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http://www.nap.edu/catalog/4901.html We ship printed books within 1 business day; personal PDFs are available immediately. Biodiversity II: Understanding and Protecting Our Biological Resources Marjorie L. Reaka-Kudla, Don E. Wilson, and Edward O. Wilson, Editors; A Joseph Henry Press book ISBN: 0-309-52075-4, 560 pages, 6 x 9, (1997) This PDF is available from the Joseph Henry Press at: http://www.nap.edu/catalog/4901.html Visit the Joseph Henry Press online to see more top quality, general interest science books: • Read books online, free • Explore our innovative research tools • Sign up to be notified when new books are published • Purchase printed books • Purchase PDFs The Joseph Henry Press, an imprint of the National Academies Press, was created with the goal of publishing well-crafted, authoritative books on science, technology, and health for the science-interested general public. All Joseph Henry Press books go through scientific review before being published. The opinions expressed in this book are solely that of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the views of the National Academies. Thank you for downloading this PDF. If you have comments, questions or just want more information about the books published by the National Academies Press and the Joseph Henry Press, you may contact our customer service department toll-free at 888-624-8373, visit us online, or send an email to [email protected]. This book plus many more are available at http://www.jhpress.org. Copyright © All rights reserved. Distribution, posting, or copying is strictly prohibited without written permission of the National Academies Press. Request reprint permission for this book. Biodiversity II: Understanding and Protecting Our Biological Resources http://www.nap.edu/catalog/4901.html Copyright © National Academy of Sciences. All rights reserved. Biodiversity II: Understanding and Protecting Our Biological Resources http://www.nap.edu/catalog/4901.html Copyright © National Academy of Sciences. All rights reserved. Biodiversity II: Understanding and Protecting Our Biological Resources http://www.nap.edu/catalog/4901.html Contents INTRODUCTION 1 Introduction 1 Edward O. Wilson PART I. THE MEANING AND VALUE OF BIODIVERSITY 2 Biodiversity: What Is It? 7 Thomas E. Lovejoy 3 Biodiversity: Why Is It Important? 15 Ruth Patrick PART II. PATTERNS OF THE BIOSPHERE: HOW MUCH BIODIVERSITY IS THERE? 4 Biodiversity at Its Utmost: Tropical Forest Beetles 27 Terry L. Erwin 5 Measuring Global Biodiversity and Its Decline 41 Nigel E. Stork 6 Butterfly Diversity and a Preliminary Comparison with Bird and Mammal Diversity 69 Robert K. Robbins and Paul A. Opler 7 The Global Biodiversity of Coral Reefs: A Comparison with Rain Forests 83 Marjorie L. Reaka-Kudla 8 Common Measures for Studies of Biodiversity: Molecular Phylogeny in the Eukaryotic Microbial World 109 Mitchell L. Sogin and Gregory Hinkle iii Copyright © National Academy of Sciences. All rights reserved. iv / BIODIVERSITY II PART III. THREATS TO BIODIVERSITY: Biodiversity II: Understanding and Protecting Our BiologicalWHAT HAVEResources WE LOST AND WHAT MIGHT WE LOSE? http://www.nap.edu/catalog/4901.html 9 The Rich Diversity of Biodiversity Issues 125 Norman Myers 10 Human-Caused Extinction of Birds 139 David W. Steadman 11 Global Warming and Plant Species Richness: A Case Study of the Paleocene/Eocene Boundary 163 Scott L. Wing 12 Plant Response to Multiple Environmental Stresses: Implications for Climatic Change and Biodiversity 187 Irwin N. Forseth PART IV. UNDERSTANDING AND USING BIODIVERSITY 13 Names: The Keys to Biodiversity 199 F. Christian Thompson 14 Systematics: A Keystone to Understanding Biodiversity 213 Ruth Patrick 15 Biodiversity and Systematics: Their Application to Agriculture 217 Douglass R. Miller and Amy Y. Rossman 16 Snout Moths: Unraveling the Taxonomic Diversity of a Speciose Group in the Neotropics 231 M. Alma Solis 17 Phylogeny and Historical Reconstruction: Host-Parasite Systems as Keystones in Biogeography and Ecology 243 Eric P. Hoberg 18 Comparative Behavioral and Biochemical Studies of Bowerbirds and the Evolution of Bower-Building 263 Gerald Borgia PART V. BUILDING TOWARD A SOLUTION: NEW DIRECTIONS AND APPLICATIONS 19 Microbial Biodiversity and Biotechnology 279 Rita R. Colwell 20 The Impact of Rapid Gene Discovery Technology on Studies of Evolution and Biodiversity 289 Carol J. Bult, Judith A. Blake, Mark D. Adams, Owen White, Granger Sutton, Rebecca Clayton, Anthony R. Kerlavage, Chris Fields, and J. Craig Venter Copyright © National Academy of Sciences. All rights reserved. CONTENTS / v 21 Initial Assessment of Character Sets from Five Nuclear Biodiversity II: Understanding and Protecting OurGene Biological Sequences Resources