23: Conservation Biology
- Page ID
- 69928
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- Understand and explain the scientific process as related to conservation biology
- Be able to put the current biodiversity crisis in a historical perspective
- Identify and understand the main threats to biodiversity
- Show an understanding of the importance of biodiversity to human life
- Explain how biodiversity loss can be stopped, or slowed
Biodiversity is declining rapidly at a global scale, leading to a human-caused sixth mass extinction. Conservation biology aims to document earth's biological diversity, to understand how humans impact this diversity, and to explore potential solutions to biodiversity decline. The major current threats to biodiversity include habitat loss, overexploitation, invasive species, pollution, and climate change - habitat loss is the most important, particularly in terrestrial habitats, and has lead to around 50% of all biodiversity loss. Preserving biodiversity has numerous benefits to humans through the protection of ecosystem services.