Aquatic biodiversity and Biogeography

The biodiversity of life in marine and freshwaters will be introduced, including how species-rich these environments are compared to land, alternative measures of biodiversity, and why confusion on how many species may exist complicate estimates of extinction rates.

Biogeography is the science of how the Earth’s history and present environment determines speciation, habitat diversity and biodiversity patterns. It provides both a theoretical basis for understanding how biodiversity evolved and has applications in deciding where to have nature reserves, the spread of invasive species, and predicting the effects of climate change.

Key theories, hypotheses, rules and concepts presented include: Island Biogeography, continental drift, connectivity, dispersal, gene flow, Mid-domain model, Rapport’s, Bejernick’s (= Bass -Becking), endemicity, realms, biomes, ecosystems, habitats, deep-sea diversity, environmental niche, effects and causes of mass extinctions.

How leading biodiversity informatics resources have developed and can be used, including the Global Biodiversity Information Facility, Ocean Biodiversity Information System, FishBase and AquaMaps, will be explained. Practical exercises will involve students using these resources to study selected species they are interested in, e.g., if threatened, charismatic, important food species, pest species, keystone. The use of categorical data analysis methods, such as multi-variate cluster and neural network analyses, will be demonstrated.