Biodiversity Nexus: Biodiversity

Showing posts with label Biodiversity. Show all posts

Monday, October 8, 2012

Introduction to Biodiversity

Saturday, October 6, 2012

Why Everyone Loses from US Boycott of the UN Biodiversity Agreement

Twenty years after the world agreed to the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, all major scientific indicators regarding the state of “life on earth” – from species’ population trends and extinction risks to natural habitat condition and ecological community composition – are distinctly negative.

Species extirpations, human population growth, consumption rates, pollution discharge, invasive species, and infectious diseases are all up. It is a stark reality, particularly when one considers the growing disparity in quality of life for the planet’s seven billion human inhabitants. How superpowers such as the United States and China deal with these tectonic shifts in natural history will determine the story’s outcome.

One thing we know is that nature has a way of biting back. Food volatility, weather disasters and rising pollution-related health care costs all reflect a deficit with our current environment. Fortunately for the 193 nation-states that are parties (only the US, Andorra, South Sudan and the Vacitan have failed to join) read more>>>

Tuesday, October 2, 2012

World Citizens Worry About Biodiversity Loss

A public consultation held simultaneously in 25 countries – 19 of them in the developing world – showed 84 per cent of participants believing that most people in the world were seriously affected by biodiversity loss.

The results of the consultation held on 15 September – organised mainly by the Danish environment ministry – are to be presented at the 11th Conference of the Parties to the Convention on Biodiversity being held in Hyderabad, India, this month (October).

Some 72 per cent of participants in 'World Wide Views on Biodiversity' thought that educating schoolchildren and the public on biodiversity issues was key to protecting nature and maintaining food security.

Aiming to engage ordinary citizens in policymaking for a healthy planet, 34 meetings were held in Brazil, Canada, China, Denmark, India, South Africa, Uganda, the US, Vietnam, Zambia and other countries. About 100 people selected for diverse backgrounds – gender, occupation, education and residential location – participated in each Read more>>>

Monday, October 1, 2012

200 Researchers Will Explore Papua New Guinea from October 2012

How many species live on Earth? The answer to this question probably resides in the study of biodiversity hotspots. Six years after the Santo expedition in Vanuatu, and 2 years after the Mozambique-Madagascar expedition, scientists are once again embarking on a voyage of discovery to learn about our planet's biodiversity. Led byFrance's National Museum of Natural History, Pro-Natura International and the French Institut de recherche pour le développement (IRD), the expedition team will spend 3 months exploringPapua New Guinea, beginning in October 2012.

From the Bismarck Sea to the slopes of Mount Wilhelm, the Papua New Guinea expedition will see off nearly 200 researchers, students and volunteers.

Land expedition: the objective is to gather new data on plant and animal species read more>>>

Biodiversity and Ecosystem

What is the difference between biodiversity and ecosystem and do they affect the human lives?

“Individual species and ecosystems have evolved over millions of years into a complex interdependence. This can be viewed as being akin to a vast jigsaw puzzle of inter-locking pieces. If you remove enough of the key pieces on which the framework is based then the whole picture may be in danger of collapsing.

We have no idea how many key ‘pieces’ we can afford to lose before this might happen, nor even in many cases, which are the key pieces. The ecological arguments for conserving biodiversity are therefore based on the premise that we need to preserve biodiversity in order to maintain our own life support systems.” Dr Barbara Corker.

Ecosystems are dynamic interactions between plants, animals, and micro-organisms and their environment working together as a functional unit. Ecosystems will fail if they do not remain in balance. No community can carry more organisms than its food, water, and shelter can accommodate. Food and territory are often balanced by natural phenomena such as fire, disease, and the number of predators. Each organism has its own niche or role in the whole system to play its part to show their importance.

Biodiversity is defined as the variability among living organisms from all sources including, inter alia, terrestrial, marine and other aquatic ecosystems and the ecological complexes of which they are part; this includes diversity within species, between species and of ecosystems.

Biodiversity is a measure of the variety of life on earth. Again, Biodiversity is the variation of life forms, plants and animals within a given ecosystem, biome, or on the entire Earth. One cannot find all the types of plants and animals all over a certain country or part of a country. Biodiversity is often used as a measure of the health of biological systems. The biodiversity found on Earth today read more>>>

Friday, September 28, 2012

Protected Planet Report 2012 Highlights Need to Conserve Global Biodiversity

The Cape Floristic Region of South Africa, one of many protected areas conserved by the IUCN, harbors one fifth of Africa’s known plant species.

