the biology homework answers

the biology homework answers

The Importance of Biodiversity Conservation: A Comprehensive Study

1. Introduction to Biodiversity and its Significance

Therefore, the aim of this study is to summarize the present literature on the importance of biodiversity and to understand the existing literacy. Though several literatures have summarized the study on biodiversity, this present study is a comprehensive one that reviews a wide range of literature. The method of literature review, the reasons for the loss of biodiversity, the importance of biodiversity, and the way of conservation of biodiversity are explained.

According to an estimate, ecosystem services are worth around $70 trillion per year, and yet biodiversity loss and ecosystem service degradation are estimated to cost about $16-30 trillion dollars each year by 2050. Furthermore, it is predicted that if over half of the Earth’s climate-controlled life support systems disappear, then the Earth’s climate will be destabilized.

Moreover, the demands concerning forestry, pilot, food, genetic remedies, and other plant products by the biotechnology industry would again place pressure on the conservation of plant resources, such as the flora, molds, ferns, algae, gymnosperms, and angiosperms. It is also anticipated that the worldwide pharmaceutical market will expand to levels of more than $5 trillion with the invention of different plant resources. Increased pest and disease control regimes work to further reduce the efficiency of biodiversity to conserve natural habitats in the sustainable provision of important ecological and economic goods and services.

In this context, preserving the Earth’s biodiversity means maintaining the life-support systems that make human society possible. At the dawn of the twentieth century, the human demand for water had tripled in the second half of the century, and it is anticipated to double again during the twenty-first century. Freshwater supply is nevertheless constantly being threatened by the demands of the living world—forests threatening ecological cycle dysfunction, air pollution, algae blooms, and fish kills.

In simpler terms, biodiversity refers to the variety of life on Earth. The number of species is a traditional measure of biodiversity and one of the most objective measures of biodiversity. Although species richness, species distribution, and endemism are also commonly used terms to describe biodiversity, the Convention on Biological Diversity recognizes genetic diversity, ecosystem diversity, and finally species diversity as the three intimately linked levels of biodiversity.

The word ‘biodiversity’ is a portmanteau of the words ‘biological diversity’, which could be defined as ‘every form of life, all plants and animals, their varied gene pools and the ecosystems of which they are a part’. This definition was introduced by Walter Rosen in the paragraph that accompanied the letter that officially convened the First National Forum on Biological Diversity, which led and shaped the U.S. public discussion, and hence, indirectly the global discussion of nearly every aspect in the Convention on Biological Diversity that was later entered into by the United States. Since 1992, the term became synonymous with nature conservation, ethical sustainable use, and benefit sharing of the genetic resources derived from research.

2. Threats to Biodiversity

Biodiversity conservation is at a particular disadvantage because the benefits provided by species are difficult to assess, seldom adequately recognized, and if recognized, are frequently given little value in economic terms.

An important issue is the relationship between these physical and chemical pressures and the underlying causes. There is possibility of deviating some of these pressures away from biodiversity and this is also examined and commented on, although in less detail than perhaps seen by some. If all the identified pressures were devoted to this single end then there would be little cause for concern. The problem is that many of these pressures have very real economic, political, and social ends, invariably supported by vested interests, some of which are little short of intractable, particularly in the short term.

Consideration of threats to biodiversity often concentrates on physical and chemical changes in the environment or on specific pressures such as habitat transformation, loss, and degradation, overexploitation of species, disturbance and fragmentation, and transfer of energy or nutrients through ecosystems. These pressures have, one way or another, led to considerable losses of biological and genetic diversity in all ecosystems and their total current and potential impact continues to generate concern and to be much debated.

The magnitude and influence of environmental degradation and the many factors that cause it are such that no treatment can do justice to the intricacies and impacts of these issues in a few short pages. The most that can be done here is to present some of the principal data, link these to principal issues, and then suggest directions for further reading. The purpose of this section is to provide some evidence on the dimensions of principal environmental issues as they are currently discussed and debated in public.

