1.1-a) Assessing Biodiversity

Question 1

• Define biodiversity.

Answer 1

• Biodiversity:
  ➞ the variety of species and ecosystems on Earth and the ecological processes of which they are part.

Question 2

• Explain ‘genetic diversity’

Answer 2

• Genetic diversity:
  ➞ of a population results from the genetic variation shown by the number and frequency of all the alleles of the genes possessed by its members.

(Variation is the difference between members of the same population)

Question 3

• Explain ‘species diversity’

Answer 3

• Species diversity:
  ➞ the number of different species which are represented in a community
  ↳ Species diversity can be measured in terms of species richness and relative abundance.
• Species richness:
  ➞ is the count of the number of different species in an ecosystem
• Relative abundance:
  ➞ is the measure of the size of the population of each species relative to one another.

Question 4

• Explain ‘ecosystem diversity’

Answer 4

• Ecosystem diversity:
  ➞ is the variation in habitats, living communities, and ecological processes in the living world.
  ↳ Ecosystem diversity is above the species level.