APES Name______________________________Class_____________Date____________

Biodiversity Unit Assessment

1.) In your opinion, the biggest challenge facing biodiversity right now? Support
your answer with information from the scientific literature.
2.)
a. Describe the top-down cascading effects of eradicating wolves (Canis
lupis) from Yellow Stone National Park.
b. Discuss the current status of the wolf re-introduction project. Is the
project working? Support your answer with information from the
scientific literature.
3.) In 2002, the Conference of the Parties of the Convention on Biological
Diversity adapted the target to achieve by 2010 a significant reduction of
the current rate of biodiversity loss at the global, regional, and national
level [1] Has this goal been met? Support your answer with information
from the scientific literature.
4.) In your project, you learned about the current state of the worlds coral reefs.
a. Describe 3 services provided by coral reef ecosystems.
b. Identify the major threats facing coral reef ecosystems.
5.) Sutherland et a. (2009) proposed 100 important questions to the
Conservation of Global Biological Biodiversity. [2] Imagine you are a
delegate attending the 13th Convention on Biological Diversity meeting in
2016. If you could pick 4 of the 100 questions (from different categories)
to create new goals for the Convention, which would you focus on?
Explain each of your choices.

References
[1]Convention on Biological Diversity. 2002. Decisions Adopted by the Conference of
the parties to the Convention on Biological Diversity at its Sixth Meeting. Retrieved
2/15/15 from http://www.cbd.int/doc/decisions/cop-06/full/cop-06-dec-en.pdf
[2] Sutherland WJ, et al. 2009. One Hundred Questions of Importance to the
Conservation of Global Biological Diversity. Conservation Biology, 23(9): 557-567.
DOI: 10.1111/j.1523-1739.2009.01212.x