SCHOOL OF ADVANCED SCIENCES
Fall Semester 2016-17
Digital Assignment – I
Name:Sandeep Harikrishnan Registration No:16BCE0120
Faculty: Dr. M. Akhila Maheswari Slot: G2
Course: Environmental Sciences Code: CHY1002
Conservation of Terrestrial and Aquatic biodiversity
Biodiversity is the variety and variability among all group of living organisms and the ecosystem in which they occur. In other words, it is the variety of earths species, the genes they contain and the ecosystem in which they live. Most importantly, it involves the ecosystem processes of energy flow and the nutrient cycling that sustain all life.
TERRESTRIAL BIODIVERSITY
I. Introduction
Terrestrial biodiversity is nothing but the variety of land forms that sustain on earth. Large biodiversity is often used as an indicator to find ecosystem health and has been scientifically proved to have direct link with the human health. Climate change will affect terrestrial biodiversity and ecosystems through both gradual and sudden changes depending on to the average climate . For example; increased temperatures, decreased rainfall, changes to seasonality, and extreme events (increased hot days, fire, increased frequency and risks of cyclones, heat radiations, intensified humid seasons).
II. Threats to terrestrial biodiversity
All species have a particular climate or condition in which they can survive or live. However, if they are not given these type of environment or atmosphere, then they would start migrating according to their geographical distribution. For example, a herbivore may be able to tolerate warmer conditions than the plant it feeds on, but the absence of this plant may exclude it from warmer regions. Individuals of a species can sometimes avoid unfavourable climate conditions through behaviour (e.g. resting in cool rock cracks during hot conditions) and exploitation of microclimate conditions (e.g. cool, moist gullies).
Humans have depleted and degraded some of the earth’s ecological biodiversity and these threats are expected to increase. Human size and population, Human activities such as agriculture, industries, recreation have had a direct effect on the earth’s natural ecosystem.
However, these also have an indirect bearing on the climate & biodiversity. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Alteration (IPCG) found out the terrestrial schemes as one of the most vulnerable sectors in countries like Australia and New Zealand. The vulnerability of species and ecosystems depends on factors including the sensitivity of the species or ecosystem, the level of exposure and the intrinsic adaptive potential. Terrestrial species have already responded to observed climatic changes, globally, and in Australia. The geographic ranges of many species have changed in location and size, and many species are displaying altered timing of life cycle processes such as migration and breeding. Some species also show altered behavioral, genetical and physiological trait. Terrestrial species likely to be most vulnerable include many that are already endangered or rare. These species commonly have restricted and fragmented geographic distributions or habitats. They may have specialised ecological requirements and narrow climatic tolerances. Species that are currently common or widespread may also be negatively affected. Extreme events such as heat waves, droughts and wildfires will likely have catastrophic or tremendous decline.
Most adaptation movements will be very specific to exact ecological societies or ecosystems. For example , overturning fire in subtle vegetation sorts in the mountain zone will need different organization strategies from those simplifying landward immigration of endangered salt bog communities in the sea fringe. Central to variation in terrestrial systems is the thought of Ecosystem grounded Adaptation (EbA). Distinct as ‘the use of biodiversity in addition to ecosystem services as portion of an overall version strategy to help individuals to acclimatise to the adversative effects of weather change’, EbA indorses the charge of maintaining into act plus functional environments as a economical strategy for protecting human health, settlements and livelihoods from extreme weather events. (EbA) activities could take account of restoration of swamplands plus riparian areas, which aids wetland-associated classes, reduces flooding possible and maintains water excellence. Other key zones for adaptation in earthly systems include saving and regenerating weather refugia . Weather change will progressively be a thought in the assortment, design plus management of protected zones. Many species presently protected in nationwide parks, for occasion, will no lengthier be in climatically appropriate areas as the weather changes; strategies to ease autonomous version (e.g. movement corridors) will essential to be considered. Additional interventionist strategies comprise managed transfer, genetic translocation (i.e. touching individuals with dissimilar genetic make-up hooked on new populations) plus ex-situ conservation, which might be the last option for judgmentally endangered class. Biodiversity will also be exaggerated by edition strategies in additional sectors, such as fire control around human defrayals, plus changes to agricultural.
III. Conservation of terrestrial biodiversity
Due to these problems, the terrestrial biodiversity have to be preserved or we can say conserved. To conserve them, we can adopt a forest, grow trees over there and take care of them. We can also follow the principle of 3R’s,..i.e.,Reduce, Reuse and Recycle. We must also buy sustainably produced products. We can even choose wood substitutes such as bamboo , recycled outdoor furniture .We can landscape our area with diversity or variety of plants that are native to our area. In this way, we will be able to reuse the old recycled papers and use recycled paper products and avoid discriminating the biodiversity.
