Sunday, December 1, 2013

As part of your first assignment for this course, you were asked to find a recent article about Biodiversity and discuss how Botkin's 6 major environmental themes (Botkin and Keller Ch. 1) apply to your article. Please share your article and discussion with the rest of the class by commenting below. Insert a link to your article so that your fellow students can read your article if they are interested.

43 comments:

  1. BEWARE! BLOGGER IS KNOWN TO DELETE POSTS WHEN YOU GO TO POST THEM! IT IS A GOOD GENERAL IDEA TO WRITE WHATEVER YOU ARE GOING TO POST AS A WORD DOC AND CUT AND PASTE IT INTO COMMENTS SO THAT IT'S NOT LOST IF BLOGGER SCREWS UP.

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  2. http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-25186871
    Small bits of plastic are carrying chemicals, and when worms eat the microscopic plastic, they accidentally eat the chemicals too. We put a bunch of plastic in the environment every year, and in the past it has been considered “okay,” but new research is showing that it’s not the plastic being released, it’s chemicals. This is causing the worms to not do their job. They can’t eat the necessary sediment to help ecosystem.
    This connects into recurring theme that everything is related. We produce plastic, which effects worms, which effects silt build up, which effects coastlines. We can’t do anything without setting off a chain of events.

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    1. It's kind of cool how worms can eat plastic, but its mostly sad. I always knew plastic was bad for the environment, but I only knew about how it takes a really long time to break down and how the marine life would mistake them for jellyfish. I now feel like I should be washing all the plastic bags that I use, and eventually stop using them. The fact that little tiny microscopic pieces of plastic are affecting the worms and we throw away about 150 million tonnes is scary. I hope we all learn how to live without using so much plastic waste or at least figure out a way to reuse plastics

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  3. http://www.triplepundit.com/2013/11/conserving-biodiversity-genuine-commitment-high-minded-words-fancy-paper/

    People are destroying the rainforest, coral reefs, and marine ecosystems for the sake of financial gain. In doing so, they are costing the entire planet millions in terms of what this article terms the “global economy”, which is a term for the value of the planet’s existing resources.
    A possible solution would be to combine the world’s resources, including those of each individual country, and sharing them equally among all the people in the world. A good way to spread awareness on this subject is to reach out to politicians, industrial CEOs, and even the people themselves. To help people better understand their relationship with nature, it would be necessary to connect the crisis to situations that would affect the people themselves. For example, one could look for a correlation between the destruction of nature and the economic crisis. If people cared about the environment the same way they care about their own health, then both could improve simultaneously.

    -D.Y.

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    1. That's a really cool idea. It would be an amazing accomplishment for the environment (in terms of sharing resources) and for foreign relations. This idea would require a lot of cooperation on behalf of the people, who, i agree, are selfish and care about their individual issues rather than the environment or the good of the world as a whole. I think there is a sick unbalance of wealth between third and first world countries and sharing resources would open a lot of Americans eyes to what it's like to live on a dollar a day. This seems to teeter dangerously close to communism on a international scale, and while I personally have no issues with this, lots of Americans are strongly opposed to communism.

      Though this plan is very ideological and possibly not the most realistic, it's really interesting, and would be great to experiment with on a smaller scale if scientists, economists, and civilians were willing to cooperate and attempt it.

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    2. What if we recast this a tad and say that we are in fact already sharing resources? The atmosphere is a resource that all nations share, yet we are not doing a very good job managing it as an international community, and so CO2 continues to accumulate. This is The Tragedy of the Commons....

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  4. The Maui dolphin (the rarest type in the world) lives exclusively on the west coast of New Zealand. In 2012, there were only 55 Maui dolphins alive, due mostly to fishing in the area and disease. Recently, the New Zealand government put new restrictions on fishing by banning set nets for 131 miles in order to protect the dolphins, but still allow fishing elsewhere. While this is a step in the right direction, many think this won’t actually protect the dolphins all that much, because more that 75% of the dolphin’s habitat will remain unprotected from set nets.

    http://www.upi.com/Science_News/2013/11/30/Activists-say-plan-to-protect-Mauis-dolphin-doesnt-go-far-enough/UPI-53011385835099/

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    1. This is really interesting because it shows how people have acknowledged that our actions are impacting the population of these dolphins and are trying to take action. Despite taking action people are still concerned with their own interest that they will not make the area where fishing will not be allowed larger. This is one example of how humans and nature have such large impacts on every aspect of each other. Meaning, we did not directly do anything to purposely make these dolphins head towards extinctions but our actions did impact them. Now that we realize there is a problem we have the power to fix it.

