BOI DI VERSI TY is the variation of life forms within a given ecosystem,

biome, or on the entire Earth. Biodiversity is often used as a measure of

the health of biological systems. The biodiversity found on Earth today
consists of many millions of distinct biological species. The year 2010
has been declared as the International Year of Biodiversity.
Biodiversity is not distributed evenly on Earth, but is consistently richer
in the tropics and in specific localized regions such as the Cape Floristic
Province; it is less rich in polar regions where fewer species are found.
Rapid environmental changes typically cause extinctions. Of all species
that have existed on Earth, 99.9 percent are now extinct Since life began
on Earth, five major mass extinctions have led to large and sudden drops
in the biodiversity of species. The Phanerozoic eon (the last 540 million
years) marked a rapid growth in biodiversity in the Cambrian explosion
a period during which nearly every phylum of multicellular organisms
first appeared. The next 400 million years was distinguished by periodic,
massive losses of biodiversity classified as mass extinction events. The
most recent, the CretaceousTertiary extinction event, occurred
65 million years ago, and has attracted more attention than all others
because it killed the dinosaurs.
Today there is concern that the period since the emergence of humans is
part of a mass reduction in biodiversity, the Holocene extinction, caused
primarily by the impact humans are having on the environment,
particularly the destruction of plant and animal habitats. In addition,
human practices have caused a loss of genetic biodiversity. The relevance
of biodiversity to human health is becoming a major international issue,
as scientific evidence is gathered on the global health implications of
biodiversity loss>
A complex relationship exists among the different types of diversity.
Identifying one type of diversity in a group of organisms does not
necessarily indicate its relationship with other types of diversity.
However all types of diversity are broadly linked and a numerical study
investigating the link between tetrapod taxonomic and ecological
diversity of tetrapods (terrestrial vertebrates) shows a very close
correlation between the two.
The term was used first by wildlife scientist and conservationist Raymond
F. Dasmann in a lay book
[4]
advocating nature conservation. The term
was not widely adopted for more than a decade, when in the 1980s it and
"biodiversity" came into common usage in science and environmental
policy. Use of the term by Thomas Lovejoy in the Foreword to the
bookcredited with launching the field of conservation biology introduced
the term along with "conservation biology" to the scientific community.
Until then the term "natural diversity" was used in conservation science
circles, including by The Science Division of The Nature Conservancy in
an important 1975 study, "The Preservation of Natural Diversity." By the
early 1980s TNC's Science program and its head Robert E. Jenkins,
Lovejoy, and other leading conservation scientists at the time in America
advocated the use of "biological diversity" to embrace the object of
biological conservation.
The term's contracted form biodiversity may have been coined by W.G.
Rosen in 1985 while planning the National Forum on Biological
Diversity organized by the National Research Council (NRC) which was
to be held in 1986, and first appeared in a publication in 1988 when
entomologist E. O. Wilson used it as the title of the proceedings of that
forum.
Since this period both terms and the concept have achieved widespread
use among biologists, environmentalists, political leaders, and concerned
citizens worldwide. The term is sometimes used to equate to a concern
for the natural environment and nature conservation. This use has
coincided with the expansion of concern over extinction observed in the
last decades of the 20th century.
A similar concept in use in the United States, besides natural diversity, is
the term "natural heritage." It pre-dates both terms though it is a less
scientific term and more easily comprehended in some ways by the wider
audience interested in conservation. Furthermore it may be misleading if
used to refer only to biodiversity, as natural heritage also includes
geology and landforms (geodiversity). The term "Natural Heritage" was
used when Jimmy Carter set up the Georgia Heritage Trust while he was
governor of Georgia; Carter's trust dealt with both natural and cultural
heritage. It would appear that Carter picked the term up from Lyndon
Johnson, who used it in a 1966 Message to Congress. "Natural Heritage"
was picked up by the Science Division of the US Nature Conservancy
when, under Jenkins, it launched in 1974 the network of State Natural
Heritage Programs. This network took on a life of its own in the 1990s
when it became an independent non-profit organization named
NatureServe. When NatureServe was extended outside the USA, the term
"Conservation Data Center" was suggested by Guillermo Mann is now
also used by several programs, for example those that operate as part of
NatureServe Canada
Evolution
Biodiversity found on Earth today is the result of 3.5 billion years of
evolution. The origin of life has not been definitely established by
science, however some evidence suggests that life may already have been
well-established a few hundred million years after the formation of the
Earth. Until approximately 600 million years ago, all life consisted of
archaea, bacteria, protozoans and similar single-celled organisms.
The history of biodiversity during the Phanerozoic (the last 540 million
years), starts with rapid growth during the Cambrian explosiona period
during which nearly every phylum of multicellular organisms first
appeared. Over the next 400 million years or so, global diversity showed
little overall trend, but was marked by periodic, massive losses of
diversity classified as mass extinction events.
The apparent biodiversity shown in the fossil record suggests that the last
few million years include the period of greatest biodiversity in the Earth's
history. However, not all scientists support this view, since there is
considerable uncertainty as to how strongly the fossil record is biased by
the greater availability and preservation of recent geologic sections. Some
(e.g. Alroy et al. 2001) argue that, corrected for sampling artifacts,
modern biodiversity is not much different from biodiversity 300 million
years ago.
[16]
Estimates of the present global macroscopic species
diversity vary from 2 million to 100 million species, with a best estimate
of somewhere near 1314 million, the vast majority of them arthropods
The existence of a global carrying capacity has been debated, that is to
say that there is a limit to the number of species that can live on this
planet. While records of life in the sea shows a logistic pattern of growth,
life on land (insects, plants and tetrapods)shows an exponential rise in
diversity. As one author states, "Tetrapods have not yet invaded 64 per
cent of potentially habitable modes, and it could be that without human
influence the ecological and taxonomic diversity of tetrapods would
continue to increase in an exponential fashion until most or all of the
available ecospace is filled.
Most biologists agree however that the period since the emergence of
humans is part of a new mass extinction, the Holocene extinction event,
caused primarily by the impact humans are having on the environment.
[19]

