Biodiversity Hotspots: New Caledonia

Biodiversity is the variation of life in the world or in a certain habitat. Our group chose the New Caledonia biodiversity hotspot. In order for an are to be claimed as a hotspot it must have at least 0.5% or 1,500 species of vascular plants as endemics and it has to have lost at least 70% of its primary vegetation. Therefore New Caledonia is classified as a hotspot because it contains about 3371 native species of vascular plants and has lost 75% of its original vegetation. Our hotspot is near or occupies New Zealand and Australia. 

New Caledonia is a part of a terrestrial biome with tropical and subtropical dry broad leaf forests. In addition tropical dry forests are apart of it too. Since New Caledonia is an island it's a marine ecosystem. The coral reefs play a big role in New Caledonia because it has the second largest coral reef lagoon in the world. The reef has great species diversity with a high level of endemic species and the reefs are in pretty good health. Here is the food chain/web of the ecosystem: 

Net primary productivity(NPP) is the rate at which plants incorporate atmospheric carbon through photosynthesis. In this biome the NPP is 7,600 kcal/m^2/yr, which means it is high, because it has a lot of forests.

Our hotspot has a wide diversity of species only known to the island. The hotspot is used for different services like commercial fishery and underwater tourism. People coming here can see something that they will never see anywhere else. There is a lot of research on the species and people are being educated about them. By educating people, things like protecting the waves has come in place as a service to the island as well. Humid forests take over most of the biodiversity in this hotspot. They once covered 70% of the land now it only covers 22%. It has many old and ancient species of plant species. An example of some vegetation is maquis plants they are dense, dry shrubs distributed on the land. Most of the soil is poor and there is a lot of sand which takes over about 89% of the island. 2% of the original dry forests(hard-leaf) remain and there is many lowland forests. The freshwater marshes are found in the southern end of the island by mountains. The rarest conifers grow here which means we have to keep them to not being extinct. Mangrove swamps protect the island from waves and saltwater. This is where you can find estuaries and lagoons. This hotspot has different genetic species that are only known to the island. Helping to this is that the island is isolated, giving it some help to keep the species there. Although this one of the smallest hotspots it contains a wide variety of rare birds, fish, invertebrates,reptiles, and mammals. Considering all the species diversity in this hotspot there has been a great deal of degradation the environment. The 3 main things that effected the environment are nickel mining, bush fires, and logging. Unfortunately these things led to deforestation, habitat destruction, erosion of mining, and destruction of streams. As the years go by it becomes harder to restore everything because more of the negative things are effecting the environment then the positive things. After all the discoveries of the rare species more people are hunting and illegally collecting the animals. A couple examples of the rare species are uvea parakeet and horned parakeet. The alien species coming such as fire ants are destroying and killing the ecosystem. New Caledonia is a small isolated Island which means it's vulnerable for introduced species to take over. These new species have taken a toll on the native species, resulting in the decrease of native species.In the 1995 the population density was only about 30 per kilometer, while in the next 5 years the growth rate was increasing by 2.3%. This is a very large increase in population which is bad for the biodiversity hotspot. More and more people will start cutting down the forests(habitats of the species) which will cause extinction. The habitats will continue to degrade as ecosystems dominated by humans expand. So far humans have reduced the original vegetation by 75%.Open cast mines are scraping out soil to access ores wipes out flora. Resulting from that came dramatic soil erosion, which lead to metal-rich sediment transport downstream into rivers and the lagoon.Deforestation from logging, mining, uncontrolled fires, and tourism all increase pressure on the ecosystems by destroying important habitat. The more mining is doing better,more people will come and try to mine more which is hurting the forests.There's not really many "endangered" species, they're extinct or still there. Two examples of endangered species are the new Caledonian imperial-pigeon and the phosphorus bocourti-lizard. The lizard was discovered by a single man in 1870, and rediscovered in 2003, there is not many around. There is two confirmed extinct birds named the larkeet, which was named extinct in 1913 and the rail which was named extinct in the 20th century. There is different types of conversations being implemented to try and restore the ecosystems, but one stands out the most and it is called the ICUN. The ICUN plans and manages the decisions on the land. The assessments are used to list protected species, population size, growth rate, population fluctuations, habitat fragmentation and range size. Since this plan is time consuming and sometimes the data isn't there to assess, there is another thing called narrow endemics species( NES). This is where people distribute the narrow endemic species to see where the issues are coming from. This NES assessment can then help with more detailed looks at individual species.The image below shows the map of protected NES in the hotspot:

New Caledonia is one of the smallest hotspots in the world with 6,900 sq.miles of land, made up of reefs,atolls,small islands,humid forests, maquises, dry forests, and freshwater lakes and streams. It has a wide variety of plant and animal biodiversity, consisting of ancient plant species, fish, birds,mammals,etc. However the New Caledonia ecosystem is degrading from human intervention involving mining for nickel, bush fires, logging, poaching, and invasive species. Human population growth is causing an environmental footprint on the ecosystem, causing the cutting down of forests to make room for living. I learned that it is not as easy to restore or think of ways to preserve the area as I thought it would be. For example there is always a negative part of a plan like in the ICUN it is too slow or there isn't data to be found. Then with the NES, that's only a small part of the conservation process there is so much more to do to try and save the hotspot. Hopefully the ICUN and NES could work together to help protect this biodiversity hotspot. 

