4.6 Biodiversity within a Community, 4.7 Investigating Biodiversity

Question 1

What is biodiversity?

Answer 1

• The variety of living organisms
• It can be measured in terms of species diversity, ecosystem diversity, and genetic diversity

Question 2

What is species diversity?

Answer 2

Number of species in a community

Question 3

What is ecosystem diversity?

Answer 3

Range of different habitats

Question 4

Define community

Answer 4

All the different species that live in one area and interact with each other

Question 5

How do you calculate index diversity?

Answer 5

Question 6

What impact does farming have on species richness?

Answer 6

• Decreases species richness
• Farmland is typically used for only 1 species
• Use of pesticides/herbicides

Question 7

What impact does farming have on genetic diversity?

Answer 7

• Decreases
• Farmers select for certain characteristics, which reduces the number of different alleles in the population

Question 8

how can biodiversity be increased in areas of agriculture?

Answer 8

1. Use hedgerows instead of fences
2. Grow different crops in the same area or rotate crops around after a season
3. Limit the use of pesticides and herbicides

Question 9

Name 4 ways we can compare genetic diversity

Answer 9

1. Frequency of observable characteristics
2. Base sequence of mRNA
3. Base sequence of DNA
4. Amino acid sequence

Question 10

What is meant by gene technology?

Answer 10

• Sampling DNA or mRNA in order to read and compare the base sequence of organisms
• Can also study the amino acid sequence as this will provide information on the organism’s mRNA and DNA sequences

Question 11

Why do scientists prefer to use gene technology instead of observation?

Answer 11

• Simply inferring DNA differences by observing an organism’s characteristics is not reliable
• The characteristics could be coded for by more than one gene, or could be influenced by the environment

Question 12

What is sampling?

Answer 12

Selecting a group of individuals to measure that will represent the whole target population

Question 12

What is meant by interspecific and intraspecific variation?

Answer 12

• Interspecific = differences between individuals of different species
• Intraspecific = differences between individuals of the same species

Question 13

How can a random sample be achieved?

Answer 13

• Create a grid for your sample area and then randomly generate coordinates where a quadrat or a transect will be placed
• Repeat until sample size is reached