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Biodiversity | California Academy of Sciences

Course: Biodiversity | California Academy of Sciences > Unit 3

Lesson 1: Biodiversity Hotspots

Biodiversity hotspot case study: Madagascar

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Created by California Academy of Sciences.

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cbarahona751
Posted 10 years ago. Direct link to cbarahona751's post “Evidently, the "damage" w...”
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?
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- Alex
  Posted 9 years ago. Direct link to Alex's post “Population control is a '...”
  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...
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Mani Worldian
Posted 6 years ago. Direct link to Mani Worldian's post “Sir It is possible to cre...”
Sir It is possible to create a artificial ozone layer on atmospheter
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sweetie31
Posted 9 years ago. Direct link to sweetie31's post “Are there any new hotspot...”
Are there any new hotspots?
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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.