It has been argued that the present rate of extinction is sufficient to
eliminate most species on the planet Earth within 100 years.
with wildlife into agricultural, mining, lumbering, and urban areas for
humans.
Non-material benefits that are obtained from ecosystems include spiritual
and aesthetic values, knowledge systems and the value of education.
Agriculture
The economic value of the reservoir of genetic traits present in wild New
species are regularly discovered (on average between 510,000 new
species each year, most of them insects) and many, though discovered,
are not yet classified (estimates are that nearly 90% of all arthropods are
not yet classified). Most of the terrestrial diversity is found in tropical
forests.
Human benefits
iodiversity also supports a number of natural ecosystem processes and
services. Some ecosystem services that benefit society are air quality,
climate (both global CO
2
sequestration and local), water purification,
pollination, and prevention of erosion.
Since the stone age, species loss has been accelerated above the
geological rate by human activity. The rate of species extinction is
difficult to estimate, but it has been estimated that species are now being
lost at a rate approximately 100 times as fast as is typical in the
geological record, or perhaps as high as 10 000 times as fast. To feed
such a large population, more land is being transformed from wilderness
varieties and traditionally grown landraces is extremely important in
improving crop performance

Important crops, such as the potato and
coffee, are often derived from only a few genetic strains

Improvements in
crop plants over the last 250 years have been largely due to harnessing
the genetic diversity present in wild and domestic crop plants

Interbreeding crops strains with different beneficial traits has resulted in
more than doubling crop production in the last 50 years as a result of the
Green Revolution
.

