Biodiversity

•The variety of living things

•Three Kinds–Genetic Diversity–Species Diversity–Ecological Diversity

Linnaean Classification

Kingdom Animalia• Phylum Cordata

– Class Mammalia• Order Primates

–Family Hominidae»Genus Homo

Species Homo sapiens

Communities and Niches

• Community: The populations of all species in a habitat associate with one another directly or indirectly as a community

– Habitat: the place where something lives

• The Niche: Sum total of all activities and relationships in which individuals of a species engage as they secure and use the resources required to survive and reproduce.

Species Interactions

• Commensalism: Neither affected

• Mutualism: the benefit flows both ways

• Competition: both competing

• Predation: one consumes another

• Parasitism: Benefits one hurts the other.

Benefits of Biodiversity

• Food– As many as 80,000 edible plants

• Drugs and Medicine– $75-150 Billion/year

• Ecological Benefits– Soil formation, waste disposal, air and water

purification, solar absorption and food– Controls disease

Aesthetic and Cultural Benefits

Extinction

• Extinction: elimination of a species– Normal rate = 1/decade– Currently = 100,000/decade

• Extirpation = Ecological Extinction

• Between 1/3 to 2/3 of all species could be extinct by the middle of the 21st century

Threats to Biodiversity

• Habitat Alteration: #1 Cause– Fragmentation: Habitat into smaller patches

• Invasive Species

• Pollution

• Commercial Products and live specimens

• Overexploitation– Hunting, capturing,

Fragmentation

National Parks

Protecting Biodiversity

• Hunting and Fishing Laws

• Endangered Species Act (ESA)– Endangered=imminent danger of extinction– Threatened=likely to become endangered

• Reintroductions

• Recovery Plans