Conservation Bio Exam

Front 1

land trusts

Back 1

private, nonprofit groups that purchase or accept donations of land for conservation

Front 2

What is the focus of the Endangered Species Act (1973)

Back 2

to provide a means whereby ecosystems upon which T&E species depend are conserved

Front 3

What is "take"?

Back 3

law prevents harming or taking of listed species, includes indirect means, habitat loss/alteration
-limit private landowner
-listed species act as indicator for biological communities
-reactive rather than proactive

Front 4

Is the ESA effective?

Back 4

-most species listed when at low number (1000,120)
-economic impact limit listing
-once it is low, very difficult to recover only 13/1200 delisted and 22 downgraded yet 7 extinct
-50% declining and 50% stable
-no effective because needs $4 billion to remove all species and species are listed faster than money earned
-gov't must compensate private landowners for lack of economic development
-leads to "shoot, shovel and shut up"

Front 5

Is the ESA effective? How can it be more effective?

Back 5

1. greater funding
2. longer time of listing
3. critical habitat and recovery plans
4. buy-in from private property owners

Front 6

Strength of international treaties?

Back 6

1. most biodiversity is in tropical countries
2. need to protect species through out range (migration)
3. international trade is common
4. benefits are international (ecosystem, medicine, ag)
5. global problems require global solutions
6. Montreal Protocol remove CFC and recover 2050

Front 7

Weaknesses of international treaties?

Back 7

1. CITES mislabeled items, hard to identify, underground
2. Law of Sea: economic independence? taxation on unregulated resources
3. depends on consensus of many countries
4. slow negotiations, compromises
5. member states can choose enforcement= inconsistent effectiveness
6. globalized world= pressing need for cooperation!

Front 8

Needs of a successful conservation program?

Back 8

1. concern: donor and recipient
2. contract: mutually satisfactory
3. capacity: info, skills, able?
4. causes: not just symptoms

Front 9

debt-for-nature swap

Back 9

developing countries borrow $ to stimulate economy and are in debt!
1. country develops environmental project
2. NGO offers to finance by buying out that outstanding loan to our bank
3. bank sells at bargain rate

Front 10

Relationship between habitat loss and habitat fragmentation:

Back 10

Both lead to habitat degradation! (process by which the quality for a given species is diminished) Fragmentation: discontinuity in spatial distributions of resources and conditions. Loss: outright loss of habitat due to land conversion or when quality is too low to be used.

Both deal with:
1. island biogeography: degree of isolation determines rate of immigration, size influences species richness
2. metapopulation theory: movement of organisms among patches increases stability of the regional population
3. landscape ecology: movement of organisms, materials, and energy through structural elements of the landscape are critical to landscape function

Front 11

Edge effects

Back 11

Microenvironmental changes: more light, more variable temperatures, more wind, less humidity, interspecific interactions

Front 12

Metapopulation

Back 12

natural collection of populations with interchange among them, human-caused fragmentation of populations

Front 13

Source and sink populations

Back 13

Source: reproducing, increasing
Sink: exist because of immigration
Protect source, minimize sink

Front 14

Bioaccumulation

Back 14

concentration of pesticides up trophic levels, DDT, PCB

Front 15

Tropic transfer is inefficient

Back 15

the total biomass goes down as the trophic levels rise, 10% estimation, trophic transfer efficiency ranges from 1-56%

Front 16

Acid Rain

Back 16

due to release of sulfur dioxide and nitrogen oxides into the air, fossil fuel combustion, lower pH of rain, ponds, lakes

Front 17

How acidic is acid rain?

Back 17

2-5

Front 18

Sentinel species

Back 18

biological indicators of ecosystem impacts, lichens are rain dependents, trap airborne particles for sampling metal pollution

Front 19

ocean acidification

Back 19

pCO2 the partial pressure of CO2 in the ocean mimics the atmospheric rise observed drop in pH of .1 units pH. This causes slower growth, reduced calcification

Front 20

phenology

Back 20

the timing of biological events, earlier breeding of birds, amphibians, blooms, changes in migration

Front 21

Proof of climate change:

Back 21

1. shifting species range
2. mortality from thermal stress
3. extinctions
4. phenology
5. new species combinations and changes in species interaction
6. melting glaciers
7. rising sea levels

Front 22

What can we do for climate change

Back 22

1. protected area planning
2. adaptive management (protect species more effected by CC)
3. assisted migration

Front 23

Invasive species

Back 23

Colonization->establishment->impact
1. Round Goby in great lakes: decline in native benthic fishes, recruitment of through consumption of eggs and fry, prey of sport fish, avian botulism

Front 24

What characteristics are common to most invaders?

