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Biodiversity | California Academy of Sciences
Course: Biodiversity | California Academy of Sciences > Unit 3
Lesson 1: Biodiversity Hotspots- What is a biodiversity hotspot?
- Biodiversity hotspot case study: California
- Biodiversity hotspot case study: Galapagos
- Biodiversity hotspot case study: Gaoligongshan
- Biodiversity hotspot case study: Madagascar
- Biodiversity hotspot case study: Mesoamerica
- Biodiversity hotspot case study: Philippines
- Biodiversity hotspot case study: Sao Tomé
- A closer look at a California hotspot area
- Test your knowledge: biodiversity hotspots
- Exploration questions: biodiversity hotspots
- Activities: biodiversity hotspots
- Glossary: biodiversity hotspots
- Selected references: biodiversity hotspots
- Answers to the exploration questions: biodiversity hotspots
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Biodiversity hotspot case study: Madagascar
Created by California Academy of Sciences.
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- Evidently, the "damage" we are causing is in all we do--fabricate, consume, waste, destroy. And we are many, perhaps too many. The clock is "ticking", so it may be time to run ahead of how we treat our world. How could we instill population controls in future generations?(4 votes)
- Population control is a 'jump to conclusions' reaction. What we need is better management. With better design and practices the Earth could house even a larger number of people successfully. They won't all have lawns and eat meat 3 times a day though...(1 vote)
- Sir It is possible to create a artificial ozone layer on atmospheter(2 votes)
- Are there any new hotspots?(1 vote)
Video transcript
- My name is Brian Fisher. They call me the Ant Man. I'm the Curator of Entomology at the California Academy of Sciences. Madagascar's not just a hotspot, it's the hottest of hotspots. Madagascar's special because
of its geological history and its geographic placement. Madagascar separated from Africa about 120 million years ago. The end result, Madagascar's been isolated for 80 million years, and that means everything in Madagascar is unique. Everything in Madagascar evolved there. That means all 103 primates, the lemurs, are only found in Madagascar. All 500 species of reptiles,
amphibians, only in Madagascar. 98% of the 1,500 ant
species, only in Madagascar. This unique piece of
this evolutionary puzzle. But that alone doesn't make it a hotspot. We have unique species there, everything is only found there, but also it's under extreme threat. Massive land transformation, huge impacts from climate change, and a high
risk for species extinction. With species extinction, the threat, our only thing we can do
is right now make decisions to either save these remaining
patches or to let them go. We have to make that
decision as a society. We have to now go out and
work with the governments to try to preserve, to develop a system to capture in a conservation
framework, the most diversity.