4.3 Quantifying biodiversity Flashcards
What is biodiversity?
The range of organisms found in a particular place.
How does the binomial system work?
First part of the name, genus, is shared by all closely related species. The second part of the name defines the particular species in the genus.
What is taxonomy?
Classification of organisms into groups based on shared features.
What is the hierarchy of groups?
Kingdom Phylum Class Order Family Genus Species
What are the five kingdoms?
Animalia, Plantae, Fungi, Protoctista, Prokaryotae
What are the characteristics of Kingdom Animalia?
1) Most can move from place to place and have nervous coordination
2) Multicellular eukaryotes with differentiated cells organised into specialised organs
3) No cell walls or large vacuoles
4) Cannot photosynthesise
5) Heterotrophic, relying on other organisms for nutrition
6) Includes phyla such as jellyfish, roundworms, arthropods and molluscs.
What are the characteristics of Kingdom Plantae?
1) Cell walls contain cellulose
2) Cells contain chloroplasts and large vacuoles
3) Make organic compounds by photosynthesis
4) Multicellular eukaryotes with differentiated cells organised into specialised organs
5) Includes mosses, liverworts, ferns, conifers, and flowering plants
What are the characteristics of Kingdom Fungi?
1) Multicellular eukaryotes. But yeasts also belong to this group and they are unicellular
2) Cannot photosynthesise
3) Includes moulds, yeasts and mushrooms
4) Cell walls made of polysaccharide chitin
5) Most are made up of a network of thread-like strands, called multinucleate hyphae
6) Heterotrophic - most absorb nutrients from decaying matter after extracellular digestion
What are the characteristics of Kingdom Protoctista?
1) Includes sing-celled protozoa, such as amoeba and paramecium, and algae
2) multicellular and unicellular eukaryotes
3) Basic body structure is relatively simple
4) May either photosynthesise or feed on organic matter from another source
What are the characteristics of Kingdom Prokaryotae?
1) Cells are very small, typically less than 10 um across
2) Cells have no distinct nucleus. The nucleic acid is in a single circular chromosome
3) Cells do not have organelles, such as mitochondria or chloroplasts
4) Includes bacteria and blue-green bacteria (cyanobacteria)
What are the three domains that Woese proposed?
Bacteria, Archaea, Eukaryota
Determined by RNA sequence
What is species evenness?
A comparison of the number of individuals of different species in an area.
A community in which most of the species have similar abundances is said to have high evenness; no single species dominates the community.
What is species richness?
A measure of how many different species there are in a particular area.
What is species diversity?
The number of different species and individuals of those species in an area.
What would a highly diverse community have?
High species richness and high species evenness
