BIO3082 Lecture Notes - Lecture 1: Holocene Extinction, Restoration Ecology, Methanogenesis
Lecture 1 – Human Impacts on Biodiversity
Global Change Biology
• Causes, effects, responses and mitigation of human-induced environmental
change on biota
Main Anthropogenic Threats to Biodiversity
• Holocene Extinction (ongoing)
o Due to overexploitation and habitat destruction
• Greenhouse gases emitted → climate change
• Pollution, invasive species, increasingly climate change
How Biodiversity Loss Affects Ecosystem Services
• Grasslands have shown that different plant species promote ecosystem
function across time and space
• Little functional redundancy
• Population and consumption growth → global demand for food and water
increases
o More challenging in developing nations
Biological Strategies
• Mitigation strategies
o Strategies that reduce the amount of harm posed on the environment
o Reforestation
o Renewable biofuels
o Methanogenesis inhibitors
o Bioremediation
• Conservation Strategies
o Ecosystem restoration
o Invasive species management
o Assisted colonisation
o Assisted evolution
• Tackling global change depends on interdisciplinary
• Biologists must consider wider social, economic, political and technological
factors
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