BIODIVERSITY AND CONSERVATION

BIODIVERSITY
 The concept of different types of genes, gene pools, species, habitats and ecosystem in a particular place and various parts of
earth is called biodiversity.
 The term biodiversity was given by Edward Wilson.
 Biodiversity is divided into three levels-
1. GENETIC LEVEL
 It is the measure of variety in genetic information contained in the organism.
 It enables a population to adapt to its environment.
 For, example, medicinal plant Rauwolfia vomitoria growing in Himalayan ranges shows variation in potency
and concentration of the active chemical reserpine that it produces.
 There are more than 50,000 genetically different strains of rice and 1000 varieties of mango in India.
2. SPECIES DIVERSITY
 It is measure of the variety of species and their relative abundance present within a region.
 For Example, the western ghat has greater amphibian species diversity than the Eastern Ghats.
3. ECOLGICAL DIVERSITY
 It is measure of the diversity at community and ecosystem levels. They represent the local, unique habitat
and regional components of species diversity.
 For, example ecological diversity in greater in India due to presence of large number of ecosystem like
deserts, rainforest, coral reefs, wetlands, estuaries and alpine meadows.
GLOBAL SPECIES DIVERSITY
 According to the International Union of Conservation of nature resources or IUCN (2004), the total number of plant and
animals species is over 1.5 million.
 A more than 70 percent of all the species are animals, while plants account for about 22 per cent of the total.
 Amongst animals, insects comprise more than 70% that means, out of every 10 animals on this planet, 7 are insects on this
earth.
 India has only 2.4 % of world’s land area and 8.1 % global species diversity. There are nearly 45,000 plants and twice as many
animals.
PATTERNS OF BIODIVERSITY
 Biodiversity is not uniform throughout the world because it is affected by two factors- latitudinal gradients and species-area
relationship.
a) Latitudinal gradients
 Biodiversity increases from poles to equator. i.e. from high to low latitude.
 Tropics (23.50 N and 23.50 S) have more species than temperate or polar regions. For example, Columbia located near
the equator has 1,400 species of birds while New York (41.50 N) has 105 species and Greenland (710 N) has only 56
species.
 Tropical rain forest of Amazon in south America possess the greatest biodiversity on earth with more than 40,000
species of plants, 3000 fishes, 1300 birds, 427 of mammals, 427 of amphibians, 378 of reptiles and more than 1,25,000
invertebrates.
 Greater biological diversity is observed in tropics because:
I. Temperate regions have been subjected to frequent glaciations in the past but tropical regions remained
undisturbed. Therefore, tropics have a longer evolutionary time for species diversification.
II. Temperature environment, unlike the tropics are more seasonal, less constant and unpredictable, resulting in
less niche specialization and lesser species diversity.
III. Tropics have greater solar energy exposure which contributes to higher productivity and greater diversity.
b) Species- area relationship
 German naturalist and geographer Alexander von Humboldt observed that within a region, species richness increased
with increasing explored area but upto a limit.
 The relationship between a species richness and area for a wide variety of taxa (like vascular plant, birds. Bats and
freshwater fishes) appears as a rectangular hyperbola.
  On a logarithim scale, the relationship is a straight line described by the following equation:
Log S = log C + Z log A
IMPORTANCE OF SPECIES DIVERSITY TO THE ECOSYSTEM
 Ecologist believes that communities with more species tend to be more stable than those with less species. This was confirmed
by David Tilman.
 Characteristics of a stable community:
a) Productivity should not vary too much from year to year.
b) It should be resistant to occasional natural and man-made disturbances.
c) It should be resistant to invasions by alien species.
 Importance of biodiversity for survival of species can be explained by the “rivet popper hypothesis” proposed by Paul Ehrlich.
 This hypothesis assumes the ecosystem to be an airplane and the species to be the river joining all parts together.
 If every passenger pops a rivet to take home (resulting in species extinction), it may not affect the flight safety initially (proper
ecosystem functioning) but with time as more rivets are remove, the plane become dangerously weak.
LOSS OF BIODIVERSITY
 It is caused by over-population, urbanization and industrialization.
 The colonization of tropical pacific islands by humans has led to the extinction of more than 2000 species of native birds.
 15,500 species are facing the threat of extinction worldwide.
 At present, 31 % of gymnosperm, 32% of amphibians, 12% of birds species and 23% of mammals face the threat of extinction.
 Some recently extinct species are dodo (Mauritius), quagga (Africa), thylacine (Australia), Stellar’s sea cow (Russia) and three
tiger species (Bali, Jawan, Caspian)
 Loss of biodiversity in a region may lead to:
a) Decrease in plants productivity.
b) Less resistance to environment disturbance such as drought.
c) Increased variability in ecosystem processes like plant productivity, water use, pest and disease cycle.
CAUSE OF BIODIVERSITY LOSSES
 There are four major causes of biodiversity loss. These are also known as “The Evil Quarter”
1. Habitat loss and fragmentation
 Destruction of habitat is the primary cause of extinction of species.
 The tropical rainforests initially covered 14% of the land surface of the earth, but now cover only 6% of land area.
 The Amazon rainforest (called “Lungs of the earth”) is being cut and cleared for cultivation of soya beans and for conversion
into grassland for raising cattles.
 When large sized habitats are broken or fragmented due to human settlements, building of roads, digging of canals, etc, the
population of animals requiring large territories and some animals with migratory declines.
2. Over-exploitation
 When biological system is over exploited by man for the natural resources, it results in degradation and extinction of the
resources.
 For example, Stellar’s sea cow, passenger pigeon and many marine fishes.
3. Alien (exotic) species invasion
 Some alien species when introduced unintentionally, or deliberately, become invasive and cause harmful impact resulting in
extinction of the indigenous species.
 Nile perch, a large predator fish when introduced in lake Victoria (East africa) caused the extinction of an unique species of
Cichlid fish in the lake.
 Invasive weed species like parthenium (carrot grass), Lantana and Eicchornia (Water hyacinth) caused environmental damage
and posed threat to our native species.
 Introduction of African catfish (Clarias gariepinus) for aquaculture purpose is posing a threat to the indigenous cat species of
Indian rivers.
4. Co-extinctions
 When a species becomes extinct, the plant and animal species associated with it in an obligatory manner, also become extinct.
 For example, if the host fish species become extinct, all those parasite exclusively found on it will also become extinct, in
plants- pollinators mutualism, extinction of one results in the extinction of the other.
REASONS FOR BIODIVERSITY CONSERVATION
There are three main reasons for conserving the biodiversity which have been classified into the following categories:
1. Narrowly utilitarian arguments
 Human being derive direct economic benefits from nature, like food, firewood, fibre, construction material, industrial
products (resins, gums, dyes, tannins etc) and medicinally important products.
  More than 25% of the drugs are derived from plants and about 25,000 species of plants are used by native people as
traditional medicines.
2. Broadly utilitarian arguments
 Biodiversity plays a major role in maintaining and sustaining supply of goods and services from various species as well
as ecological systems.
 The different ecological services provided are:
a) Amazon forest is estimated to contribute 20% of the total oxygen in the atmosphere of the earth.
b) Ecosystem provides pollinators like bees, birds and bats which pollinate plants to forms fruits and seeds.
c) Aesthetic pleasure like bird watching, spring flowers in full bloom, walking through the thick forest, walking
up to a bulbul’s songs etc are some other benefits of the ecosystem.
3. Ethical reasons
 There are thousands of plants, animals and microbes on this earth which are not useless. Everyone has some intrinsic
value even if it is not of any economic value to us.
 It is, therefore, our moral duty to ensure well-being of all the living creature for the utilization of future generations.

