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Conserving Biodiversity

Chapter 16, Problem 5

According to the generalized species-area curve, when habitat is reduced to 50% of its original size, approximately                    of the species once present there will be lost. a. 10%; b. 25%; c. 50%; d. 90%; e. it is impossible to estimate the percentage

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Hi everyone, here's our next question. A small forest land supports 200 species, But it loses 50% of its habitable area due to the construction of a highway. How many species approximately do you think will be left in that forest after this? Well, to predict um the amount of extinction after habitat loss biologists have what's called a species area curve. And this is a graph of the relationship between the area of a habitat and the number of species present within it. And according to a generalized species area curve, you can plot them specifically for um plants or animals or something like that according to generalize species area curve. If the habitat is reduced, If habitat reduced by 50%,, then 10% of the species in that habitat will be lost. So with that in mind, we see that we had 200 species present in the habitat Had lost 50% of its area. So we would expect 10% of these species to be lost. So 10% would be species. And our question says, how many species will be left. So we'd predict about 180 species left in the remaining habitat. So we look at our answer choices and we see that choice D Is 180. So we can cross out the other answers. And we'd say that if a small forest land with 200 species loses 50% of its habitable area, we'd expect to see approximately choice D 180 species left in the forest after this event. See you in the next video