PEB 407: Biodiversity

Conservation
Extinction Processes
Extinction
• Definitions:
• Extinction: The loss of a species from the biota; the failure of a taxonomic
group to produce direct descendants, causing its worldwide disappearance
from the record at a given point.

• Extirpation: The loss of a species from a significant portion of its range.

Extinctions that are not global in scope are sometimes called extirpations.
Although conservation biologists are most concerned about global
extinctions, smaller-scale extinctions are also of some concern because they
may foreshadow extinctions on a larger scale and because they may
represent a loss of genetic diversity.

• Endemic: A species restricted to a defined geographic area. Koalas are

endemic to Australia. If a species is found only in a small area (e.g. many
inhabitants of the Galápagos and other isolated islands), it is called a local
endemic.
Extinction
• Extinction is not only the loss of whole species, but is also preceded
by a loss of genetic diversity within the species.

• This loss reduces the species ability to perform its inherent role in the
whole ecosystem.

• Furthermore, the loss of genetic diversity within a species can result

in the loss of useful and desirable traits (e.g. resistance to parasites).

• Loss of biodiversity is irreversible: Replacement of the number of

species (though not the same ones) takes approximately 10 million
years.
Extinction
• Extinction usually refers to the disappearance of a species from the
earth, but the term is also routinely used, with modifiers, to describe
the disappearance of a species from a smaller area.

• For example, when a species disappears from a small area, this is

called a local extinction, even though the area may later be
recolonized by immigrants, e.g. when beavers return to a valley from
which they had disappeared.

• On a somewhat larger scale one can refer to regional extinction.

• Some conservationists use the term “ecological extinction” if a

species becomes too rare to fill its role in an ecosystem.
Extinction
• Extinction as a natural process
• Each species has a finite lifetime probably 99% of all organisms that have
existed are now extinct

• Most species exist 2-5 million years

• Extinction can result in an available ecological niche (where an organism lives

and its behavior in that place) to be occupied by other species

• Extinction is accelerating. The rate of species extinction is 1,000-

10,000 times higher now than at any time before humans evolved.
Extinction
• About 27,000 species go extinct annually. This translates to three
species per hour!

• 20% of all bird species have gone extinct during the last 2000 years
and 11% more are endangered now. In the US, over the last 100
years, 2% of the amphibians, 1.2% of the fish, 1% of the plants, and
9% of the freshwater mussels have vanished. Note that these are all
species easily observed and recorded. Other losses are unknown.

• Conservation measures, sustainable development, and stabilization of

human population numbers and consumption patterns seem to offer
some hope that the next mass extinction will not result like previous
extinctions, when 90% of the world's species were lost.
Causes of Mass Extinction
• Climate: Changes in the climate always results in changes in the biota;
sudden (in geologic time) and profound changes nearly always result
in mass extinction events. Gradual changes usually result in a
displacement of the biota but not necessarily mass extinction.

• Geologic events: Dramatic flooding, extensive volcanic activity, major

tetonic shifts (e.g., continental drift, widespread volcanic eruptions),
etc. can all result in global or near-global extinction events.

• Meteorite: Impact of large or numerous meteorites.

• Meteorite: Impact with earth can cause increase in dust at high elevations
Why Are Some Species More
Vulnerable to Extinction than
Others?
• Some species are rarer than others.

• Populations and, by extension, species that are comprised of fewer

individuals are more susceptible to extinction
Why Are Some Species Rarer
than Others?
• restriction to an uncommon type of habitat,

• limitation to a small geographic range, and

• occurrence only at low population densities.

Why Are Some Species Rarer
than Others?
• Restriction to an uncommon type of habitat:
• First, some species are restricted to a rare type of habitat because they have
evolved special characteristics that allow them to live there and nowhere
else; blind, unpigmented cave-dwelling invertebrates, fishes, and amphibians
are good examples of this.

• The many species restricted to vernal pool habitats are rare precisely because
the habitats they depend on are small, few, and scattered.

• Alternatively, some species are probably found in rare habitats primarily

because they cannot compete successfully elsewhere. For example, the
highly endangered steamboat buckwheat, which is restricted to open slopes
in gravelly, sandy-clay soil, derived only from hot springs deposits in Nevada
in the western United States. This species could live in normal soils, but does
not because it cannot compete well with other plants in normal soils.
Why Are Some Species Rarer
than Others?
• Second, many rare species are confined to small ranges by geographic
barriers such as islands surrounded by ocean, or lakes surrounded by
land.
• For example, over 500 species of cichlid fishes (some researchers have
estimated 1000) are endemic to Lake Malawi in Africa.

