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These chapters all provide you with a rich array of examples. To use them as examples it would certainly help
to be quite familiar with them. Focus on the examples I highlight below.
CH 4 Habitat Destruction
We used a map of the earth to review some of the major examples this chapter went over.
Box 4.1 gives a good overview of causes of tropical forest loss today.
Which tropical forests on the earth are declining most quickly today and why? (Compare SE Asia vs New
World tropics vs Africa). They mention the loss of mangrove forests…remember mangroves trees are
ecosystem engineers.
Grasslands-mainly focus on our grassland/ prairie reading.
Boreal and Alpine regions-not so much disappearing completely (lots of timber being shipped globally) but
what are they affected by? Climate change! And what happens when all the permafrost is lost? P79 See also box
4.2
Do look over page 82…why has conversion of natural habitats slowed? What is happening to forest cover in
some parts of the world? (top right p82)
What are old growth forests?
Box 4.3 connects to our discussion of sharks too. What does Fig 2 in this box show? What areas have the
highest impact? Don’t worry about the table in this box.
CH 5 Habitat Fragmentation and Landscape Change
Remember that I went over a number of points in class in a Powerpoint so definitely review that material. (I
showed fig 5.3. We talked about the newer field of landscape ecology and how that changed how we saw
things. We also talked about biotic and abiotic edge effects.)
In addition in this chapter…What do we mean extinction debt? This was used in the paper on climate change.
Section 5.3.1 has some nice examples of how different species are affected differently.
You can de-emphasize 5.3.2 and 5.3.3 we will connect with some of this when we cover wolves.
5.4 We talked earlier about species area relationships so no need to review this section too much.
A couple things to remember, fragments tend to continue to experience change over time as species continue to
be lost. Community structure may be odd in fragments as a result of who and what is left in the fragment,
maybe all carnivores are missing??
Do look at Box 5.3!
CH6 Overexploitation
I also went over a number of points in general about exploitation in class in a Powerpoint so review that
material. Much of that was focused on chapter material. What is serial depletion? Ecological, functional
extinction? (see below too)
What kinds of species are affected and how are they used?
P109 Good evidence that we have always caused extinctions especially on islands-remember the giant terrestrial
birds I showed in class. There is also the Pleistocene extinction in North America which may or may have been
human driven and at least some Australian species that went extinct when humans colonized that continent.
Bison are mentioned on this page too.
In class we talked about tropical timber extraction, tropical forest vertebrates for bushmeat (we see serial
depletion), along with a whole variety of what we call forest products that are not timber…plant parts for
medicines etc.. rosewood for perfumes.
P113, 114 Aquatic overexploitation..do look at figure 6.3 so many fisheries are overexploited and they are such
an important source of protein globally.
P115 where they talk about fishing disproportionately affecting large bodied species (also at the top of the food
chain) connects to our reading on sharks.
What do we mean fishing down the food webs? And Box 6.1
Section 6.4 has some good stuff in it. What do they mean ecologically, functionally extinct? Trophic cascades?
6.4.1 talks about how these extractive activities affect the structure and functioning of systems.
Even where forests have simply been thinned and not clear-cut they are drier and the low growing plant material
is more likely to catch fire-so changes ecosystem right?
They point out that the loss of large vertebrates affects the availability of seeds, and young plants.
Wild pigs, ungulates and rodents (all eat seeds) and so affect seed survival and seedling survival and therefore
forest regeneration (think deer and their effects here in our forests). Many species also disperse seeds 97% have
seeds adapted to go through the guts of a large animal. No seed dispersers, fewer of that species of plant-top of
page 117
Large vertebrates also affect decomposition rates….how?
P117 elephants and beavers as ecosystem engineers.
P118 We have good evidence that we are driving evolution of certain characteristics in fish!
Sometimes we have a lot of bycatch (what is that?)
“Overfishing can create trophic cascades”
p120 we actually destroy substrates when fishing when nets get dragged across sea floor.
6.5 You can skip this section along with box 6.2
Although do look at top of page 124 Tragedy of Commons-we mentioned this in class.
CH7 Invasive Species
Understand the different ways invasive species affect communities and ecosystems. To really answer that you
would need to know the difference between communities and ecosystems.
In class we went through the MN invasive species and highlighted ones that were likely going to alter
ecosystems….I did not “proofread” your Google doc but that should help you think about which ones alter
communities and which ones alter ecosystems.