3. Conservation Strategies and Initiatives

Some of the early models mainly centered on the exclusion of people from natural areas, exclusive management of wildlife, or a “Fortress” approach to conservation. While one cannot claim absolute success, the fact that these islands of biodiversity are still intact and some success toward species conservation has been achieved is attributed to this strategy. Subsequent models and strategies were more liberal and advocated the participation of local people in conservation. Socio-economic development of local populations living in and around natural areas and attitudinal change towards biodiversity was brought about, primarily, through region-specific environmental education and awareness programs. Other methods aimed at directly enhancing human well-being or achieving conservation objectives through sustainable utilization of resources. Recent and more contemporary models adopt a more holistic approach, known as the ecosystem approach to conservation. Ecosystem-centered approaches are relatively new and as a result are not very well practiced. In the year 1992, at the Rio Conference, under the SASM-Biodiversita Agreement, a global convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) was born. Managing biodiversity and the ecosystem approach to conservation became an obligation for all signatories to the agreement.

Over the last two decades, conservationists and agencies working in the domain of conservation have recognized throughout the world that strategies adopted until now are not generating expected results in restoring ecosystems and their services or in checking the degradation of ecosystems and the accelerated loss of biodiversity. It has been established that the technical challenges are only part of the global crisis and that the root causes are more related to the perceptions and lifestyles of society at large and to the current development paradigm. This is particularly true for developing countries where over 70% of the planet’s biological diversity is still found. Consequently, ecosystem conservation in those countries is of paramount importance at a global level. The extremely well-developed technology of communication and global political pressure has worked towards making different stakeholders aware of the biological wealth of those countries and the need for its protection. Over the years, several conservation strategies and models have been proposed.

4. Case Studies on Successful Biodiversity Conservation Efforts

Ecosystem services, or the direct and indirect benefits people receive from ecosystems that contribute directly to human well-being, include the provision of food, fuel, and fiber; clean air and fresh water; pest and disease control; pollination of crops; carbon storage; natural hazard protection; bioremediation of polluted sites; mitigation of climate change; and protection from ultraviolet rays. Biodiversity underwrites these services. Maintaining the processes and services contained within biodiverse habitats helps to maintain Earth’s equilibrium and habitability. Throughout the world, stories of local success demonstrate the critical, practical contributions small groups, through their customs and practices as well as the decisions they make, can require on a global scale to maintain the services and processes people rely on to secure their well-being and livelihoods. Working at a global scale to address the threats to biodiversity common to many regrowth landscapes, inkh+ is committed to building natural and social safeguards for habitats that underpin valued services, especially in locations where collaboration can make the greatest difference.

Success in the establishment of biodiverse forests has been achieved over a number of decades in woodland ecosystems in the USA, where severe fires, set by spring and fall lightning, have historically led to the development of diversified stands of mixed-size trees. In the absence of fire, these stands can become dense with ladder fuels, leading to catastrophic crown fires. Using prescribed fires and selective thinning to restore ecological function and reduce the risk of catastrophic fire, scientists and foresters have successfully implemented a diversity-rich management strategy that lowers the risk of catastrophic fire and reduces associated ecological damage. This chapter offers a review of this and other ‘encouraging examples’ of ecosystem management.

5. Future Directions and Challenges in Biodiversity Conservation

Biodiversity conservation and its subsequent benefits are increasingly moving towards an area of an applied science, an auxiliary to various other sciences. The future road to diversity conservation is not straight but riddled with challenges from multiple sides. The underlying platform of these diverse challenges lies in the inherent reasons; why and how is society driven to do conservation itself. Hence, understanding new challenges should be looked at in conjunction with the existing avenues and scientific support thereof. Such a synoptic and economic valuation would imply a large-scale bottom-up and exhaustive treatment which does not constrain itself to economically valuing all the ecosystem services and species, but also to entrench upon the welfare aspects and concerns of the society of that space, viz., the people whose ‘stone’ or ‘crab’ are the species being conserved.

Biodiversity loss is inevitable. However, one realizes that in spite of these rising waves of biodiversity loss and a backlash in the form of increasing awareness and growing conservation efforts, it is still not clear whether the loss has reached a stage of actual extinction of species or if it is only limited to regional exterminations. What is alarming though, is not this dilemma but the fact that whatever the situation, it is leading to a range of implications which do hold serious future concerns. Hence, rather than concentrating on the biological, ecological and emotional side of the conservation practices, conservation management and research units are increasingly being more and more oriented towards obtaining an economic valuing of these ecosystem services and potential species.