The first-ever Protected Planet Report was recently released by the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) and the United Nations Environment Programme World Conservation Monitoring Center (UNEP-WCMC). The report addresses the need to conserve areas of the natural environment by protecting local resources and native species. This will help preserve global biodiversity, the variety of living organisms that exist on the planet. The report tracks progress on Target 11 of the Convention on Biological Diversity’s (CBD) Aichi Biodiversity Targets. According to Target 11, by 2020, 17 percent of terrestrial ecoregions and 10 percent of marine ecoregions will be properly conserved.

As the global population and their use of natural resources steadily increases, the Aichi Targets hope to protect global biodiversity from historic and emerging threats, such as pollution and over-harvesting of natural resources. Protected areas are internationally recognized regions set aside for nature and biodiversity conservation. Protected areas are crucial for reasons beyond preserving biodiversity; they also aid scientific research, maintain water supplies, and preserve sites of cultural importance. By limiting human occupation and preventing exploitation of natural resources, the UNEP-WCMC conserves protected areas around the world. According to the report, protected areas currently cover 12.7 percent of the world’s land area and 1.6 percent of the global ocean area. Meanwhile, half of the world’s most important sites for biodiversity still remain unprotected. Read more>>>

Thursday, September 27, 2012

Living with Fewer Species: Biodiversity from a Brand New Perspective

Are you ready to embrace an entirely new dogma? To question your existing ideas about biodiversity? Then submerge yourself in the unusual essay 'The pursuit of complexity – The utility of biodiversity from an evolutionary perspective'.

The author examines the utility of biodiversity starting at the very basics, and arrives at new answers to long-standing questions. Is it a problem if species go extinct? And is this discussion mainly a moral one, or can it be approached scientifically? The author’s conclusions are an eye-opener for anyone who asks himself elementary life questions, but they can also be directly applied in management and conservation.

Nature finds itself increasingly under pressure. Species are disappearing faster than ever before in human history. Is this a problem? Several popular publicists are arguing that ecosystems can well survive if single species go extinct. Conservationists strongly object, backed by many scientists. However, scientific arguments that confirm the use of biodiversity are still lacking. The essay 'The pursuit of complexity – The utility of biodiversity from an evolutionary perspective', written by Dutch ecologist Gerard Jagers, provides a new general frame of reference for this discussion.

One of the main questions that Jagers tries to answer is: what is life, actually? This question will have to be answered if one is to fully understand biodiversity, the variety of all life on earth. The pursuit of complexity provides a clear starting point, and also addresses the concepts of utility and evolution. These are still scientifically debated. When we think about evolution, we immediately think about Darwin. But what is evolution exactly? This essay approaches evolution as if it were a recipe, based on actions read more>>>

Subscribe to: Posts (Atom)

Taking Action for Biodiversity

The world is now on a path to building a future of living in harmony with nature. In October 2010, in Japan, governments agreed to the Strategic Plan for Biodiversity 2011-2020 and the Aichi Targets as the basis for halting and eventually reversing the loss of biodiversity of the planet. To build support and momentum for this urgent task, the United Nations General Assembly at its 65th session declared the period 2011-2020 to be “the United Nations Decade on Biodiversity, with a view to contributing to the implementation of the Strategic Plan for Biodiversity for the period 2011-2020” (Resolution 65/161). The United Nations Decade on Biodiversity will serve to support the implementation of the Strategic Plan for Biodiversity and promote its overall vision of living in harmony with nature. Its goal is to mainstream biodiversity at different levels. Throughout the United Nations Decade on Biodiversity, governments are encouraged to develop, implement and communicate the results of national strategies for implementation of the Strategic Plan for Biodiversity. Each day counts. The actions taken by individuals, stakeholders and governments are important steps, one building on the other, towards protecting the life support systems that not only ensure human well-being, but support the rich variety of life on this planet.

Biodiversity

Biodiversity is the degree of variation of life forms within a given species, ecosystem, biome, or an entire planet. Biodiversity is a measure of the health of ecosystems. Biodiversity is in part a function of climate. In terrestrial habitats, tropical regions are typically rich whereas polar regions support fewer species. Rapid environmental changes typically cause mass extinctions. One estimate is that less than 1% of the species that have existed on Earth are extant (still in existence). Since life began on Earth, five major mass extinctions and several minor events have led to large and sudden drops in biodiversity. The Phanerozoic eon (the last 540 million years) marked a rapid growth in biodiversity. The next 400 million years included repeated, massive biodiversity losses classified as mass extinction events. The Carboniferous, rainforest collapse. The Permian–Triassic extinction event, 251 million years ago, was the worst. The most recent, the Cretaceous–Paleogene extinction event, occurred 65 million years ago, and has often attracted more attention than others because it resulted in the extinction of the dinosaurs. The period since the emergence of humans has displayed an ongoing biodiversity reduction and an accompanying loss of genetic diversity. Named the Holocene extinction, the reduction is caused primarily by human impacts, particularly habitat destruction. Conversely, biodiversity impacts human health in a number of ways, both positively and negatively

What is a Biome?