Back 24

1. abundant in original range
2. wide environmental tolerance
3. high genetic variation
4. short generation time
5. rapid growth
6. early sexual maturity
7. high reproductive capacity
8. broad diet
9. gregariousness
10. possessing natural mechanisms of rapid dispersal
11. good in disturbed, commensal with human activity

Front 25

Overfishing

Back 25

some level of extraction is sustainable but legally under the Magnuson Stevens Act, overfishing is when fishing rates exceed the Maximum Sustainable Yield. Overfishing is assessed by: decline in abundance, decline in size, increase in effort needed to catch same # fish, need to travel farther to collect same fish. Leads to decline of target species, fishery collapse, serial depletion

Front 26

Bycatch

Back 26

animals caught by fisheries but discarded:
1. economic discard
2. regulatory discard
3. collateral mortality

Can reduce by:
1. selectivity of gear
2. education
3. limit destructive fishing methods
4. aquaculture
5. certification programs to promote responsible consumption
6. fishery co-management

Front 27

Maximum sustainable yield

Back 27

the largest yield that can be taken over an indefinate period of time, to maintain high growth rates by reducing numbers. The effect is to maintain stock below carrying capacity in its pristine biomass

Ymax=rB/4 where r is growth rate, B is carrying capacity

Front 28

CPUE

Back 28

catch per unit effort, goes up with overfishing

Front 29

Minimum viable populations (MPV)

Back 29

smallest number of individuals having a very high (99%) chance of surviving for the next 1000 years = 500-5,000 individuals

Front 30

Minimum dynamic area (MDA)

Back 30

amount of suitable habitat necessary to maintain MVP, based on home range of individuals and colonies

Front 31

Extinction Vortices

Back 31

feedbacks that pull small populations toward extinction:
1. loss of genetic variability: inbreeding depression and genetic drift (50, no 500), heterozygosity is the individual having genetic allelic differences and genetic drift is loss of alleles due to random chance <- maintain with migration, mutation (500, no 50000 individuals needed to compensate)
2. demographic fluctuation: from random variation in birth and death rates
3. environmental fluctuation: natural catastrophes

Front 32

inbreeding & inbreeding depression

Back 32

mating among close relatives reduces genetic diversity, the depression when offspring receive identical defective alleles and leads to higher mortality of offspring, fewer, weaker offspring, recessive homozygotes expressed

Front 33

outbreeding depression

Back 33

incompatible mating of 2 (sub)species or populations

Front 34

Consequences of reduced genetic diversity:

Back 34

1. loss of evolutionary flexibility

Front 35

Factors that maintain genetic diversity:

Back 35

1. migration: need 50/500 to reduce effects of genetic drift
2. mutation: need 500/5,000 to produce mutations that compensate for losses

Front 36

genetic drift:

Back 36

loss of alleles due to random chance, smaller population loose alleles faster

Front 37

Ne<Nc

Back 37

Ne is the effective population size and is affected by 3 demographic factors:
1. unequal sex ratio Ne=4(Nm)(Nf)/(Nm+Nf)
2. variation in # offspring produces: among individuals; results in unequal contributions to next generation Ne= t/(1/N1+1/N2+1/N3+1/N4)
3. pop bottleneck: over time, not all individuals equally represented in genetic composition of the next generation- loss of individuals with rare alleles, loss of genetic variation

Front 38

Bottlenecks

Back 38

extreme reductions in population size can lead to loss of individuals with rare alleles or loss of genetic variation (unequal representation of surviving genotypes)

Front 39

Founder effect:

Back 39

type of bottleneck, few colonizing individuals have a non-random, incomplete set of genes as compared to the larger population

Front 40

Minimum viable population for most species

Back 40

500-5,000

Front 41

minimum population to reduce the effects of genetic drift

Back 41

500

Front 42

Effects of overfishing on biodiversity:

Back 42

Fishing causes Harvest mortality, physical impact of fishing gear, bycatch... the last two cause incidental mortality. All of these mortalities cause biological interactions: predator-prey interactions, competitive interactions and changes in marine food webs. This causes altered ecosystem structure and function!

Front 43

atmospheric CO2 concentration is at:

Back 43

397

Front 44

How can a disease lead to extinction?

Back 44

1. persist: biotic or abiotic reservoir
2. rapidly deplete host: high virulence, life history of host changed

Front 45

Example of emerging diseases:

Back 45

1. Chytrid fungus, spread by pet trade in african clawed frogs and is a lethal skin infection
2. white nose syndrome, spread by tourism and gets on bats and they wake up too early and starve to death

Front 46

non reactive and reactive nitrogen

Back 46

non reactive is the free nitrogen in the atmosphere and denitrofying bacteria is what changes the reactive nitrogen in nitrates, nitrites and ammonium in the soil into this non reactive state. Nitrogen fixing bacteria and cyanobacteria leads to reactive nitrogen in soil.

Front 47

Eutrophication

Back 47

this process of too much nitrogen in the water and hypoxia and fish kills and marine dead zone

Front 48

marine dead zone

Back 48

eutrification result

Front 49

types and relative influences of different drivers of extinction

Back 49

1. habitat loss
2. climate change
3. invasive species
4. over exploitation
5. pollution