Loss of Biodiversity Video Lecture | Biology Class 12 - NEET

hi it's mr. Andersen and this is AP
environmental sciences video 35 it's on
the loss of biodiversity way up in
northern Norway is the fall bard
Peninsula and on there scientists built
a giant Seed Vault it's protecting the
seeds of humanity our crop seeds into
the future they chose to put it there
because it's protected against tectonic
activities it's really really cold and
also as the sea levels rise it's going
to be protected as well the idea was
hundreds or thousands of years into the
future we could go there and grab seeds
and then start growing those those crops
again unfortunately we've already had to
make withdrawals from that area and the
reason why is the war in Syria put a lot
of these drought resistant crops at risk
and so they've had to take more seeds
out and they've moved those to Lebanon
but it does kind of get at this idea of
the importance of biodiversity
biodiversity is not only species
diversity but it can be genes species
especially our domesticated crops and
livestock and then ecosystems themselves
and they have value they give us our
resources and they also do these
ecosystem services and they're at risk
we're seeing biodiversity loss all
around the planet the causes are habitat
loss invasive species climate change we
also have overharvesting and then
finally pollution are all impacting
biodiversity and so it's led to
conservation what do we do first we have
to figure out where that biodiversity is
being lost we have to figure out the
conservation status of these organisms
or areas and then finally we can pass
laws and treaties to try to preserve a
lot of that biodiversity and so again
why do we need biodiversity it's where
we get our food is how we filter our
water energy medicine we all get that
from our environment and again our
environment also does these ecosystem
services they keep our climate stable
they decompose material once it's died
they pollinate our crops and so we need
biodiversity on on our planet for
resources and to do these services if we
define what it is it's simply a variety
variety at the genetic level at the
species level and at the ecosystems and
so those genes that organisms have once
the organism is gone or the gene is gone
it's gone forever it's extinct species
as well these are all the fruits found
in
certain area of the tropical rainforest
but also we're talking about the crops
that we have and so I think it used to
be we had around 8,000 different types
of apples that were being grown and now
it's 100 and if you look in your own
supermarket it's way less than that and
then it's ecosystem changes as well once
an ecosystem is gone
coral reefs for example you can't build
that back again and so what is causing
this biodiversity loss well when I was
trying to come up with a quick way for
you to remember these five things I came
up with this mnemonic and so if you
think of the biodiversity cop and if you
think of hi cop as a way to remember it
if we put those in order habitat loss is
the first big impact on biodiversity so
deforestation when we're cutting down
those rainforests and planting crops
right here we're growing soybeans this
is looking from above where we used to
have a tropical rainforest we're
reducing that diversity and we're
replacing it with one simple crop
invasive species this is kudzu it's a
plant that was brought from Asia these
are the zebra mussels in the Great Lakes
that they're really wreaking havoc they
came from the Mediterranean we're also
seeing climate change impacting
biodiversity so if we look at the polar
bear for example will they go extinct
it's hard to tell but if we look at all
the areas where they used to do well
we're seeing a decrease in the optimal
polar bear habitat also or
overharvesting humans have been
harvesting animals for a long period of
time the dodo is extinct because we
killed all of the Dodos and we're also
seeing over harvesting now especially in
our aquatic systems and then we can have
pollution pollutions impacting the
environment as well so if we look at
that Deepwater Horizon explosion that
led to an oil spill which is impacting
biodiversity in the Gulf of Mexico and
it'll take us years to figure out how
that impacts it now this has been going
on for a long period of time extinctions
are part of nature and if we look back
through the fossil record we've seen
five major mass extinctions over time
and they have different causes but most
scientists are pointing to right now as
the sixth mass extinction this is mass
extinction caused by humans we're seeing
extinction rates that we've never seen
before biodiversity loss that we've
never seen before and it's and it's
caused is us and so how do we solve this
problem well the
first step is to identify where the
problem is and so the IUCN International
Union for the Conservation of Nature has
been around for over half a century and
what they've done is come up with these
different statuses extinct extinct in
the wild but would be one where we maybe
have them in a zoo but they don't exist
in the wild then we have critically
endangered endangered and vulnerable
then we have near threatened and finally
areas of least concern and so if you go
on Wikipedia you can look up any animal
or any plan it's going to tell you its
conservation status so for example the
whooping crane are endangered the
California condor is critically
endangered humans you can imagine our an
area of least concern they've then
created this red list where we look at
how many of these species fall into
these threatened or these red categories
if we look at mammals almost twenty
percent or over 20 percent are in this
threat and kind of an area and n fib
Ian's are really at risk and so what do
we do well what we can do is pass laws
so in the US we passed the Endangered
Species Act in 1973 to protect species
and the ecosystems on which they depend
and so it essentially is a list so bald
eagles are a classic example that were
added to the endangered species list and
so they're I think we're around 500
breeding pairs in the lower 48 and now
there's over 10,000 so once they recover
we remove them from that list grizzly
bears were added their population is
coming back in Montana there's a big
debate right now over do we remove them
from the list or not but as also has to
be balanced with human resources as well
so logging for example can impact
certain species that are going to be
found on the endangered species list
we've also seen global changes the
Convention on Biological Diversity in
1992 all of the green countries here
signed on that biodiversity is important
it has an economic import and then we're
going to try to protect it but again
it's not legally binding and so we're
still seeing huge decreases in
biodiversity and it goes back to the
first thing I talked about in this class
the idea that the planet supports
society but society is driven by
economics and so we're never going to
see decreases in biodiversity loss until
there's an economic incentive or a way
to do that and so did you learn the
following could you pause the video at
this point and fill in the blanks well
do that for you biodiversity has value
it's a variety in the genes species and
ecosystems again especially the domestic
ones that we need to survive that loss
is caused by high cop
so that's habitat loss invasive species
climate change over harvesting and
pollution and then how do we solve this
through conservation we figure out the
status of those organisms or maybe those
ecosystems and then we start to protect
them through laws and treaties so that's
it and it's also the last of the videos
on AP environmental sciences so I hope
that was helpful