Biodiversity

Question 1

What is a species?

Answer 1

Individuals which are capable of breeding to produce living fertile offspring

Question 2

What is courtship behaviour?

Answer 2

Behaviours within a species which ensure successful mating occurs allowing adaptations to passed on through generations

Question 4

What does courtship enable?

Answer 4

-recognise members of their own species (mating only occurs between own species to produce fertile offspring)
-identify a mate that is capable of breeding (both partners need to be sexually mature)
-form a pair bond (to lead to successful mating)
-synchronise mating (so that is takes place when there is the maximum probability of sprem and egg meeting)
-become able to breed (bring other member into physiological state to breed)

Question 5

What is artifical classification?

Answer 5

Divides organisms into groups according to physical characteristics that are useful at the time known as analogous characteristics as they have the same functions but different evolutionary origins

Question 6

What is phylogenic classification?

Answer 6

-based on evolutionary relationships between organisms and their assessors
-classifies species into groups using shared features derived from ancestors
-arranges groups into hierarchy with no overlaps

Question 8

Give an example of Artificial Classification

Answer 8

5 Kingdom System-
Animal
Plant
Fungi
Protist
Prokaryote

Question 9

What is a taxon?

Answer 9

a group within a phylogenic classification system that is ordered in a hierarchy

Question 10

What are the 3 domains?

Answer 10

Bacteria, Archaea and Eukarya

Question 11

State the features of the bacteria domain

Answer 11

-single celled prokaryotes
-absence of membrane bound organelles
-unicellular
-ribosomes are 70s
-cell walls made of murein
-single loop of DNA with no histones

Question 12

State the features of the archaea domain

Answer 12

-single-celled prokaryotes
which differ to bacteria
-genes and protein synthesis is more similar to eukaryotes
-membranes contain fatty acid chains with glycerol attached by ether linkages
-no murein is cell walls
-more complex form of RNA

Question 13

State the features of the eukarya domain

Answer 13

-group of organisms made up of one or more eukaryotic cells
-membrane bound organelles
-lipid membrane with ester linkages
-no murein in cell walls
-ribosomes 80s

Question 14

State the phylogenic classification hierachy

Answer 14

-kingdom
-phylum
-class
-order
-family
-genus
-species

Question 15

What is phylogeny?

Answer 15

evolutionary relationships between organisms

Question 16

What is species diversity?

Answer 16

number of different species and number of individuals of each species in one community

Question 17

What is ecosystem diversity?

Answer 17

range of different habitats

Question 18

What is a community?

Answer 18

number of different species in a particular area at a given time

Question 19

How can you measure diversity?

Answer 19

using a species diversity index

Question 20

What is the difference between species richness and species diversity?

Answer 20

richness- measure of the number of species
diversity- measures the number of individuals and their relative abundance

Question 21

How does biodiversity effect an ecosystem?

Answer 21

the higher the species diversity index the the more stable an ecosystem usually is and the less likely it is to be affected by change such as drought as there is a likely hood more than one species has adapted to survive

Question 22

How does species diversity index vary?

Answer 22

-high is less hostile environments and very low in hostile environments
-also very low in agricultural environments for the farmer to maximise product by using the whole biomass as part of the crops

Question 23

How are farming practises reducing biodiversity?

Answer 23

-removing hedgerows
-creating monocultures to replace bushes
-filling in ponds and draining wetlands
-overgrazing of land preventing regeneration

more indirect:
-pesticides and inorganic fertilisers
-escape of effluent from slurry tanks into water courses
-absence of crop rotation and inter cropping or undersowing

Question 24

management techniques to preserve biodiversity

Answer 24

-maintain existing hedgerows at correct height and shape
-plant hedges rather than fences and field boundaries
-maintain and create new ponds
-leave wet corners of fields
-plant native trees on land with low biodiversity
-reduce use of pesticides and use biological control
-use organic fertilisers
-use intercropping to control weeds and pests
-create natural meadows
-leave cutting of field edges until after flowering
-introduce conservation headlands

Question 25

How can we use observable characteristics to measure genetic diversity?

Answer 25

-comparing physical characteristics based on the fact that each characteristic is determined by a gene and the variety within a characteristic depends on amount of alleles possible -limitation as many are coded by more than one gene and they may also be modified by the environment

Question 26

How can we use the comparison of DNA base sequences to measure genetic diversity?

Answer 26

-compare the DNA base sequence -also used to compare the evolutionary relationship between species due to slight changes in the DNA sequence overtime showing that more closely related species have more similar DNA

Question 27

How can we use the comparison of base sequence mRNA to measure genetic variation?

Answer 27

mRNA base sequence is determined by DNA sequence so can be used in the same way in which DNA comparison is used

Question 28

How is the comparison of amino acid sequences in proteins used to measure genetic diversity?

Answer 28

Amino acid is determined by the order of the mRNA sequence so therefore the amino acid sequence can be used as a comparison point.

Question 29

Explain immunological comparison of proteins

Answer 29

principle that antibodies of one species will respond to specific antigens on proteins such as albumin in the blood serum of the other.

Question 30

State the process of immunological comparison of proteins

Answer 30

1) serum albumin from species A is injected into species B 2) species B produces antibodies specific to the antigens on the albumin of species A 3) serum is extracted from species B containing the antibodies 4) Serum from species B is mixed with serum from species C 5) antibodies respond to correct antigens on the albumin in species C 6) produces a precipitate -the greater the number of similar antigens the more precipitate is formed and the more closely related the species are

Question 31

What is interspecific variation?

Answer 31

one species differing from another

Question 32

What is intraspecific variation?

Answer 32

members of the same species differing from eachother

Question 33

State two problems with sampling?

Answer 33

-sampling bias (made on purpose or made by mistake) meaning more likely to choose dry area vs wet area -chance

Question 34

How can sampling bias be reduced?

Answer 34

using random sampling techniques

Question 35

Give one method of random sampling

Answer 35

1) divide area into a grid 2) use a random number generator or pick numbers out of a hat obtain coordinates 3) conduct your samples at these coordinates

Question 36

How can you reduce the effect of chance in your sample?

Answer 36

-larger sample size as the more individuals present the less likely chance will affect results and the less influence anomalies will have on results -analyse results with statistical tests

Question 37

Name 3 types of statistical tests

Answer 37

-students t-test -correlation coefficient -chi-squared test

Question 38

What is standard deviation?

Answer 38

gives a measure of the variance/dispersion of data around the mean which is usually represented by error bars

Question 39

State how error bars are used

Answer 39

If they overlap results are down to chance

Question 40

State when each type of statistical test is used

Answer 40

chi-squared - comparison of categorical data t-test - comparison of 2 values categorical and continuous correlation- relationship and continuous only

Question 41

Explain how the data collect from the tests is used to determine if something is down to chance

Answer 41

-if critical value is greater the 5% or 0.05 then there is a probability that it is down to chance so you accept the null hypothesis and any differences are therefore likely to be down to chance and therefore not significant