Crop diversity is also necessary to help the system recover when the
dominant crop type is attacked by a disease:
The Irish potato blight of 1846, which was a major factor in the
deaths of a million people and migration of another million, was
the result of planting only two potato varieties, both of which were
vulnerable.
When rice grassy stunt virus struck rice fields from Indonesia to
India in the 1970s, 6273 varieties were tested for resistance. One
was found to be resistant, an Indian variety, known to science only
since 1966 This variety formed a hybrid with other varieties and is
now widely grown.
Coffee rust attacked coffee plantations in Sri Lanka, Brazil, and
Central America in 1970. A resistant variety was found in Ethiopia.
Although the diseases are themselves a form of biodiversity.
Monoculture, the lack of biodiversity, was a contributing factor to several
agricultural disasters in history, the European wine industry collapse in
the late 1800s, and the US Southern Corn Leaf Blight epidemic of
1970.
[26]
Higher biodiversity also controls the spread of certain diseases
as pathogens will need to adapt to infect different species.
Biodiversity provides food for humans

..Although about 80 percent of
our food supply comes from just 20 kinds of plants

humans use at least
40,000 species of plants and animals a day

Many people around the
world depend on these species for their food, shelter, and clothing
]
. There
is untapped potential for increasing the range of food products suitable
for human consumption, provided that the high present extinction rate can
be stopped.



Loss of old growth forest in the United States; 1620, 1850, 1920, and
1992 maps:
From William B. Greeley's, The Relation of Geography to Timber Supply,
Economic Geography, 1925, vol. 1, p. 111. Source of "Today" map:
compiled by George Draffan from roadless area map in The Big Outside:
A Descriptive Inventory of the Big Wilderness Areas of the United States,
by Dave Foreman and Howie Wolke (Harmony Books, 1992). These
maps represent only virgin forest lost. Some regrowth has occurred but
not to the age, size or extent of 1620 due to population increases and food
cultivation.
During the last century, decreases in biodiversity have been increasingly
observed. Studie ow that 30% of all natural species will be extinct by
2050. Of these, about one eighth of the known plant species are
threatened with extinction. Some estimates put the loss at up to 140,000
species per year (based on Species-area theory) and subject to discussion.
This figure indicates unsustainable ecological practices, because only a
small number of species come into being each year. Almost all scientists
acknowledge .. that the rate of species loss is greater now than at any
time in human history, with extinctions occurring at rates hundreds of
times higher than background extinction rates.
The factors that threaten biodiversity have been variously categorized.
Jared Diamond describes an "Evil Quartet" of habitat destruction,
overkill, introduced species, and secondary extensions. Edward O.
Wilson prefers the acronym HIPPO, standing for Habitat destruction,
Invasive species, Pollution, Human Over Population, and
Overharvesting.
[56][57]
The most authoritative classification in use today is
that of IUCNs Classification of Direct Threats
[58]
adopted by most major
international conservation organizations such as the US Nature
Conservancy, the World Wildlife Fund, , and Birdlife International.
Conservation of biodiversity
matured in the mid- 20th century as ecologists, naturalists, and other
scientists began to collectively research and address issues pertaining to
global declines in biodiversity. The conservation ethic differs from the
preservationist ethic, historically lead by John Muir, who advocate for
The conservation ethic advocates for wise stewardship and management
of natural resource production for the purpose of protecting and
sustaining biodiversity in species, ecosystems, the evolutionary process,
and human culture and society. Conservation biologists are concerned
with the trends in biodiversity being reported in this era, which has been
labeled by science as the Holocene extinction period, also known as the
sixth mass extinction. Rates of decline in biodiversity in this sixth mass
extinction match or exceed rates of loss in the five previous mass
extinction events recorded in the fossil record Loss of biodiversity results
in the loss of natural capital that supplies ecosystem goods and services.
The economic value of 17 ecosystem services for the entire biosphere
(calculated in 1997) has an estimated average value of US$ 33 trillion
(10
12
) per year!

