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Flashcards

BIOECOFUN

elliott.zadow English 64 cards

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Cards in this deck (64)

  1. 1ecosystem externalitiesmarket-driven actions in which impacts to ecosystem function are ignored
  2. 2Ecosystem Externalities in 1500 and Today1500 ignored externalities
    Today-with the growth of human population resources are not seen as being infinite
  3. 3How would you incorporate ecosystem services into economic models?Place them on the same footing ($$)
    - i.e. internalize ecosystems
  4. 4What is the suite of benefits that ecosystems provide to humanity? (Ecosystem Services)A) Provisioning
    B)Regulating
    C)Cultural
    A)-is the production of renewable resources (food, wood, fresh water)
    B) reduce envi. change ( climate regulation, disease control)
    C) spiritual enrichment, cognitive development, reflection, recreation, aesthetic experience (ecotourism, etc)
  5. 5A look at provisioning:Examples:Cardinale et. al. 2012
    - genetic diversity and crop yield +
    - Fish diversity and fisheries yield +
    -Plant diversity and wood production +
    - Plant diversity and livestock feed yield +
  6. 6A look at regulating:Examples: Cardinale et al. 2012
    - Plant diversity and herbivorous pests -
    -predator diversity and herbivorous pests- Plant diversity and resistance to invasion-
    Insect diversity and pollination -/+
  7. 7What about aquatic insects?Economically important
    Many comercially landed fish feed on insects
    "free" ecosystem service worth $224,000,000
    - Losey and Vaughan 2006 Bioscience
  8. 8GNP of world ecosystem services: Unvalued Ecosystem services?18 trillion
    16-54 trillion
  9. 9What are marine, terrestrial, Lakes/rivers, and Cropland valued at?Marine:21 trillion, coastal=13 trillion
    Terrestrial: 12 trillion, Forest= 4.1 trillion and wetland 4.9 trillion
    Lakes/Rivers: 1.7 trillion
    Cropland: .13 trillion
  10. 10Need to build where an endangered species lives?Perform a consultation
    Approval rates > 99%!
    (Kubasek et al. 1994)
    See Nancy Kubasek et al., The Endangered Species Act: Time for a New Approach?,
    24 ENVTL. L. 329, 339 (1994) (describing how less than one percent of formal
    consultations resulted in termination of projects).
  11. 11Are diverse Ecosystems more Stable?Charles Elton in 1958 thought so
    - diversity begets stability
    -complexity begets stability
    -this general prediction was based on the theory at the time
  12. 12Economists think so“The Magic of Diversification. The practice of spreading money among different investments to reduce risk is known as diversification. By picking the right group of investments, you may be able to limit your losses and reduce the fluctuations of investment returns without sacrificing too much potential gain.” http://www.sec.gov/
  13. 13Econonmist think so (Cont.) why sell sunglases and umbrellas at same time?yehhhh
  14. 14Conservationists think soBiodiversity is particularly important for creating sustainablity
  15. 15Whats good about food webs?the diverse food webs appear more stable due t more "structural" links
  16. 16Grimm and Wissel 1997 Oecologia163 definitions of stability in the ecological literature
  17. 17What can stability be grouped as?Most can be grouped as:
    temporal stability
    resistance
    resilience
  18. 18Temporal stabilityrelative amount of change over time
    e.g. Gilbert White, 1778, bird observations, Swifts, Selborne England:
    Noticed that the number of breeding pairs of swifts was always around 8
    “…about half of which reside in the church, and the rest in some of the lowest and meanest thatched cottages”
  19. 19Lawton and May 1983, Nature what did they do?Revisited Selborne 200 years later
    Church is modified, cottages are gone
    Found 12 breeding pairs
    Remarkably little change over 200 years, despite despite radical change to environment
    (This is in regards to temporal stability)
  20. 20Other things about Temporal stabilityyou can see the relative amount of change over time
    it is measured as the coefficient of variation--CV
    CV=standard deviation divided by the average
  21. 21What did worm et al do?Documented the collapse of fisheries worldwide
    looked at where or not variation in catch is related to fish spp. richness
  22. 22When worm et al asked the question:Is catch “reliability” related to fish species richness? what did they find?that it was in fact related. fisheries w/ more spp have more reliable catches i.e. lower CV
  23. 23What is resistance? examples?it is the capacity to resist change in the face of disturbance or stressor. an example is resistance to drought
