Course Topics Biodiversity, Ecology, & Conservation Biology
Course Topics Objectives
- Describe the characteristics of life and list the hierarchy of life from atoms to the Earth’s biosphere.
- Define this course’s topics of biodiversity, ecology, and conservation biology, including how they relate to barnacles and bees.
Before we talk about the three topics covered in this course, we are going to step back and talk about life itself. We are still finding new species on earth, both microscopic organisms like bacteria and macroscopic organisms like insects and fish.
Various space agencies are also exploring our solar system (and beyond) for possible life outside of Earth. Pieces of indirect evidence are emerging, and now Venus is also under active consideration. We will discuss the possibilities of extraterrestrial life in a later Guide.
Now, more than ever, we are trying to come up with a clear definition for life.
This video introduces the basic characteristics of life as we know it.
Eight different patterns are used to determine whether something is an organism.
These are the eight “characteristics of life.”
Organization
Responds to the Environment
Maintains Homeostasis
Has a Metabolism
Reproduces
Grows and Changes
Heredity
Evolution over Generations
When biologists study life, there is far too much for an individual, or even a field of researchers to study. There is a hierarchy of scale, and researchers tend to focus on one or a few levels in the hierarchy at a time.
Earth’s life is found in the biosphere, comprised of the lithosphere (soils), hydrosphere (water), and atmosphere (air).
These are huge scales to work with. Researchers often work on smaller components, and knowledge is pieced together over time, sometimes by generations of researchers.
This video shows the hierarchy of life from the atom (left) to the biosphere (right).
In this course we are focusing on the levels of life you are most likely to encounter while exploring nature. In the barnacle photos and videos, you could see individual organisms, and parts of the organism like the mineral cone, and the feeding appendage under water.
In the photos, members of the same species can be observed. These seven barnacles are a small population of the overall species.
This rock has barnacles, snails, anemone, and algae. A group of species living together is a c_____.
Each rock is a community with a physical environment, and the entire Nye Beach area with its communities and environment are part of a larger e______.
These are the typical scales we will be working with in this course’s topics.
Our three course topics are biodiversity, ecology, and conservation biology.
Biodiversity
Study of the variety life on Earth at three levels. Most common is the diversity of species: the number of different species, including their identification and classification. Diversity can also be at the molecular level in the variations of genetic material (DNA) within a species. It can also refer to the diversity of ecosystems on earth. Usually when people say “biodiversity,” they are indicating number of different species.
Ecology
The variety of interactions that occur between living organisms and the environment. This can include interactions within a species, between different species within a community, and between species and their physical environment. These interactions can be complex and interdependent, they can even change over time and distance. Ecology explains what is going on when we observe organism behaviors and distribution.
Conservation Biology
It is all in the name: this field is researching how to conserve organisms and their ecosystems. This builds on other areas of knowledge, including biodiversity and ecology. Conservation biologists often work with researchers from other fields to provide science knowledge that can assist in the complex work of resource management. In recent years, there is increased interest in linking conservation with sustainability; maintaining ecosystems and human cultures.
It is easiest to understand these topics if we use a real-world example. We will head back to the tidal rocks at Nye Beach.
This rock contains a variety of species, including the small black snail species and the larger striped shell species. With a biodiversity focus, you would be identifying species, possibly recording relative numbers, or observing variation within a species and on different rocks.
With an ecology focus, you would be looking for possible interactions and explanations for those interactions. For example, the small barnacles in this larger barnacle may inhibit how it eats, or they could be offspring protected by an older individual. Two very different possibilities. What study could you design to see which explanation was more likely?
Some tidal organism populations have changed significantly in recent years with the large drop in sea star numbers due to “sea star wasting” syndrome (more on that in a later Guide). These barnacles are growing on a piece of human-made cement piling. With a conservation biology focus, you would be determining ways to maximize survival and diversity within a habitat, and it may mean creating surfaces for organisms.
The course topics are also frequently in the news.
To provide an example, we are going to start examining bees.
You are probably aware due to extensive news coverage that bee populations worldwide have been on the decline. In part this has been due to Colony Collapse Disorder (CCD), where large numbers of worker bees in a hive suddenly drop dead, The focus in on European Honey Bees, and the news seemed a bit better in 2020, but the problem turns out to be complex.
To understand what is going on, we will see how the three course topics of biodiversity, ecology, and conservation biology relate to the study of bees.
We’ll start from the perspective of biodiversity, including information on the honey bees we commonly see in North America.
Bees play a significant ecological role. They pollinate many flowering plants , carrying pollen from the male reproductive structures of one plant to the egg-bearing female reproductive structures of another. Organisms eat bees and the honey within their hives.
Bees also have an impact on our food supply. After bee declines were detected in the 1990s, studies were started to determine whether economically important crops were impacted. They are. The surprise is that even though the European Honey bees seem to be doing better in recent years in some parts of the world, crop yields have not always increased proportionately. Other environmental factors come into play, but there is another pollination issue, any idea what it could be?
An intriguing possibility is that native bees were doing more pollinating that was being studied or detected. Native bees have lost significant habitat in the past decades. Conservation biologists are building on habitat restoration research to see whether augmenting native bee habitat can make a difference.
The next section describes how science knowledge is comprised of concepts, skills, and connections with other disciplines.
Check your knowledge. Can you:
- describe the characteristics of life and list the hierarchy of life from atoms to the Earth’s biosphere?
- define this course’s topics of biodiversity, ecology, and conservation biology, including how they relate to barnacles and bees?
Go back to the Science Discovery Page
Go forward to the Science Knowledge Page
Discovery Lecture Guide Contents
The material from these four pages and the corresponding lecture are assessed on the weekly quiz.
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