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  5. I also read a piece about the Maui Dolphin
    http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-25145805
    The Maui Dolphin, the smallest dolphin the world endemic to New Zealand’s western coastline, has only 55 adult individuals left. Most believe that this is due to net fishing, oil industries and disease. Many Maui get trapped in the nylon nets that fishermen use and, being unable to escape, often perish there. In order to remedy this, the New Zealand government has studied where the Maui live and have created a 350 square kilometer area where no fishing is allowed. This would save the Maui from the nets and help bust their population, right? Well, as it turns out, this area only covers 75 percent of the Maui territory, and with only approximately 20 females left in the wild, if even one gets killed, it could prove to be the fatal blow to the dolphins. Scientists believe that if something drastic isn’t done, the Maui Dolphins will become extinct within the next twenty years. As for the treat from oil companies and disease, there are plans to do something, but nothing concrete has yet been done.

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    1. It's really interesting to hear that even attempts made to protect these creatures could be the nail in their coffin. Also, it is intriguing that they are debating about what to do with the dolphins but as they do, more and more time goes by without anything tangible being done to actually protect them. I would imagine that doing anything would be a step in the right direction. It would be really interesting to know how many of them there before they were on the endangered species list. It would also be interesting to know what caused their downfall. Thanks for writing about this, it's an important subject.

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    2. Really interesting to hear about the effects on these dolphins. More people should be worried about this issue. Anything could save them. I really hope that we can save them, any species that gets on the endangered species list needs to be saved in my mind. Camden thanks so much for letting me know about what is going on with these dolphins.

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  6. http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-25186871
    Toxic pollutants and chemicals from microplastics in the ocean are being ingested by lugworms. The chemicals and toxins from the microplastics reach the tissue of the lugworms and cause thermal stress and the inability to eat as much sediment as they would normally. Due to this, the functions of the lugworm are reduced, and their inability to perform their normal functions have consequences on the ecosystem they are a part of. Lugworms are known for being “eco-engineers” due to their ability to eat organic matter in sediment and because of that, they prevent build-up of silt. As they eat sediment, they make burrows with change the way organisms live around it. Without the lugworms being able to perform their normal functions, marine biodiversity is threatened. The huge increase in ocean pollutants, such as microplastics, is due to human population growth. As the population grows, more waste products are being produced. The increase and commonality of products, like plastic, causes people to be unaware of their impact on the environment. Due to this, these products get dumped into the ocean and threaten the ecosystems within it. Sustainability plays a role in this also, because waste products are being produced faster than we can find environmentally friendly ways to dispose of them. The ecosystem that the lugworm is a part of will also stop being sustainable if it can no longer function properly. The actions of people all over the world are having an effect on the marine life in the ocean. Pollutants from all over the world contaminate the water causing a threat to the biodiversity within it. Urbanization also has a huge role in the increase in plastic production. In urban cities, almost all things are made from plastic because it is convenient and easy to dispose of, but the people using these productions might care very little about how their actions affect the rest of the planet. The way people live affect the environment, and they affect how much pollutants enter the ocean. Even though it was thought that plastic was not harmful to organisms in the environment, scientists took an initiative and decided to look further into the problem of the lungworm to try and prevent further harm to their ecosystem.

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    1. Great job! This is what I was looking for.

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    2. It is interesting how population growth brings the production of more waste - products and more plastic. Then more plastic production means more will end up in the ocean and kill lung worms as well as a lot of other aquatic life. This current harmful cycle needs to be changed to save marine life.

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  7. http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=as-people-live-longer-threats-to-wildlife-increase

    In reading an article in Scientific American I learned a thing or two about animal and how as people grow animal life gets threatened. This article talks about how as our population grows animal life decreases. We are endangering the lives of birds and mammals. This doesn’t tie into all the six major themes, but it connections to people and nature, Human population and an urbanizing world. “Increased life expectancy means that people live longer and affect the planet longer; each year is another year of carbon footprint, ecological footprint, use of natural resources, etc.” A lot of people live in urbanized areas that it becomes what we depend on, but what we don’t realize is we are killing birds and mammal’s habitats. This is causing the endangered species. After much research as the population of people grows so does the mammal population. We need to be careful of the mammal’s and birds we are hurting.

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    1. While interesting, and of course sad, this does bring up the question, what can we do prolong the lives of these species we are pushing to extinction? Our population is going to keep growing, so how can we make sure, while keeping a steady lid on population growth, we stop the threats towards species? Or is this impossible, due to our need for resources?