AQUATIC BIODIVERSITY
I. Introduction
Aquatic or Marine biodiversity can be explained in as the diversity of life and the ecosystems that make wide-awake the freshwater, tidal, and aquatic areas of the biosphere and their transportations. Aquatic biodiversity includes freshwater ecosystems, together with lakes, ponds, basins, rivers, watercourses, groundwater, and fens. It also entails of marine ecosystems, comprising oceans, estuaries, saline marshes, seagrass couches, coral reefs, kelp cribs, and mangrove timberlands. Aquatic biodiversity includes completely unique species, their territories and interaction among them. This one comprises of phytoplankton, zooplankton, sea plants, insects, seek, birds, creatures, and others.
Marine biodiversity can be defined as the variety of life and the ecosystems that make up the freshwater, tidal, and marine regions of the world and their interactions. Marine biodiversity covers freshwater ecosystems, including lakes, ponds, reservoirs, rivers, streams, groundwater, and wetlands. Over 1.4 million identified species live on earth, and professionals guesstimate that as many as another 10 million to 100 million unidentified species may exist. About 200,000 species of plants and animals live in the United States, signifying about 10 percent of the world’s known biodiversity richness. Many species of animals and plants live in water; some, like fish, spend all their lives underwater, whereas others, like toads and salamanders, may use surface waters only during the spring breeding season or as adolescents. Some marine creatures live their entire lives in the yawning ocean, whereas others, like water striders, spend their life hopping along the surface of water.
Each aquatic species from a tiny bacterium to a blue whale is unique. Not only the size, but even the genetic composition of plants and animals that makes all life forms special. Every species has its own natural heritable library that cryptographs its ability to thrive in changing environments. The massive variety of species and genes represents a living archive of species to adapt to change, to develop resistance to disease, and to permit improved fitness on to future generations.
II. Importance
Sustaining biodiversity is essential to the health of our environment and to the quality of human life. We depend on many aquatic plants and animals, and their ecological functions, for our survival. For example, we use surface waters and their inhabitants to help process our waste products. Each day, aquatic organisms (bacteria and fungi) continually break down harmful toxins and nutrients that we flush into our sewage systems or discard directly into our rivers and streams.
Conserving a rich diversity of plants and animals will help us to discover new drugs and medicines, provide food for the growing human populations, add oxygen and reduce ozone and carbon dioxide in our atmosphere and add jobs and promote tourism through the enjoyment of the environment.
Medical researchers constantly are hunting for organisms that produce special chemicals that may cure cancer and other diseases. Although many new drugs are synthetically made, nearly all are copies of natural chemicals. Even today, more than 40 percent of available medicines are derived from aquatic plants and animals. The world’s food supply is overly dependent on only a few species of plants and animals (a limited diversity of about 24 species, like corn), making our food supply vulnerable to new diseases or changing global climatic conditions (droughts and floods). Rice, an aquatic plant, is the primary food source for billions of people in the highly populated regions of the world. Similarly, fish is the primary source of proteins for people living near the coastal areas and even the cities and villages.
The seafood industry provides millions of people jobs and sustains or preserves the economies of many nations. It is directly or indirectly dependent on aquatic ecosystems and their biodiversity. Even people thrive on seafood for huge amount of protein it offers as compared to other sea foods. Tourism supports the economy and increases the GDP in many countries. Coastal whale-watching shows, seal and sea-bird tours, coral-reef snorkeling, ocean and freshwater sport fishing, river rafting, float trips, and other water-based activities are dependent and directly related to the specific biodiversity of the area. Tourists visit to fish and hunt, to view wildlife, and to see healthy natural ecosystems, and they rent rooms and buy meals and souvenirs, all of which increases the jobs for guides ,boat captains, naturalists, students, and other local workers and also supports the economy of the country.
Without the rich natural diversity of native plants and animals, our lives would be poorer, the supply of medicines more limited, career opportunities more scarce, and the economy less healthy. We depend on biodiversity just as much as we depend on clean water and air. We should make an exceptional effort to conserve wild species for tomorrow.
