BIOB50H3 Lecture Notes - Lecture 1: Geologic Time Scale, Community Association, Sept
8 Sep 2016
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Friday sept 16 aa208 (1-2pm) and hw308 (2-3pm) How many species? about 1. 75 million extant species about 300 new species described everyday guess: 2-8 million species. We must understand systems of out environment so we can anticipate the consequences of our actions and fix them. Concept 1. 1 : events in the natural world are interconnected. Medicine, oxygen, biotechnology, wood, food, pollination, velcro humans are part of the environment and their lives are impacted by biodiversity loss. Scientific study of interactions between organisms and their environment has many subfields environmental sciences is different because it incorporates concepts from natural sciences and social sciences and focuses on solutions to environmental problems. Early ecological views: balance of nature natural systems are stable and tend to return to an original state after disturbance, each species has a distinct role to play in maintaining that balance. Scientists now recognize that ecological interactions are more complex. Ecological maxims: you can never do just one thing.