Some of the classic places affected by species invasions are…Hawaii, Australia, New Zealand, Florida
Do look over box 7.1, some of our species are mentioned in there.
Do be familiar with all the species mentioned in 7.1.1..they are all classic examples.
Note that chestnuts were replaced by oaks, which produce recalcitrant litter. Litter just refers to leaves and
things, but what does recalcitrant mean ..uncooperative, intractable, obstreperous, truculent, insubordinate,
defiant, rebellious, willful, headstrong, perverse...Recalcitrant litter is just leaves that don’t decompose easily!
7.1.3 Has examples where invasive species compete with natives..including a plant-spotted knapweed that
whose roots make a chemical that is toxic to other plants.
Garlic mustard-one of our MN species has roots that produce a chemical that is toxic to the mutualistic fungi
that colonize soils and help other plants take in different materials from soil.
7.1.4 Has examples where an invading species eats another. Rats introduced on islands especially in the pacific
have eaten lots of things (especially island bird eggs) as have the famous brown tree snakes on Guam.
Nile perch are also pretty famous.
We have our own “lady bugs” invasions that were introduced as biological control agents and got out of hand.
7.1.5 has examples of introduced herbivores. Goats, rabbits, our gypsy moths are listed here (p137)
No need to know other examples in that section.
7.1.6 Pathogens and parasites…you don’t need to know these so much..the most famous ones described here
however are rinderpest and the myxoma virus. Remember other introduced pathogens have been
important…White nose fungus on bats (this was on our list), West Nile virus (people get this one-not really one
you have to know but you might have heard of it), there was a fungus that killed off the chestnuts (chestnuts
were never this far west) and Dutch elm disease (which WAS a super common tree in our MN forests) was also
wiped out by an introduced fungus.
No need to know 7.1.7 or 7.1.8 although the complex salmon story is kind of interesting, but I am not going to
test you on it.
7.1.9 Is about one and then another introduced species working synergistically to affect communities and
ecosystems. Maybe focus on p142. Feral pigs in Hawaii (introduced) eat and disperse introduced plants and
their seeds and spread introduced invertebrate soil organisms while eating introduced earthworms. On right
hand side they talk about Eurasion watermilfoil and zebra mussels!
Bottom of p 142 talks about goby in great lakes and zebra mussels!
7.2.1 For this section just know that an introduced species may seem non-invasive for many years and then
suddenly start spreading. Often we don’t know why.
7.3 No need to focus too closely on this section. Just be aware that we try to control some species in MN but
give up on the vast majority.
CH8 Climate Change
I think most of you are probably already familiar with the basic patterns that we have already seen in terms of
changes in abiotic environment.
How do species respond?
Change their phenology…birds time their eggs to hatch out when there is an abundance of food for young. In
MN this is insects, but different species focus on different items. Possibility of “decoupling”! (We went over
that term in class) Some birds need to nest within reach of the ice because that is where the cod hang out in the
arctic p155.
P155 Any high altitude species will have trouble-Pikas
Plants time their flowers to take advantage of specific pollinators (and vise versa, pollinators time their lives on
what species of plants are flowering when.) More potential for decoupling.
P155 sugar maples and their syrup will shift north (syrup=ecosystem provisioning)
P156-157 Golden toad disappearing due to both warm temps encouraging spread of chytrid fungus!
P157 coral reefs expelling their mutualistic algal partners.
Any species inhabiting low lying islands will have trouble.
Changes in ocean chemistry-increasing acidity affect anything that makes a calcium carbonate shell.
Freshwater species like trout will be stuck since they live in streams and so can’t move and are really cannot
tolerate warm temps.
P158 there is an estimate of biodiversity loss to compare with the estimates in the figure of the article we read.
Bottom left column and top right on this page has good information!
8.3 Decoupling of phenology again…when two species interact here are the cod and arctic birds
Ex. of arctic hare and its white coat!
Pine bark beetles can now overwinter much more easily and are wiping out forests in the west (threshold
effect).
8.4 emerald ash borer…one of our invasive species is overwintering more easily too (threshold effect again)
p159…in context of climate change conservation strategies need revision and we need to think more carefully
about connections between preserved areas and what other points did we make in class?
No need to read box 8.2