Transcript Copperhead

Minimum Viable Population
• The smallest population for a species which
can be expected to survive for a long time
• Many factors effect MVP – the study of
those factors is often called Population
Viability Analysis – or Population
Vulnerability Analysis – or PVA
English Skylark
Metapopulations
Metapopulation
• A series of small, separate populations
united together by dispersal
• Thus even if all members of one population
go extinct, other populations survive and
dispersal from survivor populations can
recolonize the area – a rescue effect
Metapopulation Dynamics
Bay Checkerspot Butterfly
Population
dynamics
of Bay
Checkerspot
Butterfly
Types of Metapopulations
Habitat Loss
Orange County, California
Habitat Loss
• Habitat is the physical and biological
environment used by an individual, a
population or a species
• Habitat degradation is the process by which
habitat quality for a given species is
diminished
• Habitat loss occurs when the habitat quality
for a given species is so low that the
environment can no longer support the
species
Ecosystem Loss
• Ecosystem is a group of organisms and their
physical environment
• Ecosystem degradation occurs when alterations to
an ecosystem degrade or destroy habitat for many
of the species that constitute the ecosystem
• Ecosystem loss occurs when the changes to an
ecosystem are so great and so many species
typical of that ecosystem (especially dominant
species) are lost that the ecosystem switches from
one type to another
Processes that degrade habitat
and ecosystems
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Contamination
Human built structures
Soil erosion
Changing fire regimes
Human consumption of water
Copper Basin, Tennessee
Copper Basin, Tennessee
1926
1939
Copper Basin today
Copper Basin – Superfund site
Restoration of Burra Burra Pit,
Copper Basin
Mid-1990s
Mid 2000s
Copper mine tailings, Butte, Montana –
largest Superfund site in America
Mine tailings outskirts of
Sudbury, Ontario
Restoration of Sudbury
Air pollution – Mexico City
Extent of Acid Precipitation
Rhine River Basin
Healthy Coral Reef
Dying Coral Reefs
Bleached coral
Silted out reef
DDT use in 1950s
DDT in
Zimbabwe
Thin Egg Shells from DDT
Human Built Structures
Pacific or California
Fire-bellied Newt
Pacific or California Fire-bellied Newt –
don’t try this at home w/o washing hands
Tilden Park, Berkeley, CA
Snake migration in Shawnee
Copperhead
Dandelion dispersal – along roads
and railroads
Bonneville Dam, Columbia River, Oregon
Fish Ladders
The Dingo –
Canis familiarus dingo
Dingo Fence – The World’s Longest
– New South Wales
Erosion and loss of habitat on
Round Island, Mauritius
Smokey
the bear
- 1953
Smokey the
Bear - 1960
Everglades
Surface
Water Flow