Current conservation efforts strive to protect entire ecosystems.?

Question

Which of the following is the main reason why emphasis has been placed on the entire ecosystem?

Many species can be preserved at the same time.

An individual species is guaranteed protection from extinction.

Different species can be forced to interact in a particular way.

Natural habitats become immune to change.

Answer 1

Most likelly the first and second ones. Ecosystems are fragile things and if anything upsets them, then they crumble and must be restored. No matter what happens, eventually something will find itself filling whatever role the ecosystem needs to function efficiently.

You can never force species to interact in a particular way without crushing the ecosystem to which they belong and natural habitats are changing all the time and must change all the time in order to survive.

Answer 2

and they keep on failing

Answer 3

Think of an ecosystem as a huge beautiful blanket woven together with the many threads representing all the life in the system. When you cut holes in the blanket it starts to unravel and fall apart. The more you use that damaged blanket the faster it falls a part. Cut it up in little pieces and you have rags... carefully pull certain threads out and the blanket still ends up as a rag.

All living things are connected, just like the threads in a blanket.

If your Grandmother gave you a blanket, would you cut it up for rags? Or try to keep it beautiful and functional to give to your Grandchild some day?

For something to work well, it needs all of it's parts. So I would say that natural habitats are more immune to change than ones that have already been torn up for one reason or another.

Answer 4

An ecosystem based approach is the best way to maintain the viability of many species.  For example in South America they use to harvest guano for fertilizer on islands where thousands of birds nested.  The guano which is bird poo built up in terms of feet every year and lots of people made lots of money.  When we developed other methods of making fertilizer the price of guano fell and the local people started catching the anchovies to sell as fertilizer and feed for animals.  Because anchovies school catches didn’t decrease each year but the schools got smaller.  Eventually after a few years of intense fishing pressure the anchovy’s fishery collapsed.  Similarly the birds that used to live on the island disappeared and there was no more guano.  The anchovies were their because the seas are rich and fertile and the birds ate anchovies.  Once the anchovies were gone so to the birds disappeared.  

Similarly the amount of bird poo that went into the sea was ten times that of which was collected on the land and would have added to the fertility of the sea several fold.  In such situations the entire ecosystem is affected.  Less fish means less birds, less birds means less poo, less poo means less fertilizer into he sea and that reduces the phytoplankton and zooplankton on which the anchovies feed.  Every ecosystem has similar relationships so to focus on the conservation of only selected species is narrow minded and an ecosystem based approach is the only way to truly guarantee survival of many highly food web sensitive species.

This is even more prominent where a particular species is keystone to the functioning of the entire system.  IE otters eat urchins and urchins eat kelp.  Where the otter has been hunted to extinction the kelp has been decimated therefore otters must be protected to ensure the survival of all kelp living species.

Answer 5

I lean towards the protection of many species idea, but think it goes much further than just that element.

Protecting an entire ecosystem has produce a balance that is beneficial for both flora and fauna.  For example; if we manage to get climate change under control, the polar ice shelf will return to its normal reach.  Thus polar bears will start doing better, seal populations will be kept in check, fish stocks will start returning to healthier numbers, etc.

It's amazing on one aspect of a single ecosystem can have such a profound reach.