Chapter 11 Review Sheet
I. Central Case: Saving the Siberian Tiger A. Up until the past 200 years, tigers roamed widely across the Asian continent from Turkey to northeast Russia to Indonesia. B. Of the tigers that still survive in small pockets of their former range, those in the subspecies known as the Siberian tiger are the largest cats in the world. C. For thousands of years, the Siberian tiger coexisted with the native people of what is today the Russian Far East, who equated the tiger with royalty and viewed it as a guardian. D. The Russians who moved into and exerted control over the region in the early to mid-20th century had no cultural traditions that expressed respect for the animal, leading to the …show more content…
Today, the Siberian tiger population is up to roughly 330 to 370, and 600 more survive in zoos around the world. However, 40% of the tiger’s habitat has disappeared in the last decade.
II. Our Planet of Life A. What is biodiversity? 1. Biological diversity, or biodiversity, is the sum total of all organisms in an area. 2. Biodiversity takes into account the diversity of species, their genes, their populations, and their communities. B. Biodiversity encompasses several levels of life’s organization. 1. Species diversity is expressed in terms of the number or variety of species in the world or in a particular region. a.Taxonomists, the scientists who classify species, use an organism’s physical appearance and genetic makeup to determine to which species it belongs.
b.Speciation, the generation of new species, adds to species diversity, while extinction decrease species diversity. c. Biodiversity exists below the species level in the form of subspecies. 2. Genetic diversity encompasses the differences in DNA composition among individuals within a given species. a. Whether genetic diversity is extremely minor or great enough to warrant subspecies