How would you feel if there

are ants in your

environment?
How would you feel if there
are no more ants in your
environment?
Soil Aeration
Ants take seeds down into
their tunnel to eat the
nutritious elaiosomes that are
part of the seed. These seeds
often sprout and grow new
plants (seed dispersal).

soil fertility
Ecological Balance
Efficient cleaners!
Ants act
as decomposers by
feeding on organic waste,
insects or other dead
animals. They help keep
the environment clean.

Ants eat and are eaten

Ants are predators of other insects and their eggs.
In their natural habitat, they are a source of food
for many invertebrates and vertebrates, including
woodpeckers and other insectivorous insects.
•Anteaters that feed only on
ants

•Young bear cubs that love to

feed on ants
•Aardvark, pangolins, and
skunks that feed specifically
on ant colonies

•Insects, including
spiders and phorid
flies, feed on ants
•Woodpeckers, turkeys, starlings, hummingbirds, flickers,
antpittas, grouse, and sparrows prey on ants.
•One interesting fact is that humans too prey on ants for
their nutrition as a source of protein.
Extinction
 What is Extinction?
➢ Extinction
occurs when the last existing
member of a given species dies
⚫ In other words…there aren’t any more left!
➢ Itis a scientific certainty when there are
not any surviving individuals left to
reproduce
➢ Functional Extinction
⚫ Only a handful of individuals are left
⚫ Odds of reproduction are slim
 Causes of Extinction
➢ Genetics and Demographics
⚫ Small populations = increased risk
⚫ Mutations
• Causes a flux in natural selection
• Beneficial genetic traits are overruled
⚫ Loss of Genetic Diversity
• Shallow gene pools promote massive inbreeding
 Causes Con’t.
➢ Habitat Degradation
⚫ One of the most
influential
⚫ Has many causes
⚫ Some due to humans
⚫ Some due to other
factors
Habitat Degradation
 Habitat Degradation
➢ Toxicity
⚫ Kills off species directly through food/water
⚫ Indirectly via sterilization
⚫ Can occur in short spans (a single generation)
⚫ Can occur over several generations
• Increasing toxicity
• Increasing competition for habitat resources
Mine Tailings
Spill

elevated concentrations of
toxic HM such as arsenic
(As), cadmium (Cd), nickel
(Ni), lead (Pb), copper (Cu),
zinc (Zn), cobalt (Co) and
mercury (Hg)
Oil Spill
 Habitat Degradation
➢ Destruction of Habitat
⚫ “Save the Rainforests!”
⚫ Elimination of living space
⚫ Change in habitat
• Rainforest to pasture lands
⚫ Leads to diminishing resources
• Increases competition
⚫ Can be caused by natural processes
• Volcanoes, floods, drought, etc…
 Causes Con’t.
➢ Predation
⚫ Competition
⚫ Disease
➢ Coextinction
➢ Mass Extinction
➢ Planned Extinction
 Predation

➢ Introduction of predators
⚫ Invasive alien species
⚫ Transported by humans
• Cattle, rats, zebra muscles, etc…
• Sometimes on purpose, sometimes not
⚫ Can eat other species
⚫ Eat food sources
⚫ Introduce diseases
 Coextinction
➢ The loss of one species leads to the loss
of another
➢ Chain of extinction
➢ Can be caused by small impacts in the
beginning
➢ A predator looses its food source
➢ Affected by interconnectedness in nature
 Mass Extinction
➢ Aka: an extinction event
➢ A sharp decrease in the number of species
on Earth in a short period of time
➢ Coincides with a sharp drop in speciation
⚫ The process by which new biological species
arise
➢ There have been at least 5
⚫ Last one was 65M years ago
Mass Extinction Diagram
 Mass Extinction
➢ Nearly2/3rds (or more) of all animal
species that ever existed on the planet are
now gone.
• With contemporary extinction being attributed to
HUMAN activity.

➢ Numerous factors go into the extinction of

a specific species.
• Though all point the finger to climate change.
 Mass Extinction
➢ Began about three-million years ago
(Continental Glaciations).

