SA. 3. (10 pts) The Sumatran Tiger is an endangered species. All remaining membe
ID: 269473 • Letter: S
Question
SA. 3. (10 pts) The Sumatran Tiger is an endangered species. All remaining members of this species live in one population found in Sumatra. Because there are only 600 individuals of this species left, the genetic diversity is very low A) Describe one reason why low genetic diversity may have a negative effect on the population. B) If you were trying to make a management plan for this species, why would knowing about the species' life history traits (r/K strategies) be useful? C) What other information would you need to know about this species in order to create a management plan? List and explain at least 2 things. D) If you are trying to save this species from extinction, describe one action you would take and explain your answer. E) How would you justify the conservation of this species to the public or government officials? Be specific Bonus SA (2.5 pts). Create a phylogenetic tree of the following groups based on your knowledge of when they first appear in the fossil record: amphibians, dinosaurs, arthropods, fish, humans. FOR PARTIAL CREDIT (1 pt)-draw a time-line of when the above organisms enter the fossil record 18Explanation / Answer
A. Species having higher genetic diversity have low risk of inbreeding depression. Availability and breeding option created by heterozygotes will offer increase fitness to the population too. Since these factors play well for high genetic diversity population, it will have better evolutionary potential. However, when a species having low genetic diversity is considered, the available resources in terms of mating alleles will be reduced and, in few cases, nearing allele fixing. This may lead to extinction of a type of population and the species may experience what is called the bottleneck effect. This shows that low genetic density is not a normal state considering a healthy species. However, this situation will arise only when a population has faced extreme contraction for long time and has resulted in lowering the heterozygosity of the system (which is practically difficult to happen but is a theoretically assumed state). If a species shows low reproductive output and overlapping generations with small colony size, then conditions may lead to inbreeding and genetic drifts within colonies. This is again an unhealthy approach and may have negative impact on the original population and species.
B. Life history traits are important to be known so as to have understanding of the way clades are linked to their environment. It would rather be simple to understand the disturbances and patterns of responses within communities and extended further to related taxa. Population demographic variables help in determining the changes and extinction risks. However, easier than demographic variables is the behavioural traits, which more or less will be conserved in a species. These include the structure of their body, height, eating habits and prey interests, likeliness to a habitat, life expectancy etc. these traits also help in understanding the response and sensitivity to anthropogenic activities, in this case that includes hunting, polluting, and so on. Other line of study would be species response towards changing environmental conditions and disturbances, if a population responds positively, that shows its functional importance and if response if negative, vice-a-versa.
C. To manage a species based on r/K plan, it will be necessary to know primarily what percentage constitution the population make in the environment. For this the number of individuals in that population must be known. Even important are the factors such as:
a. Number of births and deaths
b. Life expectancy of the species.
With accurate values of these and which can be maintained for long, it will be clear when the population starts decreasing and what possible reasons could be associated.
D. Although it may sound cruel but putting few of these population in captivity and breeding them in a controlled manner in order to make new offsprings without losing the genetic diversity should be tried. Breeding should not be favoured only among rare alleles which may get fixed in the long run. Nor should captivity pave way for founder effect. Under any of these conditions, the original gene composition will be lost.
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