Teaching Through Trade Books: Biological Diversity: In the Present and in the Past

2018 ◽  
Vol 056 (02) ◽  
Author(s):  
Christine Anne Royce
Author(s):  
Heather Thon ◽  
Amy Krist

Understanding invasive species impacts is critical to determining how an ecosystem may function after an introduction. Invasive species can alter the structure and function of ecosystems, reduce biological diversity, and alter communities through predation, facilitation and competition. In the past 30 years, the invasive New Zealand mud snail (Potamopyrgus antipodarum) has established in areas of conservation concern in the American West including Yellowstone National Park. To develop a greater understanding of the impact of P. antipodarum on the native co-occurring snail, Fossaria (Bakerilymnaea) bulimoides group, we conducted two experiments to assess the interactions occurring between these snails. We found that F. bulimoides growth was reduced by all interactors, but especially by P. antipodarum. In addition, growth of F. bulimoides was much more affected by high biomass of snails than P. antipodarum. P. antipodarum grew more in the presence of interactors and their growth was facilitated by the presence of the native snail F. bulimoides.


2007 ◽  
Vol 41 ◽  
pp. 1-7
Author(s):  
B. Kubbinga ◽  
I. Hoffmann ◽  
B. Scherf

SummaryIn light of the upcoming first International Technical Conference on Animal Genetic Resources (September 2007), experts have been interviewed to tell about their experiences in the management of animal genetic resources over the past fifty years. They identified three milestones in the history of Animal Genetic Resources (AnGR) management: the foundation of the Rare Breeds Survival Trust (1973), the FAO/UNEP 1980 Technical Consultation on AnGR, and the signing of the Convention on Biological Diversity (1992). Conservation of AnGR started at grassroot level and eventually led to policies at governmental level. The passion of civil society organizations remains vital to conserve local livestock breeds. Technical and financial support will be crucial for the future of AnGR conservation. The next milestone will be a Global Plan of Action that is expected as one outcome of the International Technical Conference.


1994 ◽  
Vol 126 (3) ◽  
pp. 471-474
Author(s):  
Max W. McFadden ◽  
J. Kathy Parker

AbstractThe issue of biodiversity is examined from the viewpoint of human values and three questions are posed: What kinds of human values affect biological diversity? Why do humans think about the loss and conservation of biological diversity? Does it really matter? The conclusion is that human values are contributing to the loss of biological diversity and could lead to massive extinctions in the future just as major natural events did in the past. However, as it did in the past, evolution will continue, so will speciation, and so will biological diversity.


Biologija ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 66 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Vytautas Eigirdas ◽  
Vesta Jonikė

Climate change significantly affects biological diversity around the world. Trends of this phenomenon have also been noticed in Lithuania: in the past decades, 55 new bird species have been recorded. The recent record of a new species was done on 3 December 2019. During ordinary birds ringing carried out in Ventės Ragas Ornithological Station in Lithuania, an individual Siberian northern shrike (Lanius borealis sibiricus) was caught and ringed. Additional blood sample was collected for species confirmation. Based on identification keys and molecular mitochondrial cytochrome b analysis, we report that this is the first record of the Siberian northern shrike in Lithuania.


Land ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 8 (1) ◽  
pp. 10 ◽  
Author(s):  
Melanie Zurba ◽  
Karen Beazley ◽  
Emilie English ◽  
Johanna Buchmann-Duck

This article provides analysis of the issues relating to movement towards new models for Indigenous-led conservation in light of Canada’s initiatives for greater protected areas representation through Target 1. We provide a background on Canada’s Pathway to Target 1, which is based on Target 11 from the Aichi Biodiversity Targets set forth by the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD). We contemplate the past, present and future of colonization and reconciliation in Canada, and consider the influence of international declarations, programs and initiatives on the potential for the formation of Indigenous Protected and Conserved Areas (IPCAs). We then provide an analysis of “wicked problems” that Indigenous communities, governments, and other stakeholders in protected areas will need to navigate towards implementing the IPCA approach in Canada. We outline the different types of Indigenous involvement in protected areas and how they potentially fit within the principles for the development of IPCAs. We then turn our discussion to the need to refocus conservation on reconciliation by restoring nation-to-nation relationships and relationships between the land and peoples. The lessons we draw have potential parallels for other nation states, particularly those signatory to the CBD and with a colonial history, aiming for biodiversity conservation and reconciliation with Indigenous peoples through IPCAs.


