Search for notes by fellow students, in your own course and all over the country.
Browse our notes for titles which look like what you need, you can preview any of the notes via a sample of the contents. After you're happy these are the notes you're after simply pop them into your shopping cart.
Title: Primate Biology and Conservation
Description: The first 5 lectures of the third year Roehampton module including: introduction, Taxonomy, extinction processes, small populations and ex-situ conservation
Description: The first 5 lectures of the third year Roehampton module including: introduction, Taxonomy, extinction processes, small populations and ex-situ conservation
Document Preview
Extracts from the notes are below, to see the PDF you'll receive please use the links above
Primate Biology and Conservation
Introduction
Intro
-Conservation is very complex
Link between Coffee and Siamangs- There is a global demand for coffee, it is mostly grown in brazil
but when the yield is down the price of the bean goes up in Indonesia and so forest is cut down and
siamang habitat is lost
...
-50% of primates are threatened, 94% of lemurs are threatened, and all great apes are endangered
...
Diversity is good – it should be preserved and maintained there for anthropogenic (not
necessarily natural) extinctions are bad
...
Complexity is good – big robust settled ecosystems are good therefore homogeneity
(plantations) is bad
...
Evolution is good – we need to save the process of evolution rather than a snapshot in
time of individual species
...
Biotic diversity is valuable- simply because it exists
...
Conserving one species
Pros
Cons
Quantifiable
Pattern not process
Public perception
Public perception
Current legislation (focuses on species rather
Small % of biodiversity
than areas)
Concord fallacy (keep putting money in until it
Knock on benefits
works)
Other options to conserving one species: conserving the ecosystem, or chosing EDGE (evolutionarily
distinct, globally endangered) or keystone species
...
“Species”
Species cannot be defined easily as populations change on a
continuum
...
Habitat disturbance
Three forms of habitat disturbance:
1
...
Modification – change (to plantation) making it harder to survive
3
...
Satellites allow us to see degradation, for example increases in roads from logging and the changes
in the greenness of the plants from climate change
...
Extinction debts
Species can cling on in smaller areas but according to island biogeography (S=CAz) the area of
suitable habitat that is left cannot support the number of species living in it
...
Hunting and exploitation
There are many reasons people hunt – pet trade, medicine, pests, sport, food
When access to bushmeat was removed with no protein alternative given childhood anaemia
increased by 29%
101 primate species are use in “traditional folk medicine”
Anthropogenic allee effect – as a species becomes rarer the price goes up so they are hunted more
and more until they are extinct
...
Times
change
...
Allee effect – the size of a population can affect the individuals fitness (ability to reproduce)
- Changes in sex ratio – if there are more males and fewer viable females then the
population will decrease
-
Mate choice – studies have found that some species of bird have fewer offspring with a
mate that they do not prefer
- Hunting/foraging efficiency
- Social structure
Environmental stochasticity
This can affect all individuals and can vary from rainfall to hurricanes
...
Genetic stochasticity
A loss of genetic diversity means there is a loss of the ability to evolve and adapt to new situations as
variation is needed for evolution
...
Ex-Situ conservation
Intro
Zoos could be the last hope for some primates
...
Advantages
direct
Indirect
Safety net for if populations go extinct
Research – information may be useful for in situ
Builds up the numbers and reduces small
conservation
population processes
Education – to the public about the species
Income generation – fund more in situ
conservation
Considerations
- Can deplete wild populations
- Lose focus on conservation goals – many orangs in orang-utan rehabilitation centres
don’t return to the wild or reproduce if they do
- Patchy – not many species are held in zoos because if it is not interesting then it doesn’t
generate income
- Expensive and requires space
- Need many individuals to avoid small population effects
- Domestication – animals that are less stressed in the zoo environment will breed better
- Loss of key behaviours – fear of predators, knowledge of seasonal foods
- Exposure to disease from humans
- Many primates don’t breed well in captivity
Reintroductions
Factors that affect the success include: age of the individuals, their foraging ability, predator
naievity, pathogens and parasites experienced, and whether or not the original reason for their
population decline has been solved
...
Humans are a major cause of stress in zoo animals
Title: Primate Biology and Conservation
Description: The first 5 lectures of the third year Roehampton module including: introduction, Taxonomy, extinction processes, small populations and ex-situ conservation
Description: The first 5 lectures of the third year Roehampton module including: introduction, Taxonomy, extinction processes, small populations and ex-situ conservation