Biodiversity in the Amazon Rainforest By: Katie Julian, Tara Gallagher, and Jessica Darga The preservation of biodiversity is not just a job for governments. International and non-governmental organizations, the private sector and each and every individual have a role to play in changing entrenched outlooks and ending destructive patterns of behaviour - Kofi Annan, UN Secretary General 2003 International Day of Biological Diversity The Amazon is a canary in a coal mine for the Earth - Dan Nepstadt, Ecologist (October 2005)
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Biodiversity in the Amazon Rainforest By: Katie Julian, Tara Gallagher, and Jessica Darga The preservation of biodiversity is not just a job for governments.
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Biodiversity in the Amazon Rainforest
By: Katie Julian, Tara Gallagher, and Jessica Darga
The preservation of biodiversity is not just a job for governments. International and non-governmental organizations, the private sector and each and every individual have a role to play in changing entrenched outlooks and ending destructive patterns of behaviour - Kofi Annan, UN Secretary General
2003 International Day of Biological Diversity
The Amazon is a canary in a coal mine for the Earth - Dan Nepstadt, Ecologist (October 2005)
Hypothesis:
We believe that anthropogenic impacts will pose a greater threat to biodiversity than natural impacts.
Natural Impacts
• Environmental changes that impact the health, habitat, variance, and vitality of the species who dwell in the rainforest.
Human Impacts
• Impacts that directly or indirectly effect the health, habitat, variance, and vitality of the species who dwell in the rainforest.
• What is the current stance of biodiversity in the rainforest?• Why is species diversity is important to conserve within the
rainforest?• What are the threats to biodiversity in the Amazon basin?• Which of these threats, human or natural, poses a greater threat to
biodiversity?• What will happen if these threats are not curbed?• What can we do to mitigate these threats? Can we change our path
of destruction?
Why is it important to know whether natural or anthropogenic impacts are more
influential?• Influences plan of action
• Mitigation efforts
• Because you live here and what effects animal and plant biodiversity also effects mankind
• These are not isolated trends, the planet as a whole is also affected
Where do we stand?• Hot spot• Endemic/ Endangered species• Domino effect• 8.3% of Amazonian Rainforest ecosystems are under enforced
protection• “An estimated 20,000 square miles of the Amazon rainforest is
destroyed every year (about the size of West Virginia). At this rate, the Amazon would be completely gone in 50 years.”
• Loss of undiscovered medicinal plants and species• Drastic increase in deforestation since 1992 • “Brazil's deforestation rate has increased 36% in the period of 1991-
94 in the light of increased logging, subsistence activities, and agricultural projects."
Endemic Species
• 30,000 endemic plant species found no where else!
Natural threats have effected the Amazon Rainforests since the beginning of its existence but studies show they are far less damaging then human impacts on the region. Natural threats occur at random and can actually benefit the rainforest. By rainforest regeneration, biodiversity levels increase and can exceed their original levels.
• Natural Selection• Survival of the fittest• “... The evolution of species must largely
be caused by intrinsic biological features of each group of species."
• “Species split at very different rates, and their extinction or transformation is mostly determined by the ecology and biology of each species… some species survive and multiply, while others remain static or become extinct."
-- Professor Mallet http://pda.physorg.com/lofi-news-species-amazon-evolution_9284.html
• Biology plays larger role then external factors- variable rates
“ I am the Lorax. I speak for the trees.I speak for the trees, for the trees have no tongues.And I'm asking you, sir, at the top of my lungs--he was very upset as he shouted and puffed--What's that THING you've made out of my Truffula tuft?”