Notesale: Turn your study into money

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Conservation Biology (BIOL 3602)
Lecture 2- Monday September 18th

-African elephants are at risk mainly bc of poaching for their tusks

-Angola’s civil war (1975-2002): soldiers poached to pay for ammo

-seized ivory amounted to 4000 dead elephants

-CITES (Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species)

-just bc a local population is increasing does NOT mean it isn’t at risk

-IUCN Red List treats African and Forest elephants as one species (tb treats them as
two different ones)

-currently 30% pop declines in 7 yrs: vulnerable, on the way to endangered

-poaching hurts but habitat loss is a huge trigger as well


ways to address ivory poaching:

-alternative source of income for locals

-legislation and enforcement

-reducing demand for ivory

-education of consumers

-trophy hunting L

-making fake ivory (also planned for the rhino) via 3D printing


-would be indistinguishable, might reduce demand


-could potentially increase demand for ivory bc ppl would seek it


-could provide a way for poachers to get past enforcement


-there are cases where increased supply does not decrease demand


-China to ban ivory trade by end of 2017 à this is the biggest ivory


market in the world!!



-potentially is decreasing the prices as much as 50%

Chapter 2: Biodiversity and Extinction
-conservation of biodiversity typically focuses on species

-also within individual species (gen
...
), biomes, ecosystems, etc
...
Jefferson salamanders


-kleptogenesis = unisexuals steal sperm from diff species

-eg
...
5 million described (named) species, rapidly growing
~18000 new species/year
25 new mammals/year
~5 million +/- 3 million species

-some of these new species found are bc we don’t know how to define them

-exploring hydrothermal vents reveals totally new communities

How do we get to this 5million species estimate?

One way is relative proportions
1
...
Butterflies) and a well-studied region
2
...
Insects) there are per butterfly
3
...
c was a dominating factor

why are some species at higher risk of extinction?
-narrow habitat ranges
-freshwater highly polluted
-animals we eat, domesticate
-adaptability
-exploitation for food
-impact of human activity
-larger bodied species, endemic species, specialist species at higher risk
-perceived value (eg
...
7 mill actual extinctions since 1990

-hard to get a hard number bc many unknown species, many extinctions upon


colonization (i
...
62à extinction rate is much higher than past ones


Magnitude is much lower however past 5 lasted much longer


Therefore in time we might have a much larger extinction on hand

Losses of biodiversity on the genotype level
-what human activities cause genotype extinctions?

-agriculture, selective breeding, habitat fragmentation leading to inbreeding

loss of ecological communities also decreases biodiversity
-most of our laws focus on the species level, but there is evidence to focus on saving
ecosystems rather than species

-less time consuming (less ecosystems than species)

-more efficient

-avoids conflicts in planning (from individual plans for species like a predator

and its prey both needing protection)

-ecosystems and human wellbeing have more of link than species and human
well being

Chapter 3: Ecosystems Services, Accounting for Nature’s Value
-the extent and intensity of natural disasters depends on human impact

eg
...
and humans
-wider mangrove coasts reduces impact of weather events

eg
...
Wetlands decrease storm surges, provide habitat for species


biodiversity is an ecosystem service


cultural services: recreation, emotional, psychological, religious benefits

MEA 2005 (Milennium Ecosystem Assessment)
-most cases show decreasing provisioning services in natural ecosystems

-they are degrading over time
-disturbed systems have increased provisioning services (Eg agriculture)

even though terrestrial ecosystems are overall a net carbon sink, human
emmissions are growing much faster than ecosystem carbon storage

cultural services are decreasing as the quality of land for ecotourism and the like is
degrading

it is thought that higher species richness increases ecosystem service provision
-but this is the case initially as you begin to add species to an ecosystem, but then as
more species are added the less steep the increase in services becomes
-rivet hypothesis

-functional redundancy (lots of species provide the same services)

-the loss of a top predator can have a strong effect on an ecosystem

-the presence/absence of one specific species may be more important than
the abundance of various species
-leads to the argument that biodiversity is an “insurance policy”

-many ecosystem services are declining because the ecosystems they come from are
becoming degraded due to the tragedy of the commons

-individual benefits but group costs

-the benefit to an individual far outweighs the cost to said individual


eg
...
Cap and trade

currently, the valuation of the world’s eco services is 1
...
stated preference
a
...
answers depend on the alternative given in question
c
...
revealed preference
a
...
lost $$$ per unit loss of service
b
...
$$$ spent by ppl seeking out the site and travelling to it
c
...
$$$ for being near an ecosystem service
3
...
how much it would cost to replace the service, if lost, with a human
alternative
i
...
paying ppl to hand pollinate crops bc so many pollinators
have been lost

provision of an ecosystem service requires both the intact ecosystem and the people
within/near it to accept the service
à together this forms the “serviceshed”
eg

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