

Alpha diversity

The number of spp. found within a given community (i.e. the number of of spp. found in an old filed at Yellowcreek crate park or the numbers of fish species found in a pond at college farm); useful for comparing the number of species between two community types (ex. The number of salamander spp in riparian forest vs upper slide slope forests)

Gamma diversity

Landscape/regional scale; refers to species diversity at larger geographic scales, it refers to the number of spp in a region

Beta diversity

Whittaker (1972), as “the extent of species replacement or biotic change along environmental gradients”; represents the rate of change of species composition as one moves across a region

Inventory diversities

Alpha and gamma diversity; measures species richness and abundance within a single defined sample, site, or region (diversity WITHIN a single site, sample, etc)

Differentiation diversity

The extent of compositional dissimilarity or difference in species identity between distinct communities, samples, or sites (diversity measured BETWEEN different samples or communities)

Species richness (R)

The number of species found in a community

Shannon-Weirner index (H’)

The number of individuals observed for each species at a given site

Evenness (J’ or E)

Relative abundance of each species in a community; product of H’ and H’max)

Diversity and ecosystem functioning

Members of the same ecological communities, systems are interrelated and the proper functioning of these communities are hinged upon many of these relations

Redundancy hypothesis

Reiterates this point but also suggests that species that singularly represent a given functional type should receive most attention in conservation efforts as loss of these species would have a direct impact on future ecosystem integrity

Three levels of biodiversity

Genetics, species, ecosystems

Community/ecosystem diversity

The different biological communities and their associations with the physical environment (ecosystem); dynamic, diversity changes in response to environmental conditions and human activities

Landscape scale conservation

Most conservation issues transcend state lines and organizational areas of responsibility

Ecological resilience

The ability of an ecosystem to maintain its normal patterns of nutrient cycling and biomass production after being subjected to damage caused by an ecological disturbance

Keystone species

A species whose loss from an ecosystem would cause a greater than average change in other species populations or ecosystem processes, not represented in biomass, but if lost system collapses; whose continued well-being is viral for the functioning of a whole community; species whose impacts on a system are disproportionate to their abundance (Paine 1960’s sp in intertidal communities of pacific NW)

Dominant species

Species that are very abundant and that also have large impacts on the systems in which they live (ex. Deer, oak trees)

Umbrella species

A species that requires a large area to survive (i.e. grizzly bears, wolverines), the protection of these species protects a wide range of co-existing species in teh same habitat/region, which may be lesser known and difficult to protect otherwise

Flagship species

Species that appeal to the public and have other features that make them suitable for communicating conservation concerns, such as bald eagle or giant panda

Indicator species

A species whose status provides information on the overall condition of hte ecosystem and of other species in that ecosystem; taxa that are sensitive to environmental conditions and which can therefore be used to assess environmental quality (amphibians, mountain dusky salamander, cerulean warbler)

Species of greatest conservation need (SGCN)

Species that are rare or declining; each state has developed and updates a state comprehensive wildlife conservation strategy or state wildlife action plan (SWAP),; allows access to federal funding for conservation (SWG); state and tribal wildlife grants; are identifies in SwAP and so to are communities/habitats

SGCN

Species of greatest conservation need

SWAP

State wildlife action plan