Biodiversity Flashcards
What is biodiversity?
The variety of life that exists in our biosphere.
What is the biosphere?
Any area on Earth that living things inhabits.
What are the three levels of biodiversity?
Gene, species and ecosystems.
What scale of biodiversity is the largest?
Ecosystem
What is a genome?
The complete set of DNA in an organism.
What is a gene pool?
The sum of all the genes, including all of their different forms, in a given population of one species (all the genes in a species).
What is a gene? Give an example.
A section of DNA in a chromosome that encodes an instruction, usually for a specific protein, which when expressed, may affect certain characteristics. E.g. hair colour. Genes are inherited by offspring and can come in different forms.
What is species biodiversity?
Biodiversity can refer to the existence of many different specie. The variety of species.
Give an example of species biodiversity.
The Swan coastal plain ecological community contains more than 1500 plant species and approximately 130 fish species in it’s rivers. Therefore the ecosystem has more than 1630 different gene pools.
What are the types of species concepts?
Biological, morphological and phylogenic species concepts.
What is a species?
A group of organisms that can interbreed in their natural environment to produce viable, fertile offspring.
What is the phylogenic species concept?
Identifies a species as being the smallest group of organisms that can all trace their origins to a single common ancestor.
What is the morphological species concept?
The most commonly applied.
Characterises species by their form, or morphology. For example comparing the skulls of humans and other species in the Homo genus.
What is the biological species concept?
A group of species who are able to interbreed in nature and produce viable fertile offspring.
What are the limits/exceptions of the biological species concept?
Cannot be applied to extinct species or fossils.
A grizzly bear can reproduce and produce viable, fertile offspring with a polar bear.
What is ecosystem biodiversity?
The number of different types of ecosystems present. The number of organisms in a region.
What is an ecosystem?
Living organisms (biotic factors) and the physical environment or non-living environment (abiotic factors) and their interactions.