Conservation Biology 08 27 2012 Real extinctions at least 717 animals have gone extinct since 1500 AD and 87 plants have that making a total of 804 extinctions A lot of extinctions is caused by our effect Freshwater snails have a 72 more likely chance of becoming extinct species way The temperate grasslands savanna and shrublands are the habitats more effected by the extinctions at around 50 History of conservation in the US Continent viewed as wilderness when Europeans came over which they perceived as dangerous So several centuries of exploitation followed Around 1800s the thinking was more complicated o Ralph Waldo Emerson and henry David Thoreau gave light to new ideas wrote about the idea that nature has uses beyond the economic with a spiritual and moral value which is the transcendental romantic ethic nature has spiritual moral value Yellowstone declared first national park in 1892 by Roosevelt and by the railroad company hoping to help pay along with tourism the American way it is a democratic invention John Muir the most important person in conservation early in his life he worked in factory where he almost went blind He then sought out walking from Indianapolis to Florida where he eventually got to California where he made conservation political While in FL he got malaria o In Cali he was near central valley to the sierra Nevada mountains where he fell in love and spent most of the rest of his time He wanted to preserve some parts of the mountains o He did a lot of teaching and his main argument was towards preservation He wrote persuasive articles which were responsible for Yosemite o In 1892 he formed sierra club An NGO is a non governmental organization that have a lot of influence but wasn t the only way people were thinking about nature at the time People were still trying to use nature without running out of it Led to Gifford Pinchot which was the head of division of forestry and believed in utilitarian use of nature He thought people wouldn t use nature wisely if given their own way o Idea of wise use land of many uses on national forest signs o Resource conservation ethic is wise use where it can be used but not let people do whatever they want with it o The wise use was also held by Teddy Roosevelt He did a lot of early conservation efforts He went camping with Muir in 1903 at Yosemite strong support for conservation Examples of forest preservation act which gave government to satisfy land to be protected in 1891 o 1902 Roosevelt set up first wildlife refuge in Florida sustainable use use but keeping some for the future so not preservation entirely Aldo Leopold a wildlife manager fabulous writer o Evolutionary ecological land ethic aldo leopold fusion of conservation and sustainable use Lecture 2 08 27 2012 Finishing history of Conservation Biology this will overlap with the lecture 1 handout Review of preservation versus conservation ideas in 1800 s tension between people who aspoused preservation with the idea with spiritual value and conservation was by John Muir to make it more of a political issue not that topic of a lot of public debate Review of evolutionary ecological land ethic in early 1900 s Aldo Leopold merges the ideas of preservation conservation and science He believed that people should use nature but in order to understand how to use it wisely we need to understand how the pieces work together because it is a complicated system and we mostly need to preserve the whole system evolutionary ecological land ethic Three important books Silent Spring by Rachel Carson 1962 she explained that the DDT that is sprayed to kill insects will then run in the water biomagnification which zooplankton and etc will eat and will be passed on in the food chain We were losing a bunch of bird species Refer to the fact that we wouldn t have any birds singing in the springs This started the movement Population Bomb by Paul Ehrlich 1966 his message was that we will breed ourselves into oblivion Human population has exploded and that we cannot continue to do that forever without starting to run out of resources Conservation Biology by Michael Soule 1980 scientists needed to come to grip with the situation of conserving nature This is when the term conservation biology came about Characteristics of Conservation Biology the applied science of maintaining the earths biological diversity Multidisciplinary basic biology population genetics evolution etc physical environment implementation and social environment Check out graphs on slide error bars shows the variation Inexact science ton of variance because organisms have the ability to continually move around especially in conservation biology Long time scale challenge for us and a way to deal with it is by using mathematical models Crisis discipline people who make a living searching for cod is an example values laden ideal to not involve ideas but conservation biologists know that they are not always objective Methods for conservation science Observation comparison Experiments Mathematical or computer models Biodiversity definitions Three species definitions 1 Biological species concept species are groups that are reproductively isolated from each other don t mate and produce offspring species 2 Morphological whatever fits a particular description is this 3 Phylogenetic every group of populations that is distinct from other groups by a common character monophyletic group is a species Problem with it the marker which causes the tree to be different Problem with knowing where to draw the line Terminology associated with species definitions morphospecies species defined using morphological species concept monophyletic groups Three sub specific divisions Evolutionary significant units a group of organisms genetically isolated enough to have diverged genetically from other groups of the same species Management units local populations that have evolved genetic differences due to low dispersal among them Distinct population segments similar to ESU or MU but can be based on political rather than biological boundaries Summary of species definitions Biodiversity can also be managed at levels higher than species Ecoregions segments large areas with similar mix of environmental conditions and relatively distinct group of organisms Biomes colors major habitat types biodiversity the variety of organisms at all levels of organization not a clearly defined term in science variety at genetic population community and ecosystem levels Two