A thorough summary of the more than 400 page book "An introduction to Conservation Biology". I used this summary for the exam and got a good grade.
The most important points are discussed and figures are used where strictly needed.
Conservation Biology Primack- Summary
Second edition – 2019/2020
Disclaimer
All the content in this summary originate from the book “An introduction to Conservation Biology –
second edition” written by Anna A.Sher and Richard B.Primack. I’ve done my best to write down the
most important points in my own words, it could however happen that there is some overlap. Some
figures used in this summary are scans of the book used to visualise the important points mentioned.
In no way I intent to infringe any of the copyrights of the original book.
,Contents
Chapter 2 – What is biodiversity? ........................................................................................................... 4
Species diversity ................................................................................................................................. 4
Genetic diversity ................................................................................................................................. 6
Ecosystem diversity ............................................................................................................................ 7
Biodiversity worldwide ..................................................................................................................... 10
Chapter 4 – Threats to biodiversity: Habitat change ............................................................................ 12
Human population growth and its impact ........................................................................................ 12
Habitat destruction ........................................................................................................................... 13
Habitat fragmentation ...................................................................................................................... 16
Environmental Degradation and Pollution ....................................................................................... 18
Chapter 5 – Climate change and Other threats to biodiversity ............................................................ 20
Global climate change ...................................................................................................................... 20
Overexploitation ............................................................................................................................... 22
Invasive species ................................................................................................................................ 22
Disease .............................................................................................................................................. 24
Chapter 6 – Extinction risk .................................................................................................................... 25
The meaning of “Extinct” .................................................................................................................. 25
Measuring extinction ........................................................................................................................ 26
Vulnerability to extinction ................................................................................................................ 26
Problems of small populations ......................................................................................................... 27
Chapter 7 – Conserving populations and species ................................................................................. 28
Applied population biology............................................................................................................... 28
Conservation categories ................................................................................................................... 31
Prioritization: What should be protected? ....................................................................................... 32
Legal protection of species ............................................................................................................... 33
Chapter 9 – Protected area’s ................................................................................................................ 35
Establishment and Classification of Protected Areas ....................................................................... 35
Designing Protected Areas................................................................................................................ 37
Networks of Protected Areas............................................................................................................ 39
Landscape Ecology and Park Design ................................................................................................. 39
Managing Protected Areas ............................................................................................................... 40
Challenges to PA Management......................................................................................................... 43
Chapter 10 – Conservation outside protected area’s ........................................................................... 44
The value of Unprotected Habitat .................................................................................................... 44
Conservation in Urban and Other Human-Dominated Areas ........................................................... 46
, Ecosystem Management .................................................................................................................. 47
Working with Local People ............................................................................................................... 48
Case studies: Namibia and Kenya ..................................................................................................... 49
Chapter 11 – Restoration Ecology ........................................................................................................ 51
Where to start?................................................................................................................................. 51
Restoration in Urban Areas .............................................................................................................. 53
Restoration Using Organisms ........................................................................................................... 53
Moving Targets of Restoration ......................................................................................................... 53
Restoration of Some Major Communities ........................................................................................ 53
The Future of Restoration Ecology ................................................................................................... 54
, Chapter 2 – What is biodiversity?
Biological diversity is the complete range of species and biological communities on Earth, as well as
the genetic variation within those species and all ecosystem processes.
Biological diversity happens on three levels:
1. Species diversity: All the species on Earth, including single-celled bacteria and protists as well
as the species of the multicellular kingdoms (plants, fungi, and animals).
2. Genetic diversity: The genetic variation within species, both among geographically separate
populations and among individuals within single populations. A population is a group of
individuals that mate with one another and produce offspring: species may contain one or
many populations.
3. Ecosystem diversity: The different biological communities and their associations with the
chemical and physical environment (the ecosystem).
Species diversity
To protect/conserve species it is important to recognize and classify species, something that is an
ongoing process and happens over hundreds if not thousands of years. Every 4 years the IUCN
(International Union of Conservation of Nature) decides on the current number of species and presents
a list of them. This process takes quite long because it is not always clear what counts as a unique
species.
What is a species?
The three (of seven) most commonly used systems to classify what a species are:
1. Morphological species: A group of individuals that look different from others. Those species
are also called morphospecies
2. Biological species: A group of individuals that can potentially breed among themselves in the
wild and do not breed with other individuals of other groups.
3. Evolutionary species: A group of individuals that share unique similarities in their DNA and
hence their evolutionary past.
Because above methods to determine a species are different, they sometimes have a different
outcome. The morphological method and using genetic information is most used by taxonomists and
biologists. The biological method is commonly accepted but becomes a problem when species
hybridize (two species become one species (hybrid). The evolutionary method has as a disadvantage
that it requires the use of expensive lab and equipment which can’t be used in the field. Because of
that field biologists must rely on morphological differences and will name a group as a morphospecies
until taxonomists can investigate them in the lab to determine if they are a distinct species. Afterwards
each species gets its own binominal (a unique two part name like, Canis lupus).
Morphological species can have a problem that although they look different (morphological
differences) they may be the same species as is the case in dogs with different breeds. These kinds of
species are also known as cryptic species. Another complicate matter are hybrids these are individuals
that are offspring of two different species. This is most commonly in plants but is also seen in animals.
These difficulties led to the slow description of species, and although there are tens of thousands of
species described each year species still go extinct even before they are being described. Because of
that biologists that are primarily concerned with ecosystem function have argued that a better way to
protect species is to look at their functional diversity, that is the diversity based on the roles or traits
of organisms. But if our goal is to prevent untimely extinction we can’t avoid the task of identifying and
measuring species diversity.
4
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