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    2. This article gets at what we started to discuss today in class - population per se isn't the real problem, it's consumption - which until recently was more closely correlated with population size. It seems that population sizes are starting to level off, but consumption is escalating. One of the things that I hope will emerge as the class continues is that humans don't have a choice - we have to figure out how to do our thing without wiping out other species or we'll go extinct - we depend on biodiversity for the essential processes that keep us alive (such as oxygen).

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  8. http://www.biologicaldiversity.org/species/birds/penguins/index.html
    Emperor penguins, along with half of the 18 other species of penguins, are dealing with hardships because of global warming effecting their food source, krill. Krill is the keystone of the Antarctic marine food chain and it has declined 80 percent since 1970. Penguins must also fight fisheries for their food. The center for biological diversity was working to gain federal protection for the penguins but was denied support for emperor penguins. They are continuing to seek support. Firstly, penguins should not be fighting people for food. This is an example of people and nature working together, but in this case it seems people need to step back or their fisheries will go out of business when marine species begin dying one by one as they lose their keystone species.

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    1. I like this article, but it is so sad. People need to become more mindful about how their actions affect the environment. People are not aware of how a seemingly simple action, like fishing, can affect the environment on a larger scale. These people do not understand the importance that fish play in the food chain, and they do not understand how overfishing can harm the species that rely on fish to survive. I believe if more people tried to be make fishers more aware of the issue, they might understand how their action could affect them in the long run and the state of the environment also.

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  9. http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=how-biodiversity-keeps-earth-alive
    This article starts off with a small test held in 1994. A large area of grassland was partitioned off into small sections, each with different levels of biodiversity. Some areas had a vast array of grasses and blooming flowers while others were simply one type of grass taking up the entire square. Though there were very few indications of change within a short period of time, after a decade of continuing this study, the plots with more biodiversity had far more plant life than those that had been comprised of simply one or two different species. This study gives us a good look into what affects biodiversity has not only on what the area is like at present, but what it will most often look like in an extended period of time. David Biello, the writer of this piece, goes on to say that "Losing just 21 percent of the species in a given ecosystem can reduce the total amount of biomass in that ecosystem by as much as 10 percent--and that's likely to be a conservative estimate." Not only does an exorbitant amount of biodiversity grow the organic mass over time, but lacking this diversity actually has severely detrimental effects. Were we to continue along our current path of destruction, it is not unlikely that we will see a large drop in this "biomass" Biello refers to. With a drop in biomass comes a drop in food production, and in a time where population is growing rapidly, the last thing we need is less food. An estimated 9 billion people will be living on Earth in fifty years, and though we are currently struggling to maintain enough food for everyone, it may get even harder if we forget the importance of biodiversity and the role it plays in maintaining the ecosystem that keeps us alive.

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    1. Cool - this is based on the work of an ecologist name David Tilman at the University of Minnesota. We'll read one of his original papers later in the class.

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    2. Interesting! What really struck me in this article was the fact that "thousands of unique species have already been lost, most unknown even to science—a rate that could halve the total number of species on the planet by 2100." It is hard to believe that with so many species on earth, we still risk losing half of them if these trends continue. It is sad to read that globally, humans have had such an immense impact on biodiversity, or in this case, the lack thereof. It saddens me even more that most people do not prioritize biodiversity as a pressing issue and do not realize that humans have created this crisis and have caused this mass extinction. It is important to recognize that preserving biodiversity is not only important morally and culturally, but also because it provides many benefits to organisms on the planet, especially humans. Humans benefit greatly from the food, medicine, clean air, water, and the beauty of the rich biodiversity on the planet. I completely agree that with the growing population, we as humans should definitely focus on preserving biodiversity, knowing its key role in the ecosystem.

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  10. http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2013/11/131122132451.htm

    A recent study gives us the answers to why there are so many more species of plants and animals in the tropical regions, rather than at higher latitudes. Scientists have known that species diversity grows greater towards the equation. This is why there is a much greater variety of species and subspecies in places such as tropical rain forests, while in places like tundras there is much less of a variety of different species (ie: tropical forests have different types of monkeys, birds, insects etc. while tundras have a few types of mammals, such as caribou and foxes). Many different hypotheses have been made to answer this question, such as, more biodiversity in the tropics is due to the extremely fertile grounds for the formation of new species, and biodiversity "hot spots," don't tend to lose species once they have them. The scientists conducted these studies, noticed that while bird and mammal species population grew larger towards the equator, the subspecies populations were greater in the higher latitude climates."If extreme weather events wipe out a population every now and then, but don't wipe out an entire species, the populations that survive will be geographically separated and could start to diverge from one another," Botero said, and it was concluded that species tend to come and go in even temperature zones, because scientists found that species arise faster in temperate zones than in the tropics.

