Lab 5 Report



Lab 5 Report

Lab Part 1: Taxonomy and Biodiversity

The numbers of species listed in each category in The IUCN Red List of Threatened SpeciesTM change each time the Red List is updated. This is a result of various factors, including species being assessed and added to the Red List for the first time, species being reassessed and moving into a different category of threat, and taxonomic revisions causing the total number of recognised species within a group to change. Summaries of the numbers of species in each Red List Category by taxonomic group and by country are provided here for the current version of The IUCN Red List (Cracraft, 2009, 163-169).

All of the statistics presented in the following tables and figures are for species only (i.e., they do not include subspecies, varieties or geographically isolated subpopulations or stocks). More detailed analyses of specific taxonomic groups and the results of regional assessment projects carried out by IUCN can be found in the Initiatives section.

Biodiversity loss is one of the world's most pressing crises and there is growing global concern about the status of the biological resources on which so much of human life depends. It has been estimated that the current species extinction rate is between 1,000 and 10,000 times higher than it would naturally be (Cracraft, 2009, 163-169).

Many species are declining to critical population levels, important habitats are being destroyed, fragmented, and degraded, and ecosystems are being destabilised through climate change, pollution, invasive species, and direct human impacts. At the same time, there is also growing awareness of how biodiversity supports livelihoods, allows sustainable development and fosters co-operation between nations.

Against the rapidly declining status of freshwater habitats and their species, SSC has established a Freshwater Biodiversity Unit which aims to put in place a factual basis for efforts to conserve and manage freshwater biodiversity (Cracraft, 2009, 163-169). The Unit is conducting a series of regional assessments of the status and distribution of a number of priority groups of freshwater taxa, beginning in Africa.

Lab Part 2: Is the Population too Large?

The top line is the most dramatic, however. It shows that Earth is now inhabited by more than 6,700,000,000 people and that number continues to rise at a staggering rate.

Watch the site and its whirling digits. After a minute the population figure rises by 145, an increase of more than two people per second (Ellenberger, 2010, 1-141).

As the world's population ...