4 Genetic Information: 10 Biodiversity Flashcards
How do you know if two organisms belong to the same species?
They produce fertile offspring.
Why is courtship behaviour necessary?
So organisms can:
- recognise members of their own species (different behaviours for different species)
- identify a mate capable of breeding (fertile, mature, and receptive)
- form a pair bond (important for survival of offspring)
- synchronise mating
- ensure the other member is in a physiological state to breed.
What is the role of courtship in species recognition?
Only members of the same species will do and respond to specific courtship behaviour.
What is the phylogenetic classification system?
It attempts to arrange species into groups based on their evolutionary origins and relationships.
It uses a hierarchy and each group is called a taxon (plural taxa).
What taxa does a hierarchy comprise of?
Domain
Kingdom
Phylum
Class
Order
Family
Genus
Species
(Dirty King Pablo Cries Over Fat Greasy Sausages)
How is a species universally identified?
Using the binomial system (Genus species).
What can biodiversity relate to?
A range of habitats.
What is species richness?
The number of different species in a community.
What does an index of diversity describe?
The relationship between the number of species in a community and the number of individuals in each species.
What is the formula for the index of diversity? What do the components stand for?
d = N(N-1) / Σn(n-1)
N = total number of organisms of all species
n = total number of organisms of each species
What are the farming techniques that reduce biodiversity?
Woodland clearance / hedgerow removal
- increases area of farmland
- reduces number of trees (maybe number of tree species)
- destroys habitats so species die or migrate elsewhere
Pesticides
- chemicals kill organisms
- may reduce number of organisms that feed on the pests
Herbicides
- chemicals kill weeds
- reduces number of organisms that feed on the weeds
Monoculture
- fields only have one type of plant
- supports fewer organisms
What is the balance between conservation and farming?
- giving legal protection to endangered species
- creating protected areas, restricting further development
- replanting hedgerows
- reducing use of pesticides/herbicides
- crop rotation
How can you compare genetic diversity?
Compare:
- frequency of measurable characteristics
- base sequence of DNA
- base sequence of mRNA
- amino acid sequence of proteins
How has gene technology caused a change in the methods of investigating genetic diversity?
Before, you could only compare measurable characteristics but now you can directly compare DNA sequences.
What do quantitative investigations of variation within a species involve?
- collecting data from random samples (removes bias)
- calculating and interpreting means and standard deviations