One of the strategies involves placing a monetary value on biodiversity
through biodiversity banking, of which one example is the Australian
Native Vegetation Management Framework. Other approaches are the
creation of gene banks, as well as the creation of gene banks that have the
intention of growing the indigenous species for reintroduction to the
ecosystem (eg via tree nurseries, ...) The eradication of exotic species is
also an important method to preserve the local biodiversity. Exotic
species that have become a pest can be identified using taxonomy .This
method however can only be used against a large group of a certain
exotic organism due to the econimic cost. Other measures contributing to
the preservation of biodiversity include: the reduction of pesticide use
and/or a switching to organic pesticides, ... These measures however, are
of less importance than the preserving of rural lands, reintroduction of
indigenous species and the removal of exotic species. Finally, if the
continued preservation of native organisms in an area can be guaranteed,
efforts can be made in trying to reintroduce eliminated native species
back into the environment. This can be done by first determining which
species were indigenous to the area, and then reintroducing them. This
determination can be done using databases as the Encyclopedia_of_life,
Global Biodiversity Information Facility, ... Extermination is usually
done with either (ecological) pesticides, or natural predators.
Strategies
As noted above (Distribution), biodiversity is not as rich everywhere on
the planet. Regions as the tropics and subtropics are considerably much
richer in biodiversity than regions in temperate climates. In addition, in
temperate climates, a lot of countries are located which are already vastly
urbanised, and require -in addition- great amounts of space for the
growing of crops. As rehabilitating the biodiversity within these countries
would again require the clearing and redeveloping of spaces, it has been
proposed of some that efforts are best instead directed unto the tropics.
Arguments include economics, it would be far less costly and more
efficient to preserve the biodiversity in the tropics, especially as many
countries in these areas are only now beginning to urbanise.
However, only directing the efforts into these areas would not be enough,
as many species still need to migrate at certain times of the year,
requiring a connection to other regions/countries. In the more urbanised
countries in temperate climates, this would mean that wildlife corridors
need to be made. However, making wildlife corridors would still be
considerably cheaper and easier than clearing/preserving entirely new
areas.
A great deal of work is occurring to preserve the natural characteristics of
Hopetoun Falls, Australia while continuing to allow visitor access.
Biodiversity is beginning to be evaluated and its evolution analysed
(through observations, inventories, conservation...) as well as being taken
into account in political and judicial decisions:
The relationship between law and ecosystems is very ancient and
has consequences for biodiversity. It is related to property rights,
both private and public. It can define protection for threatened
ecosystems, but also some rights and duties (for example, fishing
rights, hunting rights).
Law regarding species is a more recent issue. It defines species that
must be protected because they may be threatened by extinction.
The U.S. Endangered Species Act is an example of an attempt to
address the "law and species" issue.
Laws regarding gene pools are only about a century old
[
While the
genetic approach is not new (domestication, plant traditional
selection methods), progress made in the genetic field in the past
20 years have led to a tightening of laws in this field. With the new
technologies of genetic analysis and genetic engineering, people
are going through gene patenting, processes patenting, and a totally
new concept of genetic resources. A very hot debate today seeks to
define whether the resource is the gene, the organism itself, or its
DNA.
The 1972 UNESCO World Heritage convention established that
biological resources, such as plants, were the common heritage of
mankind. These rules probably inspired the creation of great public banks
of genetic resources, located outside the source-countries.
New global agreements (e.g.Convention on Biological Diversity), now
give sovereign national rights over biological resources (not property).
The idea of static conservation of biodiversity is disappearing and being
replaced by the idea of dynamic conservation, through the notion of
resource and innovation.
The new agreements commit countries to conserve biodiversity, develop
resources for sustainability and share the benefits resulting from their use.
Under new rules, it is expected that bioprospecting or collection of
natural products has to be allowed by the biodiversity-rich country, in
exchange for a share of the benefits.
Sovereignty principles can rely upon what is better known as Access and
Benefit Sharing Agreements (ABAs). The Convention on Biodiversity
spirit implies a prior informed consent between the source country and
the collector, to establish which resource will be used and for what, and
to settle on a fair agreement on benefit sharing. Bioprospecting can
become a type of biopiracy when those principles are not respected.
Measurment of biodiversity
Alpha diversity
Alpha diversity (-diversity) is the biodiversity within a particular area,
community or ecosystem, and is usually expressed as the Species richness
of the area. This can be measured by counting the number of taxa
(distinct groups of organisms) within the ecosystem (eg. families, genera,
species). However, such estimates of species richness are strongl sample
size, so a number of statistical techniques can be used to correct for
sample size to get comparable values by influenced.
: Simpson index