A biome is a large geographical area of distinctive plant and animal groups, which are adapted to that particular environment. The climate and geography of a region determines what type of biome can exist in that region. Major biomes include deserts, forests, grasslands, tundra, and several types of aquatic environments. Each biome consists of many ecosystems whose communities have adapted to the small differences in climate and the environment inside the biome. All living things are closely related to their environment. Any change in one part of an environment, like an increase or decrease of a species of animal or plant, causes a ripple effect of change in through other parts of the environment.

Ecosystem

An ecosystem is a community of living organisms (plants, animals and microbes) in conjunction with the nonliving components of their environment (things like air, water and mineral soil), interacting as a system. These components are regarded as linked together through nutrient cycles and energy flows. As ecosystems are defined by the network of interactions among organisms, and between organisms and their environment, they can come in any size but usually encompass specific, limited spaces (although it is sometimes said that the entire planet is an ecosystem). Ecosystems are controlled both by external and internal factors. External factors such as climate, the parent material which forms the soil and topography, control the overall structure an ecosystem and the way things work within it, but are not themselves influenced by the ecosystem.

International Union for Conservation of Nature

He International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN, Union internationale pour la conservation de la nature (UICN), in French) is an international organization dedicated to finding "pragmatic solutions to our most pressing environment and development challenges". The organization publishes the IUCN Red List, compiling information from a network of conservation organizations to rate which species are most endangered. The IUCN supports scientific research, manages field projects all over the world and brings governments, non-government organizations, United Nations agencies, companies and local communities together to develop and implement policy, laws and best practice. IUCN is the world’s oldest and largest global environmental network—a democratic membership union with more than 1,000 government and NGO member organizations, and almost 11,000 volunteer scientists in more than 160 countries. IUCN’s work is supported by more than 1,000 professional staff in 60 offices and hundreds of partners in public, NGO and private sectors around the world. The Union’s headquarters are located in Gland, near Geneva, Switzerland. IUCN's stated vision is "a just world that values and conserves nature". Its mission is to "influence, encourage and assist societies throughout the world to conserve the integrity and biodiversity of nature and to ensure that any use of natural resources is equitable and ecologically sustainable".

The Biodiversity of the Rainforest

Why should the loss of tropical forests be of any concern to us in light of our own poor management of natural resources? The loss of tropical rainforests has a profound and devastating impact on the world because rainforests are so biologically diverse, more so than other ecosystems (e.g., temperate forests) on Earth. A single pond in Brazil can sustain a greater variety of fish than is found in all of Europe's rivers. A 25-acre plot of rainforest in Borneo may contain more than 700 species of trees - a number equal to the total tree diversity of North America. A single rainforest reserve in Peru is home to more species of birds than are found in the entire United States. One single tree in Peru was found to harbor forty-three different species of ants - a total that approximates the entire number of ant species in the British Isles. The number of species of fish in the Amazon exceeds the number found in the entire Atlantic Ocean. The biodiversity of the tropical rainforest is so immense that less than 1 percent of its millions of species have been studied by scientists for their active constituents and their possible uses. When an acre of topical rainforest is lost, the impact on the number of plant and animal species lost and their possible uses is staggering. Scientists estimate that we are losing more than 137 species of plants and animals eve

Marine Mammal Biodiversity

Species are not uniformly distributed on Earth. Heterogeneous physical features and community evolution drive the mix of species found in a given location. Places with high species diversity tend to contain greater genetic diversity and variety of physical habitats, as well as exhibiting greater resilience to environmental changes. Biological diversity, most commonly measured as the number of species present or species richness (versus number of genes or ecological habitats), provides an important composite measure of biological and ecological importance. Areas of high biological diversity, depending on their size and accessibility, may be identified either directly from intensive sampling or survey efforts. Alternatively, such hotspots of species richness may be inferred using habitat prediction models by overlaying a large number of predicted species occurrence data layers in a Geographic Information System (GIS) which will highlight areas of high co-occurrence of species. The vastness of the offshore marine environment and the resulting paucity of data for the open ocean or deep sea will likely preclude the identification of most areas of high biological diversity in the high seas through direct survey efforts alone in the foreseeable future. Thus large-scale species distribution models represent a useful alternative to evaluate the biological or ecological significance of an area based on this criterion by making inferences from better studied areas to those comparatively less well known

Pages