B10 - Biodiversity Flashcards
How do you know if 2 organisms belong to the same species?
They produce fertile offspring
What are the benefits of courtship behaviour?
Courtship behaviour is a necessary precursor to successful mating and also helps with species recognition as different species have different courtship rituals
What is taxonomy?
Taxonomy = the practice of biological classification into groups called taxon
What is phylogeny
Phylogeny = the study of evolutionary origins and relationships between and within species
What is phylogenetic classification?
Phylogenetic classification arranges species into groups based on evolutionary origins & relationships. It uses a hierarchy in which smaller groups are placed within larger groups, with no overlap between groups. Each group is called a taxon. It is used to organise and group similar organisms together so that they can be more easily understood
What are binomials?
Binomials are the scientific, universal names of a species, and consists of the organism’s genus and species name in modern Latin. E.g., Humans = Homo sapiens
How have scientists further investigated the evolutionary relationships between species in recent times?
Advances in genome sequencing and immunology has allowed scientists to further investigate the evolutionary relationships between species. The more similar the genome sequence, the more closely related the species are
What is biodiversity?
Biodiversity is the variation that exists within and between all forms of life. Variation in genes, species & habitats within a particular region
What is habitat diversity?
Habitat diversity is the range of different ecosystems or habitats within a particular area or region
What is species richness?
Species richness is a measure of the number of different species in a community
What is an index of diversity?
An index of diversity is a measurement that describes the relationship between the number of species present and how each species contributes to the total number of organisms that are present in that community. It is better and more informative measurement than species richness
What is the issue with farming?
Farming practices that maintain or increase biodiversity can be expensive, labour intensive, time-intensive and reduce the yield of crops and livestock. So it is hard to find a balance between conservation and farming due to these knock-on effects which negatively impact ecosystems and biodiversity
How can genetic diversity be measured?
Genetic diversity is the number of alleles within and between species can be measured by, displays of measurable characteristics, the nucleotide base sequence of DNA, the nucleotide base sequence of mRNA and the amino acid sequence of proteins
What are the pros and cons of meaurable and observable characteristics?
Measurable and observable characteristics are are quick but unreliable. Measureable is quantiative whereas obvservable is qualitative
What is DNA analysis and comparison?
DNA Analysis & Comparison is when DNA is extracted from the nuclei of cells → processed, analysed & a base sequence is obtained. The base sequence is compared to that of other organisms, to determine evolutionary relationships. The more similarities in the base sequences the more closely related the species are