2011 ◽  
Vol 366 (1567) ◽  
pp. 1080-1089 ◽  
Author(s):  
R. A. Foley ◽  
M. Mirazón Lahr

The abundant evidence that Homo sapiens evolved in Africa within the past 200 000 years, and dispersed across the world only within the past 100 000 years, provides us with a strong framework in which to consider the evolution of human diversity. While there is evidence that the human capacity for culture has a deeper history, going beyond the origin of the hominin clade, the tendency for humans to form cultures as part of being distinct communities and populations changed markedly with the evolution of H. sapiens . In this paper, we investigate ‘cultures’ as opposed to ‘culture’, and the question of how and why, compared to biological diversity, human communities and populations are so culturally diverse. We consider the way in which the diversity of human cultures has developed since 100 000 years ago, and how its rate was subject to environmental factors. We argue that the causes of this diversity lie in the distribution of resources and the way in which human communities reproduce over several generations, leading to fissioning of kin groups. We discuss the consequences of boundary formation through culture in their broader ecological and evolutionary contexts.


2014 ◽  
Vol 38 (5) ◽  
pp. 664-673 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kenneth R. Young

Humans have altered the land cover and biogeochemical cycles of Earth, with many implications for how the study of the distributions of organisms should change. A new biogeography of the Anthropocene could help to develop additional criteria to evaluate the degree and timing of human impacts, and innovative ways to proactively manage biological diversity. Many recent studies have used paleoecological methods to evaluate no-analog conditions in the past, or modeling to evaluate possible futures. Additional approaches are needed for assessment and prediction of how new groupings of species will function ecologically under future climatic and landscape conditions, including methods for studying the effects of biotic homogenization, species extinctions, introduced species, and altered ecosystem processes.


2015 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jostein Starrfelt ◽  
Lee Hsiang Liow

The fossil record is a rich source of information about biological diversity in the past. However, the fossil record is not only incomplete but has inherent biases due to geological, physical, chemical and biological factors. Our knowledge of past life is also biased because of differences in academic and amateur interests and sampling efforts. As a result, not all individuals or species that lived in the past are equally likely to be discovered at any point in time or space. To reconstruct temporal dynamics of diversity using the fossil record, biased sampling must be explicitly taken into account. Here, we introduce an approach that utilizes the variation in the number of times each species is observed in the fossil record to estimate both sampling bias and true richness. We term our technique TRiPS (True Richness estimated using a Poisson Sampling model) and explore its robustness to violation of its assumptions via simulations. We then venture to estimate sampling bias and absolute species richness of dinosaurs in the geological stages of the Mesozoic. Using TRiPS, we estimate that 1936 (1543-2468) species of dinosaurs roamed the Earth during the Mesozoic. We also present improved estimates of species richness trajectories of the three major dinosaur clades; the sauropodomorphs, ornithischians and theropods, casting doubt on the Jurassic-Cretaceous extinction event and demonstrating that all dinosaur groups are subject to considerable sampling bias throughout the Mesozoic.


2021 ◽  
pp. 61-78
Author(s):  
Robert N. Wiedenmann ◽  
J. Ray Fisher

This chapter reviews the history of the human disease popularly known as plague, which has caused three major pandemics in the past two millennia, focusing on the most recent pandemic and the discovery of the insect that transmitted the disease. It begins with the Third Pandemic started in 1855, which began in Yunnan Province in southwestern China, an area rich in geological and biological diversity. Infections increased as the disease slowly spread to Hong Kong, where it reached epidemic levels in 1894. From there, maritime trade on steamships carried the plague to India, Australia, and then worldwide, to Africa, Europe, and the Americas. The chapter describes how, while the pandemic raged, scientists investigated the cause of the disease, learning that bacteria carried by Oriental rat fleas and rats were responsible. This pandemic killed at least 15 million people, mostly in India, and continued for nearly a century.


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