• In some cases barriers may be subtle, but can still restrict the range of
a species with narrow tolerances (as might a small change in water
temperature.
• For example, some researchers have suggested that many Amazonian plant
species with small geographic ranges may have evolved in areas with special
soil conditions and have not been able to expand their ranges across other
soil types.
Why Are Some Species Rarer
than Others?
• Third, species may occur at low population densities for a variety of
reasons.
• Body size is a key reason because a large organism requires more space than
a small one.

• Organisms may also live at low population densities if the resources they
require are scarce and dispersed.

• The classic examples are carnivores that commonly live at low densities
because they are at the apex of their food web and thus must travel over
relatively large areas to obtain food. Some plant species may occur at low
densities because they have a higher fitness when they are not competing
with nearby members of the same species.
Why Are Some Species Rarer
than Others?
• Most rare species will fall into only one of these three categories, but
some will fit two, and a few may survive despite being rare in all three
ways. Some are rare in more than one respect.
• For example, the proboscis monkey lives in mangrove swamps on the
island of Borneo, and the Hawaiian hawk lives at low densities on the
island of Hawaii.
Why Are Rare Species Usually More
Vulnerable to Extinction than
Common Species?
• A rare species has a greater chance of being pushed into extinction by
an environmental change than a common species.

• This is particularly true of species with small geographic ranges, because an

environmental event may encompass the species’ entire range whether it is a
specific catastrophe (e.g. a volcano eliminating an island) or a gradual change
(e.g. immigration of a competitive species).

• About three-quarters of all the animal species known to have become extinct
since 1600 were island species. Similarly, species that are confined to a very
specific type of habitat may be vulnerable to environmental change.
Why Are Rare Species Usually
More Vulnerable to Extinction
than Common Species?
• Demographic problems can also lead to extinction of small
populations; for example, an unbalanced sex ratio can limit the birth
rate severely, particularly if it is biased against females.

• Finally, small populations, especially ones that have recently become

small, are likely to suffer from genetic problems.

• Similarly, over long periods the lack of genetic diversity in a rare

species may restrict its ability to adapt to a changing environment.
Why Are Some Species
Particularly Sensitive to Human-
induced Threats?
• Limited adaptability and resilience.

• Some species have a limited ability to adapt to change or to recover

from a disturbance because of their low reproductive capacity (small
number of progeny, long generation time, etc.), limited dispersal
capabilities, inflexible habitat requirements, and so on.

• Moas, giant flightless birds of New Zealand, likely were vulnerable to

loss of adults, primarily through hunting, rather than as a result of
habitat destruction, because they laid few eggs and bred very slowly.
Why Are Some Species
Particularly Sensitive to Human-
induced Threats?
• Adaptability is not just an issue of having a large reproductive
capacity; some species such as house sparrows and dandelions are
able to flourish in our cities, suburbs, and farms simply because their
particular physiology, morphology, behavior, etc. fit well the
conditions created.

• Unfortunately, they are greatly outnumbered by species whose

inflexible habitat requirements, sensitivity to predation or
competition, and so on leave them with a limited ability to cope with
major human-induced changes.
Why Are Some Species
Particularly Sensitive to Human-
induced Threats?
• Human attention
• Ecological overlap
• Large home-range requirements
Why Are Some Species
Particularly Sensitive to Human-
induced Threats?
• Ecological overlap:

• Many species are threatened with extinction because they are tied to the
types of ecosystems preferred by people. Humans have thrived in places with
fertile soils and benign climates, and organisms that are restricted to these
sites have usually lost out to our agriculture and cities

• For example, rivers are focal points of human activity because they provide
water, transportation corridors, waste disposal, and hydroelectric facilities,
and as a consequence, many riverine species (especially, fishes and mussels)
are in great jeopardy.
Why Are Some Species
Particularly Sensitive to Human-
induced Threats?
• Large home-range requirements:

• Conflicts caused by overlapping habitat will be exacerbated if the organism

requires large areas of land to roam. It is one thing for some asters to find a
few square meters of suitable habitat in a human-dominated landscape; it is
something else for a wolf pack to find the hundreds of square kilometers it
needs. Of course, this factor cannot be readily separated from the fact that
animals with extensive home-range requirements tend to be rare (i.e. have
low population densities) and usually are also so large that they tend to
attract unwanted human attention.
Why Are Some Species
Particularly Sensitive to Human-
induced Threats?
• Some species may not fare well in their contact with people in part
because they have had little time to adapt to humans and all the
challenges they bring: notably, overexploitation, habitat degradation,
and introductions of exotic species. This is particularly likely to be
true of species inhabiting remote islands that have only very recently
(in an evolutionary time frame) been colonized by any large mammal,
human or otherwise.