Biodiversity Flashcards
What is meant by a hierarchy?
- Groups within groups;
2. No overlap (between groups);
what is a phylogenetic group?
organisms grouped according to evolutionary ancestry;
what is meant by genetic diversity
Difference in alleles
Describe how different species may be distinguished.
- do not interbreed to produce fertile offspring
- different DNA base sequences
- have similar appearance, behaviour and bochemistry
List 4 practices hat have directly removed habitats and reduced species diversity
- removal of hedgerows and grubbing out of woodland
- creating monocultures
- filling in ponds and draining marsh and other wetlands
- over-grazing of land, thereby preventing regeneration of woodland
List 3 indirect ways of removing habitats and reducing species diversity
- use of pesticides and inorganic fertilisers
- escape of effluent from silage stores and slurry tanks into water courses
- absence of crop rotation and lack of intercropping or undersowing
Give 5 ways of INCREASING species and habitat diversity
- use crop ratation that includes a nitrogen-fixing crop, rather than fertilisers to improve soil fertility
- maintain existing ponds and create new ones
- plant native trees on land with low species diversity rather than in species-rich areas
- reduce the use of pesticides - use biological control where possible
- use organic rather that inorganic fertilisers
Name 2 financial initiative groups that encourage farmers to produce crops even though may be expensive to produce
- DEFRA
2. European union
How can food production be increased?
- use of improved genetic varieties of plant and animal species
- greater use of chemical fertilisers and pesticides
- greater use of biotechnology
- changes in farm practices, leading to larger farms
How could the sequence of amino acids provide evidence that two species are different
- Different species would have different
amino acid sequences; - Amino acid sequence is the result of alleles / DNA base sequence
Explain the effect planting hedges could have on the index of diversity for animals
- Greater variety of plants;
- Another habitat
- Another food source
Give ethical arguments for maintaining biodiversity
- Prevent extinction
- Prevent loss of populations
- Prevent reduction in populations
- Prevent loss of habitats
- save organisms for future generations
Give economic arguments for maintaining biodiversity
- medical / pharmaceutical uses;
- commercial products ;
- tourism;
- agriculture;
- saving local forest communities;
State one thing that all species have in common
canbreed and produce fertile offspring
list 3 featuresof a phylogenetic system of classification
- based on evolutionary relationships between organisms and their ancestors
- it classifies species into groups using shared characteristics derived from their ancestors
- it is arranged in a hierarchy in which groups are contained within groups with no overlap
Explain why species recogntion is important in courtship
to ensure mating only takes place between members of the same species as only they can produce fertile offspring
How can courtship behaviour be used to determine which male is more closely related to the female of similar species
whichever is resembles the courtship display of the female the most
What is meant by species diversity?
- the number of different species
2. and the proportion of eachspecies within in a give area
Explain why it is more useful to calculate the species diversity index than to record the number of species present.
it measures both the number of species and the number of individuals. It therefore takes account of species that are only present in small numbers
