BIO 1130 Lecture : Carboniferous and Permian lecture notes.doc

which event was not involved in the Permian mass extinction? a. dramatic environmental change b. Shifting of wind patterns c. Shifting of ocean currents d. a decrease in the amount of shallow marine habitat e. a large meteor impact

The island of Madagascar is located just off the SE coast ofAfrica, in the Indian Ocean. Scientists find species on this islandthat have close biological relatives in both Australia and India.They also find that at each location there are fossils of similarorganisms. What is the most likely explanation for this similaritybetween organisms in Madagascar, India, and Australia?

A. The organisms were introduced to all three places byextraterrestrial beings.

B. The ancestor of these organisms lived on a landmass long agothat included Madagascar, India, and Australia.

C. These organisms were moved back and forth to these differentplaces by humans in recent geological history.

D. These organisms independently arose by natural selection ineach location.

E. They are on the same side of Wallace’s line.

Today you will be using an online visualization tool that illustrates the vulnerability to extinction of different groups of (mostly) terrestrial organisms. Spend some time looking through the website at projects.propublica.org/extinctions.

What group of organisms (mammals, reptiles, amphibians, or birds) has…

…the largest percentage of at-risk species? What’s the percentage?

…the smallest percentage? What’s the percentage?

Select any one family from the mammal, reptile, amphibian, or bird groups that has at least 40% of its species at risk for extinction (that is, the family grouping is colored red) and do some Internet research to identify some major mechanisms that have placed that members of that family at risk (e.g., climate change, habitat destruction, pollution).

Family:

Reasons for at-risk status:

Time for another website. You can google “Guardian endangered species map” – the site you want should be one of the top two search results – or you can type in the following: http://www.theguardian.com/environment/interactive/2012/sep/03/extinct-and-endangered-species-interactive. This map shows where species have already gone extinct and where the critically endangered species of today are located.

What country has had the largest number of extinctions since 1500? Within your group, talk about why this might be.

Now go to the “Critically endangered species” view of the map (upper right corner). Where are the spots with high concentrations of critically endangered species? For your answer, you can either list specific countries, continents, sub-continental regions (e.g., southeast Asia, northern Asia), or climatic zones (e.g., tropics, subtropics). Your choice.

Now go to the “In numbers” part of the map (upper right corner). By clicking on the circles, you can see which groups of organisms are most threatened in different regions of the planet.

After clicking on all of the regions on the map, can you make generalizations about what group(s) of organisms is/are most threatened globally? (For the purposes of this question, ignore the “plants, insects, and other” catchall category and focus on the other groups.)

Are there important regional differences that stood out to you?