Abstract
The Earth’s biodiversity includes the entire range of living species (species diversity), the genetic variation that occurs among individuals within a species (genetic diversity), and, at a higher level, the biological communities in which species live and their associations with the physical and chemical environment (ecosystem diversity). A disproportionately large amount of the world’s biodiversity is hosted by tropical forests, coral reefs, and Mediterranean-type ecosystems. For practical purposes, most ecologists and conservationists identify species in the field according to their morphology, although improvements in genetic techniques are allowing more species to be identified according to their evolutionary past, revealing many cryptic species that people did not realise were there. There are several ways to measure and compare this biodiversity. The most popular of which is species richness in a particular community, such as a forest or grassland (alpha diversity), species richness across a larger landscape, such as a mountain range (gamma diversity), and the rate of change of species composition as one crosses a large region (beta diversity). Patterns of species richness are affected by variation in climate, topography, and geological age. Geological age and complexity provide environmental variation, which in turn allows opportunities for genetic isolation, local adaptation, and speciation, given enough time. It is estimated that there may be as many as 2 billion species on Earth, most of which already described are insects, while the best-known species include birds and mammals. The majority, however, still need to be discovered.
Highlights
Introduction to SubSaharan Africa2.1 Sub-Saharan Africa’s Natural Environment2.2 History of Conservation in Sub-Saharan Africa2.4 Ongoing Conservation Challenges p. 24 p. 29 p. 37 p. 44
Some impacts are an unavoidable consequence of human activities; vast resources are currently invested in finding ways to mitigate those impacts
Many threatened species continue to be illegally exploited in an unsustainable manner; in the worst cases, the profits from poaching are funding human-rights atrocities and organised criminal networks
Summary
Box 1.2 The Okapi Wildlife Reserve: Protecting Nature and Providing for People 14 Rosmarie Ruf & Marcel Enckoto. Box 5.1 The Importance of Liberia’s Forest Network to the Survival of the Pygmy Hippopotamus. Box 5.3 Migratory Birds of Africa: The Largest of the Last Great Migrations? Box 6.1 Does Oil Palm Agriculture Threaten Biological Diversity in Equatorial Africa?. Box 8.3 Fenced Reserves Conserving Cheetahs and African Wild Dogs in South Africa. Box 11.1 The Overlooked Role of Behavioural Ecology in the Conservation of African Mammals. Box 12.3 Thoughts on Poaching and Illegal Wildlife Trafficking in Sub-Saharan Africa. Box 13.3 Marine Protected Areas in East Africa and the Western Indian Ocean 481 Abraham J. Box 14.2 Importance of Protected Areas in Cities: Insights from the City of Cape Town. Box 15.3 Tracking Species in Space and Time: Citizen Science in Africa Phoebe Barnard
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