➢ Hypotheses for initial extinction:

• Sea level depletion vs. Temperature decrease

➢ Though these hypotheses aren’t mutually

exclusive, they may have conspired
together.
 Planned Extinction
➢ Human controlled
➢ Thought of to help humans
➢ Deadly viruses
⚫ Smallpox
• Extinct in the wild
⚫ Polio
• Near extinct (only in small parts of the world)
Natural Causes of
Extinction
Climatic Heating and Cooling
 Changes in Sea Level or Currents

➢ www.johnstonsarchive.net/spaceart/cylmaps.html
 Asteroids

➢ Causes complete
devastation
➢ Flattening and crater at
or around impact site-
hundreds of miles wide
➢ Reverberations felt around
the world
 Cosmic Radiation

➢ www.iit.edu/~ipro313s/home.html
 Acid Rain
➢ Kills
acid intolerant
species
Disease/Epidemics
➢ Can wipe out entire
species
➢ Frog with fungus
disease
➢ Killing frogs and other
amphibians
Spread of Invasive Species
Natural factors usually occur at a slower
rate and therefore cause a low extinction
rate. Human activities occur at a faster
rate and cause higher extinction rates.
Human activities are mostly responsible
for the present extinction rates.

http://www.gov.mb.ca/conservation/sustain/extinct.pdf
IUCN Red List
IUCN Red List
IUCN Red List
IUCN Red List
IUCN Red List
IUCN Red List
 References
➢ Ceballos, G., and Ehrlich, P., 2002, Mammal Population Losses and the Extinction
Crisis:
➢ Science, v. 296, p. 904-908.
➢ Fahrig, L., 2002, Effect of Habitat Fragmentation on the Extinction Threshold: A
➢ Synthesis: Ecological Applications, v. 12, p. 346-353.
➢ Gittleman, J., The Risk of Extinction—What you don’t know will hurt you: Science, v.
291.
➢ Petcchey, O.L., and Gaston, K.J., Extinction and the loss of functional diversity: They
Royal
➢ Society, p. 1721-1727.
➢ Rutledge, D., Lepczyk, C., Xie, J., Liu, J., 2001, Spatiotemporal Dynamics of
Endangered
➢ Species Hotspots in the United States: Conservation Biology, v. 15, p. 475- 487.
➢ Kent, Holsinger. "The Causes of Extinction." 27 Aug. 2005. 12 Mar. 2007
<http://darwin.eeb.uconn.edu/eeb310/lecture-notes/extinctions/node3.html>.
➢ Madeley, J., Warnock, K., 1995, Biodiversity: A Matter of Extinction: The challenge of
protecting the South’s biological heritage <http://www.panos.org.uk/pdf/reports/
biodiversity.pdf>.
➢ Trombulak, Stpehen C., et. Al. 2004, Principles of Conservation Biology: Recommended
➢ Guidelines for Conservation Literacy from the Education Committee of the Society for
➢ Bald Eagle. US Fish and Wildlife Service <http://www.fws.gov/endangered/i/b/msab0h.html>.
➢ Conservation Biology: Conservation Biology
<http://www.conbio.org/Resources/Education/conservation_literacy_english.pdf>.
➢ Extinction. Lecture by Bruce Walsh at University of Arizona, 1995.
➢ <http://nitro.biosci.arizona.edu/courses/EEB105/lectures/extinction/extinction.html>.
 References
Trombulak, Stpehen C., et. Al. 2004, Principles of Conservation
Biology: Recommended
Guidelines for Conservation Literacy from the Education
Committee of the Society for
Bald Eagle. US Fish and Wildlife Service
<http://www.fws.gov/endangered/i/b/msab0h.html>.
Conservation Biology: Conservation Biology
<http://www.conbio.org/Resources/Education/conservation_literac
y_english.pdf>.
Extinction. Lecture by Bruce Walsh at University of Arizona, 1995.
<http://nitro.biosci.arizona.edu/courses/EEB105/lectures/extinctio
n/extinction.html>.