Miller, Tyler G. and Spoolman Scott E. Living in the Environment (17th Edition). (pp. 65-66) Belmont, California: Brooks/Cole Cengage Learning, 2012. Print.

 

Themes, Elegant. "Great Barrier Reef Food Web." Great Barrier Reef Australia. N.p., n.d. Web. 08 Dec. 2014.

Wulff, Adrien. Conservation Priorities in a Biodiversity Hotspot: Analysis of Narrow Endemic Plant Species in New Caledonia, Web. 7 Dec. 2014. ‹http://www.plosone.org/article/info%3Adoi%2F10.1371%2Fjournal.pone.0073371#abstract0›.

Learning About Food Webs and Energy Pyramids Summary

Our planet is made up of food webs and energy pyramids. These are essential for us and other organisms to live. Most organisms gather energy by consuming what they eat, which in turn leads to the definition of food chains. Food chains form links of trophic levels that show the sequence of who eats who in an ecosystem(Environmental Issues.) Once you put together a group of food chains, you make a food web. Food webs are more complex in showing interactions then food chains(Living in the Environment.) Food webs show scientists how energy move through an ecosystem. As energy goes from one organism to another it is lost each time. This leads us into the energy pyramid. In which our autotrophs(producers)are the base, because they are self eaters. They gather energy from the sun. The next three levels are heterotrophs(primary,secondary, and tertiary consumers), they consume energy by eating other autotrophs or other consumers. When an organism dies it is eaten by detrivores and broken down by decomposers. Since each level loses energy the tertiary level usually has a small supply of remaining energy(Environmental Issues.) Food webs and energy pyramids interact together to show us how everything is connected,as energy flows through the trophic levels in an ecosystem(Living in the Environment.) 

In class we made our own food webs to help us see how complicated the interactions are in food webs. As you can see each producer(the bottom level) connects to all of the above levels. Each level seems to eat everything the other level does, but in reality the higher the level the less energy consumed. 10% of energy is only obtained at each level, which means the remaining is lost as heat. The alligator, eagle, and panther get to eat anything beneath them but they don't get much energy. The scavenger level(decomposers,top level after tertiary) absorb nutrients from dead waste from other animals. This habitat would probably have more producers because they grow faster. 

Biomes are the worlds major communities, distinguished by climate, animals, and plants.Most scientists say there are five biomes:aquatic, desert, forest, grassland, and tundra(Environmental Issues.) These biomes are divided into habitats which is a place where an organism lives. My food web fits into the forest habitat the best. These animals can fit into the three forests of temperate, boreal, and tropical. Each one has different characteristics that the animals can fit into. The animals wouldn't be able to fit anywhere else, because they are too wet, too dry, or too cold. Through this activity, I visually saw how complicated food webs can be and how not every animal lives in the same biome, they are differentiated into different habitats.  

Frey Scientific. Environmental Issues and Solutions Module Curriculum Guide. Nashua, New Hampshire: Frey Scientific, 2013. Print

Miller, Tyler G. and Spoolman Scott E. Living in the Environment (17th Edition). (pp. 63-64) Belmont, California: Brooks/Cole Cengage Learning, 2012. Print.

Ecological Footprint Summary

Throughout the "Ecological Footprint Web Activity" you learn all about an ecological footprint. An ecological footprint is a measure of human demand on nature. Scientists keep track of ecological footprints by using technology to see how much an individual requires to produce all the resources it consumes and to absorb the waste materials it generates. If we keep using so many resources in a certain amount of time we wont have enough land and water to regenerate everything right of way. It would take years to get everything back.

When I was looking at the graph of Americas ecological footprint and the graph of Colombia's ecological footprint I noticed that America consumes way more then we produce, and that Colombia's bio-capacity and ecological footprint are low, which means that Colombia's sustainability will be way better then Americas in the future. When I calculated my own ecological footprint, it told me if everyone used the amount of resources I do, that it would take 5.8 planet earths to be able to generate all the waster materials. This activity has taught me that everyone in the US should take in a count that we don't have everlasting materials, we need to give them time to regenerate which means, we need to use less resources each year.