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    1. Nice. We'll talk more about this issue later in the class.

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  11. http://zeenews.india.com/news/eco-news/reduction-in-carbon-dioxide-emission-urged-for-survival-of-coral-reefs_858767.html

    Although neither shocking nor new information, after recent studies done, it has been discovered, yet again, that in order to save what’s left of our coral habitats we must drastically cut down on our carbon dioxide emissions. Corals are extremely sensitive to changes in ocean chemistry due to greenhouse gases like CO2, coastal pollution, warming waters, overdevelopment, and overfishing. They are home to immense biodiversity, and are necessary in the economies of many coastal communities; however, in the direction we are currently headed soon enough we will have no more coral reefs to speak of. In order for corals to produce skeletons they need a mineral called aragonite, a form of calcium carbonate. All the carbon dioxide emitted by humans is immediately absorbed by the oceans, raising its acidity and lowering its pH levels. This rise in acidity breaks down the corals skeletons, killing existing corals, and making it difficult for corals to continue growth. Although this is a commonly known issue, people still aren’t taking the initiative to save their cherished oceans. Although the extinction of corals and the destruction of our ocean as a whole is intangible, and may seem far into the future— it is a serious issue that can no longer be ignored. This issue relates to the themes of the importance of a global perspective, people and nature, and the role of science and values in the decisions we face. Perhaps by enlarging peoples’ global perspectives and making them more aware of the power they hold over coral reefs, and the science behind it, they will realize the severity of the situation and change their habits.

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    1. Nice - we'll talk more about coral reefs and acid acification later in the class.

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    2. I've definitely heard of this issue before and it's super sad... I think a lot of people don't realize that coral reefs aren't just pretty to look at but that they are the home of thousands of different creatures and that that sort of biodiversity can't be replaced. I think people are focusing on the harmful effects of carbon dioxide on humans, but the effects on marine life (especially coral reefs) are less commonly known, which is definitely a serious problem.

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    3. Ocean acidification is something that I started paying attention to about a year and a half ago, and it has been devastating to see how much has changed in such a short amount of time. One question that keeps coming back to me is what will need to happen in order to humans to actually take action. No one wants to give up their comfy lifestyle, and it is easy, especially if you don't live near a lot of coral reefs, to distance yourself from them and ignore the problem. This is something we need to change in the mindset of the world, or we will be losing some of the most diverse places in the world

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    4. It goes way deeper (no pun intended) than coral reefs too....many plankton at the base of marine food webs have calcium carbonate shells that can't form under acidic conditions, so they will be absent if ocean acidification continues. They are microscopic, so nobody outside of science even knows they exist, much less that they are so important and so threatened.

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  12. Biodiversity: Hang On – More growth, not less, is the best hope for averting a sixth great extinction; The Economist

    http://www.economist.com/news/leaders/21586346-more-growth-not-less-best-hope-averting-sixth-great-extinction-hang

    This article begins by talking about the Hainan Gibbon which is a critically endangered, endemic species to China. The Gibbon is used as a brief example to how humans and other animal species are impacting each other directly and indirectly. The economic growth of man has had a drastic impact on other species. For example the islands in which this specific Gibbons species lives on is a tourist attraction for two main reasons: the natural environment and modern luxuries such as golf courses. The expansion of golf courses and other luxury recreational spaces have destroyed the forests in which these Gibbons live in. One main argument posed in this article is that the richer people get the more harmful we are to the environment. By buying luxury items such as clothes and fancy vacations to resorts and the gold courses mentioned before we are fueling the sixth mass extinction in Earth’s history.
    This article argues that technological progress and economic growth have allowed man to dominate planet Earth, and has subsequently made us responsible for wiping out so many species (“over the past few centuries extinctions are thought to have been running at around 100 times the rate they would run [in man’s] absence”). Despite the previous claims to growth being harmful the article then proceeds to explain a theory in which growth can be beneficial to biodiversity. Growth creates a larger economic gap and while the richer tend to start using more for luxury reasons rather than necessity; with more people at middle-income level other species are benefiting because these luxuries are not being used as much. Another example of the positive impact of growth is that with more people and resources (human/ ideas not natural resources) we are able to have more advanced research and methods of restoring biodiversity and correcting our mistakes that have led to this sixth mass extinction.
    The article had more supporting ideas, but I thought these few were very interesting because they are building off of what we have read about with human population growth being harmful and how everything we do anywhere in the world has an impact on biodiversity everywhere. However, this article twists the ideas and proposes new ones relating to the positive or more optimistic side to the same issue.