    study done by tilman and downing in 1994 compared plant community biomass after a drought to biomass before drought. They found that higher plant richness= smaller deviations than lower plant spp. richness
  24. 24What severity of a drought is too much for an ecosystem to recover?a) small drought, system is resilient
    b) large drought, system changes
  25. 25What did Steiner et al 2006 do?Looked at the response of community biomass following mass mortality event. done on aquatic microcosms. Measured as the time it takes to return to predisturbance level.
  26. 26What are some complications that arise in regards to stability?Stability measures usually assume single stable state
    Many ecological properties have “alternative stable states”
    Shift from one to the other crosses a threshold
    e.g. Shift from oligotrophic to eutrophic lakes (Carptenter 2003, Chapin et al. 2009)
  27. 27Other complications in regards to stability?Which level of stability are we talking??
    Ecosystem dynamics – decomposition, gas exchange, nutrient cycling
    Community dynamics – community biomass, community abundance
    Population dynamics – population biomass, population abundance
  28. 28What did May look at in 1971? What factors are included in what he looked at?Will large complex systems be stable?
    Maybe – but it depends on at least two factors:
    1) Connectance
    2) Interaction strength
  29. 29What is connectance?Proportion of all possible direct interactions that actually occur
  30. 30What is interaction strength?Measure of the strength of a species-species interaction
  31. 31Interaction strength example?example = proportion of prey biomass eaten by a predator
    Bascompte et al. 2005
    Food webs dominated by weak interactions
  32. 32what is this?interaction strength matrixwhat is this?
  33. 33Tell more about interaction strength matrixAverage interaction strength among all possible interactions = Alpha
    Alpha < (n)-1/2 = stable
    Alpha > (n)-1/2 = unstable
    n = number of species
  34. 34—yup. gonna have to look this one up on bef and stabilityyup. gonna have to look this one up on bef and stability
  35. 35In the global carbon cycle, what is it measured in? and what is that equivalent to?gigatons. and 1 of them is worth 900 million volkswagon beetles.
  36. 36What is storage? Think in terms of the carbon cycleIt is the avg. amount of carbon in a reservoir---plants, soil ocean, rocks etc.
  37. 37What is flux? Think in terms of the carbon cyclerate of carbon exchange btwn ecosystem components
  38. 38What do plants do with carbon?They take up carbon and store it was plant biomass. They also store it in soil and release it through respiration.
  39. 39What do Microbes do with carbon?They release it through respiration and decomposition.
  40. 40What role do animals have in carbon cycling?Role in carbon cycling is not well-understood, but…
    Involved in all phases of carbon cycling
  41. 41How do animals affect Carbon Flux?Spiders, (Through direct consumption and indirect consumption) cause prey to release more co2. The latter consumption causes a greater relase of Co2.
  42. 42What did Atwood 2014 discover about aquatic predators?They alter co2 via trophic cascade.What did Atwood 2014 discover about aquatic predators?
  43. 43How does biodiversity loss affect carbon cycling?Very little work done
    Most focused on plant diversity and biomass production  biomass = carbon storage
    Most experiments on fast growing species
    Few experiments on forests
  44. 44What are 3 hypotheses regarding biodiversity loss and its effect on the carbon cycle?Mass ratio hypothesis: maximize carbon storage by planting the single best monoculture of plant
    Niche complementarity hypothesis: maximize carbon storage by conserving complementary sets of species
    Neutral Hypothesis: difficult to maximize carbon storage b/c species abundances will vary randomly
  45. 45Whats good about Primary Forests? Secondary? Pro/cons?Primary forests:
    More species
    More traits
    Dominated by slow-growing “conservative” species
    Larger stocks of C = “carbon sinks” Con-slow carbon uptake Pro- High carbon storage
    Secondary forests:
    Fewer species
    Fewer traits
    Dominated by fast-growing “liberal” species
    Smaller stocks of C con- low carbon storage pro- high carbon uptake
  46. 46What are recommendations in choosing which forest to look after?Protect primary forest – best option for carbon storage
    Plant slow-rate, high storage species  think long term
    Diverse forests “might be more stable”
    Consider tradeoffs – fast C uptake may come at a cost to other ecosystem functions