Where:
S is the number of species
N is the total percentage cover or total number of organisms
n
i
is the percentage cover of a species or number of organisms of
species i
Shannon index:

Where
S is the number of species. Also called species richness
p
i
is the relative abundance of each species, calculated as the
proportion of individuals of a given species to the total number of
individuals in the community:
n
i
is the number of individuals in each species; the abundance of
each species
N is the total number of all individuals
Beta diversity
Beta diversity (-diversity) is a measure of biodiversity which works by
comparing the species diversity between ecosystems or along
environmental gradients. This involves comparing the number of taxa that
are unique to each of the ecosystems.
It is the rate of change in species composition across habitats or among
communities. It gives a quantitative measure of diversity of communities
that experience changing environments
At its simplest, beta diversity is the total number of species that are
unique between communities . This can be represented by the following
equation:
= (S
1
c) + (S
2
c)
where, S
1
= the total number of species recorded in the first community,
S
2
= the total number of species recorded in the second community, and
c= the number of species common to both communities.
Srensen's similarity index

where, S
1
= the total number of species recorded in the first community,
S
2
= the total number of species recorded in the second community, and
c= the number of species common to both communities. The Srensen
index is a very simple measure of beta diversity, ranging from a value of
0 where there is no species overlap between the communities, to a value
of 1 when exactly the same species are found in both communities.

wittaker measure


where, S= the total number of species recorded in both communities,
=average number of species found within the communities.
Gamma diversity
Gamma diversity (-diversity) is a measure of biodiversity. It refers to
the total species richness over a large area or region. It is the product of
the diversity of component ecosystems and the diversity between
component ecosystems.
According to Whittaker (1972), gamma diversity is the richness in
species of a range of habitats in a geographic area (e.g.,a landscape, an
island) and it is consequent on the alpha diversity of the individual
communities and the range of differentiation or beta diversity among
them. Like alpha diversity, it is a quality which simply has magnitude,
not direction and can be represented by a single number (a scalar).
Gamma diversity can be expressed in terms of the species richness of
component communities as follows:
= S
1
+ S
2
c
where, S
1
= the total number of species recorded in the first community,
S
2
= the total number of species recorded in the second community, and
c= the number of species common to both communities.

The internal relationship between alpha, beta and gamma diversity can be
represented as

= /
The most common formula for working out Species Diversity is the
Simpson's diversity index, which uses the following formula:

Where:
D = diversity index
N = Total number of organisms of all species found
n = number of individuals of a particular species
A high D value suggests a stable and ancient site, while a low D value
could suggest a polluted site, recent colonisation or agricultural
management.
Usually used in studies of vegetation but can also be applied to animals.
In order to account for the probability of missing some of the actual total
number of species present in any count based on a sample population, the
Jackknife estimate may be employed:

where
S = species richness
n = total number of species present in sample population
k = number of "unique" species (of which only one organism was
found in sample population)
Similarly the equation may also be noted as:

where
E = the summation of number of species in each sample
k = number of rare/unique species
n = number of sample
As well, when looking at local diversity the appropriate formula to use is:

where
c = a specific number for each taxa
A = the area of study
t regulatory measures intended to test the effects of chemicals for
biodiversity cannot appropriately address the complexity and dynamics of
interactions between living systems, and with their abiotic
environment.
[1]
, this question has not been adequately addressed.
Chemicals can originate from millions of consumer, agricultural and
industrial products and processes. In certain instances, the release of a
chemical is accidental, while in others it is a side effect of other
processes, or due to their intended form of use. Once in the environment,
some chemicals can persist for long periods of time and/or be broken
down into chemicals with further risk properties.
Chemicals may also produce unforeseen health and environmental
impacts when interacting with other natural or manufactured chemicals.
For a variety of chemicals, the dose makes the poison. On the contrary,
for many others, very low doses are enough for impacts to appear (e.g.,
disturbances to wildlife and ecosystems from low-level exposures to
chemicals such as endocrine disruptors).
These and other physical and chemical transformations and the resulting
human and environmental health impacts can go far beyond what existing
regulations regarding the release of many chemicals (from zero emission
safety provisions to standards of good practice) can adequately address.
Emission patterns vary from point sources (where most data are
available) to diffuse emissions from current and past activities: there are
at least two million contaminated sites in the EU (European Commission,
2003).
Aquatic sediments can store certain chemicals and, with changing
environmental conditions, release them either suddenly or over an
extended period of time. Substances used in longlife products may be a
major source of chemicals emissions both during their use and once they
have been dumped in the environment (e.g. CFCs from isolation foam).
In order to understand the (potential) effects of chemicals on living
beings, risk assessments are based on laboratory studies, via testing
organisms. Under the current risk estimation approaches in eco-
toxicology, chemicals' effects are then estimated for groups like plants,
invertebrates, fish, birds or mammals.
However, emerging properties at higher system levels inevitably escape
assessments made at micro level. Consequently, there is a lack of
knowledge of the effects of chemicals on systemic properties of
biodiversity and on complex interactions among living beings. For
example, it was shown that the effects of the combined presence of the
herbicide atrazine and of high levels of nutrients, led to effects in frog
populations due to changes in the ecosystem at large. Atrazine reduced
phytoplankton growth, resulting in higher levels of nutrients and therefore
higher levels of algae. These, in turn, fed a wider array of gastropods
which are intermediate trematode hosts, which spread the infection to
frogs. Standard procedures for chemical risk assessment could not
possibly detect such a pollutiondisease pathway, as long as species are
studied in isolation, i.e. in the lab.
What is needed is an integrated impact monitoring. Unfortunately,
environmental monitoring in Europe
characterised by a plurality of monitoring networks operated under
different administrative competences and environmental sectors. Only a
small part of the collected data is evaluated in a cross-media and cross-
sectoral perspective. Currently the available scientific knowledge is not
structured and therefore it is hardly accessible. In effect, much of it is
scattered in a large number of specialized journals.
IS BIODIVERSITY AT RISK?
The late 20
th
century saw unprecedented growth and "globalization" of
economies around the world, which resulted in massive changes in the
ways land and waters were managed on and around every continent. This
economic expansion came at a tremendous cost to natural systems and the
extinction rate of species and degradation of ecosystems around the world
began to soar.
The United Nations Millennium Ecosystem Assessment concluded in
2005 that biodiversity is at risk on a global scale ... "human actions are
depleting Earth's natural capital, putting such strain on the environment
that the ability of the planet's ecosystems to sustain future generations can
no longer be taken for granted." At the same time, the assessment shows
that with appropriate actions it is possible to reverse the degradation of
many ecosystem services over the next 50 years.
In recognition of increasing pressure ont he planet's natural capital,
representatives of governments around the world met in 1992 at the
international Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, to explore ways to
conserve biodiversity. The Earth Summit in Rio produced the United
Nations Convention on Biological Diversity. Canada was one of the first
of 182 countries to sign the Convention, which recognizes the
responsibility of individual countries to conserve biodiversity, to use
biological resources sustainably, and to share related benefits equitably.
To help fulfill that commitment, the federal, territorial and provincial
governments formally endorsed a Canadian Biodiversity Strategy in
1995.
Between 2001 and 2005, more than a thousand scientists from all over the
world took part in the UN Millennium Ecosystem Assessment. They
concluded that more than 60 per cent of the planet's ecosystems are
