Reasons for Conservation | Biology for GCSE/IGCSE - Year 11 PDF Download

Reasons for Conservation

There are numerous reasons why conservation programs are crucial:

• Maintaining or increasing biodiversity: This helps ecosystems stay balanced and robust.
• Reducing extinction: Preserving iconic species and safeguarding biodiversity.
• Protecting vulnerable ecosystems: Preventing rapid loss due to human activities.
• Maintaining ecosystem functions: Ensuring processes like nutrient cycling, such as carbon cycling, to mitigate climate change.
• Resource provision:
  • Food security: Ensuring an adequate food supply for the population.
  • Medicinal resources: Access to plants for natural remedies and pharmaceuticals.
  • Fuel sources: Essential for activities like cooking and heating.
  • Genetic diversity: Preserving wide gene pools and varied genetic material in all species.

Conservation Techniques

• Certain methods help in preserving biodiversity.
• Artificial Insemination: Artificial insemination enables the production of a large number of offspring without the need for natural mating.
• In Vitro Fertilisation: IVF permits the use of gametes with specific alleles to ensure genetic diversity in future generations.
• Known Alleles: Known alleles refer to specific genetic variants that can be intentionally selected for in breeding programs.

Risks to a Species

• Reduced Genetic Variation: Diminished genetic diversity makes a species less adaptable to varying environmental conditions.
• More Susceptible: Species with reduced genetic variation are more prone to negative impacts from environmental shifts.
• Less Resilient and Risk of Extinction: A species becomes less resilient and faces an increased risk of extinction when genetic diversity is low.