Page 314 - Environment: The Science Behind the Stories

(a) Sampling insects in Madagascar

(b) Checking camera traps in Africa

(c) Drawing blood from a Seychelles Magpie Robin (d) Radiotracking birds in Spain
Figure 11.18 Conservation biologists use many approaches to study the loss, protection, and CHAPTER 11 • Bi odiv ER si T y A nd Cons ER vAT i on Bi ology
restoration of biodiversity, seeking to develop scientifically sound solutions.

from the gene pool. Conservation geneticists investigate Studies of genes, populations, and species inform con-
how small a population can become and how much genetic servation efforts with habitats, communities, ecosystems, and
variation it can lose before running into problems such as landscapes. As landscape ecologists know (p. 132), organisms
inbreeding depression (p. 295), whereby genetic similar- may be distributed across a landscape as a metapopulation, or
ity causes parents to produce weak or defective offspring. network of subpopulations. Because small and isolated sub-
By determining a minimum viable population size, con- populations are most vulnerable to extirpation, conservation
servation geneticists help wildlife managers decide how biologists pay special attention to them. By examining how
vital it may be to increase the population. Problems for organisms disperse from one habitat patch to another, and
populations spell problems for species, because declines how their genes flow among subpopulations, conservation
and local extirpation can lead to range-wide endangerment biologists try to learn how likely a population is to persist or
and extinction. succumb in the face of habitat change or other threats. 313

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