BIO 227 Lecture Notes - Lecture 39: Eastern Meadowlark, Chronospecies, Endemism
Document Summary
Protection for nongame species and their habitats. Alpha: how many species occur in a site-specific area. Beta: how does the species composition vary among areas, turnover (repetition) Gamma: the cumulative total biodiversity across multiple areas within a region. Species are: groups of actually or potentially interbreeding populations, which are reproductively isolated from other such groups (mayr 1942) Shortcomings not applicable to asexual species (bacteria, etc. ) does not work for chronospecies (fossil record) hard to use with taxa that hybridize easily (ex. plants) Some species look similar but don"t successfully interbreed (western and eastern meadowlark) Other species look different and are separate but can interbreed (spard owl, prizzly bear, liger) Species richness is inversely proportional to body size or mass. Latitude: species richness increases as latitude decreases. Structural complexity: species richness increases with structural complexity. Isolation: isolated areas have lower richness but higher endemism.
