Guiding Questions

"If you want to see the Pacific garbage patch go to midway island and look in the stomachs of dead baby albatrosses", Chris Jordan, 2012

• How can we be sure that macroplastic and microplastic debris has accumulated in marine environments.
• What is the impact of marine plastic debris on Laysan albatrosses and one other named species?

Biogeographic factors affect biodiversity

Island Size

The biodiversity of an island is typically proportionate to island size (i.e. larger islands have greater biodiversity)

• Larger islands support a greater range of habitats (and hence more available niches for species to occupy)
• Larger islands can sustain higher population numbers for each species (increases species evenness)
• Larger islands have greater productivity at each trophic level, leading to longer and more stable food chains

Edge Effect

The diversity of species within a given environment changes with proximity to the ecosystem’s boundaries (edge effect)

• Biodiversity may be greater at the border between two ecosystems as different abiotic factors favour certain species
• However certain species may not be able to thrive under these conditions and instead must occupy more central regions
• The effect of edges on biodiversity will be greatly influenced by the particular conditions caused by the ecological disturbance

Conservation: Nature Reserves

Mountain chicken frog

Amphibians populations globally are suffering because of the deadly Chytrid fungus. This Guardian article and video shows the use of captive breeding, i.e. ex situ conservation, and in situ conservation following the release of back into the wild.