15 May Regardless of what type of environment you live in, there are plants and animals that are your neighbors. ?The goal of this assignment is to get y
Regardless of what type of environment you live in, there are plants and animals that are your neighbors. The goal of this assignment is to get you thinking about the biodiversity that surrounds you.
Read chapter 1 FIRST
TEXTBOOK LINK WILL BE PROVIDED
500 WORDS
Briefly answer the following questions. For some of the questions I have provided you answers to choose from. You can use them, or if you have one that better describes the answer, provide that.
Please, cut and paste these questions and then fill in your replies. Make sure to submit it before the due date and time. You can submit it as a pdf or doc file. You submit by clicking on the title "The Biodiversity Around You" of the assignment above this text. There will be a link for submissions.
1) Where do you live?
2) What type of environment do you live in? Potential replies: Urban, Suburban, Rural, Wildland.
3) Describe the main types of vegetation and ecological communities that surround you. Potential replies: Strictly Urban, Urban with Urban Parks, Suburban with trees, Suburban that includes patches of natural communities (forests, scrub lands, deserts, etc.), agricultural, agricultural with patches of natural communities, type of wildland (forest, grassland, desert, etc.).
4) Name a few plants that are common in your neighborhood.
5) Name a few animals that are common in your neighborhood.
6) Provide the name and a link to the website of an organization in your state, county, or town/city that is responsible for managing biodiversity in your area. It can be a government organization like a State Fish and Game Agency, or it can be non-governmental organization like a state Audubon Society.
7) Please provide the name of one or two endangered species or ecological communities near you. If you don't know of any, you can explore the website I asked you to find in the previous question.
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Biodiversity
Biology 108
Peter Houlihan Morrill II 352
Subject line in emails must begin with
Subject: Bio108 “Subject”
Course will explore
• What are the patterns of diversity? • What generated those patterns?
– Ecology – Evolution
• How and why is diversity lost? • How can we conserve biodiversity?
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General Education
• Learn skills applicable to real world • Critical and analytical thinking • Communication skills • Information Literacy • Broaden background in subject areas
outside of your major • Learn information needed for civic
engagement 5
Landscape Ecology & Conservation Biology
Animal Communication
What about you?
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What about you? Where do you live?
Why did you take this course? What about biodiversity
interests you?
Biodiversity in the news.
Polar Bears threatened by Arctic Ice Melt. – NY Times NOAA Cites Threats to US Coral Reefs, WaPo Wave of Marine Species Extinctions Feared, WaPo Global warming threaten 1/3 of species, NY Times Conservationists Warn Great Apes Face Extinction, Reuters Endangered Species Threatened by Internet Trading, Bloomberg Alaska Sea Otter Added to List of Endangered Species, AZC
Not all doom & gloom Endangered Bald Eagles Endangered No More, NPR Iraq’s “Garden of Eden” On its Way to Recovery, EuropaNews Fishers adapt to suburban habitats, CTG Copperheads seen on Range, Hampshire Gazette Otters return to NY rivers, NY Times Wild Turkey makes comeback in North East, NPR
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What is Biodiversity? What is Biodiversity?
Nested Hierarchy
What is Biodiversity?
Three Levels
Species Genes
Communities/Ecosystems
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Species Diversity
Groups of Species (Taxonomic Diversity)
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Flowering Plants
Genetic Diversity Genes and Alleles • DNA – is the molecule that contains genes. • Genes are regions of DNA that have the
instructions for building proteins. These genes code for traits, like eye color or flower color.
• Many organisms have more than one copy of a genes. Those copies can come in different forms – alleles.
• For instance, there can genes for flower that can have different alleles for different colors.
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Levels of Genetic Diversity
Habitat and Community Diversity
Groupings of Organisms in Space and Time
River Island Alpine Meadow
Source: Raven, Evert and Curtis Biology of Plants
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Chaparral
Source: Raven, Evert and Curtis Biology of Plants
Open Woodland
Source: Raven, Evert and Curtis Biology of Plants
Ecosystem Diversity
Groupings of Communities
Northern Forest
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Biodiversity The variety of living organisms considered at all levels of organization, including the genetic, species, and higher taxonomic levels, and the variety of habitats and ecosystems therein. Meffe and Carroll from Principles of Conservation Biology
Threats to Biodiversity
Natural systems face multiple stressors
Threats to Biodiversity
Natural systems face multiple stressors
What are they?
Threats to Biodiversity
• Habitat destruction
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Habitat Destruction Threats to Biodiversity
• Habitat destruction • Habitat Fragmentation
Habitat Fragmentation Threats to Biodiversity
• Habitat destruction • Habitat Fragmentation • Environmental pollution
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Environmental Pollution Threats to Biodiversity
• Habitat destruction • Habitat Fragmentation • Environmental pollution • Global Climate Change
Global Climate Change Threats to Biodiversity
• Habitat destruction • Habitat Fragmentation • Environmental pollution • Global Climate Change • Overexploitation
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Overexploitation Threats to Biodiversity
• Habitat destruction • Habitat fragmentation • Environmental pollution • Global climate change • Overexploitation • Invasive species
Invasive Species
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The Sixth Extinction
• A "mass extinction" of plants and animals is underway that poses a threat to humans in the next century
• Every year, between 17,000 and 100,000 species vanish from our planet
• Rate of extinction > any historical event • It will take at least 10 million years to
recover lost biodiversity
