Post Reading Discussion: Sustaining Aquatic Biodiversity

1. Post Reading Discussion: Sustaining Aquatic Biodiversity Chapter 11 (Miller and Spoolman, 2009)

2. 2a. Describe three general patterns of marine biodiversity. (p. 250)

3. 2b. Why is biodiversity higher (a) near coasts than in the open sea and (b) on the ocean’s bottoms than at its surface? (p. 250)

4. 3c. Describe the effects of trawler fishing, purse seine fishing, longlining, and driftnet fishing. (p. 256) Fig. 11-7, p. 256

5. 8b. What are three major ecological services provided by wetlands? (pp. 265-66)

6. 4b. Describe international efforts to protect whales from overfishing and premature extinction. (p. 258) Fig. 11-9, p. 259 Fig. 11-8, p. 258

7. 9a. Describe the major threats to the world’s rivers and other freshwater systems. (pp. 269 and 270) Fig. 11-15, p. 269

8. 9b. What major ecological services do rivers provide? (p. 270) Fig. 11-16, p. 270

9. 6a. Describe and discuss the limitations of three ways to estimate the sizes of fish populations. (p. 263)

10. 6d. How can government subsidies encourage overfishing? (p. 264)

11. 8a. What percent of the U.S. coastal and inland wetlands has been destroyed since 1900? 8c. How does the U.S. attempt to reduce wetland losses? (pp. 265-66) Fig. 11-13, p. 267

12. 4c. Describe the threats to sea turtles and efforts to protect them. (pp. 259-60) Fig. 11-10, p. 260

13. 5a. Describe the use of marine protected areas and marine reserves to help sustain aquatic biodiversity and ecosystem services. (pp. 260-61)

14. 5c. Describe the roles of fishing communities and individual consumers in regulating fishing and coastal development. (p. 262)

15. 3a. What is fishprint? (p. 254)How has the modern fish industry affected large predatory fish? (p. 255)

16. 7. Describe how consumers can help to sustain fisheries, aquatic biodiversity, and economic systems by making careful choices in purchasing seafood? (p. 265)

17. 5d. What is integrated coastal management? (pp. 262-63)

18. 10a. What are six priorities for protecting terrestrial and aquatic biodiversity? (pp. 272-73)

19. 2f. How does climate change threaten aquatic biodiversity? (p. 254)

20. 1b. Describe how human activities have upset ecological processes in East Africa’s Lake Victoria? (pp. 249 and 253)

21. Interpret this photograph. Fig. 11-A, p. 253

22. Interpret this photograph.

23. Interpret the photographs. Fig. 11-3, p. 251

24. Figure 11.6Natural capital degradation: this graph illustrates the collapse of the cod fishery in the northwest Atlantic offthe Canadian coast. Beginning in the late 1950s, fishers used bottom trawlers to capture more of the stock, reflected in the sharp rise in this graph. This resulted in extreme overexploitation of the fishery, which began a steady fall throughout the 1970s, followed by a slight recovery in the 1980s and total collapse by 1992 when the site was closed to fishing. Canadian attempts to regulate fishing through a quota system had failed to stop the sharp decline. The fishery was reopened on a limited basis in 1998 but then closed indefinitely in 2003. (Data from Millennium Ecosystem Assessment)

25. What are some ways to manage fisheries more sustainably and protect marine biodiversity and ecosystem services? Which four of these solutions do you think are the most important? Why? Fig. 11-12, p. 265