in Animals 301 http://www.nap.edu/catalog/4901.html Timothy P. Friedlander, Jerome C. Regier, and Charles Mitter 22 Gap Analysis for Biodiversity Survey and Maintenance 321 J. Michael Scott and Blair Csuti 23 Conservation of Biodiversity in Neotropical Primates 341 James M. Dietz 24 Using Marine Invertebrates to Establish Research and Conservation Priorities 357 James D. Thomas 25 Ecological Restoration and the Conservation of Biodiversity 371 William R. Jordan, III 26 Tropical Sustainable Development and Biodiversity 389 Patrick Kangas 27 Wildland Biodiversity Management in the Tropics 411 Daniel H. Janzen PART VI. GETTING THE JOB DONE: INSTITUTIONAL, HUMAN, AND INFORMATIONAL INFRASTRUCTURE 28 Taxonomic Preparedness: Are We Ready to Meet the Biodiversity Challenge? 435 Quentin D. Wheeler and Joel Cracraft 29 Museums, Research Collections, and the Biodiversity Challenge 447 Leslie J. Mehrhoff 30 Resources for Biodiversity in Living Collections and the Challenges of Assessing Microbial Biodiversity 467 Richard O. Roblin 31 Integration of Data for Biodiversity Initiatives 475 David F. Farr and Amy Y. Rossman 32 Information Management for Biodiversity: A Proposed U.S. National Biodiversity Information Center 491 Bruce L. Umminger and Steve Young PART VII. CONCLUSIONS 33 Santa Rosalia, the Turning of the Century, and a New Age of Exploration 507 Marjorie L. Reaka-Kudla, Don E. Wilson, and Edward O. Wilson Photo Credits 525 Index 527 Copyright © National Academy of Sciences. All rights reserved. Biodiversity II: Understanding and Protecting Our Biological Resources http://www.nap.edu/catalog/4901.html Copyright © National Academy of Sciences. All rights reserved. Biodiversity II: Understanding and Protecting Our Biological Resources http://www.nap.edu/catalog/4901.html Copyright © National Academy of Sciences. All rights reserved. Biodiversity II: Understanding and Protecting Our Biological Resources http://www.nap.edu/catalog/4901.html Copyright © National Academy of Sciences. All rights reserved. Biodiversity II: Understanding and Protecting Our Biological Resources http://www.nap.edu/catalog/4901.html CHAPTER 1 Introduction EDWARD O. WILSON Pellegrino University Professor, Museum of Comparative Zoology, Harvard University, Cambridge, Massachusetts “Biodiversity,” the term and concept, has been a remarkable event in recent cultural evolution: 10 years ago the word did not exist, except perhaps through occasional idiosyncratic use. Today it is one of the most commonly used expres- sions in the biological sciences and subsequently has become a household word. It was born “BioDiversity” during the National Forum on BioDiversity, held in Washington, D.C., on September 21-24, 1986, under the auspices of the National Academy of Sciences and the Smithsonian Institution. The proceedings of the forum, published in 1988 under the title BioDiversity (later to be cited with less than bibliographical accuracy by most authors as Biodiversity), became a best- seller for the National Academy Press. By the summer of 1992, as a key topic of the Rio environmental summit meeting, biodiversity had moved to center stage as one of the central issues of scientific and political concern world-wide. So what is it? Biologists are inclined to agree that it is, in one sense, every- thing. Biodiversity is defined as all hereditarily based variation at all levels of organization, from the genes within a single local population or species, to the species composing all or part of a local community, and finally to the communi- ties themselves that compose the living parts of the multifarious ecosystems of the world. The key to the effective analysis of biodiversity is the precise defini- tion of each level of organization when it is being addressed. Even though the study of biodiversity can be traced back as far as Aristotle, what finally has given it such extraordinarily widespread attention is the real- ization that it is disappearing. In the late 1970s and through the 1980s, the first convincing estimates were made of the rate of tropical deforestation, which translates to the areal loss of habitat where most of living diversity is concen- 1 Copyright © National Academy of Sciences. All rights reserved. Biodiversity II: Understanding and Protecting Our Biological Resources http://www.nap.edu/catalog/4901.html 2 / BIODIVERSITY II trated. This information led to disturbingly high estimates of the rates of loss of species in these forests. The magnitude of erosion also drew attention to ongo- ing extinction in other habitats, from deserts to coral reefs, at all levels of bio- logical organization from alleles to entire local ecosystems. It became clear that the decline of Earth’s biodiversity was serious. Worse, unlike toxic pollution and ozone depletion, it cannot be reversed.