  47. 47What does reforestation have to do with carbon storage in terms of the pros/cons?= you have to deal with the tradeoff between rapid carbon uptake and long-term carbon storage
  48. 48What is the Endangered Species Act?1973
    U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service  Identify species of animals and plants that are endangered; based on scientific evidence
    Economic considerations are not part of listing
    (Here is how something gets listed:)
    Petition received  90 day USFWS review -->Might be warranted  -->12 month review  -->Listing is warranted  -->Expert opinion/60 day public comment --> Publish in Federal Register
  49. 49Currently what all is listed on the ESA and what type of land provides this habitat?677 Animals + 866 Plants = 1563 species currently listed as endangered or threatened
    Private land provides 80% of the habitat for >700 species
  50. 50Specific numbers for each thing listed under ESA641 flowering plants, 103 fishes, 86 birds, 71 clams, 62 mammals, 40 insects, 36 reptiles, 29 snails, 26 ferns and allies, 18 amphibians, 18 crustaceans, 12 arachnids, 3 conifers and cycads, 2 lichens
  51. 51What is the average spp. listed per year in the ESA?37.3
  52. 52What are the costs of ESA?Defenders of Wildlife
    Advocacy organization
    Paid ranchers for wildlife lost due to wolves
    1987 – 2009
    893 livestock producers
    1306 cattle
    2421 sheep
    105 other
    $1,368,043 over 20 years
  53. 53what did Meyer 1998 look at? what kind of effect did it have?Land value and real estate – effects of endangered species
    + # new homes versus # species listed
    +/0 Real estate industry versus # species listed
    If anything, the # of endangered species listed has a positive effect on real estate    what did Meyer 1998 look at? what kind of effect did it have?
  54. 54How much does it cost to save a species?Cost estimates in recovery plans vary widely
    $145,000 for the White River spinedace
    $154,000,000 for the loggerhead turtle
    ~$20,000,000 per species in 1994 dollars
    ~$30,000,000 per species in 2014 dollars
  55. 55Annually how many species are listed? How much does it cost per year to enact recovery plans for endangered species?How many species are listed?~37 species listed annually
    37 * $30 million = $1.1 billion dollars per year needed on average to enact recover plans for endangered species
    species times ~1500 listed species
  56. 56What is the amount spent on ESA in 2014?Amount spent on Endangered Species Act in 2014 was 631 million or less than 0.02 percent of the 2014 federal budget
  57. 57What was Perry 2010?Previous assessments of species value are human centered
    Ignore explicit ecological values of species
    Solution = prioritize spending based on a combination of ecological function and cost
  58. 58Rank based on three variables, given in Equation 10: 1) How much can we change the probability of survival? 2) What is the ecological importance of the species? 3) How much will it cost to restore the species?Work on this on paper..
  59. 59Why economics?Conservation is a human endeavor
    Choice to conserve is a behavioral choice
    Economics influence human behavior
    Putting a price on something is a powerful way to translate “value”
  60. 60What is it about irrational economics?Incentives for action involve more than just $ value
    Humans have evolutionary constraints
  61. 61What is it about Irrational economics and conservation? What does Low 1996 have to do with it?“Take shorter showers”
    “Recycle”
    “Don’t eat meat”
    “Bike don’t drive”
    1. Actions with small immediate costs
    2. Promise of long-term global benefits to non-relatives or competitors
    3. Zero evolutionary precedent -->burnout, “won’t make a difference”, “too much trouble”.
  62. 62Irrational Economics and conservation what did low do with evidence of conservation in traditional societies?“Need to take all available resources” 52 percent
    “Do not kill more than family can use” 5.5 percent
    “No clear ethic” 42.5 percent
  63. 63Does conservation ethic correlate to lifestyle?Hunting – no
    Agriculture – no
    Nomadic – no
    Risk of starvation – no
    Plant productivity – no
    Relatedness - no
  64. 64Solution? (Low 2004 Endangered Species Update)Pleas don’t work – “just save it” or “if we only had the will”
    Conservation programs must work with not against evolved tendencies
    Information and education is important, but inefficient

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Flashcards on BIOECOFUN, created by elliott.zadow on 23/11/2014.
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