BIO 2129 Lecture Notes - Lecture 17: Wytham, Insular Biogeography, Species Richness
16 Nov 2016
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Document Summary
Human activities can alter the entire world to fundamentally change the trajectory of life on earth. Yes we are in a period of mass extinction. The only other recent time this has happened was when the dinosaurs were wiped out. Altering the availability of habitat alters the amount of species which can be sustained. If all other things are equal, you should expect that large areas support more species than small ones: study islands. Galapagos: small and distant, for species to get there is pretty lucky: rate of species arrival is low. For the species to survive is slim too because island is small, cannot support large populations. Making it to pei from the mainland is very likely: rate of species arrival is high, large island= large are so can support more species. Allows us to make good estimates of how many species are on an island.
