Biodiversity Report
The objective of this activity is to consider the problem of protecting biodiversity by looking at a specific endangered species.
First pick an endangered species – it must be listed on the IUCN redlist as either Endangered or Critically Endangered.
For this species research it and then write a report about the species. You must include the following:
Description of the species
Taxonomic classification of the species
In what region(s) of the world and in what type of habitats/ecosystems are they found?
Why are they endangered?
What ecosystem services does the species provide?
How do we protect the species (be as specific as possible)?
Note that your report must be have at least three references.
More details;
Taxonomy is a branch of science. It is about the laws and principles of classifying things. From one type of taxonomy, many classifications might be produced.
The best-known kind of taxonomy is used for the classification of lifeforms (living and extinct). Each organism has a scientific name. This name is part of the biological classification of that species. The name is the same all over the world, so scientists from different places can understand each other. In addition, a species has a position in the tree of life. Thus the crow is Corvus corone, a member of the Corvidae family, and they are passerine birds. That is well agreed, but the classification of some groups is not agreed at present, and often several classifications are being discussed.
Living things are classified into three domains: bacteria, archaea and eukaryotes. The highest rank in a domain is the kingdom. Each kingdom has many smaller groups in it, called phyla. Each phylum has more smaller groups in it, called classes. This pattern looks like branches on a tree with smaller branches growing from them. Each species is put into a group because of what it does, how and what it eats, special body parts, and so on. At the end of the pattern, the groups (genera) are very small. Then each species in the genus is given its own name.
When someone writes about a living thing and its formal scientific name, they write the genus and species name. This is known as binomial nomenclature, because it uses two names for each organism. The first is the genus name, and the second is the species in that genus. The scientific name of the domestic cat is Felis catus. Sometimes it is enough to write F. catus.
These are the major groups (ranks) used in taxonomy: Kingdom –> Phylum –> Class –> Order –> Family –> Genus –> Species
When people started naming species, Latin was a language widely used in Europe. All species names are still written in Latin. This has some advantages. Since Latin is no longer spoken, it is unchanging, and is owned by no-one. It gets over the problem of every language having its own names for animals and plants.
Scientists used to write the official description of each new species in Latin. On 1 January 2012, the International Botanical Congress changed to allow English (as well as Latin) for describing new plant species. The International Code of Zoological Nomenclature recommends choosing a language that is widely used, and that is used in the places where the species lives.