degraded or unsustainably managed. They noted that species are
disappearing at an alarming rate. They agreed that the negative impact on
humans would become more severe if we do not act to conserve
biodiversity and use natural resources in a sustainable manner.
The National Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada
reaffirmed this conclusion, stating in January 2004, that 'the biodiversity
of earth is being reduced faster than at any time in history since the mass
extinction some 60 million years ago'
In this analysis, we set out to answer three questions. The first question
dealt with the pattern of species richness for rare and vulnerable
terrestrial vertebrates. By extracting the species from the TNC database
that were ranked as G1-G3 and tallying the number of species in each
hexagon, we observed a distinct geographic pattern in richness. The
hexagons with the greatest number of species (9-14) occurred along the
California coastal zone, with a narrow band in the north and a wider band
in the south. Richness of rare species generally declined with distance
from the coastline. Desert regions in California generally had 1-3 rare
species, while the interior hexagons of Oregon and Washington
frequently had none.
Regression tree modeling was applied to answer the second question
about the relationship of this pattern of richness to biophysical and
anthropogenic stressors. Data were compiled for 13 stressors. Two data
sets represented natural stressors, 8 were anthropogenic stressors, and 3
were derived from satellite data and represented a combination of both
types of stressors. Some of the data sets correspond to actual stressors
(e.g., roads), while others are surrogate measures of environmental
conditions (e.g., an index of habitat condition or percentage of area
protected). For simplicity, we refer to all factors as "stressors" throughout
the text. By far the most important predictors of rare species richness
were two natural stressors, seasonal temperature difference and degree-
day cool sum. These two variables represent the extremes of hot and cold
to which rare species must adapt and to the severity of the winter in
which body temperature must be preserved and food must be available.
Rare species richness was highest in hexagons with the lowest values of
these stressors, that is, where the climate is relatively mild year-round
such as with a marine influence. The only anthropogenic stressors
selected in the regression tree model were the number of exotic species
(both total and terrestrial vertebrates alone). Rare species and exotic
species tended to have similar distribution patterns. It is unclear from our
analysis whether exotic species have caused more vertebrates to become
rare and vulnerable or simply that, in the West Coast Transect study area,
both are influenced by the same, undetermined ecological processes. The
more direct measures of stress such as population density, roadedness, or
habitat loss were not used by the regression tree model.
Our third question, about the value of satellite data in estimating
environmental stress and the number of vulnerable species, produced a
negative result. None of the three measures of environmental stress from
NDVI were selected by the regression tree. The most significant
differences between potential and actual NDVI were in urban and
agricultural areas, which were not generally associated with large
numbers of rare species. It may be that the vulnerable species have
already be extirpated from these hexagons and were thus not in TNCs
database.
Our study was hindered by a lack of stressor data at the required
resolution. A great deal of data, however, exist at the county scale or
similar geographic units. It may still be
possible to use these data to estimate stressors are the finer, hexagon scale
through development of smart interpolation methods. For instance,
grazing density could be inferred based on a model that uses commonly
available spatial data such as topography. This kind of GIS model can
explicitly limit predicted land uses to appropriate environmental settings
and land stewards while disaggregating county level statistics. Other land
uses such as logging might be modeled in a similar manner, as might the
agricultural census data on chemical applications.
We mentioned at the beginning of this chapter how human activity has
appropriated a large proportion of NPP and energy. Estimates of this
monumental alteration of ecosystem function has only been estimated at
national or global levels. We were disappointed in our attempts to apply
this approach at the hexagon level. Data inputs were often too coarse, as
discussed above. It may yet be possible to implement this approach, but it
will require greater use of the coarse-scale data and smart interpolation
techniques. One intriguing possibility of relating energy usage to
biodiversity loss is to estimate energy usage from the nighttime lights
data from DMSP satellite data.
There is an alternative approach that could be taken in using the stressor
data sets. Rather than using them to predict richness of vulnerable species
in a modeling context, they could be used to identify potential "train
wrecks" in hexagons where both stresses and biodiversity are high. This
would require the development either of thresholds for levels of stressors
that correspond to threat to biodiversity or of a new index that synthesizes
the effects of stresses into an overall metric of threat.