III. Threats:
Human activities are causing marine species to disappear at an shocking rate. Aquatic species are at a advanced risk of death than mammals & birds. Losses of this size impact the entire ecosystem, depriving valuable resources used to provide food, medicines, and industrial supplies to human presences. Excess from agricultural in addition to urban zones, the attack of exotic species, & the creation of blocks and liquid diversion have been recognised as the highest challenges to stream environments (Allan and Flecker 1993; Methodical American 1997). Overexploitation of marine organisms for several purposes is the utmost threat to maritime environments, thus the requirement for sustainable exploitation has been acknowledged by the Ecological Defense Credit as the key import in protective marine biodiversity. Other fears to aquatic biodiversity embrace urban development & resource-based manufacturing, such as mining & forestry that finish or diminish natural environments. In adding, air plus water pollution, sedimentation & erosion, and climate change too pose fears to aquatic biodiversity.
• Overexploitation of species — Overexploitation of type affects the harm of genetic diversity & the loss in the comparative species plenty of both discrete and /or collections of interacting classes. The population scope gets reduced as disturbances in age building and sex structure. Efficient gears eradicate quick upward larger individuals . consequently, the extent of deliberate growing ones early payment and the average span of individuals in a populace declines. Over-fishing roots variation in the congenital structure of fish citizens due to cost of several alleles. So, genomic diversity acquires low-cost .
• Habitat modification — Physical adjustment of habitat may clue to species extermination. This is principally caused due to blocking, deforestation, deviation of water for irrigation & conversion of wet land and small liquid bodies for new purposes. Construction of walls on river impedes upstream exodus of fishes & displaces populations from their ordinary spawning grounds and detached the population in dual smaller groups. Deforestation indications to catchment space degradation owed to soil erosion which consequences into sedimentation & siltation. This not simply affect the breeding pulverized of aquatic creatures but cause gill obstruction of small fishes too.
• Pollution load — Four forms of toxins can be notable as –
I. Poisonous pollutants — Agrochemicals, metals , acids & phenol cause humanity, if present in a in height concentration &affect the multiplicative functionality of fish .
II. Adjourned solids — it affects the breathing processes and secration of caring mucus assembly the fish susceptible in the direction of infection of many pathogens.
III. Sewage and carbon-based pollutants — They cause deoxygenation unpaid to eutrophication producing mortality trendy fishes.
IV. Updraft pollution — It cause upsurge in ambient temperature & reduce dissolved oxygen concentration foremost to death of certain sensitive class.
These factors distress the marine biodiversity directly or else indirectly. Excessive mortality of creatures due to several of these issues may lead to binary type of effects ie.
a. extinction of the species / populaces
b. lower of population size.
IV. Conservation
For this, we have to conserve the aquatic species in our environment.
Aquatic conservation strategies and techniques support sustainability by protecting biological resources in ways that will preserve habitats and ecosystems. In order for biodiversity conservation to be effective, we can take the following steps:
• Aquatic areas that has been degraded or experienced habitat loss can be restored. Even the species populations that have suffered a decline can be aimed for restoration (e.g., Pacific Northwest salmon populations).
• An aquatic bio- reserve is a well-defined space within a water body in which fishing is banned or other restrictions are placed in an effort to protect plants, animals, and habitats, which ultimately conserves biodiversity. These bio-reserves can also be used for educational purposes, recreation, and tourism as well as potentially increasing fisheries yields by enhancing the declining fish populations. These bio-reserves are also very likely to marine protected areas, bioreserves, sanctuaries, and parks.
• Bioregional management is a total ecosystem strategy, which regulates factors affecting aquatic biodiversity by balancing conservation, economic, and social needs within an area. This consists of both small-scale biosphere reserves and larger reserves.
• Watershed management is an important technique towards aquatic diversity conservation. Rivers and streams, regardless of their condition, often go unprotected since they pass through more than one political jurisdiction, making it difficult to enforce conservation and management of resources. However, in recent years, the protection of lakes and small portions of watersheds organized by local watershed groups has helped this situation.
• Planting trees in the catchment area of water bodies prevent soil erosion and subsequently reduce the problem of slitation in water body resulting in better survival of aquatic organisms.
• Avoiding the dominance of industries, chemical plants and thermal power plants near the water resources as their discharge affects the ecology of water body resulted in loss of biodiversity.
• The World Resources Institute documents that the designation of a particular species as threatened or endangered has historically been the primary method of protecting the biodiversity.
• Many specialized programs should be brought about to protect biodiversity. For example, the USDA Forest Service started a cooperative state-federal program with a goal to restore the health of riverine systems and associated species.
• Regulatory measures must be taken on wastewater discharge in the water body to conserve biological diversity.
• Increasing public awareness is one of the most important ways to conserve aquatic biodiversity. This can be established through educational programs, incentive programs, and volunteer monitoring programs.
• Various organizations and conferences that do research on biodiversity and associated conservation strategies help to identify areas of future research, analyze current affairs in aquatic biodiversity.