CONSERVATION OF BIODIVERSITY
 Biodiversity can be conserved by protecting its whole ecosystem.
 There are two basic approaches for the conservation of biodiversity.
1. In situ Conservation (On site conservation)
 This approach involves protection of species in their natural habitat.
a) Biodiversity hot spots
 These are regions of high levels of species richness and high degree of endemism.
 Endemic species are species confined only to a limited region.
 There are 34 hot spots in the world.
 In India, the three hot spots are Western Ghats and Sri Lanka, Indo-Burma and Himalaya.
 These reduce mass extinction by 30%.
b) Protected areas
 India has 14 biosphere reserve, 90 National parks and 448 wildlife sanctuaries.
 Jim Corbett national park was the first to be established in India.
c) Sacred Groves
 These are forest patches set aside for worship. All the trees and wildlife within are given total protection.
 Large number of rare and threatened plants can be found in these regions.
 Some of the sacred groves in India are-
a. Khasi and jaintia hills in Meghalaya
b. Western Ghat regions of Karnataka and Maharashtra.
c. Aravalli Hills of Rajasthan
d. Sarguja, Chanda and bastar areas of Madhya Pradesh.
2. Ex situ Conservation (off site conservation)
 This approach involves placing threatened animals and plants in special care units for their protection.
 India has 35 botanical gardens and 275 zoological parks where animals which have become extinct in wild are maintained.
 By using cryo-preservation (preservation at -1960 C) technique, sperms, eggs, animal cells, tissue and embryo can be stored for
long period in gene banks, seed banks etc.
 Plants are propagated in vitro using tissue culture methods (micropropagation).
 It is desirable approach when urgent measures to save extinction are required.

CONVENTIONS ON BIODIVERSITY
 The earth summit was held in Rio-de-Janerio in 1992, which called upon all nations to take appropriate measures for
conversation of biodiversity and sustainable utilization of its benefits.
 The world summit on sustainable Development was held in Johannesburg, South Africa in 2002 n which 190 countries pledged
to reduce the current rate of biodiversity loss at global, regional and local levels by 2010.