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  13. Rainforest Deforestation
    When rainforests are diminished for farmlands they occasionally have to opportunity to grow back. But second growth forest have been proven to lack the same carbon content, biomass (especially in roots), biodiversity and biologists think it may take over a century and a half for things to return to the way they were. Sometimes damage is irreparable. With farms growing on all sides rebuilding is even more difficult.
    With more people farming and spreading their territory into uncultivated lands because of the rise of the human population, there has been a significant increase in deforestation. We are using our forest resources and land resources more quickly than they can regenerate (at a rate of 150 years) and most people in these circumstances are not practicing sustainable agriculture. Though these farmers may be happy with their gain in farmland and yield of crops, they miss the big picture; this affects the earth as a whole through contributing to CO2 levels and losing some of the virgin forests of our beautiful natural world. Though this article didn’t address much about urban life, as humans expand into natural lands, for farming or whatever other reason, it is still a form of urbanization, and an example of our constant need for more land. These agricultural communities must learn to work with the land in a way that is not harmful to the forests and does not remove them anymore. We must learn to be companions to the natural world. It is difficult to prioritize conservation of the rainforest over people’s right to food and prosperity, but there are ways for both to exist; through sustainable farming, if it can be taught and accepted, farmers can use land they already have or in a way that is not detrimental to wildlife or primary forests.

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    1. Alex, this seems like a really interesting article. While I was reading it I was thinking about ethical responsibility. Because humans often treat the environment poorly, maybe they shouldn’t know that some of what they ruin has the chance to grow back. Even though you state here that this growth is slow and does not completely make up for what is lost, I think if people were to find out their damage could be undone, they would be less interested in stopping their ways. I was thinking about this because of the textbook section about science and values. It seems to state that humans have the right to decide how the world should work, so maybe it would be okay to trick people into treating the environment better? Not that I agree with it, just an idea?

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    2. It's so true- humans are so entitled. Of course we affect nature, but I definitely don't think that give us the right to decide the fate of the world, even though that seems to be what's happening.

      I don't know- there are a lot of heartless people, but maybe educating them instead of tricking them? But some educated people don't seem to care either, so... yeah, i think you have a good idea

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    3. This article and Alex's summary really capture the dilemma of The Commons - the Amazonian rainforest is being used as a Commons resource - a few people are gaining a lot (of money), while many around the world are sharing the cost. It's also typical of globalization - we don't really know where our supply chain comes from, so as consumers we can't tell if we are eating soybeans/tofu (for example) grown in the Amazon. We like to think that once people are educated they'd make the "right" choice, but we see many examples all around us that show this isn't true. At some point, some "trickery" might be needed, perhaps in the form, as Garret Hardin puts in "Mutual Coercion Mutually Agreed Upon" - which means privatization or governmental regulation - neither of which most people like when it comes to natural resources....

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  14. Biodiversity

    http://www.sustainabletable.org/268/biodiversity

    Biodiversity includes all living things and is recognized as being critical for life, but the lives of many species are being threatened because of human activities. Some of our important daily activities require the resources that nature provides us, and for them to be available, they all rely on biodiversity. Today, our agricultural lifestyle has made it so we are dependent on biodiversity for the food we eat every day. Even though some crops don’t require pollination, the decrease of the U.S. honeybee population has shown that we still need natural pollinators. From a distance, it may not seem like we need these natural pollinators, but the farther we look into how we grow our crops, we can see that the changes we’re causing in the biodiversity around us are affecting us and the whole world. In Europe, the intensification and industrialization of Europe’s farming and agriculture practices have caused the bird biodiversity to decline. From urbanization and creating these new techniques of doing things for more efficiency and mass production for the growing human population, biodiversity is decreasing, which would eventually led to our population decreasing if nothing is done. Overtime, as we have been living among crops and livestock, we have developed new ways of altering the genetic diversity and resulted in agrobiodiversity. However, agrobiodiversity has been a problem because of the 75% decrease of the crop genetic diversity, which is also known as genetic erosion, and because of it, if there’s an outbreak or disease, our food supply is more vulnerable to being ruined.

