Ch 1: Conservation Biology

• SLOSS means single large or several small
• Benefits of single large: less expensive, make public happier, won't need several roads, no edge effect
• Benefits of several small: allow organisms to rehome, easier for trees to regrow
• Edge effect: edge habitat is different=less equal habitat, easier to prey upon edges, less resources on outside edges
• What is DDT?

  An insecticide
• Who has DDT?

  Everyone, in fat cells
• Where is DDT?

  No longer used in the US (1970) but made and exported to different contries
• Atrazine: most popular herbicide in the U.S., in midwest waters, causes leopard frogs to become hermaphrodites at 0.1 per billion
• Neonicotinoids: pesticide that caused a loss of bees/butterflies, lack of insects/birds, all corn/soybean seed is pretreated with it.
• 33% of all amphibian species are threatened with extinction
• Medical importance of amphibians: anticancer properties on amphibian skin, compound in poison dart frog (epibatidine) has potential to be 200x more potent than morphine without addiction, effects of alkaloids on neurological and muscular disorders
• Ecological importance of amphibians: key role in environment because they eat a wide variety of food and can be eaten by a wide variety
• Endemic species: found only in a particular region
• Hotspot: area with lots of endemic species
• Example of a hotspot: California Tiger Salamander and Grizzly bear endemic to CA
• Most important to human's ecosystem function is money
• Resistance: resist to change immediately after an event
• Resilience: ability to bounce back
• Resilience: ability to bounce back
• Causes for biodiversity loss: 1. Habitat destruction 2. Direct Exploitation 3. Introduced Species 4. Disease
• More diverse system = more stable ecosystem
• Coral bleaching: ocean acidification and warming which makes the reefs more susceptible to disease
• Climate change is caused by an increase in carbon in the air making it more acidic
• Keystone species are "more important" because they are an organism that helps define an entire ecosystem
• Frog declines are due to chytrid fungus and has now spread to Madagascar
• Costa rica has seen a 75% decline in amphibian and reptile declines. This is a direct link to loss of trees and leaf litter