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Species Diversity
Number of breeding birds
Values of species
• Instrumental value – a thing is valuable
because it is useful to humans
• Intrinsic value – a thing is valuable in and
of itself – valuable because it exists
Economic Values
Germplasm storage at Millennium Seed Bank Project,
Royal Botanic Garden, Wakehurst Place – outside of London, England
The Aurochs – cave paintings
Teosinte and Corn
New Foods
Paca or Mountain Agouti
Harvest of Wild Foods
Fishing Boats Thailand
Digging and Baking Camas Bulbs
- Pacific Northwest
Medicines
Cover of
Gerard’s Herbal
1597
Botanic Garden in Padua – 1540’s
Rosy Periwinkle
Medicine from Live Organisms
• Today in US about 41% of medicines have
ingredients directly produced by biological
organisms - 25% from plants, 13% from
microogranisms (penicillin, tetracycline,
virtually all other antibiotics, vaccines,
hormones, and antibodies) and 3% from
animals
Epipedobates tricolor – painkiller
developed from toxin
Clothing, Shelter, Tools,
Trinkets, etc.
Sisal Fibers
Thatch Reeds
Thatch Roofing
Fuel
Gathering firewood - Bolivia
Growing willow for biomass fuel
Jojoba plant, seeds and oil
Sperm whale capture and oil
Recreation
Biophilia
Bird feeding and housing
Birding
The Big Year
Fishing – Winslow Homer
Hunting – Winslow Homer
Services
Pollination
Pollinator Loss
Native Pollinators – North America
Soil Aeration and Decomposition
of organic matter
Spiritual/Symbolic Values
Seagull Monument – Salt Lake City
Species as National Symbols
River Otter
Belted Kingfisher
Scientific and Educational Values
Jane
Goodall
And
Friend
Ecological Values
• dominant species - usually the species which
constitute a large portion of the biomass in an
ecosystem - pines in a pine forest
• controller species - species which play major role
in movement of energy and nutrients - primary
producers and fungal decomposers
• keystone species - species which have a larger
impact on their environment than we predict based
on their abundance
Keystone species
Strategic Values
• Flagship species - the charismatic species that
have attracted public attention and won support
for conservation - humpback whales, mountain
gorillas, tigers, the gray wolf
• Umbrella species - species with large home ranges
so that by protecting enough habitat to save that
species we save many other species as well northern spotted owl, tigers, Pacific salmon
• Indicator species - species with narrow ranges of
environmental health and tolerance so that the size
of their populations is a good indicator of
ecosystem health - often these are smaller species
- lichens are sensitive to air pollution
Northern Spotted Owl
Mussel Watch Program
Lichens on
headstones
Uniqueness Values
• Uniqueness values: some species are fairly
unique from evolutionary standpoint - only
members of their lineage - tuatara; duckbilled platypus; gingko; dawn redwood (a
living fossil)
Tuatara
Duck-billed playtpus
Gingko
Metasequoia –
Dawn Redwood
Function of Species in Ecosystems
– the airplane analogy
Function of Species in Ecosystems – the airplane
analogy – are species the rivets or the passengers?
What happens when we lose too
many pieces?