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    1. This is very interesting! I don't think we as a population realize how cautious we have to be about protecting our planet. I had no idea that natural pollinators were so vital to our ecosystem. As you said biodiversity is declining and we are starting to create different ways like agrobiodiversity. Even though they are coming up with new ways like agrobiodiversity its seems like its doing more harm then good to our crops. Thank for sharing!

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    2. Yes - pollination is an example of an "ecosystem service" - ecosystems provide us with all sorts of goods and services that would cost billions of dollars to replicate artificially, if we can even do it.

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  15. http://news.yahoo.com/illegal-miners-infest-venezuela-39-amazon-100414208.html

    A portion of the amazon which covers Venezuela is being degraded by illegal miners who are tearing through one of the areas of greatest biodiversity in the world. They are hunting for gold, diamonds and coltan to make a profit. The illegal gold mining is done, to some extent, with the approval of the armed forces because mining through deforestation brings so much money to an impoverished community. They might be making a profit off of abusing the environment now, but they will feel the consequences of their decisions when the damage they have done to the rain forest becomes irreversible.

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    1. It's really sad that people like the armed forces are okay with destroying the Amazon, just because it brings so much money.

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  16. http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-25186871
    Recent studies show that small pieces of plastic, or “micro-plastics” are negatively impacting biodiversity because the toxins and chemicals are getting digested by lug worms which them causes them to lose some of their basic functions. The plastic becomes especially detrimental to the environment not only because of the large quantities found in the ocean, but also because of the dangerous chemicals found in them. Research from Plymouth University shows that the plastic transferred chemicals to the “guts of the lugworms”. These chemicals cause detrimental effects to the organisms such as their thermal stress and their “inability to consume as much sediment”. This then effects the ecosystem because if the worms cannot eat as much as they used to be able to, them that will change the functions and role of this organism and in turn, effecting other species found nearby. This study was the first to emphasize how detrimental and dangerous micro plastics really are to organisms and even the environment. However, this study does not only show how harmful plastics are to these organisms, but also how they pose risks to the environment, since their body functions are altering.
    http://www.wired.co.uk/news/archive/2013-12/03/marine-plastic-ingested
    Another article touches upon this same issue. It has been discovered that lugworms, or “deposit feeders” and their natural tendencies to eat anything, are negatively impacting marine biodiversity due to their consumption of micro plastics. Their ingestion of these plastics decreases their energy reserves, and therefore, affecting the organisms above them in the food chain. The lugworms’ immune systems’ ability to repel bacteria has decreased by 60% due to the ingestion of nonylphenol. This problem as a whole is very pressing and important because the government considers most of these micro plastics as “non-hazardous”, but in reality they are detrimentally affecting the organisms at the bottom of the food chain, subsequently, affecting marine biodiversity.

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    1. That's really interesting, especially when one considers the lugworms' place in the food chain! I think the main problem is that people just haven't realized the connection between what they do and how it affects the animal in the environment around them, and, in turn, the people themselves. Hopefully, people can see the damage they're doing by examining the animals that are being affected by hazardous waste. Then they can prevent the same sorts of problems by afflicting them.

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  17. Biodiversity Article: As People Live Longer, Threats to Wildlife Increase

    http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=as-people-live-longer-threats-to-wildlife-increase

    According to UC Davis researchers as the life expectancy grows so does the number of endangered species. To come to this conclusion, the researchers decided to look at 100 countries ecological, social, and economic information to see which one was effected mammals and birds the most. A surprise to them they found that human life expectancy was effected the mammals and birds the most. Each year more and more people are polluting are planet through natural resources and more. They discovered that the countries New Zealand, Australia, Indonesia, the Philippines and the United States had the highest number of endangered species. New Zealand surprisingly was number one country to have the most endangered mammals and birds do to the fact of human colonization in the past 700 to 800 years which resulted into a biodiversity loss. The researchers also discovered the lowest number was the African countries. Apparently in the last 50 years human activity has had more changes to biodiversity then ever before. The found out that "Worldwide, 52 percent of cycads, 32 percent of amphibians, 25 percent of conifers, 23 percent of mammals and 12 percent of bird species are threatened with extinction" primarily due to human colonization. Their study showed that as the countries per capita GDP (gross domestic product) increased so did the number of endangered species. Also as biodiversity and land increased so did the number of endangered birds. In conclusion, biodiversity is being effected due to human life expectancy.

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  18. This is fascinating - exactly what we'll be discussing in class tomorrow.

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