EEB202H1 Lecture Notes - Lecture 7: Habitat Destruction
Document Summary
Today"s global environmental problems: loss of biodiversity, global warming and climate change, environmental pollution, human famine, spread of infectious diseases, human population growth. Edward wilson (important topic) evolutionary biologist; an advocate for conservation. "the loss of biodiversity is the most important process of environmental change. This is because it is the only process that is wholly irreversible. Its consequences are also the least predictable, because the value of the earth"s biota is largely unstudied and unappreciated. " Wilson: we don"t know how the loss of biodiversity will affect the function of ecosystems in the community. "what is the point of preserving species if they"re so genetically crippled that they have no future?" Intuitively, we want to conserve the species with the most genetic diversity: most biodiversity is in the tropics (mexico, colombia, brazil, zaire, madagascar, Microorganism biodiversity in a gram of soil, there is about over 1000 (look up) species slide 17.